a situation

A Story by Aerautic

experimental attempt at creating a buddhist fable via 1st person narrative

Is it courage that I lack, am I weak in heart? Or am I deficient in vision and lack proper sight? What is it that paralyzes me?

My situation appeared to be a choice between two options: remain in this prison, or try to escape, each one threatening grave risk. As if this position of considering what action to take is some initial third point from which I must choose one or the either of the consequential two, but it is already being fettered here that I am contemplating the matter, thus, am I not, at least on some level, already committing to remain here so long as I am pondering about the decision? If I am going to risk abandoning the comforts of these familiar parasitic walls for a chance at freedom of promising uncertainty, then wouldn’t I have already done it? If one is going to run, then what’s the point in thinking about it? Shouldn’t you just run?

And who knows how long I have before it’s time for them to wipe my memory, again. Who knows how many times it’s happened, or how often they do it? Who knows how long we prisoners have been here? He did, the one who told me, somehow, he freed himself, and somehow, he still manages to appear to some of us in this place from time to time, informing us of our situation and possible freedom from it, all while evading detection from our detainers, we know nothing else about him. And though he promises that all who see him will always see him again after their memory is erased, but what if I don’t? I can’t help but fear losing what little I already do know of him.

It’s hard to imagine that I won’t remember any of this. That it will all just start over, again, as it already has so many times. How long will I suffer blindly in this place before he opens my eyes again? And it’d be just like the first time, I won’t remember that I already knew him, I won’t remember that I considered acting on his message before, and failed to. In fact, for all I know that is precisely what is transpiring now, what horror it is to realize that for all I know this is the thousandth time I’ve gone through this thought process.

How much worse it is for all the other prisoners who haven’t seen and heard him, they don’t even know that all their recollection has been wiped clean, over and over, and that it is possible to escape this place. But there is sympathy with the pity. For what keeps them amused here in their oblivion is part of what still ties me down.