Article voiceover
I woke in tears, that song playing in my head again. Somehow it tapped into the very heart of why I could not let go. Why, when I looked back at the decisions I made I chose to run from the dogs that were chasing me. In the dark, lights twinkled through a membrane of glass. The city looked so innocent but I knew that in the coldness of day, machinery that dictated every move would soon breathe into life. I ached to get away, to feel the clean air of empty spaces. It was as if an invisible thread pulled me back to a time before we separated. When there were no screens to distract us from each other. Do you remember those days? I shivered as a remembrance ran through my body thinking of what we’d lost. Not just the innocence of childhood but the ability to imagine without the aid of an auxiliary memory. Don’t tell me it was just a symptom of growing old. Somehow along the way physicality became secondary. Our connection to each other reset through the creeping promise of progress. It’s allure seduced us into submission. We didn’t see the trap until it was too late. Nothing was sacred. Noticing my eyes were open, an infrared camera sparked into life. Soon I would be asked if I was feeling OK? If I replied that I was fine, a series of internal diagnoses would begin. I was afraid to close my eyes again, although I must. If I fell into the dream where hope lived, it would be harder to make the transition when waking. If anything about my actions changed, someone, somewhere, would know. Why had I always known what was coming? I guess I had always been sensitive from the beginning. Sitting in the school library in floods of tears. Those kinds of scenes tend to stay with you. Stand you in good stead for tomfoolery. Even in my wildest delusions I could not imagine it would come to that. No one did. But I recall that April day when everything shifted beyond the point of coincidence. When choice lost its currency. Spring was so radiant that year. Nature had provided the counterpoint to the collective psyche. But the abundance of new life was obscured by a growing sense of dread. Shadows were beginning to creep across many borders. The festivities of Christmas seemed far away as a succession of outspoken voices began to command a charge in one direction. Neatly framed for public perception with bright bold bylines, flashy notifications and punchy auto-scripted deliveries. Twenty four seven, Wall after wall. Carried in our pockets, that canvas hung in our minds. Was held up with numbers, bars, lines and graphs. Coloured red. Underlined. Cataloged, quantified and circled. Leaving only one course. Placed on a war footing against a voiceless enemy. Make believe made real for the masses. The perfect propaganda weapon swung into action. It was us or it. Black and white. No room for manoeuvre. Cunning or clever? It knew when we were shopping. Waited patiently till last orders. Tailed us home through darkened streets. Picked our locks as we lay petrified in our beds. A fuse was lit to anxious hearts. Reason stolen from truth. With rational rationed blind faith rose in legions. Soldiers recruited to fight on the front line from their front doors. Then B O O M. I became we with no place for me. Four walls for company. Still life. Self served solitude secured by virtuous followers force fed with fear. Curtains twitched whilst peepers surveyed. But in lonely hours undercover of darkness some minds asked difficult questions. Sought out voices who dared sing a different song. And slowly a dissonant choir broke into light. The sacredness of a thought formed freely. Of an idea that can be shaped, touched and felt. Why did we trade sovereignty for the illusion of a safer world? I live to dream. And dream to live. At night my imagination roamed freely across fields of unconsciousness. Fed on desire without the restraint of synthetic stimulus . By day I was a prisoner of sense delivered by a series of artificial sensors, my chemical equilibrium equalised to optimum efficiency. Chance resigned to the past as an unnecessary danger. When sirens screamed I was flashed back to that long hot summer. The playful invitation of Greensleeves lost to barks of urgency racing against life. Inmates senior in years, earned in our respect, left bereft of company. Souls separated by reflections of each other. A cruel symbol of our shambolically advanced world. Conversations through a looking glass. Solo vigils with care at arms length. Abandoned via video call. Fast tracked toward an expedited expiry. Consensus was corralled by conformity. Conflictions countering officialdom denounced as wild rumour. Despite being rooted in truth. The conserving of human life became a secondary concern. A world viewed through a lens. Its colours popped with punch. Wrapped in bubbles of audible fizz. Reality, a dusty crumbled comparison. Doors were closed to open minds while sentinels spied from every street corner. Cries that raised an alarm in peaceful debate, muted by uniformed thugs. Morning beckoned a strange new world stuck in its own backward step. A pox of childish mantras broke the surface like a series of septic boils oozing with puss. A choreographed chorus line in scrubs mocked. Flouted themselves for fun while homes buckled with dread. An awkward Carry On caper captured for the cameras. The Piper played an endless jig ploughing a furrow between everything. Once bonded by name parted by paranoia. Bones that fused flesh and blood left broken. Orphaned by an ideology they roamed streets like nomads seeking new tribes. Able bodied confined with bribes as shutters crashed down. Cavernous factories forced into hibernation while ghosts of gossipers whispered around abandoned offices. The racket of modern life paused. No more clickety-clack from the tracks. Tyres on tarmac rumbled to a mumble. Once thunderous roars from above shrank to a gentle purr. Playgrounds became crime scenes. Swings strangled with yellow tape while droves of spooked supermarket sweepers charged down aisles stalking toilet roll. Children were banished under a blanket of hearsay. Self esteem sullied they were liberated from the captivity of curriculum, only to be left to their own devices. Spell blinded. Sleight of hand wordplay while eyes feasted on a rolling diet of macabre. Faux tears for fools. Though insidious sneers broke the surface. The weekly happy clappy. Compelled in sync to slap each’s back. Trained to perform as one hive high five. A cacophony of devotion. I left them hanging. What we had known was unthreaded. Spun into something new. A tapestry of befuddlement. Woven with a weave that shifted every second glance. Tradition trashed without question. Scorched in a furnace of flaming threads. From its ashes a novel saviour illuminated on an altar of artificial light. A fix waiting in the wings. Magicked into existence. Miracles never ceased. Collected sighs of relief. How many turned the stone? Looked underneath. Red flags to a bull. A Death Star full of debt. Lifelines derailed. Ships that would be lost at sea never to sail. Minds hacked. Livestock tracked. We were In it together till the mirror cracked. A dichotomy of duality. Pulled into an orbit of massed gravitas. What was good for the goose kept pointed fingers at bay, as blinded mice lost their way. If second sight were bestowed, or bells that were silenced allowed to ring true, would autonomy have been handed over so wilfully? Product placement pimped by prominent glitterati. Pledged themselves to sheep in wolves clothing. Stars whose shine tarnished with three little words. Just. Get. It. Intuition led me away from the circus. I set up camp where cathedrals of trees reigned majestically. Their long slender fingers joined in prayer above. I let the cut carry me home on summer afternoons. Its towpath once bustling with industry, now a gallery of decaying monuments repurposed by nature's eternal brush. One by one they were called for duty. A rallying of arms. Turned away from a guardian birthright. Foreign bodies adrift in a capricious sea. In public I exhibited my naked face with wild abandon. Wiggled my nose seductively in supermarkets. Panted heavily in packed carriages. Winked knowingly to undressed complexions. I was playing a bit-part in a b-movie driven by one dimensional caricatures. Debaucherous draculi craving their next meal. Hidden in the shadows of distraction. Minds that dawdled were nudged with treats. Brought with sweets like kids on a dark street corner. The stranger danger our parents had once warned of. Safety bastardised for profit. Stretched to a limit that encompassed risk. Dangled without warning in front of the next generation. As if a reliable well used shortcut home were edited to encompass a hike across a highwire suspended above a river of quicksand. That It would be the fittest to fall first. With wings clipped mid flight. Floored in a heartbeat. An omen for opened minds. Though denied by every other eye. Those unlucky enough to win the lottery. To calm the quakes. To break through the jam. To draw a breath. We’re awarded a blank expression. An empty smile. A box of frogs. A catalogue of tragic coincidences collided controversially. Dripping across multiple dimensions. A fractal illusion rendered for those with eyes to see. I stared into the absurd, shone a light into its wild eyes. Tried to slip between its oily skin. To translate its tribal cry. Though its measure remained a treasure that I could never put my finger on. I realised I was stuck in a loop fed by a compass of my own making. Locked into a stream that told me everything I already knew. Dizzy with dystopian replays that robbed me of myself. I couldn’t see the forest for the trees. The devil was in the detail, burrowed into bureaucracy. Reality baked as fact and presented on a platter for the masses. My vision was tunnelled. Funnelled through a filter contaminated by selectivity. Once it had served me but now I serviced it. A fetish of quick fixes to keep me in check. I stumbled through a cul-de-sac toward an ever darker destiny just beyond my reach. I was tied up with truths I couldn’t home. But where I wondered were my own? With legs of lead I faltered. Rooted in my steadfastness, I stretched my arms to the sky in surrender. Felt a warm wave of reverence wash over me. Underfoot, sands shifted. Tides swelled, then retreated. Hands circled faces. The great wheel in the sky turned on itself. A gentle wind blew the chords of a half remembered song. Reminding me of somewhere long forgotten. Its melody cradled my weariness. Soothed my soul. My heart had slowed from a giddy dance to an emotive ballad before finally settling to a calming meditation. I closed my eyes Gave up my fight Let go the edge And fell to Earth.