Woke up a different man today; received some candour in dreams. The absurdity of a figure head to the many; the purpose of arcane knowledge; and saw a man intoxicated though never saw the intoxicant. Walked streets, entered stores, all along standing aside to let life pass by. Then he sobered and people one and all were gone, clothes left stranded in the streets like so many snake skins shed behind. Walked alone then, nothing else to do. His eyes open to Truth he had no wish to bear; a rubbled (did he chuckle at ‘crumbled’?) civilisation of missing humanity where all else remains, including –he notes- the X% of manmade fibres that constitute the total amount of fabrics produced globally per annum since 19XtyX and he cried a single smile ... or perhaps smiled a tear; was hard to tell. He couldn’t bring himself to touch any of it lest he taint or be tainted by the overwhelming absurdity, not knowing if he was crazed or these the early signs or emerging sanity. A pair of Levi’s caught his eyes, cradling a shirt and a scarf, a ‘circle in a spiral ... a wheel within a wheel’ but no shoes in sight. He bursts out laughing. ‘Circle in a spiral, a wheel within a wheel’, why would he recollect that now? And where are the shoes? ‘Never ending or beginning, on an ever spinning reel’ ... he shudders and his eyes glaze over with emotions till then held back by the wave upon wave of preposterousness his mind was facing; was this the soundtrack to his insanity, was he hearing it whispered on a breeze not strong enough to shift a single silk scarf out of formation- or was it blaring inside his head? How will he know when there’s no one to confirm it, dear gods, was his now the solitary sound of Reality? ‘Like a snowball down a mountain’ ... it’s in his mind, must be, must have always been but too quiet for him to hear before, only now the elsewise oppressing silence making it possible; that’s the sound one mind raving makes, a thunderous clap of something not altogether relevant. Standing there amidst a civilisation frozen in a tableau of haberdashery, its centre at that very moment a blouse, skirt and a hemp dress, another realisation shakes him, ‘or a carnival balloon’, HE is the centre of humanity now, his every gaze dictates focality ... runs back to find the shoes, doesn’t make sense there not being shoes. Some sanity must hold, some things must make sense still. ‘Like a carousel that’s turning, running rings around the moon’ clutching desperate hands to more desperate ears, why would these words animate his madness?! Why not any other? Knowing others would have driven those desperate hands all the same; standard wonderment of a clutching mind. Can’t possibly take much more of this, trailing a phantom resolution the only option, ‘like a clock whose hands are sweeping, past the minutes of its face’; walking by a store saw the only clothes left standing, draped so very elegantly on mocking mannequins, indifferent to his rapidly evaporating ... what’s the current purpose of words -another gut punch- when no shared meaning is to be had? Still, he notes with glee that the mannequins all had shoes, meant he’s right (?), there had ought been shoes centring that spiral of madness event horizoned by a pair of Levi’s, a shirt and a scarf. ‘And the world is like an apple’ -he stopped. A worm in a rotten core. Only survives because it is so. Purification leaves it an empty husk. No use- ‘whirling silently in space’. He runs somewhere unknown, this ulterior self’s secret hideaway, but how can he know it if I don’t? Saw no intoxicant again, but he’s reintoxicated, not sure if it’s sanity or its ‘in’ he just imposed upon himself but doesn’t care. He rejoins the world of empty facades outside, anticipation birthing premature relief. ‘Like the circles that you find ...’ ... could he hear it still? Where is the ungodly pandemonium to drown it out, where is the rot to house his insignificance? Or is he accustomed to madness now, humming its theme tune to himself? All around discarded skins are back to life, but no snakes returned; only empty Levi’s, skirts, silk scarves and hemp dresses going about their business, as though ... as though ... is there a metaphor for a world reborn in his unwanted image? Mannequins still standing- he notes, implacably modelling how the exterior will look once they are hollowed out ‘in the windmills of your mind’.
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