skeins and plasters
Sometimes it takes the reading of words sculpted by a talented author with a creative pen to realise something one is not keen to admit to. Perhaps even to start the dawn of this realisation with a tiny spark of fire, and then leaving the brain to conjure further thought processes mixed in with white rabbits, top hats and a sense of the alluring.
Other times, it can be drastically different. Memories - perhaps that word is too tarnished with thoughts of innocent young children enjoying and savouring every single second of the joys of youth to be used here, perhaps one should use “recollections” instead - or “recollections” fall into the mind and create a scene from the past so vivid that this televisual film being screened into reality, is difficult to switch off. Like walking into a room and being able to see your own ghost subjected to the past. The past has happened. The past is over. But the visions and recollections live on.
I sometimes wonder exactly how the mind works; is there a finite five hundred gigabyte hard drive which declares how much of the past we can store in our minds, before selected items are deleted at random? Do we have the capability to forget everything and re-learn it a different way, to speak in our second and never to remember our first language? It would perhaps help the jigsaw pieces to slowly materialise.
If this idea were correct, this would give a reason as to why large portions of history have moved out of their temporary residence, and been replaced with quantatively and qualitatively useless information regarding train timetables, virtual maps to places not visited in many years, the minutae of how insignificance fades away, or how to be sarcastic to the point of complete despondence.
Back to the matter in hand; if the past could be remembered in such detail (and, indeed, if it were possible to distinguish the truth from the two, three, sometimes more sides of each argument, sugar coated in lies and embellishments), it would help an understanding of why people are as they are. It may help to try and piece back together the shards of a shattered existence.
And it would explain, at least in part, why, when thoughts and feelings expressed by others resonate in this direction, i feel the jabbing of freshly smashed glass in my eyes, as if reawakening the cuts and bruises of old. Injuries covered over by blankets, layers of clothing and cotton wool, and perhaps even fleshlike plasters in the hope that whatever lies underneath disappears. Disappearing is not an option. Would it be wise to wish to be blind enough so as not to be able to tell the difference between skin and plastic?
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