A SIGH TOO SOON 2017-05-20 When I close my eyes I see the Milky Way. I am not afraid of the dark. Stars are light. Not many people know about the gate opening to this other world. I wonder how I could stand it here on earth if I could not escape into space. I have never mentioned this. Today I feel I have to because I am not so sure I will always want to come back. I want other people to know where I am gone if I decide to stay away from here. As I am sitting in this room looking out to the garden white with frost under the winter sun I think I understand the paradox a little better. I am looking for light and I can only find it in darkness. Icarus wanted to fly to the sun, not for its own sake, simply to enjoy the brightness which brings life. He failed but he had tried. Sisyphus on the other hand merely toiled as a pessimist with no desire to escape. I don’t think I like the idea of a 9 to 5 job; I certainly do not fancy spending winter north of the Arctic Circle. I am sure the northern lights and the northern skies are another gate but it is not my line. I need energy and heat to propel me on my travels. So I close my eyes and concentrate. Various techniques have been developed by wise men to try to reach a different state of consciousness which would open the gate to the infinite world. Religions like Buddhism may have come close. Levitation is probably a start. I am still sceptical since I have never witnessed it myself. My way is both easier and trickier. Easier because I don’t do anything special. Trickier because I feel it implies an individual choice. Therefore I find it difficult to give details of this special moment when the gate is about to open and when you have to be ready to leave, not knowing if you can come back. It is a leap of faith, and a giant one for mankind, that is for sure. I would compare that to the surfer ready to take off on his wave, ready for the tube, knowing he will find a way out on the other side. Someone running like mad to get airborne with a free flying wing also has to believe that the laws of physics will work, that the air will have enough buoyancy. I am afraid these are the only examples coming to my mind, and I am aware of the fact that not so many people have had a direct experience of these sports. It is more than a special tuning of the body. You have to tune in to nature and to the deep spirit of things, as in listening to music. Anyway, I am glad it is difficult to open the gate because I do not want too many human beings on the other side. It is quite all right with me if space remains simply for most people the king of void between planets where you can send space probes. With all the technology it still cannot help you escape the way I do. I guess space is only a metaphor for what I call the other side. When I cross over I am another in another time and place that I cannot describe. Words are powerful but not powerful enough. Science fiction takes you into the future but here the future is inside you. It is like a phone call: the person you are speaking to is with you, yet you cannot touch. It is a blue darkness; it could be inhabited by dolphins, but it is not. There are wave patterns, from my brain probably, and I ride them to new colours; as in the dream time of the aborigines. I never know where the centre lies, I am the centre of little dots, protons and neutrons and electrons and their likes, as planets in a black hole. The old beats of a primeval music sound like a melody in my head, but it is mainly a visual experience. I don’t drink, I don’t take drugs. I just close my eyes, and I wonder if blind men see the same thing. A purple and orange haze appears. My neck and spine are newly connected when I picture myself as a fish. Is that regressing to the beginning of our evolution on earth? I feel like a fish bone, almost growing into the skeleton of a dinosaur. That surely means something but I don’t think I will ever dare tell this to a psychiatrist. There is a heat transfer between the hemispheres of my brain; its circumvolutions look like the images of tomography on computer screens with yellow outlines and funny shapes like doughnuts. Do I have a hole in my head? And what are these white spots as large as whales. I myself don’t feel funny at all. I am dead serious. My nose is miles away ahead of me. My ears escape to be right and left, like wings. My feet become roots. My senses are lost. I have never met god. I haven’t met that many beings for that matter, and hardly any could be called human. No ghosts. It is a strange world. I once saw a cask, which was the most material thing I have encountered. I cannot say there is any exchange. I am them and they are me. We are nowhere, going nowhere. Yet it feels good, like being part of the whole, and being the whole at the same time. You’d expect fancy things but it is a magic with no sense of place, purpose or time. I wish I could tell you more. I do not have any problem with my bones, but at one point of this transition, I am worried about my flesh. I do not know where it goes. When I decide to return here I somehow find it on me again but it seems to have aged a little. People around me do not notice it though. They just occasionally comment on my putting on or losing a bit of weight when they haven’t seen me for a while. There seems to be no pattern or no link. Yet there is a change inside me, very gradually. That is why I feel preoccupied with the future. Will I always have the strength and power to come back? I do not hate human beings for all our flaws. I just get the off-hand idea of leaving for good from time to time. Don’t get me wrong: it has nothing to do with suicide. I enjoy the good times we are having here, with friends and wine and our ever changing world, our beautiful planet. I am sure a lot of people think there would be good reasons to doubt about our sanity, but I like the idea of a challenge. I am a bit of an optimist in my own way. I am not a preacher; I am not trying to convince anybody that I am doing the right thing. I just know I need my safety valve and my problem is that it may not be a hundred percent safe. You get me? I am not hearing voices. I am the voice. I am at the helm, in charge of my starship. My roots are here with my family and my land and language. But I am developing sharper skills each time I cross over. I can leave and come back faster than I used to. I wouldn’t want anybody to feel that I belong elsewhere and that I am just spying on you, which might happen in the end if I spend too much time over there. How would you people treat me then, if you think I am another? All these things on aliens I have seen on TV have not been reassuring. Who do I talk to about that? Any world government yet? Where is the reception desk please? I guess this piece of paper is my safest bet if my mind makes up its mind. I do get lost in words sometimes, not worlds, mind you; I know where I stand when I’m standing. It is sitting on this chair that bothers me, particularly with my eyes closed, as I have said before. There is no phoney end in sight for today. No fear. I am still here. I have to go and do the shopping for the family. Lots of new stuff on the racks lately, but nobody has heard about any food scare which could make people act as I do. They did not report on that. In the end I am perhaps just an ordinary guy who has to go to the supermarket (« Don’t forget the bottle of milk » Ray Mond said) and who likes to day-dream. But you have been warned. If you hear anything about me, let me know. The name is Borg, Sigh Borg. Pascal Legrand Visiteurs : 373 Back to home