Where The Wild Proses Grow 0.5

He never thought he'd find himself here. He never thought he'd find himself anywhere. Destined to be lost in the white noise, the ambivalence, meandering aimlessly across the grotesque gnarled fusion of everything you could ever dream of, and infinite nothingness.
But no. Here he is. Silent from circumstance and taciturn from disposition, a fine example of what reticence is all about. Juxtaposed with the blaring dulled noise of the old jukebox, its luminescence sprawling through the thick, acrid miasma of cigarette smoke, stale sweat, and even staler beer.
The landlord of this exquisitely squalid cesspit stands sentinel behind his last wall of defence that keeps him at a safe distance from the languid and equally squalid denizens of this humbling abode, whose sorrow he feels no guilt from making a living off. The bar itself is putridly sticky, not from spilt beer for that sweet nepenthe is far too precious a commodity to waste when it could be used to eschew the harsh realities of the big bad world. No. The bar is in fact scarred with the sticky residue of the tears shed by the most desperate and pitiful of men before they proceed to pass out onto it and degrade the bar further by drooling on it as they wheeze, splutter, and snore precious moments of existence away, to their great relief. Any good barman would wipe away these painful memories from the bars tarnished surface, but as we know our barman is far from a good one, which is why he will leave the sorrowful secretions to form a cheap glaze on the surface. But we digress. We have no interest in our friend and host the bartender, so we shall just leave him there, relentlessly mining for ever-valuable nose gold.
As we pan back to our protagonist in the corner the jukebox clamours out Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ‘Simple Man,’ which may seem apt for the vacant expression gracing his face, but do not be fooled. He is more than aware of his surroundings. The expression is a reflection of disinterest rather than an indication of his mental capacity. This façade of nescience is deployed to deter any of these lost souls who might be brave enough to use their last modicum of hope to engage with another. Our aloof hero has no need to engage with another, at least, not one of these losers. He has his own sanctuary, a safe haven providing sweet respite from the choleric world around him. He has his mind.
As we have learnt from past masters, “the mind is its own place, and in itself, can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven”, so it shall be interesting to see what this mind has made. And see we shall as we take a deep breath and plunge into the depths of this mans being through the black obsidian pool of his pupil. Rushing headlong towards his central processor we career down blood vessels with synapses flaring all around us inspiring enough awe in those split seconds to rival an entire night gazing at the aurora borealis. We hurtle past things we could only guess at names to, but names are the business of scientists, and our business is with the experience. The end of the beginning is in sight, a tiny pinpoint of light in the distance. It grows larger. The antithesis of a hole, warm and glowing rather than dark and foreboding, but then, it’s all a matter of perspective depending on which side of the opening you are on. Suddenly we are engulfed by the overwhelming brightness and ejected into the mind field; born into his brain.
In this personal Elysium the mental pastures are so lush that only electric sheep have dreamt they exist. Listless lilting language unfurls in the depths beyond the cortex whilst sentences susurrate in a silent serpentine dance of wonder. From a fissure an idea sprouts, then another, and another. They entwine and grow to the sweet cadence of the mind. More join. Rapacious and capricious they step the dance up a beat, writhing, grasping venal vines clamouring and choking each other. The weaker ones fall only to provide nourishment for the strong, as the prehensile survivors confluence into one great arborescent structure, climaxing with a catharsis of bursting blossom. We reach out to pluck the beautiful purplish wisteria of wisdom and as we do so, the world we are in fades and we are back in the bar.
The bartender is still stationed at his outpost, spit-shining his glassware to perfection. The pathetic patrons are still sprawled lackadaisically across the bar with dreams of defenestration dancing in their heads like sugarplums. As we head for the door, waving goodbye to our purveyor of alcohol induced quietus and his den rife with moral leprosy, we are left with our mans bloom of cerebration: If a man has been blind since birth, what does he see when he dreams?