The King sat in his castle and slowly went mad. It was his right and his pleasure. Within the walls, none could escape his ever growing insanity.
Outside, none knew of it. Or if they knew, they did not care. And even if they cared, no difference in his behaviour could they discern.
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Notes:
1. Written in July 2019
2. About no particular person
3. Or persons
4. We could name
The animals and the people meet
no bars nor walls between their feet
Such are the rules
of the Emperor’s zoo
A gibbon shares a cup of tea
With a princess from across the sea
Such are the joys
of the Emperor’s zoo
A lion roars
a child dies
Such are the perils
of the Emperor’s zoo
__________
Notes:
1. Written on July 3rd, 2019
__________The ship sailed into the harbour, empty and dead. No sign was there of struggle, but no sign was there of life.
And the people of the town, rather than worry about the mystery of whatever calamity had occurred, had to worry instead about whether they would be made to take the blame.
__________
Notes:
1. Written on July 3rd, 2019
__________“Enjoy your retirement, they said, as they read out the celebratory statement they’d prepared for the occasion.
“Towards the end, they summed up the facts of my life. All the data collated, all the facts and the figures and the failures, recorded at source not just by my devices but by all of theirs, all of yours.
“What struck me the most as I listened, as I watched, as I smiled and reacted exactly how I was supposed to, was not how much of this wasted life of mine I had forgotten, but how much I remembered. All those stupid comments, all those awkward silences, those social embarrassments, those cowardly retreats. All the regrets, all the shame. The lies, the truths. I remembered it all.
“I remembered it all.”
___________
Notes:
1. Written in December 2019
2. And with probably the longest title anything of mine has yet had
3. Even despite my love of long titles
I am an absence of self, a shadow of nothing. I do not know what I am. All I know is that I am not you.
I turn the key and open the door, each day, to somewhere new. A house, a home, a bedroom. Alone. And for a while, in the silence that’s been left for me to lose myself in, I dream of a life.
Yours, perhaps, pieced together from the objects and fragments with which you’ve built your home. Or mine, sometimes, constructed out of nothing but fragments of my own imagination.
When I hear the click of your key in your lock, I have to be quick. And as I leave I take something small. I keep it with me to remember you by in those long lonely hours of the night. For somewhere in the dark and the shadows behind the doors of your rooms, just like you, I dream. I dream.
And all night I wonder, if we compared my notes to yours, how close would I be to knowing you. How much of yourself would you recognise in me?
__________
Notes:
1. Written in February 2020.
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