I'm lost in myself—yes, lost just now amongst the flitting birds in the aviary of my querying world.
I'm plotting my way back through the squawking remnants—back in time.
Looking for the cause of my disability—my terrible, handicapping disability.
I’m hunting in my memory—looking for the spot in time, peering into my confusing gone-world.
But I can’t penetrate the effects that follow in the wake of that cause.
I get only the flashing glare of its consequences—burning and blazing in the present.
All I know is the effect—and of course the remedy.
Yes, I know the remedy—of course I do, well at least I know what the remedy would be.
And I gaze hopelessly at my blistering now-world, looking for it, that remedy, that would-remedy—that comment, that single phrase, that word, that statement, that known possibility that would put it right.
Would.
Would.
Would.
I shiver at it, that terrible tense of expectation and hope—and disappointment.
I see myself standing, on a cliff edge, waiting for the ‘would’ that would pull me back from the calamity of the fall.
But I don’t dwell in the now-world, or the ‘would’-world.
I need to go back to the gone-world—look at it more.
But the unrealised would-world has ensnared me—I can’t escape.
I know it works—that phrase, in whatever form it would come.
I know its structure.
I've heard it before—in every variant I’ve logged it down, I've trembled at its magic.
Yes, I know the shape of that small phrase, that tiny mixture of spoken sounds that balance out all the effects that pour down from the cause.
Yes, I know how it can extinguish the fiery rain of the cause that burns me up in the terrible effect brought on by that causal origin.
Yes, the weight of the ‘would’ more than balances it out—would balance it out.
Yes, that statement, passing maybe, hardly noticeable in itself perhaps, that simple utterance that makes the effect in the now-world weightless—allows it to dissipate into nothingness, putting out the blaze, the scorching storm of flames that burn at my heart
I indulge myself—I imagine watching it disperse, squandering its energy—beaten, vanquished.
I thrill at the idea of its disappearance.
I imagine the relief—I try to experience the release.
Nothingness.
Into nothingness.
But that’s imagination—just hope.
Here, in the now-world I’m forced to wrestle with the effect—the terrible, hurting, blistering, burdensome effect of it all.
The ‘would’ engulfs me—the remedy, the cure, the magic restorative.
I’ve always known its potential—to cure, to make good, to repair.
But it’s not in my gift.
And I can’t ask for it to be said.
It doesn’t work like that.
It needs to be given—like a surprise; bursting out like a Jack-in-the-box.
And if released, if heard, it would all be solved.
Would be.
Would be.
How I tire of this ‘would’.
But why?
Why is it there—this effect?
Where did the flames take hold?
Where was the cause that ignited it?
So I think more.
I won’t give up this time—I won’t be distracted by the confusion and the tantalising ‘would’.
I ply amongst the effects in the gone-world—seeking the cause;
Again and again, I see it repeated—this terrible effect.
I see myself foundering under its pressure, floundering over again, as it’s replicated in its own image—filling the aviary with its screeching chaos.
I’m appalled with my history—with myself; the hapless victim of myself.
I stare into my memory—down into the whirlpool of it—looking for the original instance in its half remembered churning waters.
The vortex draws me down—confused and dizzy.
Was.
Was.
Was.
Would.
Would.
Have been.
Would be.
No, I won't be drawn by the ‘would’.
Was.
Was.
Was.
Where?
Where?
Where?
And suddenly I see it.
I think I see it.
At least I think I think I see it.
I stare closer—looking into the image—the singular, well-known image.
Could this really be it?
Could it really be that simple?
Stare.
Stare.
Stare.
Yes, I see it.
Am I sure?
Could this be the discovery?
Could it have been there all the time, this easily remembered fact, readily spoken of, but never linked to my illness?
Could this simple occurrence be the cause of the effects that have brought on my debility?
Yes.
Yes, I feel it—the essence of it, the effect of it.
Yes, this is it—I have no doubt.
And so I see the first instance of the cause of it, the reason why I have craved the core of its happening ever since.
The answer lies within this unadorned occurrence.
This spot of time, this plain specious present of the past embodies that which has tainted me and made me yearn only for what it contained, what it brought, what it sowed in me, forever afterwards.
The answer is written on the image—the need to be that one.
One.
It’s there in one image—it blinds me.
Then, as suddenly, it’s there in another—a second.
There are two—one with another.
I see them both—they are burned into each other; blended into one.
I see the craving they bore—the need, the significance, the consequence.
This is it.
The root of the cause—the place from which it grew.
These two occurrences—twin stars, twin dooms.
I'm struck by the force of it—the knowing, the realisation, the relief.
Yes, the relief.
I've traced it back to the source.
It’s so obvious.
This joined up pair is the onset of the cause, the cause of the effect that stalks me still.
There’s no obvious reason why the cause was started, once and twice and then together, but it was started.
I'm not interested in what started it, what made the cause—I only see the cause itself, I’m only interested in the cause itself, the cause of the effect, and that’s enough, more than ever before, more than enough, and enough to know.
At last I have the cause of my need to feel special.
No explanation beyond that is necessary—anything beyond it is irrelevant to me at the moment.
I simply know from where it stems.
Enough.
I've found the spot of time—the infecting spot of time.
And it stems from so long ago—almost buried in the gone-time.
But grace comes with that.
I'm somehow reassured by its distance in the past—by its embedded-ness in the gone-time, and in its simplicity, its clarity.
I stare at it.
Yes, I see it.
I'm filled with the naivety of it—my naivety to it, the innocence of the cause, the bareness of it.
I see it clearly.
I see what it did to me, what it inscribed into my heart—an overpowering sensation of creation, of newness, of innate belonging in shared novelty.
I see how it set me on a course, enfolding me and making me its slave.
I never realised how I had become thrall to it.
Newness.
Novelty.
Being one with the novelty.
Being the novelty.
Being at the centre of it.
Sharing the novelty.
Being at the centre of the sharing of it.
Creation.
First.
Only.
Only.
New.
Never before.
Never before.
Novel.
Only.
Only.
Only.
Yes, yes, I see it.
Never before.
Yes, I see it clearly.
Creation.
Bonded.
And again.
New.
I can’t stop witnessing it.
Novel.
Once.
Only.
Incomparable.
There it is so plainly—the cause.
Here it is so plainly—the effect.
There it would be gone so easily—the remedy.
Would.
Would.
Would.
The cause is fixed—it’s part of me.
The effect is fixed—it’s an outcome of the cause.
The remedy is known—it’s been found before.
It would be so easy to bring about.
Would.
Would.
Would.
And I burst back into my now-world—like the Jack-in-the-box that could so easily bring the remedy.
I gasp at it all.
Here I am, confronted by it, now knowledgeable of it—knowing the cause, the effect and the remedy.
And it’s only the remedy that can be enacted, the cause and the effect are fixed.
And it would be so simple.
It either comes—that phrase, that comment, that remedy to the fixed effect, to the effect so fixed to the cause—or it does not.
If only it would happen.
It would be so easy—so easy to be cured.
Saved.
But maybe it’s impossible.
Maybe it’s not available.
And that’s so terrible—too terrible to imagine.
But if that’s so then all I can do is find strength and face the effect as it is.
And have a little hope, for what could be said that would so easily solve it.
Would.
Would.
Would.
