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	Re: Who is Gheritt White?
	Posted By: [zudo]	Date: 12/22/01 2:16 a.m.
	In Response To: Who is Gheritt White? (Pfhor) : So my question is, who is he? I don't propose a full solution to Gherrit's identity, rather an attempt to figure out the story (and its importance). - - - If you go and read the Gherrit White text from start to finish in one go, without stopping or thinking, the passage certainly feels hallucinogenic. It strikes me that Gherrit does three things in this: 1) Attempt to justify murder 2) Hallucinate heavily 3) 'Escape into the waves'. The 'floating' and 'tingling' references appear to coincide with Gherrit's recollections of past agression, hatred, or violence. Consider the follwoing text: "Hatred flowed from his eyes, his hands and feet began to tingle. All of his coordination left him, and his face was beaten to a bloody mess. The schoolyard disciplinarian had been slow to notice the ensuing carnage, and she didn't really care anyway. Gheritt would have killed him if he could have. He would have torn out the eyes of his beater. He would have made him pay for his abuses. But his hands had begun to tingle. He couldn't feel his feet and he had begun to float off the ground." This text appears to refer to Gherrit's beating at the hands of a schoolyard bully, the hatred making his hands and feet tingle and his eyes burn, and subsequently the rush of adrenalin and panic followed by endorphins as he was beaten making him feel numb and lightheaded (the 'foating' sensation). Follow this recollection of a past sensation with Gherrit's current state (and repeated, fragmented attempts to justify murder): "Gheritt White had been floating six feet off the floor for three weeks. His feet and hands tingled, and his eyes burned with the flames of a dying fire." Gherrit here appears to be locked into a constant (natural?) 'high' following some action which has already been performed (hence the fires are *dying* in his eyes : the hatred has stopped flowing). So, what does this mean? I choose here to take it by implication that Gherrit has murdered somone and subsequently been caught and jailed. His cellmate speaks to him as he hallucinates, and is obscued either by Gherrit's hallucination blotting him out, or Gherrit's inability to control his body during the hallucinations and hence is unable to turn around and face his cellmate (or perhaps his cellmate is part of the hallucination too : hence the 'rat' references with shades of 'eat the path'). Gherrit suffers several flashbacks as part of the hallucination, recalling other times that replicateed the current sensations in his hands, ears, eyes and feet. Following this, Gherrit is tumbled by a wave of sensation in his high, and undergoes an out-of-body experience. The crushing of the rat I am less certain about, but it could perhaps simply be an artifact of the out-of-body experience; his subconscious mind forming for him in plain symbols his defeat of an aggressor or nemesis. - - - Like I said at the start of the message, I am not attempting to decode what the text *means*, rather just what it *says* ^_^ [z]

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Replies:

	Who is Gheritt White?	Pfhor	12/18/01 6:44 p.m.
	Re: Who is Gheritt White?	Ilium Rise	12/18/01 8:03 p.m.
	The world is a vampire...	archon	12/18/01 8:56 p.m.
	Smashing Punkins must be Marathon fans *NM*	REB	12/19/01 6:07 a.m.
	Re: Smashing Punkins must be Marathon fans	el poeta	10/23/03 4:58 p.m.
	Oh yeah, and...	archon	12/19/01 11:55 a.m.
	Re: Who is Gheritt White?	M-Class	12/19/01 10:41 a.m.
	I think...	Still Thinking	12/19/01 12:30 p.m.
	Re: I think...	Yossarian	12/21/01 11:25 a.m.
	Who have I ever been?	MCD	12/21/01 9:56 p.m.
	Re: Who have I ever been?	archon	12/24/01 2:17 p.m.
	Re: Who is Gheritt White?	[zudo]	12/22/01 2:16 a.m.

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