There is a unlit room, really little more than a box, but large enough for a man to stand in (actually he is sitting).
We can’t see the man because the room is too dark, but he is there, sure enough, melding with the darkness.
We do not know his thoughts or purpose, we merely know that he is there.
He does not wait, for the box exists out of time. He does not see for inside that dark box there is nothing to see.
He is just a man in a dark box, existing.
Again I strike the flint and light the fire. Again.
I like the sound it makes, that little scratchy tink; and the fire has its own sound, a sort of crackle and however warmth sounds, if warmth were a sound.
This little circle of light keeps the darkness at bay. Combined with the bramble walls hastily lashed together (I have tiny cuts up and down my arms from handling them), no man–nor beast–should trouble me this night.
In reality, nothing even comes close to my shelter.
I can hear the night-things calling out in strange voices, but I am of no interest to them.
Are the night voices even real?
Am I even real?
I huddle closer to the fire and hold my hands out to it. I can feel the heat radiating from the flames and I can hear that gentle, constant whoosh that “sound of warmth” and it feels real. It feels real.
I am always taken by the sparkling of dust in the sunlight. It makes me wonder how it is possible for something to be so magical, but at the same time, so commonplace.
This everyday magic is everywhere.
TV static is the roaring symphony of empty space.
A flame burns in a holy place, forever lit, but it does not compare with the eternal flame that beats like a heart beneath our feet. And fleet, our planet spins and swims in vast invisible orbits around a nuclear orb yet greater.
The sky, the clouds, this tiny precious rock. A kid kicks over a tin can and it clatters noisily across asphalt. Stars sparkle, already dead and yet they sparkle.
Already dead and yet they sparkle.
And the world moves so fast it’s a wonder we don’t feel it. Feet firmly planted on the ground as solar winds whip around us. We have surrounded this orb with satellites and from on high they look down on us, like Gods.
Like Gods they offer dire warnings: weather alerts. CO2 emissions. Like Gods they do not lift a hand to help, they only see.
And with the omniscience of satellites we come to understand with yet greater clarity the fragility of this life-bearing rock, this space-based terrarium.
Is this not magic?
Is not the earth lit like a mote of dust by the light of the sun?
Perhaps another God watches us, as I watch a mote of dust.
And we sparkle.
Time is the void through which tetrominoes fall.
It seems simple at first; arranging the blocks. It is satisfying when they fall into place flush against one another.
Flashing, then, they disappear from view. The Korobeiniki speeds up and the pieces take on a different nature: those shapes, once so easily comprehended, fall faster.
We spin and slot them together. We build solid walls. We do our best to pay attention to the next piece before it falls, the next piece before it falls, the next piece before it falls.
The void of time fills up with tetrominoes. Blank spaces between them impossible to reach. Keep spinning. Keep spinning.
The Korobeiniki speeds up.
You can’t think about the empty spaces at the bottom of the void. Just keep building on top. Now the next piece matters more than ever. It is the wrong piece. It is the wrong piece.
The Korobeiniki speeds up.
Lines flash and vanish. The screen clears but the pieces do not stop falling. The tetrominoes are relentless.
The Korobeiniki speeds up.
The explorer treads over uneven rocks. Each step brings him higher; closer to that untouchable blue dome of the sky.
Certainly there have been so many maps drawn and flags planted in the ground, but nobody has ever climbed this ridge before; no human foot has ever treaded these uneven stones. This is the explorers own journey–his alone.
His aches and pains, are his alone. He climbs and he gets closer to the sky he cannot reach. He hauls himself up in places where the ridge becomes to steep. He steadies himself when the rocks underfoot become too loose.
He stays upright. He treads. He climbs.
Nobody has ever reached the top of this ridge before. Nobody but the explorer, our intrepid friend and he does not know we are watching him. Higher he climbs, and higher. There are many stories about what lays beyond the ridge, each tale grander than the last: a lost city of gold, a valley filled with living prehistoric life, an inland sea of glistening water that can restore one’s youth.
These tales are sheer fancy, of course. Ripped from half-remembered folk stories and patched together in the form of an unlikely carrot-on-a-stick. For just because none have ever made it to the top of this ridge before does not mean that others have not tried.
The explorer pays no heed to the bones that he passes on his way up the ridge. Some of them clutch notes, flapping in the wind. The explorer finds it unlikely that their bodies would decay but the notes would remain intact and so he does not read the notes. In truth, the notes say nothing useful.
And now the explorer has passed well beyond any other adventurer. Each step he takes is a victory for him alone to savour. He has made it farther than anyone else. He has made it–almost–to the very top of the ridge. Mere moments separate him from discovering what lies beyond it.
Soon, he will know if any of the stories are true.
He clings and climbs. He groans and clambers. And then, at last, he hauls himself up those few precious inches that bring him to the peak. He does not have a chance to catch his breath before he sees what lies beyond the ridge. Immediately, tears fill his eyes.
He will sit there for a time, weeping with pure joy at the truth he has discovered. A truth he already knew.
There is no treasure beyond the ridge; there are only ever more ridges spread out across the land. Each one more dangerous to climb than the last, each one an undiscovered journey. An adventure for the explorer alone.
And the explorer weeps with joy in the knowledge that his journey has only just begun.
The scientist notes down her findings for the day in a messy notebook held together with rubber bands. The discovery will change lives, alter the very trajectory of human development; but there hides, trapped between pages of nonsensical scribbles.
A mathematician draws shapes in the sand. He looks up at the sun and notes the way the trees cast their shadows, lengthening as the day wears on. He draws a triangle, intersected by two lines. He has figured something out today, but he doubts the Elders will believe him.
The musician switches between two alternating chords on her guitar. She has written a song that will unite the entire world and it begins with only two chords, two chords long forgotten. She didn’t study music; she learned to play by ear and now this song–this special song–rings out in an almost empty room of disinterested patrons.
The man loads a heavy box of books onto the back of a truck (amongst them is the scientists notebook). They are to be thrown away. The sand in which the mathematician drew the triangle with his fingers has been paved over and the trees with their lengthening shadows were cut down long ago for firewood. The musician forgets about the special song because nobody seemed to like it that much anyway.
These characters are real and their stories might seem disheartening. But they are not you.
Experiment. Believe in yourself. Find out what you know and chase it. Listen. Believe; not only in yourself but in others. There is great value in what others know, but you won’t learn unless you listen. There is great value in what you know, but others cannot learn unless you tell them.
Never stop playing those alternating chords. If your guitar is broken, hum the tune instead. If you think you’ve forgotten how, don’t worry it will come back to you. It’s yours; you cannot forget it.
And it’s time to make other people listen.
Routine, ritual, rhythm. This is my mantra.
I seek the routine in the spinning of the orbs through space; so much grander and more exceptional than our clocks and calendars would have us believe:
Alarm, wake up, coffee (it’s a dependency). Computer screen. Blinking eyes. Tired eyes. Memories of last week already fading. Memories of yesterday already fading.
Blinking cursor. Find the words. This is my ritual, a humble weekly offering before the Gods, a little shaved-off sliver of my barely-conscious self.
Rhythm does not need to be sought. It is ever-present. In my breath. In the tapping of my fingers on the keys. In the mental metronome, that old Grandfather Clock, pendulum swinging.
Breathe in, breathe out. Blinking eyes; blinking cursor. Tired eyes survey the screen. Last weeks memories fade.
I write new routines. I conduct new rituals. Rhythm arises out of these moments, the rhythm of footsteps, the rhythm of time: the rhythm of beginning again.
The art will not elude me.
It slides and slips like slime; it rises on dream-whispers like evaporating steam.
It complicates itself. It twists and folds like origami-gone-mad; like an all-consuming origami containing every shape and type of paper, consuming them.
This origami ball-of-everything rolls back and forth inside my skull. Plastered to it are old takeaway menus and newspaper clippings, school reports and electrical bills, all books and words and photographs reduced to pages, reduced to paper, reduced to a crumpled ball.
The art will not elude me.
Ideas that another might have let escape them. I wrestle and fight with the shadows. I do not fear them although I know Where it is they come from. I tear the art from them before they take it. They care not for art, it is abhorrent to them; it is futile.
It is futile. And yet, by my own determination, the art will not elude me.
Initials carved in wet concrete, worn smooth by the passage of passing feet.
Time passes, yet those indelible figures remain; through burning sun and falling rain.
Steps pass over weary stone, ankles click and muscles groan.
I am not immune to the passing of time. Each step is mine; each second mine.
Each crack in concrete marks the time and old carved initials become a sign…
Of things we’ve lost and days enshrined.
By faded photographs, our lives unwind.
Like broken cuckoo clocks.
The world wobbles on its axis, but we don’t feel it?
The geology of the earth arranges itself in patterns such that we can sense continuity in its transformations.
A man drops a coloured ball into a tube on the surface and it shunts through pipes, bouncing this way and that.
Eventually it will pop out the other end, but who knows how long it will take to navigate the pipes?
The ball, finally coming to rest, is picked up by another man who places it into another tube, and thus–the situation begins again.
Another ball; another tube.
Hands move faster now. Shuffling the balls, placing them into tubes. There are no rules to this game. If there ever were they have been lost to time like faded cave paintings.
Cities spread out like monopoly boards. Chance cards shuffled. In every pack there’s two Jokers, at least.
At least.
