Unspoken Word – Journey and Communication

In the coded epitaphs of a desert cemetery; in the white goddess’s ideogramic narratives; even in the size and shape of each cove that conceals within it this once-civilization…we will find the detritus of language. What happened to it? Where did it go? And from what threat did it flee? The world of Journey exists in the remnants of communication. Venturing beyond the silent deserts we cross as if into a peristylium—each canyon houses within it a garden of History; each footfall is a Great Listening. And yet our listening alone will not repair this world: the language that failed it will fail us too. Journey asks us to build something stronger.

* * *

It was here, upon the mons pubis of the unknown world…our first encounter. I approached her but she fled, flitting across the sands and out of view. In subsequent encounters she would be just as clever, just as cruel. Another time I left myself at the summit of a great peak, going on about my life elsewhere. When I returned I found that I had fallen from my perch, that I was now kneeling in the sand. Had she visited? Had I fallen to my knees out of  passion or regret?

***Incapable of expressing ourselves through spoken language, she and I revert back to sheer physicality. We stand face to face. We mimic the rhythms of each others melodies. We thread ourselves up and over and under each other, crossing silently through the wind-struck desert. Our trajectories, once separate, now merge.

***One time she and I were separated while exploring opposite ends of a canyon. Unable to find her, I climbed to the highest place I could and stood chirping, like a Mourning Dove.

***I’ve tried stopping her from leaving me but the idea never transmits. I push at her and she slips fluidly past. I sing and sound only beautiful and mesmerizing. No matter what I do she leaves me forever again. What is it, I wonder, that I expect to change? Perhaps she knows exactly what she’s doing.

***

Of course, “her” has no meaning in Journey. Any person I might run across in the desert will be identical to me, both in physical ability and appearance. Like the role I invent for the protagonist, this designation of gender has no more meaning than what I attribute to it. And yet I attribute a lot to it, and I wonder why. Maybe it’s the suggestive shape of our mutual destination, vaguely phallo-vaginal and looming everpresent. Perhaps the nature of one’s companion is simply dependent on the category of one’s loneliness. Maybe it’s something deeper than that.

It’s probably unhealthy to have a crush on a videogame character. But I know there’s a heartbeat to her somewhere, that her movements across the sand are inherently human. And, yes, I realize that there’s always someone else playing her each time we meet…In the meeting place of Journey and my denial, “other people” is only a change in mood. Whoever she may be she becomes her.

Because the outside world is not unlike the inside. In our world, too, the history of language is in gesture, in the physical nuance turned meaningful. Without words to speak we will speak something other than words.

The first time she and I parted I mourned the loss of my companion. At the time, I couldn’t help but feel that this game—whenever it may finally release—would be one about coming to care for someone only to see them inevitably vanish forever.

But now I’m beginning to understand the world of the game. She’ll be no more gone than I am. When I return she’ll be here—somewhere, someone.

Tweet