Psychosis of the East

A long time ago, he had been an artist. Selecting any given device, he would take it up and create. The movement of his hands were as clear as a tongue in speech. He was an artist, pure and simple.

More recently, he had become a lover; at least in world he had created within himself. As the seasons changed and the frost came in, he had hidden his hands in woollen gloves and his mind in the internal summer his imagination could paint.

“The Lover”

Yes, a term he had coined late one night after meditation. Love, as he imagined the idea to be, would require another. Someone with whom he could converse. Someone he would desire to touch and also long to be touched by. It would be energetic and enriching.

‘Love; such a fascinating idea’, he chuckled to himself by fireside.

The ‘other’, he suggested to himself, would look somewhat like himself, yet would be different enough to inspire wonder as he explored. Seeing no other – ever – in his life, it was difficult to image the look of Love. He gave Love arms and legs and warm eyes and a nice smile. However, the oddness of its incomplete form scared him a little and so he suggested to Love that they should lay in the shadow of the oak, watch the fidgeting leaves – instead of each other – and talk of all things.

Love agreed with a nod and they moved, hand in hand, to the oak to do as he had suggested.

Beneath the oak, he imagined a gentle touch of wind to make the branches dance just as he could remember from many months before. The sun was near its zenith and glittered splashes of light through the chaos of leaves.

“Isn’t it beautiful here?” he asked his love.

Love responded by squeezing his hand slightly. Love had tried to speak, but the voice was wrong and so Love had stopped. Thus conversation too, would be impossible.

He let his hand wonder across the skin of Love. It was as soft as the skin on the small of his back, but did not crease in the right way along the fingers and palm. He let go and simply lay there alongside Love. The sense of having another there was enough for him.

However, before long he felt uneasy. His unease came in the sudden chill of the breeze. Yet he did not look for the reason of his unease, because the act of looking would provide nothing he did not already know. Love was no longer beside him. Love had never been beside him.

Psychosis of the North

The sun rose as it had for billions of years previously. Yet on this particular dawn, one random beam kissed a water drop; the accumulation of night dew on a window face. The result was a dancing rainbow of colour splashed across the opposite wall of the child’s room.

What did not matter was whether this had occurred before or if such a scene would occur again. All that mattered was that the child noticed this show on that special morning. The child smiled.

So the child thought and climb out of its bed. A simple piece of standard A4 was on the child’s desk. This smiling child knew what to do.

A couple of folds here, one there, another here and then a complete fold there… Eventually it took meaningful form. Nothing special mind you, but meaningful there; in the room, under the dancing rainbow. The child went on to add more by taking out the pencil case and drawing the rainbow on the sail.

The paper sail boat was complete.

It was too early for Mum or Dad or the breakfast they would make. However the child slipped out through the back door. The child only thought of the creek by the back fence of the property.

Through the cool morning air, the child tip-toed over the dew blistered grass. Avoiding the hidden rocks, the child made it to the little creek. As cool as the dawn was, the creek water was closer to ice. Not that the child need know this. The touch of the water was not the goal of this early morning exercise.

The child bent down. The boat is in hand. The paper touched the cold water. The hand released the sail. A new, unchristened ship set sail!

The child giggled as the paper boat gripped the current and began its navigation of the pebble islands. Dancing through the shadow light show. Such a beautiful rainbow sail on a creek of crystal dreams…

“Breakfast!” cries mum up the hill.

Without a momentary thought, the child turned, run up to the farm house and forgot the morning rainbow. But the paper boat continued. It was caught by the icy current and slave to the movement.

One can’t help but wonder about the boat. Why does it now exist, now that it slowly dissolves on that icy creek? All the love in creation lost in the moment of being forgotten. All the purpose made meaningless in the death of the rainbow.

The sticks poke. The rocks bash. The icy current pulls. Nothing cares – not even for a second. The child has head off to be fed and to live its life, but now the boat exists and ages and fades and dissolves and all of this happens because it happens. There is no point, no reason, no goal; nothing. There is no point in being.