Hiding from the Thing

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I was hiding from the thing. “The thing can’t find me here, the thing can’t find me here, the thing can’t find me here…” I told myself, hoping against hope that there was some truth in this. Then after a moment’s reflection I thought the better of repeating this mantra to myself the way I was doing. The thing might hear me, I thought, even if I’m only repeating this in the privacy of my own head. The thing has big ears, I reminded myself. Ears like the Jodrell Bank radio telescope, probing the universe.

 

The thing was listening right now, I knew. I could feel it listening. I could feel its absolute attentiveness. Listening like the Jodrell Bank listens – patiently scanning all the frequencies in a methodical manner. I tried not to focus on this thought too much. If I thought too much about the thing listening for me that would make me panic and the panic would draw it on me for sure. It’s like bleeding in the open ocean when there are hungry sharks about. A shark can smell a few blood cells in a million units of water at five miles away. They tune in instantly, track down the source with unfailing accuracy. It’s like doing your own advertising…

 

Hiding from the thing isn’t easy, I realized – not for the first time. The thing is everywhere, it has a million ears. It’s practically omniscient, like a giant disembodied mind that sees everything. Like God really, I thought and thinking this didn’t really help me much. How am I going to get one over on God, I wondered. How am I supposed to outsmart the All-Knowing?

 

I pulled back from this line of reasoning. I had to be practical. I can’t be panicking myself with wild thinking. The thing didn’t know everything, I told myself. There were limits to its omniscience, which meant that it wasn’t omniscient after all. It hadn’t found me yet. If it had I’d know about it! So all I had to do was to keep on doing whatever it was that I was doing already. Or perhaps develop it, refine it, perfect it…

 

What was I doing, I wondered. What was my chief skill in hiding? What technique or method was I using? This was a tough question. Probably, I decided, it wasn’t a skill or technique at all. I would say that it is more of an art. The art of hiding. The art of hiding from the thing. The essence of this art – it occurred to me – was staying very quiet, not announcing my presence. Blending in with the surroundings. Keeping your head down. Lying low. But more than this, the key to hiding from the thing was to pretend that you weren’t there.

 

It wasn’t just that I was pretending that I wasn’t ‘here’ either, but rather that I was pretending that I didn’t exist at all. I was willing myself into non-existence, into unreality, so that the all-seeing thing couldn’t follow me there. This was the one place it couldn’t go, the one place it couldn’t track me down to. Not that you could strictly call it a ‘place’ of course because as I have said it doesn’t actually exist. That is simply a matter of semantics however. The basic principle is sound no matter which way you look at it – the key to hiding from the thing is to make yourself unreal, to hide out in unreality where no one – not even the omniscient disembodied consciousness – can find you…

 

In short, it had become clear to me that the power and the omniscience of the thing became attenuated the more deeply I moved into unreality. Here – in the unreality zone – no one can find me. This really was the optimum strategy therefore as far as escaping from the all-knowing telepathic consciousness was concerned. Although it isn’t actually a strategy, as I have already pointed out. It’s not a strategy because there’s no method to it, because no one can tell you how to do it. You have to learn it for yourself. You have to feel your way into it. The thing has no power, no jurisdiction here. It can’t follow me into the unreality zone because the unreality zone doesn’t actually exist…

 

For me this came as a sort of supreme realization. It was like a satori, like an enlightenment experience only it was enlightenment in reverse, if that makes any sense. I had realized how to escape into the unreality zone where the all-seeing mind that was pursuing me could no longer find me. Nothing had ever tasted as sweet to me as this discovery! The wave of relief that swept over me was indescribable – the very best Thai Number 1 white heroin never gave anyone a rush as good as this. This was the real deal. Or rather it was the unreal deal – which was for me infinitely preferable! Borne on a wave of sweet, sweet oblivion, I entered into the samsara realm where the All-Pervading consciousness would never find me…

 

 

 

 

 

 

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