I've been thinking a lot about blank pages, lately. I suppose this is to be expected when you staring at them when you should be writing on them. The image of white stone, beautiful in it's purity, ruined by clumsiness catches me by the wrist in a near daily recurrence.
I no longer like this image, so I have decided to change it.
A pond of pure white, whose surface may easily be mistaken for solid marble, but we know better now.
I touch down my pen and instead of making a mark, create a ripple. This ripple ebbs outward, joined by several tender rings, which lessen in size and rate, before inevitably give way to stillness.
The illusion of a solid surface resumes once more, but it's true composition cannot be dis-remembered.
I dip my pen again, this time deeper. Deep enough so that my hand breaks the surface and gives me pause. The sensation is ... unexpected. Were I dependent on touch alone, I would judge this thing to possess the properties of cool air. No displacement of any can be sensed, and yet sight and touch stubbornly combat and contradict one another.
Before I can begin to sort through this debate between senses; I find I've dipped my hand deeper still. It is disappeared now up to my wrist. My eyes have lost all sign of it, but my hand feels as though it has simply entered into air. I've never held a cloud, but I imagine this to be similar ... my wrist follows in the expedition, shortly preceded by my forearm and then the rest, until I am shoulder deep.
"How far do you go." I wonder aloud.
Impulsively I fling my body in. Still clutching the sides I find myself waist deep. I feel the force of buoyancy, but none of its usual accompaniments. No weight nor pressure, no wetness nor displacement, simply the reassuring hand that promises to aid in floating me up should I ask for it.
I sink to my chest and still, there is no promise of a bottom.
"How far do you go?" I re-utter to this thing.
One could toss a pebble, but then a pebble does not return. People do, if they do... but they must first let go the edge ...
I am up to neck now and I like to think I've made a decision.
As I surrender the last grasp of solid ground, I take a breath. I then give over to decent.
Once more my words are said allowed and it is my voice that carries them ... but something else now asks the question:
"How far do you go?"
