The grey days become darker. Wind blows across the streets cutting through me like a knife through butter. I feel terribly cold. As I march on through the pain that beseeches me I grow tired, ill and lonely. The city draws me in, it is a magnet for human beings - a focal point of western civilisation: a reason to exist. My thoughts break, disperse and shatter.
We know he's unfamiliar with the policy and this is why he is acting in such a way. It is not standard protocol to be like this, we must observe, influence and guarantee his place; he cannot break the mould once it is set, we know this from millions...let's say trillions of previous specimens. He is a container, like the rest of them, governed wholly by what is in him and not what has influenced him.
Scratching his beard with dirty claw styled fingernails - unclean and unshaven for at least a month - the dirt smiled at him like a friend at a close distance. The narrow path ahead cascaded and danced with the light shining from the overhead road signs, the concrete floor felt like a safe place - one foot forward foreshadowed by its counterpart - buttoned down buttoned up - knowing home was only around the corner, he sped up. Pain gripped him, tugged at his body, numbed his soul - hollow as an eggshell, lonely as an outcast - stumbling forward into the future.
There is no hope; there is no will within him. He is a microcosm, small, representative system having analogies to a larger system in configuration, yet he out rightly goes against the flow, against his architecture, the many facets, which shape and determine him, must be suffering from some form of holistic allergy. The Chief of Protocol grew into a deep and thoughtful thinking process; he had to overcome this problem and fast, as time was against him and his staff. His main concern and unanswerable question was: Why!
Propelling him into his home – the sharp twists and corridors that marked the very essence - the combination of qualities that distinguished his house, the strange markings on the walls, the unsightly holes in the walls, the gashed carpet, the lucid smell seemingly appearing from everywhere but at the same time appearing from nowhere. The last mile of his walk had been swift – metal junk on a one-way course with a magnet – if you could only save me, he thought. Will I ever be free of them?
“But my feelings are this my Lord; he’ll eventually set foot into the unknown, where our worst nightmares live, he is on the verge of changing the course of our ways”
“Yes, you have been listening and studying him hard, I can see that, however I need to hear the answer to the obvious question that is hanging on everyone’s lips at this present time. You know what I am talking about, there will be little point deviating from this course of questioning – this form of rationality – you must find me the answer and once completed, you must find the next answer to an even greater question: how can we stop this from happening in the future?” After their discussion ended both parties exchanged polite nuances, expressing farewell.
Melancholy sucked him into a dark hole, an empty space – no light – shadows bouncing into the distance, wretched moments like this opened, grabbing his soul – if only there were ways out! I would find them, but when and where I would not know. The depression started like this for hours, even days, sometimes at the worst of times for weeks. He could feel the transformation starting - in a minatory simulacrum seeking to tear him away from his estranged inhabitants – his fellow members – drifting in and drifting out, omitting their arrival and forgetting their departure. Listening languidly, hearing the sound of the patter patter – footprints crunching into the fresh snow – a cold and terrible sensation filled him. He shivered.
Turn it on. Pump it up. Watching intently, all eyes adjusted their lenses to the approaching caricature – the wonderment – it was happening – all and everything they feared, the young secretly longed for – the old secretly fought against – the tide was turning, the salmon swimming against the oncoming water – always struggling, always fighting, but never winning. The time was near, the Chief of Protocol braced himself. Fearless in their endeavour, the sides pulled against each other, tearing whipping flesh broke apart, screams of pain, the victim. White, snow-like.
Clarity sprung from the depths of the crystal white globe, prizing the doors open with his hands - a bulb somewhere in another galaxy switched itself on from its masters control – igniting a tremendous life into existence. The walls were soft, light danced around his eyes once again, 3D, forms, shapes, and other colour spectrums laughed like cats whiskers in the lights of an approaching car. I am free of them. I must go now.
He is rid of the virus, the syndrome, the disease - it has all passed now - a new journey will be sought, the Chief of Protocol thought. One in which the loser will be the memes of culture, of society, of life. The loop has been broken, by a single person, by a single soul, and if more follow in his footsteps there will be dire consequences - he has broken his own code; his own make-up; his illness, his own blueprint wiped clean. To be re-born. But then again, can travelling back in time be good for the soul?