The Journey into Something

There was a story in him. To get it onto the page he had bought a new notebook. On a clean white page he applied his favourite pen, a black biro.

When he began the sentences were simple, the story building up to something. His stories would often meander around this something in a clever way. Friends might read it and say he was a good writer, but they would forget the story quickly. And he would forget it too because it never got to the something. He’d come onto the next story, which would be similar.

On a typical Thursday he laid down his pen having written for an hour. He got his coat and left the house for a walk. In January, the wind blew in off the sea and cut through his several layers of clothing. Being far from any city the air was clean and mornings, as he headed east, were often filled with the light and warmth of the sun silently rising. These sunny beams warmed his winter-white face. His eyes were open, looking directly at the sun, which was possible in the moments after it had first risen. This sensation provided no new thoughts, only a pleasant warming.

He would run out of path. He could not head eastward indefinitely, so he turned back for home. The sun behind, the world seemed cooler. People were going to work and school. In the air above the pavement were smells of shampoo and deodorant, front doors were slammed, engines were starting, people stood at the bus stop.

The stories and his walk were before work, a sort of tonic before his ‘real-life’ began. A build-up, a preparation for the main event.

Turning his back on the sun, pleasant thoughts would often arise: living in a hut in the mountains, going on a pilgrimage, going on retreat. By the time he returned home these had been replaced by thoughts of making porridge or what needed to be done online. What did it all mean? His questions would soon evaporate.

But this Thursday he returned to his notebook – and continued to write. It was about a journey which he knew would be his magnum opus, but even as he wrote in the clarity of the morning, the exact details of the journey he did not know. Not yet.

Once the writing had started he could not stop it, he was a pipe through which some force was flowing. What was actually going on to the page he was not aware. Only the familiar lines of words with spaces were visible, their symbolism carrying a weight he too would need to unravel. And what pleasure! What an indefinable sense that in the outing of the inner in the form of writing a union occurred; he felt whole. Boundaries became not porous but non-existent, the joy of concentration felt timeless, without regard to past or future. At what point, he wondered, would this cease? He did not believe in any god so decided it was he himself who would choose when it ended.

He laid down his pen and sat for a while, aware only of the sense of pleasure he had elicited.