ARRHYTHMIA: A Plague of Helicopters

for Kathleen Eastwood

by Angelo Colavita

When it happened, she’d come on like angels through a tunnel. Buried and

floating over London in the morning, beneath his feet and through the soul of a

man running. Legs become a penniless bargain with Mr. Brownstone on the

worst of the drynights, in circles, beating the air until the blood in the elevator

returns to his penthouse in the city. Submarine voices pilot jet-engines at eyelevel

without a weldingmask, snowblind, deaf to all but his heartbeat.

When your diamond lips melt, finally, and the frost is shaken from curly locks of

hair (you devil), you will take to your feet and you will head for the hills and you

will hide among the trees, you will. They will never find you in the trees. They

would hover above until just enough fuel to get back, they would. Be patient.

Hold tight until they’re gone.

When they were far enough to be gone, his sight would return and he’d stare

through the forest as the sounds of wind and animals play rasp-and-chisel to his

delusive visions of redwoods and redheads and red waxed bags intended for coin-

collecting. Half-red ribbon left the other half black, with his hat and slacks and

specs and matching leathers. Heart and soul, sold separately, complete the set

together, for afterall, accessories do truly make the attire. Lord knows one

wouldn’t be caught dead with small holes in slacklaps or white rings around the

brim. Lord knows it’s sure cold out there.

When he least expects it, or when he most; when it goes undetected, or when it

boasts; when it coasts at fiftyfour, sure, you better bet your money he’ll’ve

dropped to his knees before twohundred-and-twenty. He comes-to with his head

to the ground, brought to reverence like a pilgrim on the path of gnosis from

Knossos to Jerusalem. Axe in hand, he swung for steel vultures and bought

himself another day. But the day would come when, broke and dying, he’d watch

the birds be torn to shreds by their own propellers. Until that day, may he be

plagued by helicopters.

When the concrete has abandoned you in empty wilderness, his lungs will

collapse. When his cochlea betray him for the wind of ghosts, you will lapse into

neuralgia. On the eve of transmission, may you wake together and breathe

eachother’s exhaled exaltations of life and of love and of living love until it

eventually kills you. He feels her breath in his mouth, in his throat.

When she wakes, may she continue from where she left off. On a tangent for

several score when he ran in the middle on running from the helicopters. With or

without her, they will come looking. He will be found running, or hiding, with his

arms on the ground and his head at his stomach.

When she is here, he is in the clear, until she sleeps. She sleeps until he is

vulnerable.

When he is vulnerable, a signal is sent. With the signal sent, the ants make fallen

branches of his fallen arms and he falls into the arms of a lover; a pure heart, the

purest heroine to save and destroy him. The air is made of glass. Against the glass

tap the blades beat against the air inside his chest among the trees, both above

and below. What cyclical plot has developed. My, how the propellers spin ‘round.

How the hawks rise like a breathing chest, heart beating.

Response 1: “Thine Own Self” or “Portrait of a Shit Heart”

by Kyle Shuebrook

I first met Angelo Colavita about ten years ago at the home of a mutual friend.

He was sitting on a couch and scribbling into a black notebook when I entered

the room. At the time, I had my own aspirations of being a writer; aspirations

which faded as I became more and more interested in pursuing other careers.

While my interests were fluctuating, Angelo was writing. When I was first

becoming obsessed with Psychology, especially Jung, Angelo was writing. When I

was reading Oliver Sacks and beginning to gain an interest in neuroscience,

Angelo was writing. When I was just beginning to explore my fascination with

religion, Angelo was writing. And now, as I’m working towards a career which

will hopefully encompass all three of my scattered interests, Angelo continues to

write. Over the years I have met many people who write, and who speak of

writing, but Angelo Colavita is one of the very few true “Writers” that I have ever

known. Under normal circumstances, most people take very little notice of the

many complex processes which are continually at work all around them. When

we check our email, we rarely take pause or find ourselves in awe of the countless

invisible operations necessary in order to open that email. We pay little attention

to the inner workings of our phones when we place a call. When we flip a light

switch, we are not surprised by the near instantaneous illumination, nor are we

fascinated by the ability of our own eyes to perceive objects within the well-lit

room. However, we do tend to take notice of these processes when they fail to

work as expected. “Fifty dollars a month and the shit doesn’t even work?” we

mumble to ourselves when a video won’t buffer, or when a call is dropped.

Inconveniences such as these are annoying, but we tend to get over them quickly.

Bodily functions however, are different. If you awoke one morning and found

yourself to be intermittently blind in one eye, it’s unlikely that you’d say “Meh, it’s

just one of those things, I’m sure my vision will come back on later”. And then if

after seeing a doctor, we you were told that your vision would be intermittent and

unpredictable from now on, how do you think you would be affected? Would

your perception of familiar surroundings change? Would your appreciation of,

and subjective associations to the sense of sight change? Would you change?

These are just a few of the questions raised in Colavita’s “ARRHYTHMIA: A

Plague of Helicopters”, a work which deals with the experience of not only living

with a serious heart condition, but also of being healed and learning to live

without a serious heart condition. Living with any disease or affliction is not

simply about dealing with the physical symptoms. There are also the

psychological effects of prolonged illness. After a while, the sufferer no longer

perceives their affliction as simply being some transitory external force. When we

catch a cold, we say, “I have a cold”. If after a few years, that cold did not go away,

we might eventually start referring to it as this cold, and eventually, my cold,

instead of just a cold. The sufferer’s perceptions of an illness can often evolve to a

point where the sufferer actually identifies his or herself with the illness. Not only

is the illness theirs “to be carried with them” (as in “my cold”), but it also

becomes theirs in the sense that it becomes a “part” of them, similar to the way

that their arms, legs, or even their personalities are a part of them. The

variability of differing perceptions of long term afflictions is likely infinite, with

each sufferer having their own unique experience. This notion is clearly

illustrated in ARRHYTHMIA. His illness, a sinus arrhythmia, is manifested in a

number of different ways. Describing the onset of an attack, his arrhythmia is

likened to the speed and grace of an angel. The heart palpitations become the

harrowing sound of helicopter propellers, an auditory reminder of the body’s

fragility. The last paragraph of his story seems to depict a process of healing

(heart surgery), while at the same time depicting loss ( the loss of the

arrhythmia). The notion of this type of loss is one I can readily relate to. I have

been a stutterer for most of my life. So when I speak of identification with an

affliction, I speak from experience. As a child, I would have done anything to be

rid of my speech impediment. I would routinely have these little hypothetical

bargaining sessions with God, where I would offer my hand or some other limb as

payment for a miraculous cure. That desperation did not last for long however,

and I have largely accepted by disability. My stutter is a part of me, it has shaped

me in countless different ways. And if a cure were to come along, I would surely

not hesitate to take advantage. Yet, I must wonder how I would deal with the loss

of something which has become such a big part of me, my stutter, my own

helicopter.

Response 2: Negative Space

by Anastasia Renzetti

There is something sacred about the written word. Paragraphs contain

multitudes and even the single sentence can endure, carving itself into the mind

and remaining forever. Great writing can make you feel like you know a secret,

like you are the only witness to a mysterious world. That being said, a great

author often acts as our guide, ushering us through the microcosm they have

created. Swept up in the majesty of a story, we often forget that the world we are

marveling at is in fact our own- that there is no secret society, that in truth, there

is no special world being revealed to us, but rather we are being reminded of

ourselves.

Angelo Colavita makes an immediate connection through his title ‘Arrhythmia’

by infusing a connection with the reader through a physical problem. He is

instantly creating an experience to unite the audience with the story itself rather

than strengthen the author/reader relationship. He writes in a way that

constantly grounds you back into the story: each paragraph opens with the same

word, creating a swooping propeller effect that gives the narrative a palpable

sense of urgency while maintaining the infrastructure of the story.

Colavita uses symbols that are not present in the story but are alluded to or

described: elevators, jet engines, London, typewriters, someone is talking. Who is

talking? Maybe you are talking. He uses “negative space” associations – feelings

evoked by imagery belie any surface ambiguity. The obtuse physical and sensory

disturbances suggest drug use and a physical heart problem but these are not

singular suggestions: they are meant to construct the feeling of panic. The story

has an ending without any reconciliation, and the reader is faced with yet another

impending swoop.

The author is exploring fear and despair, two themes that are often ignored in our

society which is so focused on itself. There is no societal mirror in this work of art

but instead the specificity of pain, panic, and anxiety. This story is the stuff of raw

emotion and the themes that are explored therein are not metaphors for any

societal polemic (as the locus of contemporary art often is) but rather expose

human suffering in a profoundly personal, yet universal way.