The Metaphor

A very short piece of work on some of my feelings on a dull winter day.

A numbing sensation came over my entire body, an overwhelming feeling of nothingness flooded my core. Was this death, or something greater? This, I still do not know.

Often times you must remind yourself that you are indeed an active participant in this world. You might entertain the thought that you are watching a work of fiction unfold around you and that you are simply some vessel that is inhabited by consciousness, immobile and unchanging, unable to speak or move. When you are alone and the world grows silent there is very little stopping you from entering that state of non-being, a spectator to what surrounds you and not knowing if there is any hope of emerging. Will I, I asked myself, find my body or remain as I truly am? That is the question that piques your curiosity. Will the world continue to move though I am still? And if it did you would have no way of knowing it.

Indeed there was a time when you knew only what you perceived through your senses. The coldness of a snowflake against my throat, the one I inhaled and then wondered why I could still feel its coldness there even though it must have melted away instantaneously. But then those details became more than details, they spoke to you and made you feel as though someone had intended for you to notice them. Does anyone else dwell upon that pique of coldness while they lie in bed, feeling it again and again hours, days, years after the fact? You need not wonder whether these details have meaning because there is no way of knowing this either; and yet you wonder. Did anyone notice the spiderweb in the right hand corner of the room and will anyone take notice of it before it fades away? You might as well have been the only one, you would not tell anyone something so insignificant anyhow.

Did it feel to you that you had lived through a metaphor? The snowflake is a metaphor for the impact even the smallest of events can leave on an individual. There are no metaphors in the real world and you entertain the thought nonetheless. The web symbolizes the ephemeral nature of life. That is how you would have written it had you been studying that work of fiction, the one you perceive around yourself. It is very easy to become consumed by these thoughts and yet you are able to continue your daily routine. What I said just then would not have been suited to a novel. You rephrase moments in your mind as text and preserve them for a later date. Next time I will say it like this, it will be a more appropriate rendition of my true character. There is no need to become disillusioned about your own actions but it haunts you that those actions have now become a part of your character.

It is better to be still, when I am like this, I am myself. And yet you must keep moving because there is no other option available to you, and when you move you betray yourself.