Wavering in the past, the present, the future and the imagination

What is the planet? What is the world? What is the solar system? What is this life? What are these intakes of breath, billion upon billions of them, every day?  What are the colours? What is the sky? What are the lives and the thoughts and the beating hearts? Who are they beating for – what are they beating for? What is the mind, what is the soul; what is psychological pain? What is sadness when it is heavy like rocks, what is joy when it lifts you to the edge of the universe? What is a journey, what are these words, why am I writing, why are you reading? How does your brain work – isn’t It beautiful? Isn't the way your fingers bend and the way you blink fascinating, the way your toes quiver, the way your insides squirm. The way no knowledge will ever be enough, the way we wonder and wonder. What is my purpose? My goal? My belief? I am intrinsically linked to the point of restlessness with something that I cannot comprehend. I’ve struck a chord in some dimension that no one even knows about. My life is spent wavering in the past, the present, the future and the imagination; spent half in mind and half in action, questioning things more than anyone could know. Thinking of things and feeling hopelessness, because as humans, it’s hard sometimes not to feel hopelessness when we’ve been presented with life, following each other, leading it, accepting it, and not questioning it. It shakes me, like a harrowing storm, to think so deep; ‘tis safer to stay on dry land: “life’s more painless, for the brainless.” But my mind, she has a mind of her own; I am filled with craziness; everything I touch, like skittles, turns to something odd, something strange, something perhaps ruined. Ruined in the eyes of the beholder, blundering my way through life, wondering if ever I will grasp what is to me an understanding. But we, as human, as simple masters of ourselves and yet brainless, stupid, insignificant nothings, created this word “understanding.” We placed letters together; we learned the concept; we shared the concept. But how is it a word, when understanding does not exist? Everything that you know, that you think you know, is not real. Potentially, none of this is real. None but pain, because that is blinding yet enlightening to the point where it can never fail, walking hand in hand with fear and hate to destroy us all. I have faith in humanity, yet I weep for humanity…I fail to “understand” humanity. I fail to understand myself, or what it is that we plan to do, to enjoy, to cry, to weep, to die. To keep on moving forward, ‘til tears have been shed for eternity, babies have been born ‘til the end of time and things have shifted beyond anything we in this snapshot of time, of this thing we call time, could know. Time, time, time, you slip away, you leave us; where do you go? Is there an intergalactic storage centre in the core of nature, of natural comprehension, where the time goes? Does it frolic amongst meadows, does it sing, does it feel emotion? Is it like sand from a sand timer; will we run out of it, before we run out of air? How do you explain things such as time which are real and fundamental but do not truly exist? How to define what it is to spend time, like it is currency, something you can own. No one owns time, time is unownable; time is in itself a Houdini, a terrific performer; an escapist. I’m taking your time, taking it, right now; as if time can be taken, as if time can be told. As if time has been old and young and born and shall die again. Where am I going with this? That’s not the question, for it seems we have no destination; the word destination is just as made up, just as fake, as what it represents. As false as our metaphors, as our similes, of our allusions. A hopeless destination: perhaps I should be filled with utter gloom, perhaps you’re feeling now like I have overstepped the mark; I have questioned too much. But there is no gloom; there is no need for comprehension, or destination. Enjoy the colours, the sky, the emotion, the air, the time, the feelings that shake your soul, the actions that clear your mind, the movements that evoke thought and happiness. Contentment is in those that accept defeat in all understanding and just wonder, and feel joy in something that is entirely out of reach. World - you are truly wonderful. 

The elimination of scepticism

I stared up at the temple, white against the black of the sky, arched above my head. There were stars in the air and stars in my eyes as I took a breath, my hands held out in front of me as if in prayer. I felt alone, I didn't quite know what to do. The temple was empty, its large pillars colder than the air, its beauty marred almost by its bleak void of life. I, on the marble steps, breathing in and out, felt isolated from everything. What was I even doing here? My hands shook as the stars wavered through the slats in the stone roof.

Then, out of the darkness, floating as if on a cloud, came a mermaid. Her skin seemed grey and her face was bloodless, like the ghost of a sea woman. Her face was pained, yet there was contentment in her pearly eyes. Her scales glistened like silver in the precious starlight, but her tail flicked impatiently and nervously from side to side, searching for something.

“What do you pray for?” I asked hesitantly, and her eyes seemed to notice me for the first time. My hands were still clasped before my chest, my feet planted on the steps. She floated up and down slightly as she answered.

“To swim,” she murmured simply, before closing her eyes. Then, she sighed and started to fade, 'til all I could see again was black and white and the stars. As doom set in, another figure emerged, and soon I had a man hovering before me. His face was equally as grey as the mermaids, but his eyes were a summer sky blue. His legs were stumps, with ripped trousers revealing smooth scarred skin around the knee bone, where the calf and shin should begin.

“What do you pray for?” I asked, fearing him almost. But his reply was placid; he did not hate the world for what it had done to him.

“To walk,” he nodded, as he too started to fade and leave me, I waited for another figure, and at first I thought perhaps I was truly alone, but then he appeared. This man had black holes for eyes, and my initial instinct was to run. They were darker than anything I had ever seen and seemed to shine out of his pale face, questioning me. Sight, I knew he prayed for sight, and that I could not give him. My throat and tongue dried in my mouth as I shook, ready to cry, unable to ask. But he spoke to me.

“Not sight. I do not pray for sight. I only pray to have had the ability to see, so that when I sense the world, I can imagine it as it is. I only wish for visual knowledge and memory.” He bowed his head, the holes gaping hopelessly at the floor.

My heart thudded as he faded, and my hands left their pose of prayer to reach up and trace the rims of my own eyes. I wished, crazy as it was, that he could borrow them to see the world. But maybe, perhaps, he was better off believing its brilliance, than forever brooding on the darkness and the stars. I stared down at my own feet then, the feet made for this world, the feet able to take steps and run. As if on que they jolted forward, carrying me up into the temple, 'til I was standing in the middle, my eyes wide. Everything was as it should be. My body held no ailments, no cuts, no bruises, and no breaks. I had scope to dream, scope to live, scope to achieve. Yet, I was praying. What for? What was it that I required?

All of a sudden I felt alone again. There was no helping this. It was as swift as a dagger to the heart, that sadness. It struck when you were wavering like the stars. Then, the figure of myself floated down from the darkness. It looked grim and tired, weary from wanting. But I could not guess what it would say, so I asked; I had to ask.

“What do you pray for?”

It's eyes opened – my eyes opened. They were silent for a second to the point where I thought perhaps I would not receive an answer. But then, the mirrored me spoke, and I felt a sense of gratitude for this strange night and my own mental madness.

“The elimination of scepticism,” the figure said. “Hope. I pray for hope.”

Under the setting sun

Dusk was falling over the city, cushioning it in a soft and sleepy glow. The hot lazy streets were slowly coated in darkness as night descended. The city didn't hush, in fact, it seemed to brighten, and when all that was left of the light was a few streaks of sun on the horizon, it was unrecognisable.

The hot and humid day had faded, and at last the people could emerge from the safety of their shade. Music that seemed almost to have no source began to play, joyfully reaching out through the city, touching every corner, every window, every doorway. Exasperated parents tried desperately to control their excited children, but they still hung from their windows and waved at the people who had started to dance below. They laughed at the clowns – the men with painted faces who juggled and fought playfully with each other, rolling around in the dust.

One boy did not laugh. Dusty and dirty, perched on a rooftop, he watched the celebrations with cold hard eyes. So much happiness, so much fun, but yet he couldn't even crack a smile. Instead, a single tear escaped him, cutting a clean path down his blackened cheek. He thought about wiping it away and pretending that he hadn't let the wretched emotion affect him, but no one could see him. It had happened, despite his best efforts to contain it, but that was that. So he let the tear stay; an emblem of momentary weakness.

Quite suddenly, he leapt away from the edge, whirling around and running in the opposite direction. Lithe and nimble, he jumped from rooftop to rooftop, desperate to be rid of the music and the contagious feeling of joy wafting in the air. He ran until the light was all behind him and all he could see was darkness. The city wall was impressive, but this didn't faze him; he came and went as he pleased. Tonight it was especially easy to scale it, as the officers had left it unguarded and had gone off to join the party. He calmly climbed his tree, swinging onto the wall, daring even to pause and catch his breath before he leapt over it.

The sand, crumbling and silky, was there to catch him. It still held some heat, but nothing like the burning ferocity that it had during the day. He dug his toes into it and his lips trembled, almost as though he was willing more tears to fall. But none did, so he started up again running across the sand.   

Dark defiance

Darkness had fallen heavily on the village, like fresh snow sent from the devil himself. A serene silence filled the cool summer air, and all was peaceful and calm. The birds rested patiently whilst the village slept. With the morning sun would come their morning songs.

A loud note broke the silence as surely as an axe through thick winter ice. One bird could not wait. He sang, his head tilted towards the black sky, his chest puffed out in pride. He threw his wings out behind him and sang from his rooftop; calling again and again and again. The other birds looked out from under their sleepy wings in horror and disbelief, watching this little creature so brazenly defy the rules.

Lights were starting to go on in the houses. The little bird had woken everybody up. One grumpy man in his pajamas spotted the bird and huffed; so this was the thing that was making all the noise. He picked up stones and flung them roughly at the roof, the first few missing, but the last one striking the bird, knocking him. He lost his balance and fell, shocked with the pain and the cruelty, but he remembered himself and flew upwards just before he hit the ground.

Gingerly resuming his perch, the bird watched the man victoriously stroll back inside, and he sang one last mellow note before quietening. His head faced the floor and not the sky, and his wings had drooped by his sides. The other birds turned away and went back to sleep, bemused by the whole event, and the little bird who dared to sing in the dark flew up and away into the night alone, unnoticed by anyone.