Thursday, December 22, 2005

Escape to and from reality

I am being followed. Time and again, at bus-stops, and public-library restrooms, I feel furtive eyes on me. The eyes will not leave me alone at home and I suspect that little by little they are discovering the keyholes of my mind. I have to plan an escape, and no better way to avoid their detection than to make the plan public, for the eyes will not think of looking there. Never. They operate differently. There are two kinds of escape that I have been thinking of. I could pretend I was very busy with the diurnal rythm of my life; this is difficult, as it involves displaying attention to a lot of mechanical, clickety-click detail that would normally pass through this seive-like consiousness used to self-indulgence ; I will have to collect and sift through the objects, find a continuing pattern and force them into a tenuous chain of reason, all in one seamless, unreflective act of living. It is like climbing in a world of uncertain gravity, and here you make your rope as you go. Here, you can only pray as you climb higher that you know the right direction or that you wove your ropes well in case you have to turn back. The other escape I have been thinking of is to open the trap door and jump in. This is simpler and hence the more often used. But once you are in, there is no telling what you will see inside, because in the underworld you make your monsters as you go. And they are only as terrible as your own fears are.
But escape I must. So, which will it be, Caradhras or Moria?

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