Shattered


All crazy angles and shattered dreams.  Lost toys, broken dolls and dead souls.
Staggering through the dreamscape this way and that way looking at the angles 
and the heaving twisting earth, writhing and moving beneath our feet and 
all around us.

Do you believe in fate?
No!
Do you believe in destiny?
No!
Do you believe in freewill?
No!

So it continues, everyone trying to lead their own life, everyone trying 
to find a place, no-one knows what the future holds, sometimes that think 
they do, but no amount of trying and wishing and hoping makes a lick of 
difference when fate has its way.  But we don't believe in fate.  So, it 
still happens everyone working for themselves, contrasting, stepping on 
others to find there way, even if they don't think they are, they are, they 
can't help it, it's human nature.

Do you belive in nature
No!

But anyway - this is all crazy talk, Does that mean you're crazy, we are crazy, 
we are all crazy, we all see things through this horrid little filter called 
perception that only allows us the tiniest glimpse on something, and gives us 
really poor interpretive skills.

So tell me about this dreamscape... It's like a city, but a strange and twisted 
one, the buildings all strange lonely angels, no thats not right, all weird 
and menacing angles.  Looming over, leaning away, confusing the senses, 
twisting perception, fucking eucliud, streets placed randomly a maze of bends 
and turns and dark little alleyways leading nowhere.  There is magic in the 
city, a silver road, a flower stall, the couple in the park, the old victorian 
architect standing there, just watching.  You know?

You don't know do you?  You don't see what I see, you don't hear what I hear, 
even the chair looks different to you.  Its all about perception really.  That 
and falling down.  Go stand on your head.

So destiny.  They say destiny is blind, they say destiny lives in a garden, 
they say destiny and fate are but aspects of the one.  They say the pain 
will never ever go away.  Destiny knows what has been and destiny knows what 
will be.  That's bullshit.  You can't know it hasn't happened yet.  Or is time 
all one piece, just a block, if thats true, then there is no reason - 
everything is determined and we act according to some rules or guidelines that 
we aren't even aware off that have been laid out for us.  To determine our 
thoughts and our actions.  Someone who knows how painful life is, and how many 
people we will hurt along the way and lets us live it anyway.  Thats the 
ultimate cruelty man.

Thats a really sick fucker.  

Do you believe in dreams?
No!

I can see the future sometimes, I have the sight.  I know went stuff is going
to happen.  Like all visions its imperfect, but its a start.  Just to know 
something.  That flash of intution, the knowledge of life and knowing when 
to say good bye.  It means having to rely on your perception of course, and 
we know thats faulty, but sometimes you have to have faith.  Trust in yourself 
and all that.

Do you believe in faith?
No!

So we can't trust perception, or fate, or destiny...What about free will?  
Yeah, well, its a free will thats defined by society, by a set of moral 
and ethical codes that are pretty painful really...well, no, I mena some 
of them are okay, and some of them make sense and some are designed to 
protect soicety, some are just off shoots of an obsolete religious code, 
and others have been in place so long that we don;t even think or question 
them, because they are the status quo and one of the rules is that you 
don't question the status quo.

Grow up, get schooling, go find a good job, buy stuff, get married, buy 
a house, have kids, grow old, unfullfilled and die.  Does not desiring 
to follow this path mean I'm not normal.

Do you believe in normal?
No!

I don't really think normal can be defined that easily.  Mainstream mainly.  
The easiest option really.  Anything different you have to work at.  Its 
prolly much easier to follow the groove.  Its all laid out and simple and 
clear, all you have to do is connect the dots and paint by numbers.  No
creativity, no challenge, no invention, just a set of simple rules laid
out to allow you to follow a pattern and have something to show at the end 
of it.   It's really up to you to figure out what that something is worth.

I'm afraid of being lonely, No I'll admit it.  I'm afraid.  Sometimes I see 
myself in 10-15 years time, having wasted my life, spoilt all my chances 
because I'm dreaming about some unreachable, some unatainable goal or ideal, 
when i should have just caved in and gone with the flow taken what was 
offered.  It's never going to be perfect just take what you can get and 
make the best of it and all that.

Do you believe in love?
No!

There's no such thing as love really.its just two people so afraid of being 
alone that they cling to each other and pretend its something more than fear.  
Thats a rather negative thought really.  Yeah, it is, but as far as I can 
tell, its true.  I'm not so convinced, its more than that, its fireworks and 
watching the moon and dreaming together, its the couple in the park in the 
city.  It's loneliness, fear of being lonely.

There are two in the dreamscape, they lie in the park surrounded by the city.  
Surrounded by all the crazy buildings and angles.  They are whole among the 
shattered landscape.  They are ignoring the tettering buildings and the
twisted snakes that are approaching to cover them, they are just holding 
each other, just them, ignoring the world.  That's love.  Love is always 
looking for the other first in any room.  I want more than that.  Well 
tough, there is no more than that.

Accept it and move on.

Do you ever just want to scream.  Do you ever have those days when you can't 
feel anything.  You feel the need to yell and scream and lash out and go look 
at me, I'm a person, I have needs.  Do you ever have time when you just want 
to lay down and be relaxed and be held and patted and told everything is going 
to be okay.  You mean like now.  Kinda...cept I'm not sure everything is okay. 
But it is nice in its own way...relaxing even.

So are we crazy?
No, I don't think so.

Maybe we are drunk.  No baby we ain't drunk, this is something else.  It's 
not a dream.  No, maybe its honesty.  Honesty is scary.  Yeah, yeah it is.
Its painful sometimes...So painful it hurts.  BUt its worth it.  Is it? I 
don't know.

What do you dream about.  I don't dream.  Everyone dreams.  Okay then, I 
don't remeber my dreams. That's sad....   I think dreams can tell us a lot 
about a person.

So tell me about your city, where did it come from.  I don't know, its always 
been there.  I'm not sure what it means.  Maybe it represents your pysche.  
What, all skewed and twisted, thanks.  No, more subtle than that.  So it's a 
shattered landscape. Does that represent shattered lives or life?  Does it 
represent shattered dreams or hopes or wishes.  Or maybe its representative 
of a desire to not be normal, not be like a normal city all tall buildings 
and straight up and down lines.  This city has more mysteries...

Sometimes I hope there is a reason you know. Like a purpose, a method to this 
madness.  But I can't for the life of me figure out what it is..

Do you believe in a god?
No!

So who is the architect?  He's simply the architect.  He stands there 
watching. He looks at the city and thinks of how it could be made better.  
He designed ways to make the buildings looks good.  He adds lace and frills 
to cover the imperfections.  He wants to make things look good really.  Not 
better, look better.   

So what do you believe?

© 9/5/2001 Renee McAlister