Reality Has A long Nose

Old Father Crow is crowing in the garden. Cawing, I mean. He is cawing his head off, cawing fit to burst. Old Father Crow. Can you hear him? You probably can’t, but I can. He’s in my head; he’s cawing fit to burst. He is a spirit guide you see. He comes to see me when I drink the tea that’s made from the sacred root. That old sacred root…

 

I was afraid of reality. I was afraid of reality in a big way. ‘Why does reality always have to be so very frightening?’ I asked myself. ‘Why? Why? Why?’ The bad dreams are back again. The bad dreams always come back. Reality is catching up with me wherever I hide you see. My hiding places are good, if I say so myself. My hiding places are superb but reality always manages to sniff me out just the same. Reality has a long nose and it’s very good at sniffing. It’ll sniff you out wherever you go.

 

I get that electric tingly feeling all over my skin when reality starts to get my scent. That’s how I know. The hair stands up on my head. Or it would if I had any hair. Or if I had any head. ‘Why is reality so good at sniffing me out?’ I want to cry out. I don’t however because it’s important to stay very quiet. It’s important to lay low and not draw any attention to yourself. It’s important to be like a stone, as R.D. Laing said in his book.

 

‘How low can you lie? How low can you lie?’ I wonder. I can lie very low indeed as it happens – that’s my secret art. I can live very low indeed but it’s never low enough! Never low enough, never low enough. That’s my superpower you see, but reality always finds me out just the same. It almost always finds me, that is, but just before it does so I break cover and flee like the wind. I flee as if Satan and all his devils were on my tail. What a sad spectacle.

 

‘Why is reality so harsh? Why is reality so harsh?’ I ask myself as I flee. It seems unfair that reality should be as inimical to me as it is. What chance do I have? The odds are stacked up against me and all I can do is run. What I can do is run but even my running is doomed. My endeavours are always doomed. Everything I do is do is doomed.

 

Everyone else has their comfort zone to hide in. Comfort bubble, should I say. They are the bubble-people – they’re always living within their nice safe bubbles. They are bubble-heads. They are the bubblers…  Look at how happy they are; look at how content they are. Reality isn’t persecuting them, clearly. Oh no – reality is leaving them well alone. Wouldn’t that piss you off? It pisses me off!

 

‘New look, great new taste! New look, great new taste! New look, great new taste!’ The Filth of Satan, that’s what I call it! The Filth of Satan permeates this poor wretched world of ours. It permeates every corner of it, every nook and cranny of it. Now that’s OK in a way. I am prepared to accept that this is OK in one way. What’s really disturbing for me however is the way in which we all pay no heed to it, the way in which we are actually quite fond of it. We’re so habituated to the Filth of Satan that we think it’s perfectly good and wholesome. That is super-disturbing – how can the Filth of Satan be good and wholesome? Answer me that, if you can…

 

I can get so long out of a hiding place, but it’s not so long really. It’s not long enough to allow me to relax, anyway. Much as I’d like to. I’m always looking out for the signs that reality is on to me, I was gearing myself up for the next mad dash for safety once again – as always. Another mad but ultimately doomed dash to safety. It kind of makes a mockery of the idea of hiding doesn’t it? If every time you hide you have to think about running again then that takes the good out of it. It takes every last bit of good out of it.

 

The running man, they call me. The man who runs. Or rather – the man who runs and then hides and then breaks cover and has to run again, in an eternal repeat. The light is pain for the shadow dwellers, as we all know. The light is pain and all we can do is flee. As a poet said, ‘flee the light, for the light is pain.’ ‘What poet was that?’ you ask suspiciously. I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore, wretched shadow-dweller that I am. I can’t stand by anything I say and neither should you…

 

It’s a very hard life when reality itself rises up against you as an enemy, as I’m sure you can imagine. Where does one turn then? What hope can we cling to? What allies can we rely on in our struggle? But you know the answer to these questions as well as I do, I expect…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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