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.”

Soft laughter floated through the office. “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, who glanced at the floor to hide the play of emotions which flickered across his face: confusion, unhappiness, 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?” His voice, his words, charged with faint undercurrents of desperation and guilt. “When my football team wins, is that happiness diminished by the time and money invested to make it significant for me? Hell, when I watch a movie, are even those feelings real? Or merely manipulated? What does a genuine feeling feel like?”

It was Owen’s turn to examine the carpet, head down in contemplation as 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 had carved themselves on the inside of his mind.

“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.”

A brief silence. 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 warm tree sunlight filtering through rustling leaves which dapple the skin of my hand with shadows that ripple across my fingers and down through the pencil with which i am recording experiences upon this rough yellow paper such as when i was walking bright pavement and weaving between masses of people who 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 until 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 that came unannounced so that the universe suddenly slowed like i had stepped through a surreal wall of water where sounds and thoughts under the dreamlike surface are so distant and eyes behold your floating arm in detached wonder until air bubbles and questions arise questions like whether thoughts rush and queue in simultaneity or snake along in a long thought-ribbon which divulges in folds through our minds 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 provoking conversation and a thought pops into your head followed by an eerie feeling that the other person is thinking the exact same thought at the same moment but these are not separate thoughts they are one which hangs between you like a balloon made of cloud which dissipates instantly and reforms in raindrops over the rest of each others lives continually racing they hurtle and spin crazily along in an effort to regain what was lost oh my mind reels and half-formed letters splash across the page in an attempt to transform what was been what was felt what was seen what was believed as internal brushstrokes projected across that wide canvas of reality back into words which could set it off again like a bird wheeling across the sky and a fallen star picking herself up from the ground twinkle twinkle little star i gaze upon you from afar sing softly that the world is a beautiful place if you take away the devastation of our lakes and forests and the travesty of humanity decorating our screens and papers and realise it is even more beautiful if you keep these things there indeed even murderers sleep gentle sleep

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. My half-closed eyes watched sunbeams pierce the shivering willow canopy. I would retreat here when I felt on the verge of losing myself.

Some time ago, in fact, as the memory is still vivid within my mind, it must have been recently; 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 its 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 of the dead tree and followed it down into the deep, peaceful waters.