Side-walk

[TheHivemind]

Inspired by Aura's foray into Emi's head, I thought I'd make a sally into Rin's head.

I wonder if anyone else sees the world like I do sometimes. I'm walking down the street, not going anywhere in particular, just going for the sake of going, and the sun's high in the air and the wind kicks up suddenly, ruffling my hair and my shirt, flapping and dancing to an unknown tune when it hits me so hard I've got to stop moving. It's the briefest of things, the briefest of moments and God I can see it barely there, just on the edge, taunting me. My muse, or my inspiration, or my...well, not my, the Truth is there, and I had it for just a second.

Everything slows down, stops. I step outside myself and see the strands of my hair moving in a rhythm that I didn't notice before, the subtle poetry in its movement and now that tune everything's been moving to is no longer an unknown, I can feel it now, I can hear it clearly.

It's beautiful.

It's so beautiful that I want to cry, because nothing I do is going to capture this moment properly. The clouds in the sky are at this moment just right, being the epitome of cloud-ness, the Platonic ideal of what it is to be Cloud, the sky is never going to be this shade of blue again, the sun's rays will never give this sort of lighting again. The world is never going to speak like this again. It's just this once.

And the world speaks, oh it speaks. The people, their stories, their feelings, each one full of pictures within pictures, wheels within wheels. The world is speaking, singing, and I'm lost in the sound of the song, a rush of emotions and ideas come on too fast, and I feel the Me who is standing on the sidewalk slipping away, and away, and away.

No! I can't be lost, there's too much going on, my mind is unfettered now, I can't control the directions it goes, nor the images it produces. Where did I go? I should be on the street, but I can no longer see the street or the me on the street, I can only see the colors and the shapes and how they all fit together to form The Whole.

The Whole that is what we are all trying to get to, lost perhaps when we stood on two legs and started throwing names around, ripping the essence out and substituting it with a sound. We're all trying to be masters of something we can't see or describe, because we haven't been able to form the right (write) words. I'm on the edge of something, looking down at it, and it's horrifying and beautiful and I need to look away but I can't look away and it's All There. I have to name it, I have to get away from it, but I can't speak and I can't move and all I can do is bring it back with me.

But I can't get back. I've gone too far, and the thought terrifies me and makes me want to laugh and scream and cry. Can I contain this? Can I get back?

Is the world just an asylum (cross on the beam if you trust your friend, otherwise he'll turn off the light) and have I broken through? I didn't mean to break out, I just wanted to look.

I wasn't supposed to know, nobody was supposed to know, but now that I know what am I going to do about it? Tell the people? Bring these feelings back that nobody's felt forever and the ones we feel all the time.

Stars exploding and reforming and exploding again, the Earth spinning and orbiting an orbiting star dancing across the arms of the galaxy dancing in some universal tango connecting everything moving, always moving and is it Order or Chaos or the In-Between? How do you describe this to someone who doesn't know, who won't care or doesn't care or is fearful of what it means? If I get back (back to where? It's not important now (it is important now I have to go (go where? (they have to know (they don't know (I can show them (they'll ignore it (then I'll shout))))))).

Something echoes at the edge of my mind “What are you doing standing here?” and it seems like such a silly question to me because it's obvious I'm standing here looking at the scenery.

I'm on the sidewalk. The wind is blowing. I made the journey back and didn't even notice it, but there's a hand on my shoulder that wasn't there before. Her eyes are amused, she's smiling, and the wind is blowing her hair forward and I realize that she knows what I was doing. She knows but she asked anyway, because if she didn't ask I wouldn't come back.

“Come on, we'll be late.” She reaches up to pat my face, a gentle slap to waken the dreamer. I wonder if she knows how important that is to me. That anchoring, the pull back down into the world after being out of it because...

Because I have to show them (and her) what I see. She won't laugh, even if she doesn't understand. She knows it's important, even if she doesn't know why it has to be important—which is all that matters, because while she always tells me I'm smarter than her, she doesn't know that I'm in the same boat as she. I know it's important, and I know I want to show it—but I don't know what it is, and I don't know why it's significant.

She understands more than I do, sometimes.

I feel a tug, she's grinning and holding my sleeve, ready to lead me on. I can't help a smile, which she comments on. “A smile from you? What's the special occasion?”

The occasion is the world (her) being beautiful today, but I don't know how to say that. A vocabulary like mine, and I don't know how to say a simple thing. I shrug, and say “No reason. Inspiration, I think.”

She laughs, and I know she understands me just fine. I'll paint today.

I think I'm inspired.

[Losstarot]

Aww... it warms the heart.

[Penguinmayhem]

You're beautiful, it's true~

[Vysetron]

You know what? I've been lurking here for some time now, gradually reading through all sorts of threads, but this one finally made me think, "Yeah, I need to comment on this one."
And now I don't even have anything to say, other then good job. How odd.
Well, good job.

[Bara]

Wow! A fascinating trip through a version of Rin's mind/creative though process.

[-abscess]

Somehow this makes me think about a leaf on the wind trying to do something big, but it's too caught up on the ride to know what to do or where to start. Good things make me think, and this is a good thing.