The Trembling LeafOr, The Realisation And Need To Work And Operate Within One's Own Limits And The Reality Of One's Own Horizon Of Existence

And there they tread, B. and his motley crew of thoughts, heading towards the coffee shop - a point of focus for the lesser inclined and the even more lesser construed, or at least that is what B. and Co. thought about the entire situation.

"What is the entire situation and what is entirety?" wondered yours truly, as he raised his head skyward, the dark branches of the trees forming the boundaries of his vision, superimposed against a metallic-blue uni-verse. The avenue closed in upon him, the trees held in sway by a slight breeze, and their shadows dancing upon his face and form.

"This is here and now, and I am here and now and nowhere else. Darn!"

"...Why listen to the sickening thud of your skull pried open to reveal a soft mush of gray? Listen buddy, there is no here and now if it never was and is, you, that acknowledged it in the first place."

"But this place was here before me. The coffee shop's probably older than I am. How do you place a finger on that?"

B. took the right turn, the first right turn that lay immediately upon entering the main-gate, throwing himself in forward motion, his eyes avoiding any contact with the bunches huddled close together at the entrance of the coffee shop.

"I play with notions..."

"Yes you do."

"Here's a notion... Avoid all eye-contact - what is it about eye-contact? Why does it terrify me so? What is it about gazing into someone's eyes, dark-green-brown-blue-gray pools and all? Why can't I establish a superfi-cial gaze?

"I throw myself into crowds just to be aware of the terror that builds up inside of me. Perhaps I am addicted to the notion that eye-contact with another human being - whether I know the person or not - is, among other manifested notions, necessary so that I may... And do, perhaps... Feel alive?

"The fact that the others do not acknowledge me is an assertion of the fact that they do not... I acknowledge the fact that they do not. I know they do not, the point being, it is I that know... It gives me the strength to ob-viate the need to acknowledge anyone, or anything... Or any thought and feeling?"

"Shut up! What in heaven's name are you talking about and what are you getting at?"

"...I don't know... Perhaps, I don't know..."

B. sighed as he converged into the gathering, the herd of thirsty University students, faculty, and staff at the watering hole. He moved quickly and presently, his figure disappeared into the dank confines of the shop, emerging a little while later, a steaming cup of the obvious in his right hand and a burning cigarette cradled between the index and middle fingers of his left, a moronic smile pasted on his face, between the dilating terseness of his frowns.

His eyes were beautiful and in their heydays had held the best qualities of laughter and innocence, emanating intermittently in flashes and sparks from within those dark pupils, but now sank cupped in ever-darkening bags, heavy and listless.

He raised the styrofoam cup to his lips, exhaled a sigh onto the surface of the liquid and proceeded to take a quick sip, amidst the hot steam that rose up to his nose and eyes, and proceeded to take long-drawn out suck

at the cigarette. He happened across to the plastic chairs that lay farthest away from the shop, "A corner to claim for myself and myself alone," declared B. to himself, and he felt relieved, as if waking from a dream rather than imagining himself to be one of those hapless characters thrown onto the pages of a bad novel, forced open and splayed out for all the world to ogle at.

He took a seat, unnoticed, but only because he refused to appear pitiful. His defiance of his acknowledged knowing-of-a not-so-important-fact of his existence. He watched the white smoke billowing out from the gray-encrusted tip of the cigarette, his eyes becoming glazed for a moment, in anticipation of a turn in colour or definition of the essence and form of smoke, waiting for the smoke carry the pain, and dissipate, baggage and everything, to the apparent nothingness of invisibility.

"The earth is a tragedy in re-enforced polysterene," he chuckled to himself in between puffs, "and one or the other gets sucked in, every milisecond, into a cloud of doubt and the haze of self-pity.

"So I am not alone in my gloom, rather, I am just disconnected from other glooms and hopeless melan-cholies... How do I bridge this divide? How do I say, in a quiet damned-be-all voice, like Jackie Collins, or what's-his-name-or-whatever, 'I refuse to be dissociated..?'

"The trembling hand will struggle and the strings are taut nonetheless... But the strings must shake too for them to have a reason to be taut..."

"Alright, that's it! Delve and soak yourself in any and every notion... Sell yourself out to the greatest number for the greatest good... Be in this here and now, and leave us be..."

B. grinned and downed his coffee at once, scalding the roof and back of his mouth along with the gaping blackness at the start of his throat. "That's another notion..."

He rose, chucked the remaider of the cigarette into the nearest bin, and walked quickly away from the shop. The trees still held their lazy swaying, both the limbs and the shadows now mingled on and in the back of his head, and the subdued sounds of the urban sphere still pinged in his ears, easing his thoughts into a sequence of warm familiarity. A blanket-wrapped and warm metronomic familiarity. He smiled, the light returning to his eyes, his arms taking on a swing in tune to his thoughts...

"I go to delve in therapeutic abstract. I go to shake, cozy and glorious in my tremulous aspect...

"There is that blue throbbing vein in which runs the blood of insecurity. a beautiful way to say that I lack courage of heart and am filled with a fear that I cannot even come close to naming... There is the reconstruc-tion of another life in my head and the dissolution of my reality."

B. held the images that came before him - the green lawns and the chortling sprinklers (which would be lovely to bathe under come the siege of Summer); the blood-red lilies that clearly defined where grass met concrete and asphalt; the sound of conversation that left many mouths, flew through the air and landed with-out intent or purpose upon the consciousness of his senses; the figures that walked on with Lord-only-knows what in their hearts and in their heads, in their very souls - this was and is the here and now of his being - un-furling before his line of sight and flipped and scrolled through in his mind, page upon page, slowly and con-sciously, so as not to be drawn into another illusion, and more so, not to be overwhelmed by it all. He re-sponded, reacted, held, and felt each moment; the moments held together in a sequence, the result of a brain that struggled to stay afloat.

"I battle the lack of sleep, the blurriness of vision, the feeling of defeat and the prick of the heat, all rolled into a ball of emotion that is too weak and diluted to remain worthy of my discretion..."

He breathed in short spurts, controlling himself so as not to keel over and submit to the waiting arms of sleep upon a sidewalk.

...