Even the air was dreaming. Did you ever hear that, did you ever hear that? Even the air, even the air was dreaming…
My words were whispering softly to themselves. So, so softly. ‘What were they whispering?’ you ask, but no one can ever tell you. No one knows – there’s only the words, there’s only the words whispering away. Only the words which are whispering so softly.
The air was dreaming, dreaming nine-to-the dozen, dreaming like crazy, dreaming like there was no tomorrow, and so was everything else. Even the stones in the field were dreaming, dreaming away under the hot summer sun. ‘What do stones dream of?’ you ask, but there’s no answer to that either. Some questions can never be answered and this is one of them.
Everything I could see was dreaming, and not just dreaming but deep dreaming. Deep, deep dreaming. Dreaming that is so deep as to be completely incomprehensible. Everything dreaming as deeply as can be – really, really, really deeply. But you can’t say a word about it. Not a word. Even the dreaming was dreaming, you see. ‘But what was it dreaming about?’ you want to know. You always want to know.
So softly you spoke. None could hear you – you couldn’t even hear yourself – and yet somehow you could all the same. Or maybe not, as the case may be. Maybe you couldn’t. You’re living in two worlds simultaneously – the normal, everyday world of lies and deceit, and the terrifying world of actual reality. ‘Which is true?’ you ask yourself, ‘the everyday world of lies and deceit, or actual reality?’ ‘Who should I obey’, you wonder, ‘God or the devil?’ You don’t want to make a mistake.
And then you start to feel the pinpricks of icy cold fear-sweat standing out in rows on your clammy forehead – you realise that you don’t know the answer to any of these questions. You realise that you don’t know anything, or at least anything that is actually true! You’re very knowledgeable when it comes to knowing about untrue things, but the actual truth is another matter entirely. You didn’t bargain on that.
‘Is truth a lie?’ you ask, full of existential anguish, ‘Is God really the Devil in disguise?’ People have got themselves in serious trouble for asking that question, you realise. Very serious trouble indeed – the very worst sort of trouble. The sort where you’re sent to wait outside the headmaster’s door until it’s time for him to come and punish you. You said the bad thing and so now no one is ever going to forgive you. ‘Is everything we’ve ever worked for wrong?’ you cry out, struggling to face your demons. But your inner demons are running riot of course – there isn’t a hope in hell that you’ll ever get the better of them. They’re playing you like a fiddle.
No one really likes authority, do they? I know we all pretend to. We suck up to the authorities so that we won’t get punished. We suck up to the authorities so that we can receive the benefits. We’ve got our eyes on the boodle. The jolly old boodle. We’re all maggots when it comes down to it. We’re a bunch of wriggling, writhing maggots, feasting away on the decaying corpse of decency. That is that’s what it’s like to be a human being, after all. Feasting, feasting, feasting.
Damn methodical little things maggots – they just keep on at it until they finish the job. They’re real, real methodical and you’ve got to admire them for that. Credit where credit is due, after all. ‘Fair play you maggots!’ we cry out, ‘Fair play to you, you jolly old maggots…’ No one really likes authority – we just say that we do so as to get one-up on our co-workers. We’ll denounce them in a flash, so we will. We’ll grass them up to the dream police.
Image – deepdreamgenerator.com