True sight
Sitting on the edge of a fertile valley. Trees push uphill in the distance, hands on each other’s backs like a trail of army ants: Brotherhood of Green. Smoke fills the vale from unknown sources. Little lights open their eyes blinking on, as dusk descends upon the highlands.
This is my place: having escaped the oppressive heat that warps and smolders a plastic city, built for — built for what? Not me. This place feels like home. The mild weather. The slight dampness; just enough to usher in that comforting sensation, the one that makes you feel glad to be home.
Well, well. Here I am, once again. Here I am: not quite remembering the last thirty minutes of my life. Is it always this way? Jumping in and out of portals. A part of me is fading away. And I know it’s for the better. But that doesn’t stop the fear — the fear of . . .
Of losing that cylindrical tube that used to house and contain my grey matter, giving shape to its weekly harvest. Imprisoning as it may be, it certainly allowed a focused application. Well, I had to discard that once it ran dry. And did it go dry by my seeing — my resenting it?
Thoughts of breaking the fourth wall continue and I’m not sure why. I’m indecisive about it. Somehow it feels wrong but it also feels wrong to leave things out. Selfish even. But then it certainly feels selfish to talk so much about oneself, as if to lobby for it. Do I want to lobby for it? Do you really want to know where I’ve been, friend? Do you feel I owe you an explanation? It’s certainly not the case, but I’d like to know all the same. Or do I? Would that be worse?
I’ve been writing, yes. I’ve been “talking to myself”. But I started to feel like I was repeating myself. Failed experiments, perhaps, intertwined with tame domestic terrors such as “doing one’s taxes” — followed by a drop in form because — well, that’s the greatest Because there is. I didn’t plan to write that book tonight.
All of this is just to say that I feel quite aimless emerging into nothing, yet remain mostly okay with it. Mostly. And I say it like I know where the remainder of disease remains. But do I? Probably not. Otherwise I’d see it in my peripheral, and it’d have no power to evoke such unease.
No, this thing seems to be creeping up behind me. Not like an animal, but a darkness. I can only see what’s in front of me, regardless of my now-physical-reality of darkness. But it feels wrong. I’ve dropped a considerable amount of weight from my shoulders and can feel it missing: a phantom limb that was, always a phantom.
But I’ve been here before. This isn’t the first time I’ve been dropped into Icy Waters. Are these are warmer? Yes, in me I carry a sense of warmth that even now seems to combat the rapidly decreasing temperature.
And so here I am: jumping through these portals, taking note of the continuum beginning to form.
Because it need not be haphazard; a disjointed, violent ride. I can bob along in the saddle. I can remain precise throughout the turbulence. I can pierce heaven and earth, and leave myself behind. I can see the Mind’s Eye with my Eagle Eye; it no longer impresses me.