Ken Wainio

Getting Rid of the Ego

It’s like getting married in the rain. A coach will pull up
at the edge of the dam when the flood starts and the bride
throws her flowers at the drowned. If you don’t believe this,
go to a monastery for ten years and study the light through a
keyhole. Without moving your eye from the door cut out a
piece of sky and wait for somebody to come with a key.

The flood is well up by this time. The dead are getting
married in rowboats and copulating on pieces of wreckage. If
you still don’t believe it, take out your keyhole and study the
drowned. They are discussing the possibilities of islands and
shaping tombstones into anchors. Their children hold their
breath underwater and pray to the God of Rain. He is
holding himself in a cloud making everybody worship the
flood. He is quite fond of suffering and has never understood
sociology. But the dead come with their pogo sticks and stare
up at the seat of his pants.

If you still don’t get this, go sit down in the nearest bar
and study the runway of faces. If anyone comes up to you and
demands your marriage certificate, take out your keyhole and
blast them with a peak of stars. If they are still sitting there
waiting for you to kill your ego, tell them the world is flat and
has an edge like the table. Drop something transparent over
the side and tell them it was the argument of Columbus on
his way to the new world.