Thursday, November 8, 2012

The Landscape Shaper

It started on a humid July afternoon. It was partly the weather that caused her drowsiness. But it could have even been the heavy lunch. She didn't want to get another coffee, it had stopped providing a means to wake her up. Maybe she didn't want to wake up at all, the soothing feeling of an afternoon nap coming on was intoxicating.

She got up and walked to the large window on her high-rise building's passage-way. The flat land around stretched out for miles. Out of sheer boredom, she decided to play a little game. She picked out buildings and imagined them dropping out of view. Not exactly blowing up, just getting powdered to bits to be swept away. It was not a destructive thought. It didn't involve killing people or destroying valuables. It was just her way of rearranging what looked like a miniature city model into something more beautiful, so that a garden or a canal was visible to her where she stood. She decided what she imagined was so much better.

Maybe it was the weather, or the lack of coffee. But it was quite possible that in a weird way her mind was trying to wake her up. Her imagination took a wild turn. She started imagining what she could do to make the flat land an eyesore. At first she was amused, then she became uncomfortable. By the time she was entirely awakened, her mind's eye gave her an idea of how many things could be wrong with that inanimate-looking expanse in front of her. She was offended by the ugliness, it was revolting and she shook herself to bring back the image of what was.

She woke up sweating. She ran out into the passageway looking out the window. A huge soupy mist hung above the land. She breathlessly waited for it to clear up and saw her worst imagination appear in front of her. The eyesore that she had imagined had realized itself.

In the past she had had the power to shape the future in her mind. Now that future was the present and the past that had been the present was out of her hands.

No comments: