But never, truly the end.
“Shall I compare this time
to a lightning bolt,
or a drop of dew?
Even as I say this
it has passed.”
We step into the unknown with expectations and goals to fulfil. But, truly, we step into the unknowable. As such, step in with no expectations, no regrets.
Or maybe the shift from being one person to another. It’s hard to explain how things remain uncannily unchanged.
Words I hadn’t used for ten months came back to my lips with ease, gestures I stopped using were seen with my every interaction. I was alone again, back in my element. Maybe what happens when you leave a culture is that you leave a part of yourself behind, and when you return, you take it back, only to cast it off once more.
Smelling the same smells. Seeing the same places. Speaking the same language. Hearing the same sounds. Eating the same food. Then, it felt like I had never left. Now, it feels like I had never made that second trip.
Here’s an enchantment I heard about.
~
“There’s a row of shophouses there, right in the middle of a neighbourhood of terraces and bungalows. If we go there one day I’ll show you. There’s this one shophouse, 64A, when you go up it’s a normal home. Has a TV, couch, fridge, normal shit. You won’t think anything of it until you see one of the rooms.
“It’s an empty room. No furniture. No windows. No colours on the walls. Just plain white floor, plain white walls, plain white ceiling. Fucking spotless. Everything in the room is white, even the door and doorknob.
“But not the mirror. There’s this creepy mirror right next to the door, it’s a baroque mirror, a black, cast iron baroque mirror- you know those kind where there’s a lot of carvings? If I remember right there’s a knight’s helmet and lots of vines and thorns and flowers. Quite imposing.
“The creepiest part is- when you look into the mirror, you don’t see yourself. You see the white room you’re in, white wall and ceiling and floor but no person. Maybe it’s this high tech camera thing, or an extremely high definition picture…”
Apparently what he saw was a gateway charm but was too close minded to realise. He was caught up in the real world of technology and cameras and digital stuff. There’s no room for magic and enchantments anymore.
If he had just been adventurous and walked through the mirror, he would find himself in a similar room, far, far away.
Not even my closest friends know me inside out. I don’t think anyone has made that claim. But it makes me laugh when someone tells me that they know “who [I am, my] background, everything.” Only my mother can make that claim.
Now don’t judge me based on this post because you truly don’t know why I’m saying all this.
I never realised that it would happen to me. I mean, it didn’t happen, but it’s happening.
Well you know how they say that change is the only constant.
Did I? No. Will I? Most definitely.
