Dreaming of the good things, dreaming of the bad things. That’s how it goes, doesn’t it? That’s always how it goes. The good things and the bad things. We all know how this goes. We’ve all been there, you see. The thing is to focus on the good things, as everyone will tell you. The thing is to attract them to you. Those good, good things. How good they are! How wonderful and how marvellous they are. Tears come into my eyes when I think about them. Big fat stupid sentimental tears…
The good things are so very good, we say to each other. The good things are so good but you have to make very sure you never let anyone take them away from you when you’re not looking. We all have to be very careful of that. I was mixing up things that I never should have mixed up. I was dabbling in the dark arts. I was concocting a potion that contained all the very worst things in the world. When it was ready, I would drink it. When the time was right and proper then I would drink it down and I would be reborn. I would be reborn instantly as an unhappy ghost, destined to be tortured on a daily basis by all my insatiable desires. Destined to wander the Preta Loka, continually trying (and continually failing) to get my hands on all those wonderfully good things. All those very special things…
I was in a dark, dark place in my own mind, a place that wasn’t really there, a place that existed only in my own twisted and tormented thoughts. I was stuck there, I was totally trapped there, unable to imagine what freedom would even look like. Unable to imagine the smell of it. Unable to know if it had a smell or not. I guess I’m like a lot of people in that regard! I guess we all know what that feels like. Damn right we do, damn right we do… To be trapped in that place where freedom is – at best – a profoundly alien concept. Something that doesn’t actually seem real when you say it out loud, something that people would jeer at you for believing. A stupid story that we all know isn’t true, and never could be. That truly is a dark place, my friends.
Being in a dark old place like that isn’t much fun, at the end of the day. No – it’s not much fun at all. No Sir it surely isn’t. You wouldn’t really expect it to be either, would you? It doesn’t exactly sound like a barrel of laughs, and it isn’t. By God it isn’t. “Wait”, I cry out tremulously, “did something just happen there?” We all stopped to listen, straining our ears. We heard nothing however – not a thing. Not a sausage. Zilch. That’s the way it always is of course – nothing ever happens when we’re in that unreal place that we create in the discomfort of our own tormented minds. Nothing ever happens and nothing ever could…
