Reality Check

The other day I was walking through a field and stepped into a hole in the ground. If my life were more fantastical, I would have lurched into another dimension… say, Wonderland or Narnia… where I would proceed to have many and extraordinary escapades with a peculiar group of helpful locals. If my life were more novel-esque, I would have (at the very least) caught my foot, fallen on my face, broken my ankle, and then conveniently met a main character or two. If my life were more science fiction-ey, I would have been grabbed by an as yet undiscovered symbiotic being that would proceed to bind itself to my big toe and bestow mutant powers while greatly amplifying aggression and initiating an exponential spiral into madness. Instead, I spent about half a second recovering from a stumble, and then proceeded on my way.

Every day is filled with little incidents like this. The potential for abnormality is there, but that alternative is rarely taken. The next time I trip, I’m going to see if I can’t charm a passerby into being my faithful sidekick.

QOTE:

“I don’t quite know yet,” Alice said very gently. “I should like to have a look all round me first, if I might.”

“You may look in front of you, and on both sides, if you like,” said the Sheep; “but you can’t look all round you – unless you’ve got eyes in the back of your head.”

- Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There

Benches: Prologue

The harsh bite of winter is in the air. Yet there you lie, cold metal pressed against your back, gazing up at skeletal branches stretching to the slate gray sky above. You did not intend to linger at such a place. Yet here you are, hidden from many but exposed to some. You followed the seldom-traversed path you saw that day, a path that you had seen many times before but never thought to follow. Why does no-one know where you are?

Close your eyes. Listen to the whispers of the breeze rasping through the concealing hedge. Can you hear the rustle of the few dry leaves overhead, clinging desperately to the source of their nourishment, calling out to their fallen brethren crushed on the ground below? Can you feel the wan rays of warmth gently caressing your face as our dear yellow dwarf star bids farewell, à la prochaine and bon soir?

File it away. File it all away, just like you do any other hour of any other day. We live in the here and now, but you have no desire to participate in the present. The scenarios run through your mind, a constant barrage of those frivolous hypothetical junctions: what if, should I, maybe. Life will not wait for you. No one will wait for you forever.

Every moment of every day, you make decisions that will irrevocably and permanently alter the course of your life. Where we have come from, where we are… these are mere contrivances that allow us to see where we might go. Soon, you will come to realize this.

Open your eyes. Open your eyes, and see what there is to see.

Eye of the Beholder by ~RecklessConformity on deviantART