The Eye of the Mind and the Eye of the Soul.

A man sits. Quiet and still on an endless plane.

Perhaps a mathematician would wonder at this plane, as, although it is flat, it is also curved, a violation of the very definition to which it so hopelessly clings. It is simply the extension of that man’s mind. A space in which he sits, contemplating what lies in front of him. It is curved simply because it never ends and yet it is finite. Every part of it can be comprehended and experienced, but there is no edge from which to fling oneself.

Perhaps this is not what the mathematician would ponder, upon suddenly existing in such a place. The creature in front of the man is perhaps more arresting, even to the mind of a mathematician, than the unfathomable nature of the never ending plane. Frightening beyond belief, it is best described as a demonic dragon, although the neither the term demon nor dragon do it justice. It could be described as fear itself, but this would undermine its very “realness”. For it is definitely there. Solid and utterly terrifying.

Then again, it is folly to engage in conjecture upon the state of mind of the mathematician, for who knows, he might be a stouter fellow than either you or I give him credit for.

The man sits. His eyes closed, his mind open and his heart locked. He knows the creature in front of him. He knows that it is a creature of unimaginable horror. He knows that to open his eyes would be to witness its true nature and in that instant destroy the world within which he clings to a feeble existence. So he sits. Eyes closed, mind open, heart locked.

Fragments of memories and tales half told and half forgotten flitter through his mind.

He is a baby. His mother has left him to answer the door. He does not understand so he cries and cries. When she returns an age later he can not stop crying. The abandonment is too much, the world is too much.

He runs to school, it is exciting.

He is off to see another man in another office.  This man will not be of any use yet he goes because he is taken.  There is nothing wrong with him and yet he goes again.  Perhaps there is something wrong with him.  He just wants to sit in his room and be happy.

He wonders at his luck as he drinks with a girl in a bar. She is beautiful. He is drunk. He throws up in the toilet. When he comes back she is gone. He stares long and hard into a lake while walking home.

He sits in a park with a girl. It is Autumn and the leaves are falling from the trees. He cries gently while resting his head on his companions lap.  He is sad, and yet he has never been so happy. Time seems to stand still. The wind makes the leaves shiver in a way that will never be repeated. It is unique, and exists only in that moment. Even the memory of it is imperfect. It happened only then.

He is old, older than he is currently, and rich.  He looks at all his money and remembers that he worked hard to get it. But he cannot remember why, and as he looks around he sees that he is alone.

A man jokes in a box. He has nothing to say but he shines very brightly. His teeth glint white in the light.

A boat passes overhead. A fish dies in a net. Nobody notices or cares. The fish is ground up and enters the great machine that turns one fish into another that can be wrapped in a plastic coffin. A cast of thousands attend its wake but just one takes the step of lifting it from its grave of ice.  There is no comfort in this cold, bleak flow.

But the stream continues, flowing through a mind that is both too scared to stop and too excited to be still. The man’s eyes stay closed, he rests on better times and hopes and follies.

Perhaps the creature will forgive him. Perhaps there is a larger creature out there that can make it go away. Perhaps if he faces the other way it will cease to be there. But the small voice of the mathematician reminds us that the plane, although infinite, has no edges and that he cannot hide.

And so the man continues to sit. Eyes closed, mind open, heart locked. Too scared to move. Too scared to look inside. He sits and waits and the creature gently purrs.