Quo videmus

You look around for him, the master of ceremonies of late. If it be a ‘he’ and just one. You do not know, you just assume. He is here, somewhere, you know it. But his absence is all you feel and the message is clear:

“Let THEM speak.”

But you do not want to. How you do not want to! Perhaps you do not want them at all.

You know them, perhaps, as visitors, lifelong visitors never to enter your room, just to walk the halls outside. And were others to see them, they might consider them misshapen, grotesque, as sometimes you do, but you know what tricks shadows play on the lazy mind and eye. The visitors ride the blades of the mill and throng the streets, but distant, removed, never to block your way as you do your business. But always they remind you of their presence: reproachful.

You want to sail away, but this time they do not let you, angry in revolt. They throw chains around the ships and drag them down. Flight is anchored and you are left to face the mob, though you know they will hurt you not. Just with their stares.

You walk back a little way and in the auditorium you see what you face: the toad. Ordinarily no challenge at all: a simple, unthinking creature that indolently flicks out its tongue and draws your breath from you; nay, steals the very air around you: that which you need.

Perhaps it has taken too much already and you have lost vital time; the most necessary of ingredients?

Panic forces agreement and you concede the post; watching nervously.

Your hands do not whirr and whirl above the keyboard, conducting a symphony from discord – oh! How you wish they would!

You are all too aware of the mutiny that resides within; the disconnects all too stark: 2 minds, not joined as in others. Elements of others suspended in you: a personality colloid; chunky identity soup, not fluid as it should be.

There is fire, but no warmth as it denies itself to you, ignoring you for daring to want and not merely doing as you are told.

“We’ve discussed this!!!” the sharpness of your scream turning to a rasp as the revolt spreads and your attempt at reason is quashed under the heavy certainty of silent disagreement. And finally, you slump aside completely.

The ghost hands take over, but you see them, feel them, cold and hard, bony and sharp. You knew it would be one like this.

Not caring for your discomfort, it settles and places its embankments and fortifications. It digs in and re-uses its companions chains in support of the fortress it has erected. “This one will stay long”, you think.

Would it be less, had you acquiesced? You pause to think but know that had your belief been otherwise you would have demurred in an instant, ready to allow another breath, while you held yours: expectant.

The tension, the waiting are so tough to bear. You want to jump up, shrug off your mistake, and ignoring the cries of the masses assail what you have let be built, what once you paid for in those silent currencies we trade between worlds. And people, never things.

This currency may have no worth, no worth at all, but your coffers overflow at times and each day the miners find more, bring more. From everywhere. Light of foot and deft of touch, they just work and dump their finds wherever it takes them. Room is never a problem: the echo sounds and sounds and you ask yourself how deep, how high, how big is just this hall. Just this one small hall?

You sit and pray, head in hands, but with skeleton fingers and lidless eyes you cannot hide yourself from the spectacle. And you watch. And hope:

“Please. Let me be…”


__________________________________________________

You see the fixed stare and mocking grin that is this man; or thing? Without his skin. Or maybe it is something else entirely? You see the hesitation as he moves; it has been so long for this one. You know it and feel sorrow for him, guilt for your having been so callous.

But soon you feel him ease into it and, he unmoving, flashes of light start to swirl and sway around him.

A different view!

This realisation excites you and though still heavy with the chains that weigh around your heart, you push yourself up a little.

And watch him work.

The Thought Magician.