A Trip to the Fair
“Fear masquerades as awareness. Relieve the weight of individuality, for beauty suffocates beneath infinity.”
-Someone on drugs, probably.
I arrived in Wonderland with a distinct lack of whimsy. My space in time seemed disappointingly static. The rabbit emphasized the wonder associated with such an expedition but neglected to mention how god damn hot it would be. Fields upon fields of carriages did very little to catalyze excitement, though my mules did appreciate the company. The multitudes of fairies (in every meaning of the word) exiting said carriages were rather novel, but it was unclear to me if they had noticed the 95-degree weather we now resided in.
Regardless, I followed the rabbit’s instruction and took his prescribed medication before leaving my horses to soak in their own perspiration.
Admittedly, the first sign of my descent into madness may have been my perception of the horses’ chatter as I left my chariot.
“This fuckin’ jabroni, leaving us to sweat our balls off so he can go frolic with some nymphs in an enchanted forest!” The first horse said with a thick New York accent.
“I mean, come on! Does this bozo think doing drugs and fuckin’ about with some dryads is gonna get anything done other than MAYBE a dissection of the ego?! Forget about it!” The second horse responded with a somehow thicker New York accent.
This bothered me not, as I was only dimly aware of my steads’ conversing, and their exchange felt perfectly in-keeping with horses of their kind, so I continued onward.
Journeying forward, identity began to contort. The dust lingering in the ether flooded my nostrils, carrying with it a strangely intoxicating memory. Not of my own, but of the wanderers before. Memories of being, memories of madness, memories of memories. It’s strange, isn’t it? Nostalgia’s alluring poison transcends the phantoms of our minds, blesses us with melancholic reincarnation.
“Oh fuck, I’m high as shit.” I said, as my individuality came crashing back into my skull.
“What was that?” A fair-skinned maiden with dreads exclaimed.
Now in times of turmoil, my peers have spoken of my cat like reflexes and strong powers of deduction; however, within this single moment, time had become rather malleable, it oozed through my fingertips like a toddler’s Play-Doh. Stretching and contracting, my space in time was far less reliable than that of the 3rd dimension. That is not to say I was removed from a single experience; rather, they were all occurring at once, and it was hard to focus on just one. I suppose that is why, relative to the bohemian observer standing before me, after 30 seconds, my long-awaited response to her question was merely:
“Huh?”
She asked again.
I assure you, dear reader, I had every intention to answer said question, but before I could decipher the riddle this weaved up astrology hussy had posed me, I found my feline reflexes kicking into action as I jumped backwards, shocked by her presence.
“When did you get there?” I declared with an unwavering yelp.
“Dude, we’ve been walking to the entrance for like 15 minutes together.”
Before I could taste basic language comprehension’s sweet nectar, my thoughts were flushed inwards, for my mind opted to abandon lucidity in search of greener pastures.
This moment was too precious for one frequency of humanity’s light, I needed the full spectrum. The moment I was in right then, the moment we are in right now, minds lose their pigment. Their hues swirl together towards a single point. We see our thoughts mingle with one another, our dreams play out and decay, our love born and buried, but through it all, the single point grows. What began as pieces of universal confetti slowly devour every hue of humanity’s light. Colors copulate and expand that point. Soon it dwarfs a single mind, then a dozen minds, then hundreds, then thousands, until it far exceeds comprehension, and finally, as our former technicolor spirits regress into grayscale, we witness our humanity unite to open that point.
“By golly, that is one large gate.” I exclaimed as Wonderland’s gates swung open.
Despite my thermal reluctance, the rabbit may have delivered on his promise of a “radical dissection of the self” as this was a fairly profound 15 minutes. However, a deconstruction of individuality did not guarantee a pleasant experience, so as I entered the fair, misery’s toxin continued soaking my gourd.
While entering the fairgrounds, my mind’s eye was blinded by a plethora of unsavory questions:
“Does my mind manifest the other, or does the other manifest my mind?”
“Does objectivity exist if I perceive subjectively?”
“Does death reveal life’s truth?”
To bystanders around me, my contemplation manifested in a profound, surely philosophical:
“WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING!?”
Before I gracefully projectile vomited all over the portapotty village I now found myself in.
This was incorrect. My brief brush with reality had assured me I stood gazing upon the gates of Wonderland, yet I now resided deep within its confines. As I detoxed from consciousness, my dissociation was interrupted by an individual clasping my arm.
“Shhhhhhh, you’re here, you’re there, you’re everywhere you need to be.” They whispered.
In a single breath, beauty’s specter had possessed me. Gazing up from my bile throne, I saw god’s luminance shine through waves of umber hair. Their flawless skin reflected what little light it received and regifted it to my perception. To describe such a presence further would poison your imagination, for language compresses understanding, but I will share with you this: their irises refused singular color enslavement; instead, their pigment danced like a beam through a prism. Infinite realities refracted their images within those eyes. A window into the beyond. Yet the reflection most incomprehensible was radiance in a vacuum, radiance in me.
I vomited once more.
Before I could gargle up an apology, I began falling upwards into the looming, now expanding, silhouette. Admittedly, falling upwards was a first for me, as was the perspective shifting faster than velocity, but what really caught me off guard was being engulfed in the inky blackness of an ethereal being, that was no bueno. As the darkness absorbed me, the warmth of stillness threatened to overtake my senses.
There was no me there, there is no me here. Within the silhouette, time’s linearity crumbles. We witness atoms embrace, their chemical offspring birthing stars that exhale nebulas, yet with a single breath, it all begins again. The iota of imagination we are blessed with demands the mind to reign supreme, the self to be important, but within the silhouette, we can see every spark of consciousness contribute to the greater flame. An ember warms a freezing man, an atom warms the universe.
Thankfully, I was able to wiggle my way out of peace’s talons and found myself in a meadow beneath a willow tree. Not a single fairgoer in sight.
“Man, you’re really committed to this mortal plain shit, aren't ya?” The angel inquired.
“WITCH!” I calmly screeched.
“How many witches do you know in Eugene, Oregon?” The angel said dismissively.
“Actually, come to think of it-“
“ARAGH!” I interrupted with an eloquent snarl.
As I prepared my fisticuffs, I was taken aback by the contours of my hands. Every molecule carried weight in the angel’s presence, including my own. Indeed, heaven’s machinations were reserved for the living. Every scuff and scar, every waving hair, every half-chewed nail, every pulsing vein, they were a part of my construction. Their importance rivaled that of an atom, and carried the weight that imposed.
“Great, if you’re getting all of that by staring at your hands, we might be able to make some progress here.” The angel said, interrupting my rhapsodizing.
“I’m interrupting you? Mother fucker, do you know how much of Wonderland there is to explore if you bother looking?”
As a narrator, narrating in the past tense, the quandary directed to my present self, was rather alarming.
“Ok, if we don’t call this out, someone else will, but you’ve changed tenses twice, 4 times if you count changing back, but that’s not the point! Thinking about what you’re seeing is not the same thing as seeing. Look at what’s in front of you.”
The angel’s command derailed my meta-narrative like a figurative device doing a simile. I could feel their words ricochet off my mind's walls, their resonance revealing the vastness of the self.
“It’s easy to fall in, to be lost in the emptiness.” Their tone rivaled the patience of a teacher.
“I can see it, you know? The way my words tumble through your psyche, picking up more and more of your ideas. They get buried beneath your anxieties. What a pity, the mind’s conspiracies ring louder than any truth.”
My limbs contracted inward as my breath was forcibly dragged from my lungs. The demon was invading my mind, colonizing the thoughts I had rightful ownership of. The walls were closing in, threatening to mill the self into the other.
“There are no walls here, we’re in a meadow, silly.”
“To be swallowed by the stories we’re told is to be human. Writing the story doesn’t change its threat. The threat of meaning, of knowing there’s something you should be. But that narrative isn’t new, and it certainly isn’t yours. It’s a memetic whirlpool we insist on drowning in. We sink deeper and deeper, vowing to fix what isn’t broken, asserting our problems exist in a vacuum, that our narrative is new, and sometimes, somehow, that’s comforting. Those thoughts are deafening, but at least they're yours, right? Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“Unfortunately, time’s hourglass has seen your grains before; this fair is made of them. Specs of experience fraternizing and suffocating one another, that’s all this place is, that’s all it’s ever been.”
“Yet in this moment, a moment lived a thousand times by a thousand others, a moment where atoms wed and stars gasp, where spirits sing and lovers pass, where dreams are made of memories past, you’re in a god damn meadow! So enjoy it.”
Hey, none meta-narrator Declan here (kinda an oxymoron)! I hope you liked that, and if you did, why not try something entirely different! Last month I released a video interview with a fabulous music producer that I advertised very poorly! To check that out click the button to the right. A written version will be posted to the website at some point as well, whenever I get around to it. Thanks for your support!
