Do you know what it’s like to suddenly wake from a dream, groping blindly after reality, in an effort to separate yourself from the dreamworld? Do you know what it means to feel like that when you haven’t been sleeping? The sensation is rather like that of a lucid dream, but with more immediacy; a sense of boundless possibility and creation, completely without struggle or effort. All of reality feeling mutable and elastic, as if the world were made of soft clay, waiting to be shaped by some unseen hand.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve felt trapped; Torn between two worlds – One, the humdrum, workaday existence that most of us are forced to share – The other, a province of creation and destruction, magical workings, coincidence and fate. Maybe torn isn’t the right word. The effect is more like too many pieces of tracing paper piled up, each with a different design – the lines juxtaposed and jumbled, leaving no clear image for the mind to latch onto. Imagine that in color and three-dimensional and you might start to understand. Sifting through it all and trying to find a simple pattern becomes an arduous task.
I was a precocious child, learning to speak at less than two months old, and starting to read shortly after my first birthday. This brought my parents both joy and grief, the pride in their child marred by the signs to ward off evil made by the townsfolk behind our backs. When the first pentagram marked our front door, my parents began packing our necessities and wrote a letter to my uncle, to ensure that the house would be maintained. With 3 small packs in tow, we left our house under the cover of night.
My parents did not have much money, but they took what we had and bought passage on the Steam Train; though our accommodations were less than luxurious, with three other families all stuffed into our small cabin. I recall gazing out the windows in wonder at the smears of color rushing by; watching the countryside change from vast green pastures, through dark and foreboding woods, finally to a body of water stretching as far as the eye could see. I still get chills riding the Train, the sensations taking me back to a time of excitement and loss, leaving behind everything I knew, but thrilling at the possibilities of a new world.
Our arrival at the station in the City was less than pleasant. Unceremoniously dumped onto the platform by a blustery red-faced trainmaster, we attempted to make our way through the grimy throng toward the buildings now blotting out the setting sun. The air was rank with the stench of refuse, and there seemed to be a coating of soot on every surface. My father, with our meager belongings in hand, led us down the steps toward the street when the train whistle blew. I remember turning, only to see the great iron behemoth lurch steadily away from us, taking some of my innocence with it.
