The Alan Wozawsky Social Experiment: 09

I died a million times. With every memory that fades away, every word –once so full of meaning- now forgotten, and every dream that slips my fervent grasp like so many grains of sand. Every song lyric that moved me so now a distant hum, every piece of art that griped my heart now an empty frame to the mind’s eye. Every smile smiled and tear shed for a joy and pain no longer felt. Every scar and bruise now healed. Every height of elation now descended. I died a million times yet here is I standing; a million dead things and everything else. So who is this imposter claiming ‘I’, exerting a will on a whole host of nothing? Who is this shadow announcing presence in the broadest light of day? Of what ‘whole’ does he speak, this clown king, asserting lordship over a nonexistent land; what foolish pride! His domain a shattered mirror, in it the memories, the words, the dreams, the songs, the arts, the smiles, the tears, the joys, the pains, the scars, the bruises, the elations; but of what whole does he speak? Does he crave to crawl on hands and knees picking shards, every misstep cutting his very will -fragments breaking all the more- parading his task’s futility? Or will he look upon these broken reflections and by the tyranny of routine claim to be seen in them the whole and clear blue skies of self, and I soaring in it, undamaged and free; free to effortlessly glide to wherever whimsy would yearn. But how far will I fly before illusions dissipate, before jagged edges mercilessly rip those paper wings, worthy for nought but flights of fancy. Battered and beaten –as he deserves to be- will he learn? Will he be humbled, will he bend down and pick –from amidst the resultant chaos of his folly- one piece at a time? Will he finally look at each alone and see what has always been reflected in them? That I was not happy, I was happiness; that I was not sad, I was sadness; that I was the words, the songs, the smiles, and the tears. Will he come to understand that ‘I’ died a million times, and will die a million more to come? And will –in time- his I eventually come to understand it too?