The sleeve of an old onion

This is the artist as an old dog in the underground without much of a clue...

Image by Garik Barseghyan from Pixabay

A short sharp shout, a psychic abbreviation really was following the man down through his life and causing him to be disturbed. Every day he would hear the shout in the back of his mind and although he didn’t know it, it influenced his every waking moment.

After many years of it he went to see the doctor with depression, anxiety and other things like that and in the doctor’s opinion appeared to be somewhat disturbed with hair out of place, wild eyes, ruffled patched clothing and talking with little sense.

The doctor could fit him into no one category and so sent him off to be evaluated by a psychiatrist who didn’t believe in psychic stuff and so told the man to pull himself together, go get a job, find a woman and get married and stop being a pain to normal people and society as a whole.

On returning to the doctor the man was given a month’s supply of tranquillisers and was told not to come back again.

After a month on the powerful tranquillisers and feeling relief for the first time in his life that he could remember he went back to the doctor for more pills and after a very long wait he found himself the last person in the waiting room so he knocked on the doctor’s door and was told to come in.

“It appears that you are addicted to the tranquillisers,” said the doctor after asking a few questions, “and so it will go on your record that you’re an addict. So, very sorry, but we can’t give you any more.”

With that the man left the surgery and although he went back many times there was nothing more they would do for him. “If I’d been a real addict they would have helped me,” he said to himself.

Image by Garik Barseghyan from Pixabay

So down through the years of his life he travelled with the psychic shout in his mind and became ever more disturbed until one day the dark night of the soul hit him so hard he fell over and cried for three months straight and wet the carpet with all his tears.

So, then he turned to alcohol which did him no good at all and lost him any lingering sympathy there may have been for him and that’s when all options ran out and the dark night of the soul hit him again.

After another three months of tears the man decided to go travelling and so bought an old banger car and began chasing the moon south, but after two weeks he ran out of petrol and had to return back with his tail between his legs and that’s when his life picked up.

He met a woman who did him no good at all, and then for a few years his life really went downhill until he could stand it no longer and left her. It was then that he sold his life’s possessions and had enough for a flight to a tropical beach that was jam packed full of tourists making a huge noise with their mouths open.

The man became extremely depressed and decided to end it all but the angels in their mercy left him many messages not to give up and to keep going because life was a gift and worth living and something good was on its way, but didn’t say what or when it would arrive.

So, the man carried on and eventually stopped crying and even began to feel better on the odd day here and there.

And then one day on looking in the mirror the man saw himself to be old with hair grey, face lined and all the other paraphernalia that comes with age.

“What happened to my life, and what hope is there now?” he said to himself and began to peel off the layers of his life to try to find the child he once was.

Image by Garik Barseghyan from Pixabay

Because the wound is where the light gets in, the man’s lifetime of suffering and pain gave him a head start as most of the layers had fallen away by now in his life and so with nothing left to lose the man began the journey inside with only fear as the last barrier to go beyond.

It takes courage to go deep inside on the soul level and not knowing what to expect he kept pressing deeper into the pain that had become his heart for far too long.

The pain was a path that lead him inwards and following it brought him to a place where there was just him and nothing else; all he was, was laid bare.

Questing out from his being he recognised something that came out of nowhere. A presence that came to meet him and caused great joy, so much so that he grinned with his whole being and felt the pain and hurt drop away like mist blown away by a sudden wind, and then he was whole again, the child re-found.

But his mind, that unwanted interloper caused him to say: “No, no, you’ll break the mask.”

Although he said this in jest, still, it was taken as a command and the beautiful presence went away and though the man tried to get back there again it was not to be, and then the hurt came back and the man cried doubly so with the hurt and the loss.

Image by Garik Barseghyan from Pixabay

More years went by and slowly the pain diminished and the man began to awaken to himself and found he had a gift of expression in art and imagery, and although many didn’t understand him, a few did and so in his art he was able to touch others and felt that maybe there was something more in life than the day to day living. Though the beauty could not be defined it could be alluded to.

The depression never really left him, even though the psychic shout was gone, but he learnt to live with it and use it and not let it use him and so was able to live some kind of life, and if a little lonely at times there were moments that could be looked forward to and cherished when they came. And of course, he was ever hopeful of finding that love deep inside that gave his life meaning that could be quested for every day.

Images from Pixabay