He steps into the mirror and emerges on the other side looking back through clear glass into the room he now stands in. He is in a world where colour has lost its meaning and all the smells have a numbing sensation. In the park no birds chirp, nor trees rustle, nor rain bubbles in the puddles. There in the roads no traffic yawns and in the skies the night clouds move like glaciers through a mountain pass.
Sensation is drawn from him as the wind drives warmth from a corpse. The world is painless and joyless. The air sticks fast. He feels no desires or fears. In all the earthy senses he is abandoned from himself. He has no will to consume or control or destroy. He is not compelled to cherish or nurture or create. He simply is. The world is.
When he looks back through the glass he is standing there in the mirror. As he steps back through he feels the heaviness of his bones and the hot blood singing in his veins. He is ravenous. His body is wracked with a delightful ache. All the sensations flood through his nose and into his brain. Only a stint in that grey and tasteless place does he find himself connected back in this world of sensation. Like peeling away old skin to touch the raw, nervy flesh beneath. He needs these little touch-ups. Without them, the world on this side appears much like the world on the other.
Paddy Dobson
2nd October 2021