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Essay: "Breakdown"

by John Hobbs

In my dream...

A cool wind blows across the mountain. In the early hours, long before down, the yapping of dogs disrupts the quiet. But the mystery of the eternal forest is the same as it was millennia ago. The sudden sound of an automobile on the distant road reminds me that our world is forever changed...I venture into the night. A carpet of damp grass gives way to sharp stones against my naked feet. A black cat rouses from her nocturnal watch from the top of a nearby boulder, her tapetum lucidum causing her mesmerizing eyes to glow a fiery yellow. Where is the moon tonight?

Looking south across the valley, where the lights strung in the pattern of a sparkling diamond bracelet seem to add glitter to the otherwise overcast sky. But these bright orbs on the horizon are man made productions and alien intruders to the natural starry world around me, like the paste of cheap cut glass mingled with diamonds in a lady's jewelry box. These are the flood lights illuminating the perimeter of the maximum security prison that houses my body. Sadly I remind myself, as I take in the natural wonders of the night, that even mankind outside of that human cage is spiritually no more free than my body that lies sleeping within. Somewhere along the journey of learning what it is to be human and the responsibility that comes with that there has been a break down...a disconnection with the very source that gave us life and provides for us still today...