Wrenched violently from a dream;
no time for respite;
descent into fresh fantasies begins.
Momentarily trapped
(encased within a decisive nothingness),
its sphere of consciousness
pulses out
towards extremities of
a corporeal cage.
A moment of hyper-sentience approaches:
ephemeral,
prodigious nonetheless.
No longer bound by somatic confines;
the body’s presence not merely perceived.
It is:
the body,
every part of it
It is:
the teeth,
the lungs,
the heart,
the spleen.
Thoughts no longer restricted;
words and pseudo-images usurped.
Its teeth:
are thinking
(a more appropriate term lacking).
Its teeth:
have thoughts
(again vocabulary restricts).
Nerves pulsate with messages:
naked,
decoded.
Its mind has broken free,
all oppressive boundaries
forgotten.
No longer just thoughts,
its mind is:
its whole,
its being.
Equilibrium returns;
it is thrown back into the world.
Memories faded;
sensation of knowing gone;
contact with the body’s secret workings lost.
A new body stares down from above
(where else?);
abhorrent;
reflected image borne
of polished surfaces
nearby.
Only a few minutes old,
this body already has a past.
Every moment it experiences:
simply memories of moments
gone by.
Every new body it inhabits,
awareness increases.
(Numerous meat sacks before;
infinite number to follow.)
Fresh, innocent vessels
fueling a thirst for
forbidden knowledge;
the past ardently refusing
all attempts at
quantifi-
cation.
A little
/a lot:
not possible.
Can’t increase it;
definitely can’t reduce it.
“You have it
/you don’t,”
it now realises,
after centuries
of new beginnings.
It is always there,
there is no escaping it.
Only way to slip through its paralysing embrace:
to not be.
“To not exist,”
an unfamiliar voice
whispers.
Those words.
Its words.
Words echoing violently inside
for what may as well have been eons.
“To not exist,”
the voice now screams
(at what sounds like
the top
of its lungs).
A painful dryness spreads through the back of its throat.
(The voice,
of course,
being its own.)
It lowers itself onto the floor;
abandoning the cold slab
upon which it had awakened;
rips sensors
from various parts
of its body.
Its legs feel strange,
almost alien;
to be expected
during the first few days.
This is a body it is going to enjoy experiencing pain with
/through
/of.
It
(the body)
feels proud.
It
(the subject)
does not approve.
Nicholas Lawrence is a postgraduate philosophy student living in Stockholm. His original fiction has been published in Tincture Journal and his translations appear on Monday Art Project.