1.
He sat amongst the familiar setting of the modern nightmare. The incessant flicker of the office light turned shades of grey on and off with an unending deliberateness. A sigh was released from his half open mouth, signalling a resignation to his surroundings. Carefully folding a letter in half he slipped it inside of the envelope, knowing full well that it would circulate several departments before turning up in its correct location only for it then to be discarded with an air of disinterest. He tried to remember something beautiful in times like these. His choices were few but he hung on to these precious memories of more colourful times. As the clock laboriously worked its way round to closing time he prepared to leave. Tidying up his work area brought certain pleasures with it for him. He would systematically put things back in their places so as to be ready for the next day. Always starting with his stationary, working his way through pens and pencils until everything was just so, he would place all the used items of the day back in their correct places, making sure he could quickly access his favourite pen and his loyal stapler the next morning. But no, this was a Friday and that meant that he had two days to spare until he would next have to disturb his work station. All the same, he liked to leave things as if no one had been there at all. It would be ready for anyone to use, and everything would be in its right place. Just like things should be. All was organised. Time finally dictated that the moment to leave had arrived so he made his final few adjustments, straightening some papers, double checking that everything was switched off, and made his way to the exit.
Leaving the office building on a Friday also brought with it a few small pleasures which he looked forward to greatly. The short walk between his place of work and his place of recluse presented him with his week’s only indulgence. He left the front door of the high rise office building and walked eagerly towards the bakery on the corner. This would be one of his few conversations between leaving work and returning again on Monday. The weekend always brought a great deal of solitude. Not that he minded, things were easier that way. Life in the city was all background noise to him that turned into a headache the longer he stayed out. The traffic and conversation did not agree with his quiet mind. He would be glad to get home and seek comfort in his own silence. But before retiring to the haven of his own company he walked into his favourite shop, spoke to his favourite cashier and ordered his favourite thing.
“Hello.”
“Hello, how are we today?”
“Fine, just fine. Two small carrot cakes please”
“Of course. You don’t need to tell me anymore, I know by now... and I suppose I don’t need to tell you how much that is either, do I?”
“No, I know, don’t you worry. Here. Thanks. Bye”
And before even leaving the shop he would bite into the first of his two treats. This was one of the few moments when he would let himself succumb to indulgence and greed. The very fact that he could not wait until he left the shop to bite into his favourite treat made him feel like a mischievous child. He loved the smell, the icing, even the little paper bags that they came in. Everything about them was a ritual of pleasure. Everyone needs things to look forward to. A little selfish indulgence. A guilty pleasure. As his teeth sunk into the soft and moist cake, he turned back to the cashier and gave a little smile. That was all he had to do, now he could go home, relax and enjoy his weekend.
2.
The flat which he lived in was a modest affair. There was no elaborate interior design and no creature comforts other than a small television set in the corner and a few items which he had, for reasons unknown to him, some sort of sentimental attachment to. He didn’t have any reason to cover his home with photos or holiday souvenirs as he didn’t really have any. Life had been somewhat of a non event so far concerning relationships with other people. His parents had been despondent and unaffectionate when he was a child and leaving home was an unceremonious affair. Rather like checking out of a hotel. He simply left one day without any emotional attachment to the place he had been staying or the people he had been staying with. He had never had a girlfriend either. He was not an unattractive man by any means. He had a steady job and his own home but romance had always been a stranger to him. He had once been in love with a lady who worked at his office. At least he thought it was love, he could not be certain. Of course, she did not know about his affections. Social skills eluded him and the idea of talking to her gave him strange and unwelcome feelings in his stomach. She had only been at the office for a few weeks, having been transferred from somewhere out of the city to cover someone else’s absence. These things didn’t bother him though. He knew of many people who were unsatisfied with their childhood, with love or with their partners but for him these were things that seemed foreign and mysterious. He had no childhood memories to speak of and had never been in a relationship. His mind wasn’t filled with regret, with hate or with envy. Life was just a space in time which he was passing through.
3.
That night images rapidly flashed in front of his eyes as he sat in his arm chair absorbing stories, new reports and advertisements from his television set. It would soon be time for bed and once we woke up in the morning he would probably return to the very spot he was in. Or perhaps he would read the newspaper in the kitchen. As two characters played out a violent encounter on his screen there was a sudden fade. All the lights went out, the sound of the shouting ceased to come from his television and all was quiet. A black out. What was he to do now? Sitting alone in the dark is not anyone’s idea of fun and he was no exception. Yet, he was not tired so sleep was not yet an option. He thought about finding some candles or a torch and reading a book. Then he suddenly remembered that he didn’t have any. Another thing which had always seemed slightly pointless to him. They just took up space and time and filled your head with things that weren’t even real. At least with television once something was finished you never thought about it again. The books he had been forced to read at school had always stayed with him to a certain extent. They were ghosts that haunted him from time to time. How many children had been forced to consume the spirit of Shakespeare, Swift and Steinbeck? He was quite resentful that the fate and morality of these characters were somehow employed in his own consciousness. With sleep not being forthcoming and any form of entertainment apparently absent he decided to remain seated and simply have a think. In the eerie darkness of his usually well lit flat he retraced his steps back from where he was now to when he was born. He had never really done this before. He knew a lot of people who kept diaries, photo albums and such but he had never done so. In a way he prided himself on not living in the past. He felt a small feeling of disgust towards the notion of sentimentality. The few things he kept for such reasons he did with an involuntary compulsion. Never the less, since boredom would soon set in, he shut his eyes and let his past wash over him. It didn’t take him very long and even he was alarmed at the lack of pleasure which this reminiscing brought him. He moved quickly through his childhood memories, with a few pictures of his parents appearing in blacks, whites and faded greys. He couldn’t remember what his childhood home had looked like. In his mind it was just a small, standard, square house. A montage of schoolboy memories came and went quickly. He couldn’t not exactly recall leaving home, he just remembered that it happened. The next thing he knew he was moving in to the very flat that he now sat in. He acquired a job. Weeks, months and years flashed by in seconds. He began to sweat, he gripped the arms of his chair tightly. He began to feel afraid. He had never felt afraid before. He became so distraught by the lack of joy which he seemed to have had in his life that he decide tomorrow he would do something radical. Moments of realisation can be frightening things. We all sometime question whether we are truly living. It is this which creates human endeavour and makes us do valiant and wonderful things. If this didn’t exist we would never have climbed up the trees and then climbed back down again. Caught up in his fever of regret he decided that he must find an antidote, quickly. Some things were going to change for him and that is where it all started to end.
4.
Stepping out on to the crunching forest floor, with twigs cracking and worms squirming underfoot he made his way onwards. The sun sat motionless in the sky, hanging defiantly and refusing to sink. The day was endless. A damp heat clung to the air and all was well. He took his time as he strolled through these unfamiliar surroundings. There was much to see and it was these moments of self reflection that one can only find in complete, unadulterated solitude that he had longed for the most. It made the monotony of the life he had seem almost hectic. In the stillness of the forest he found a new tempo, a new air. The forest was a bubble which he had jumped into from the top of a grey cement tower called home. After some time he spotted a small dip up ahead the horizon. Picking up his pace he approached it. A small drop in the landscape exposed an opening. He scurried down the slope and found himself in a burrow like space. There were leaves gently peppered across the earthy floor, a few trees whose branches the sun teased between and a distant sound of water trickling down a stream. He thought this a good place to stop for a while and collect his thoughts. There was a weeping willow which invited him to take rest under its branches. Dispelling the stories of slumber which this tree is known to produce, he took shelter under the drooping leaves. Sleep took hold of him. He lay in a long and peaceful rest for an unknown amount of time. His chest rose and fell with the rhythm of the breeze. Sometime later he awoke. Much to his surprise the sun was still stationary, the air still warm and his surroundings altogether unchanged. He did, however, notice a small hole, no wider than that of a grown human’s skull, situated on the forest floor which he had previously been unaware of. It did not appear to be a rabbit hole nor of any other animals making. He crawled towards it, brushing away leaves and other distractions by cupping his hands and pushing them aside. He looked at the hole with some curiosity. If it was the work of Man then it was from a time long before this. The surroundings of his den seemed completely undisturbed before his arrival. What was it and why was it there? Wishing to see how deep the hole could be he cautiously dipped his hand inside. Much to his surprise the air inside was cool, cold even. Suddenly, a chill sprinted up his arm and he quickly pulled his hand out. He scuttled away from the hole, uncertain what to do next. Intrigue pulled him back and he put his other arm inside the mysterious hole. Once again, a cold chill followed. The shock to his body which followed was something that no one could have predicted. The cold had entered in to his blood, into his very being. It crept its way up the veins of his arms, into his torso, up his head and down his spine. Dizziness took over him and he began to shake violently. In uncontrollable fits his body shock out of control. He rolled around the forest floor with no control of his body. His physical self was no longer his own, breathing became almost impossible and eventually he ceased to move at all. Crumpled in an unidentifiable form he lay motionless in the forest’s lap.
5.
For anyone, regaining consciousness is just as an unnerving experience as losing it and it was no different for out man in the forest. He lay perfectly still on the ground, afraid to open his eyes. From the solitude of his eyelids he tried to piece together what had just happened but yet he remembered very little. He remembered the hole and he remembered being overwhelmed by his own sense of curiosity. He was not usually an inquisitive man yet something had driven him on to investigate the unknown and now there he was, lying on the floor of a forest he had never been to before. The searing pain he had felt was no longer a feeling but a memory and memories are something which change and mutate as we allow time to do so. Sensations become diluted or heightened as our subconscious extracts and adds whatever we need to make the solution bearable. How much had it hurt him? He felt that a change had come over him. Something was different but he did not know what. After allowing himself some more time to reflect, and once he had encouraged himself sufficiently, he opened his eyes. Not knowing how long he had been unconscious, or indeed if he really had been unconscious, he was somewhat surprised to find that the sun was still sitting in exactly the same place as it had been before. Looking around him he noticed that although the earth seemed much distressed by the experience his body did not. He had neither cuts nor any bruises to validate his memories of the convulsive fits that he thought he had just had. The oddness of his situation and the calmness of his physical self compared to the disturbance of his environment shuck him in to action. Collecting himself and once again checking his body for any damage he ran quickly from the scene. He longed to get away. He wanted to be back in the safety of his home. He didn’t care if it was still swallowed in the darkness of the power cut. He didn’t care if he was to be left alone with his empty thoughts. At least there he would be safe and out of the forest’s grasp. In a haze he ran up the bank, back towards the entrance of the forest and out of sight.
6.
That night, back in familiar surroundings, he found himself unable to sleep. The events of the day had left their mark on him and there was no way of forcing his mind to shut off. As the hours rolled on and the next day drew nearer all he could see when he closed his eyes was the hole looming in the distance. With every drop of his eyelids it was getting closer and closer. Lying alone in his bed he broke out in to a cold sweat. He was beginning to become afraid of closing his eyes and started to shake with fear. His mind was frantically recycling all the images of the day, trying to piece them back into one coherent stream of memory but it kept on jarring at the moment he recalled putting his hand inside of that hole. He rolled over and over in his bed, fighting off the images of his imagination. Finally, after what seemed like hours, he fell asleep. However, dreams did not provide any shelter from the ominous hole of the forest. In his dreams he was back in that very same place. He was back in the forest. His DreamSelf walked towards the hole once more and his arm slipped inside. A sudden fear gripped his body and mind. He was afraid of the pain coming back to him and consuming his body and mind again. But no, something was different. The humid heat which had clung to the air before had now gone. In its place was a biting cold. He felt it sink through his clothes and on to his pale, white skin. He stood in front of the hole shivering with cold and with fear. Suddenly he remembered something previously hidden away. He saw himself as a child, coming inside from playing in the snow. His mother told him to relax his body. ‘It will stop you shivering. Just relax.’ But trying to relax his body was impossible. The cold was getting so severe that he thought he could die right there if he didn’t act soon. His body was becoming stiff and he was now too cold to move far so, with no other options, he sunk his hand deep inside the hole. It was not like before. This time peaceful and comforting warmth encompassed him. The heat held him, cradled his shivering body and made him feel safe again. It made him think of warm nights by the fire when you can hear rain beating against windows. He then wondered how he could even know what that feels like. As far as he could remember he had never had such an experience. Things were beginning to blur. The line between the realities of his dream, his life and his imagination were crossing and he was becoming disorientated. Returning his thoughts to his current position he found himself becoming incredibly and inexplicable happy. There was no fit, no seizure, just warmth, peace and an honest sense of joy. The feeling begged him to stay for longer but in that moment he realised that he was asleep, that this was only a dream.
7.
He woke up to the unwelcome persistence of the alarm clock bleep bleeping its demands for attention. Usually he never won this battle. He never had the perseverance to allow himself to doze happily. Thoughts would always flood his imagination and he would resign himself to awake despite his displeasure. But today was different. In a defiant motion his right hand reached over himself and turned off the insistent clock. Today could wait. Feeling happy with himself for allowing his mind a little more rest he entered into what is always a fruitless voyage; he tried to re-enter his dream. He wanted so badly to be back in the forest. He wanted to feel the embrace of warmth in his body. He lay for sometime attempting to cross the line from wake to sleep but, as predicted, it was not possible. Frustrated, he climbed out of bed and attempted to confront the day. There suddenly seemed like there was much to do. There was work to be done, phone calls to make, bills to pay, deadlines to meet, meals to be had, plans to be made. Where had all these things come from? It was a Sunday and he never did anything on Sundays did he? Despite the now frantic timetable of events that he had drawn up for himself he could not bring himself to do any of these things. He could not focus his mind on anything other than the blissful escape which he had found in the forest. Yes, it had hurt him before but perhaps that was because he was not ready for it then. Had it actually been that bad? Did his body go in to shock because he simply wasn’t ready for it? He hadn’t been prepared. As he couldn’t escape these curiosities he began to think it was best to embrace them. After all, he had decided just yesterday that he was going to be different from now on. Perhaps the old him would have laid these curiosities to rest by now. He would have dispelled them as stupidity and nonsense. ‘Leave fantasy to children and poets,’ he would have said. That was not who he was now. Today he was going to look and see, today he was going to find. And so, after attending to some minor affairs he left his organised, modern enclosure and headed back to the forest.
8.
Finding your way back to a place you never meant to get to in the first instance is not an easy task. Memory is a trickster who likes to make you believe something is familiar when it is not. It likes to hide clues and reveal them only when your back is turned. The day that he decided to go back to the forest was a day when Memory was feeling particularly mischievous. He walked the forest for hours, seeing trees and plants which seemed to have been on his path before, only to then find himself in unfamiliar surroundings. He thought he’d passed the same cluster of trees several times until he realised that they must all have been quite different trees and quite different places. His search was becoming an impatient one. As a man who rarely became annoyed by any of life’s little tests and trivialities this was an unusual experience for him. Then again, the whole weekend in general had been somewhat of a strange occurrence. Ever since the power had gone out in his city dwelling his emotional radar had been working in ways that were new and unnerving to him. He thought about these things as he sought the unknown destination of his journey’s goal. Once again, it was a hot day. Sunbeams poured down on him in a relentless stream and, just as before, he found himself becoming victim to a great feeling of tiredness. Just as he thought he could go on no longer he saw up ahead, just beyond the horizon, a dip in the land. Energy came back to his body and pushed him onwards. Memory had obvious become tired of playing its games and decided not to trick him this time. In just a few moments he found himself back in his borrow, back in his den. Strikingly, the ground seemed once again like no one had been there for many years. The carpet of leaves and twigs sat like it had not seen Man or beast for many years. Trying to retrace his steps he could not place where the hole had been. Much to his annoyance his memory seemed to be missing this vital information. He crawled around on the floor for a long time, looking for the opening which had sent him into a state of uncontrollable fits just yesterday. He couldn’t find it. No matter how hard or for how long he looked it could not be found. Frustrated and forlorn, strange thoughts began to slip into his mind. They pushed aside logic and made a new space which he had never before entertained. The idea, the possibility, that perhaps only through the sleep of the weeping willow could he find the hole again, grew in his head. ‘What ridiculous, childish thoughts I am having of late,’ he thought to himself as he looked upon the weeping willow. With much reluctance he gave in to his flight of fancy and, deciding he had no other plan, elected that he would give the weeping willow a chance to prove itself.
9.
Sometimes our most inconceivable, unlikely and improbable thoughts are the best ones. On occasion, what seems impossible is really an actuality which we are just too afraid to let live. And so it was with his plan. After a comforting and energising slumber in the fold of the willows melancholy leaves he awoke feeling more alive than he had done in a long time. His head was clear, clearer than it had ever been. The tinnitus hum of his life had been silenced and his chest breathed in the air around him with a new enthusiasm. His new hiding place seemed to look the same as when he had slept, the sun was still ever present in the sky and yet there had been a shift in his environment. Tilting his head to the left he could see, sure enough, just beyond the leaves, the mysterious hole he had been longing for. Senses of wonderment, admiration and caution dawned upon him simultaneously and he felt giddy with it. Deciding his feet weren’t to be trusted he once again crawled across the forest floor. The hole was inviting him in and he embraced the helplessness that he felt towards its pull. He approached it, raised his arm and gingerly teased his hand towards the opening. What would it feel like? What would happen this time, would it be the cold shock of yesterday’s reality of the warmth of last night’s dreams?
Fade.....
10.
There are some things which exist which are beyond human experience, they are beyond ideas of god or of spirit and they are beyond what our language can even begin to conceive. They are moments and feelings that can have no shape or form. When his hand, the physical extension of his actual self, entered in to the hole a golden stream entered his body. It was not warmth or heat. It was something more than either of those things. He felt it move through every vein, every blood cell and every membrane of his body. It swept through his being at unknown speeds sending glistening pulses of energy through all his major organs. His metamorphosis took many years yet it happened instantaneously. After decades and seconds he had changed beyond all recognition. He was no longer man, shape or being. The hole was now a universe which he tumbled down, deeper and deeper away from his starting place. As he hurtled towards the unknown of the void, he had several thoughts. His first was the he could no longer think. Memories were simply becoming part of him. He saw moments that he had never known before. His memory collected landscapes and monuments, families and conversations. He learnt many languages and spoke them all at once. He found a sense of peace and a sense of calm yet he realised in the same moment that time was falling away from him. He realised he was about to die. And with a palette of colours more vivid than he had ever seen, every memory he had ever wanted danced in front of him. He saw romances, children, boat rides on the lake in summer time and content Sunday afternoons. He lived every moment in his final breath. All was calm.
