Clark was moving through a dark room with little or no eyesight of where he was going. But no obstacles stood in the path. He was not even walking but floating forward, through that dark expanse.
Pained ecstasy seemed to flow out of his mind paving the way. Bouncing on dark clouds floating below, his feet cushioned by it's feathery touch but held down, like stuck feet in a cemented floor. He couldn't move but he was not desperate to move, because it didn't hurt him to be there, at least not yet.
He remembered a story he heard about how they train elephants, of how young elephants are tied to big chunky chains as they try wholeheartedly to break free, but in vain. After many a futile attempt , the elephant's heart breaks and the chains are replaced by lighter ones, which mostly never do.
Clark was in complete darkness now, where there was no time and no space. He doesn't possess a reference point to the past or any object to hold. No future to tie him to and nowhere to reach. In the dark room, he is floating away, till that sudden final thud, wakes him from a dream or makes him fall into the next one.
It was in this dark room, he first asked the question "Who am I?" , which soon followed with "where am I?" And "why am I here?".
To understand the complexities of existence is no simple undertaking. Most of the time , it is beyond one's grasp. Some choose to shoulder this weight on God, some on science and yet others on a combination of the two or a mix of others. But someday, the man who is alive now has to come to terms with the notion that he doesn't know, a big gap exists in his current state of knowledge. That his perception is but emanating from himself , like a beam of sunlight, but not illuminating what is, but a mix of what is and what he perceives it to be.
In the dark room, Clark is alone. All by himself, he touches himself to know he exists, to know the borders of where he exists. He is here not to think about all the information he is bombarded with every second, from all around him. He is here to be alone from the entire universe. But this mediation has gone out of his control, as any good mediation should. He is now floating in limbo, unable to grab onto anything. Moving faster and then slower through nothing.
Sometimes it converges on him, chokes him of his breath.
But sometimes there are vast spaces in that dark, deep breaths and spare time.
"Clark, wake up" , he slaps himself
"Wake up before it is too late"
By now he has half-eaten the questions he asked. Chewed on them and enjoyed their flavours.
"Careful not to swallow those"
Whispers the darkness as he moves out slowly. The clouds slowly loosen their grip and a dark fog releases him to now.
"To know is to know, you may not know"
He said as he chewed on,eating some but swallowing none.
--
George M Soni - 8269
