21 September 2015 – Lazy Monday morning. Finding it hard to concentrate. Spending time untold gazing out the window. Watching the trees change color. Wanting more than anything to be out there. Running in the park. But twisted ankle pretty bad on Saturday. In full-on gimp mode since.
Knew a woman once who said that whenever you’re in pain to ask yourself who is the ‘I’ experiencing the pain. She claimed that by simply asking, the pain would go away. Something to do with the ego and the separation between body and mind. A broader discussion that brought belief into play too, though I forget how exactly.
This was years ago. When I was in first or second year. Don’t remember the woman’s name or how I knew her. Vague sense that she was an older student. Maybe we had a class together? Not sure.
In any event, the idea of questioning who’s experiencing your pain stuck. I almost always ask a variant of the question when something hurts. At least physically—don’t think it occurs to me to ask when afflicted by inner trauma/drama. And sometimes it seems to work. If only because I’m either trying to recall the woman or I’m engaged in getting the semantics of the question right.
How many eyes can one have?
Currently my ankle is throbbing. Time I iced it down.
—
On another note. Cups of tea and a dream.
Most mornings I get up when G brings me a tea and kisses my temples before opening the blinds and heading off to work. Though it’s been dark out these last couple weeks I still like to prop myself up in bed and slowly sip my tea until the first light of day colors the windows.
This morning I slept late. Don’t remember waking to G’s ministrations, but must have because half the tea was gone when I did finally stir. Holding onto a crystal clear memory of a strange dream.
Where I was looking at a large futuristic square in the midst of tall mirrorglass buildings. My vantage point was raised. I could see the entirety of the square. The centrepiece was a long pool surrounded by a low fence and set into stepped concrete terracing. Surfaces were slick and clean. Untarnished. Ultramodern. Unemotional. There were no people inside the fence but milling about the terraced area in perfect suits of grey and black was a veritable mob of office-type automatons. The scene had every indication of business-as-usual normalcy.
Until the balls came into play. Two or three of them. Bubblescent orbs that seemed to hover as they rolled. The orbs were like Zorb balls, only bigger, and made of something other than clear plastic. They were shiny and opaque and looked to gain size and momentum as they bounced off objects in their path. Each contact sent a kind of iridescent bruising over the surface of the orbs—like pressing your finger on a plasma screen.
The orbs began to shoot across the square and rise. Once they hit the buildings they each split into two smaller orbs, each continuing to rise at different angles. Getting larger, gaining speed.
Eventually, high above the square, the air looked like it was filled with bubbles.
And then the orbs bursted. Or shattered.
Every single one of them. At the same instant.
There was no debris. The orbs simply vanished. In their place hovered a shadowy humanoid figure. One per orb, so far as I could tell. Hovering as if standing stiffly upright on solid ground. Levitating, I guess. Militarily so. Legs together. Arms at the side. Head looking forward.
Toward me, it seemed.
And then they fell. All of them. Together. Each figure dropping straight down. Gravity fast. Feet first. None of them corrupting their stiff stance.
All these bodies falling. Terrifying spectacle.
I didn’t see the moment of impact. For some reason I was staring at the now open space where the bubbles had vanished. And above that the sky. Looking like it was contained by something. Something iridescent. The wall of a bubble. From the inside looking out.
A zap of electricity went through me, a quick shudder. My gaze went fuzzy. I felt jostled. Just as quickly clarity returned. I was back where I was. Stationary. Looking down at the square. I saw the fallen figures rise from poses of inert genuflection. Before my eyes their sketchiness underwent transformation. Each turned into a perfectly suited automaton and began milling about. As if nothing had happened.
I looked at the pool. Someone was swimming.
And then I woke. Felt my temples. Squinted against the morning light. Looked for my tea. Noticed it was half drunk. Felt the cup. It’s coldness. Precise. Like how I could see the dream. Complete. And yet trivial. An amusement for sleeping eyes. While strange was the dream, more strange was that I wasn’t really affected by it. It played out, then I woke up.
Oddly, all I can think of at the moment is something else the woman I used to know said.
Things are neither good nor bad but that we make them so. Belief is to whatever we tether the I.
My ankle is numb.
circular entities 