Do you know that type of a thing where you suddenly realize that whatever thought you think is straightaway going to come true? And your mind of course immediately starts going into overdrive generating horrors that you would not normally be capable of imagining. And then the next thing is that you have created possibilities that you are far too frightened to ever own up to, dark possibilities that proceed to stalk you relentlessly wherever you go…
Of course you know it – who doesn’t? Who can honestly claim never to have had experiences of this kind? We move through a landscape that is made up of our own thoughts; we encounter scenes and situations that consist entirely of our own ideas. Things become flat and uninterested when one knows this – there’s only so many times you can feign interest when you’re confronted with yet another tired old mental projection. You’re supposed to pretend that something’s happening when it isn’t. It rather takes the romance out of life to know this. If there ever was any. It’s like pretending to find a joke funny when you’ve heard it a thousand times and you didn’t even like it very much the first time. The muscles in your face go painfully into spasm for the ten millionth time as you try out of politeness to show an appreciation that you don’t in the least bit feel. All you feel is an all-consuming inner desolation.
We move through a landscape that it is scripted down to the very last detail – nothing really happens but in a kind of a way it seems to. You think that something is happening but it isn’t. You’re only talking to yourself but you imagine that there’s someone else there; you’re hallucinating that you’re deep in conversation when really you’re all alone in the room – you’ve never been more alone. There’s no one else there but you and the spiders on the wall and they aren’t listening; the conversation is as sterile as the Sahara but you’re lost in the dream. I’m being pursued through the undergrowth by voracious shadow-creatures; lacking any substance of their own, they are hungry for mine. Not that I have very much of it myself, come to think of it…
Do you know that feeling that comes like an unwelcome guest when you start to gain awareness of the fact that your whole life up to this point has been an exercise in avoiding the truth – the truth in this case being that you’ve spent your whole life up to this point avoiding the truth? I know of course that you’re not going to say anything – I know that I’m going to be met with the stoniest of silences. Making me wish that I had kept my mouth shut. What exactly do I expect anyway? I ought to know better at this stage. I’m shunned wherever I go – no one will look me in the eye. My affliction is all too obvious. People don’t like afflictions, I remind myself. It’s important to remember that. I must learn to keep my afflictions to myself – no one wants to know.
My thoughts were coming home to roost and it was time to quit the scene. It was time to go somewhere else. I had to gather up all my belongings and take to the road once more. Things were no longer safe. The spectres were back on my trail, sniffing me out with their long twitchy noses. I had created them myself and now they had come back to haunt me; the more I twist and turn to avoid them the darker and more vengeful they become. They’re not real but then again neither am I. The Smilers were back in town – their eyes glinting coldly in the sharp April sunshine. They move methodically through the streets, going through the rubbish bins as they pass. They never miss a trick. It was time for me to move on…
