inkfilledmind

“–been put behind bars for contempt of court, but this morning the defending party claimed the legal situation had been misconstrued–”

Reuben flicked the television off.

“More of the bullshit which drove me to stop practicing law.”

Cue soft laughter. “You think you’re making lives better by working here instead?” said Owen, fingers hovering over a dirty keyboard. He looked up from the monitor to scrutinise Reuben.

Mouth open, quick glance down. Confusion. Annoyance. “Why are you here if you don’t believe in what we’re doing?” he replied. “The chemicals we manufacture, they… they’re not real. I mean, what is and isn’t real?” Faint notes of desperation and guilt entered his voice. “When my football team wins, what makes that happiness real? Is it diminished by the time and money I’ve invested to make it significant? When I watch a movie… are those feelings real? Manipulated? What does a genuine feeling feel like?”

It was Owen’s turn to find the floor fascinating. He took a fragment of paper from inside his jacket and turned it over carefully in his hands. It was blank, the ink rubbed off, but the words were left with him.

“All we need is a little more hope, a little more joy…” he murmured. Then his teeth clenched. He looked up. “The emotions made here… can be bought. They can be measured, bottled. Taken daily before breakfast. They help people, they do help people. But not for long.” He was biting off his sentences, his voice wavered. “Never think of them as real.”

Reuben rubbed his arms against an imaginary chill. “I don’t think they’re real, Owen. I’ve just begun questioning whether it matters.”

here I am sitting under a tree and it is warm and sunlight filters through rustling leaves so the skin of my hand is dappled with shadows that ripple across my fingers and down through the pencil across rough yellow paper detailing transpirations such as when I was walking bright pavement and weaving between masses of people who I imagined were running shiny delicate threads behind them and participating in a vast phantom birds-eye tapestry with bursts of rainbow at intersections and nonsense braille patterns of human confusion and conglomeration from vacant statelessness I moved into a hypercondition whereby my inner eye was assaulted with explosions of pure Vision unmuddied by usual modes of normality and nonrevelation it came unannounced the universe suddenly slowed like I had stepped through a surreal wall of water for is not everything so dreamlike under the surface where sounds and thoughts are distant and your eyes can behold your floating arm in detached wonder a weary man leans against a statue and twirls a lighter in his hand and holds a bright blue demon to his mouth that gives one last flick of its forked tail before diving down his throat do thoughts rush and queue in simultaneity or are they part of one long snaking thought-ribbon which divulges in folds past our mind I have been holding the corner of these loose sheets to keep the wind from disturbing my writing but now my hands are shaking with such excitement that my letters stretch into an indecipherable scrawl a messy lead lifeline which keeps me tied to reality an existence dimmed by the intense burn of Vision have you ever been having a conversation and a thought pops into your head followed by an eerie feeling that they are thinking the exact same thought at the same moment these are not separate thoughts but one which hangs between you like a balloon made of cloud that dissipates instantly and reforms in raindrops over the rest of your lives which hurtle and spin crazily along in an effort to regain what was lost my mind reels half-formed letters splash across the page in an attempt to transform what I had seen felt been as internal brushstrokes projected across an external canvas back into words which could set it off again a bird wheels across the sky and a fallen star picks herself up from the ground twinkle twinkle little star I gaze upon you from afar the world is a beautiful place if you take away the devastation of our lakes and forests the travesty of humanity decorating our screens and papers it is even more beautiful if you keep these things there even murderers sleep gentle sleep

The river that runs outside of town turned red. Just briefly, as the murmuring current gently pulled streamers of blood from crusted wounds until the flesh was soft and pale. I saw this happen by the uncertain light of a dying sun. I watched in detachment as my hands loosened their grip on the dead body until it slipped under the waters.

Ever since my younger years I had come to lie on the grassed banks of the same ageless river, spreadeagled on compressed dark soil as long fingers of yellow-green danced over half-closed eyes which watched sunbeams pierce the shivering willow canopy. I would retreat here when I felt on the verge of losing control.

Some time ago, in fact it must have been recently, as the memory is still vivid within my mind, I ran, withdrew to the riverside, and found that the largest of the trees had finally freed its rainfall-exposed roots and fallen, all stripped slivers of brown cast across the slopes. Without knowing quite what to do, I curled up in a damp hollow beneath the horizontal trunk so that my bare skin rubbed comfortably against warm bark.

As it happened, I fell asleep. I awoke to darkness, despite still feeling the burn of early afternoon; another tree had fallen and trapped me. These were old, strong trees, too heavy to move. I had a fervent desire to stay within my hideaway. There was abundant dew runoff to drink, but when the teeming supply of insects still living within the trunk dwindled and I started scraping my tongue in desperation, escape became an unavoidable necessity.

It felt like each part of me which could be damaged was damaged. Hoarse cries for hours came to naught. Fingernails were torn with frenzied scrabbling. Hands and limbs were bruised and bloodied from space-deprived convulsions of furious movement. It was a wonderous surprise when apropos of nothing the tree covering me groaned and began rolling down the bank. I clasped my arms around it and had my broken body dragged to the blissfully cool river, and moments of cleansing later I let go and followed the tree down into the deep, peaceful waters.

It was heartbreaking in its sincerity and overwhelmingly fragile: a scene so perfect it was repulsive, calculated and manipulative, yet impossible to turn away from; the momentary lull of a crafted symphony, cascading flourishes and frenzied strings giving way to silence before being returned in full force to stun the audience with loud beauty.

Those were the thoughts floating across Samuel’s disintegrating mind as he watched his daughter cross the tarmac to greet him, her hands intertwined with his son-in-law, jacket cords and hair flying and swirling in the same furious wind which muted the crack of the gun that delivered the bullet which pierced his side and sent a slow spray of crimson into the air.

He watched them from the tarmac, crossing the tarmac, he had stumbled and collapsed on the cold black surface and his face was upturned, still gazing at his daughter who had unhooked her arm and started running towards him, husband confused and slow with panic breaking across his face.

Desperation seized Samuel’s failing thoughts, tried to reroute his neurons and form meaning, provide a last handful of intellectual insights as if the criminal surgeon will cut open his skull and peel back the layers of his brain to explore reversed experiences and declare, yes! this man was not a complete dullard, see the philosophical implications within his final moments!

Instead his mind delighted in the caricature of human movement exhibited by the people around him, they were jumping and skipping like cheap high school stop-motion animation, tears formed and fell to the ground and men and women crowded in suspended, paralysing alarm.

His eyes shut briefly and when they opened again he was in a world of pain, so complete that it pushed aside the momentary confusion of lying on blood-sticky leaf-covered dirt surrounded by dense vegetation and foreign figures with impassive faces staring at him, and it eclipsed the realisation that he was not on the home runway, hadn’t been for weeks and never would be again, his daughter and son-in-law would see his name printed in the paper or flashed on the evening news and wonder how they would cope and what was the point of the war and if they would get help with the funeral and if fuel prices would go up now because money only went so far and there are so many things to buy.

We leave the hostel together, hands tight and legs swinging with abandon, skin brushed by hot wind swirling down skyscraper corridors.

“Who do you think will die first?” I mock with a smile.

Living with fear, deep, dehabilitating fear, for so many years… it made it breathing, palpable. It attached to our lives like an obsequious friend who greeted us without fail the moment we stepped outside. He stared into our eyes with tender concern and took our hands, hands which shook with suppressed, helpless loathing.

She laughs, slaps my arm lightly. “We’re dead without each other, right? We’re past that now.”

“You’re right. Do you remember…” I hesitated.

“Remember what?”

“Two weeks ago, we ordered delivery from that Thai place, over the phone–”

We had taken savage pleasure in herding him up flights of stairs; smooth black tape covering his mouth and arms pulled hard behind his back. Through the top hatch into bright sunlight on the rooftop, a hasty shove over the edge to the streets below.

“–Thai Time–”

“–Thai Time, but when the doorbell rang, and we went up the hall, we were too scared to open it–”

“–we sat down, huddled on the cold tiles and waited for the ringing, waited for the ringing to stop and the shadow outside to leave, and we went to bed hungry–”

It had taken months of perseverence. It was exhilarating to confront him. It was dizzying, like dangling our feet over the ledge and watching him curve in final grace, plummet down and down.

“Let’s eat there tonight.”