Chapter 1 

I was travelling now in intervals my arms spread out like my legs gliding against the grain with soft voices in my ear. The solid things in the universe appeared as if in another universe, away from me, even foreign. I was a singular wafer increasing in consciousness moment by moment until my body felt itself to be as light and the internal aspects of myself letters and words.

The intervals turned into waves, being pulled by looping undulations, sweeping up and down as my mind raced with facts of all things. Facts to build worlds, facts to build a whole universe seemed to flood the mind for a moment, tenderize me a bit and then go through me to the dark.

A woman with snakes appeared and she was laughing heartily.

I felt I was in a big playpen with rattles and mobiles and odd sounds coming in and out. There was no sense of the appropriate gesture or thought so I would break out laughing, uproariously laughing and then cry, cry and cry and yet carried shame or modesty as if all around me, in this vastness, they were laughing or judging me. And then laughter to drive it all out of me and making funny faces with my hands so I imagined myself as a monster I’d seen on TV, a man made monster with a snout for a nose.

David Eide
January 24, 2014