snoo1

Flying over a landscape of beauty. Looking down at its contours from a hot air balloon that sails and swerves with the pattern of the wind. London is 380 miles away. Below a dog barks. Its sound transfers into my brain. It�s trying to communicate. What does it mean? How can I tell? Oh yes now I understand. It wants me to stop dangling it over the edge.

Hand over hand I reel him in. His neck strains against the tiger nuce. Alive and well I pick him up. He speaks and again I look over the edge. We become friends.

Now we�re drifting through a loose haze of the purple clouds. Tall spikes of orange mountains line the horizon we�re heading towards. A ribbon of green sea is transparent on the depths and glitters in the reflection of the sun. The dog sits happily � its tongue hanging out of its mouth in a harmless smile. Its lungs pant pumpingly. Wasps of smoke come from the its mouth then fade into the cloud in a warm poof of breath. I pat him. He looks at me lazily. The rope hangs taught around his neck.

I loosen it and he rolls over. I touch his underbelly then the balloon jerks. Grasping I take the controls. I push the lever that activates the warm air supply. Slowly we start to rise. The moon seems to smile from beyond the mountain horizon.

The dog sits up and hands me his paw. The journey continues. It all wheezes past me in a time cyclone. All rushed moments of misery disappear in a flood of homely image. A frozen image, one picture accounts for the same time we spent together. Drifting in safety over the rivers that shone deep red.

So many other elements all closs together to make a valley we�re surfing along. I snap out of this mood of consciousness, this stasis of living sleep and all is fine and seems normal. All except that the mountains are gone and a new land awakes. Below me I hear it belch into action, as with pumping hands, I receive a letter in a sparkling envelope.

The seal was broken. The envelope sparkled in the wake of the sun (like a servant kneeling to his master on the throne and not daring to disagree with whatever he said. Just reflected it, whatever messages were shone forth. If blackness can result in blackness he was not going to bring forth light. It couldn�t. It wasn�t strong enough. Just a cog in a machine that could squash him. There is no place for individual movement against the traps of the communal centre).

It sparkled. Its golden case reflected and refracted specs of light. I hold it in my hands and the dog wags its tail. It�s as if his whole body functions are accelerated by the pumping emotion of excitement racing through its body. His panting increased to the tempo of a mid eighties dance record. It shuddered from side to side. Its wide eyes fixated on the obedient glow of the envelope. Its tongue hung outside dumbly. But a smile came on its face.

I thumb the envelope around. It is flat but in the casing of my fingers it starts to grow. I can feel its surface expanding. It�s golden frame growing and mutating. My hands start to burn with friction � yet I hold on. Waiting � an expression of wonder escapes from the muscles of my face. It�s now a different shape � the size of a watermelon and growing steadily. The dog shows a sign of concern � but its excitement is bordering on fear. My hands hurt and it seems holes are drilled into them. It grows and is it shining on its own?

I can�t comprehend such beauty. Such excitement. It�s passing over a boarder into a new existence. It�s becoming heavy and the flap springs apart. It�s becoming too heavy. Lead world � it seems - and my hands groan under the pressure. The dogs face is laced with the layers of concern � still he looks on. I try to hold on but my hands give way and the growth continues.

A postbox. Pure and simple. Bold and defined. Its flap seems like a black tooth in a slice of gold being reflected by the metallic sun. Simple. It�s edge of its maps a slot to nowhere. An abyss, clearly defined by its outer edges. A traditional style postbox.

I walk slowly to it and touch it gingerly on the top of the lid. It jerks. My hand snatches away. It lurches back. A distant hum comes from the sky. The dog tilts its head. Seemingly detached as a jack in a box. Swinging on a flexible axis.

Bravery returns to me � my supplies has been shocked away by the sudden shudder of the postbox. I reach out again � this time my full palm connects with the warm surface of its lid. I let it rest then rub it affectionately. My other hand sticks out in the search for the dog. I calmly rub both beings and then look into the slit where the letters go. A square shadow falls on my face � it seems like a highway mans mask covering my eyes. The rest of my face bleached in golden bathing of the dominant sun. The stark shadow makes my pupils expand fully � although I can�t see this - a headache runs wild in my head. It aches. I feel it pressing my brain upward against my skull. I look away. The light hits me in dazzling patches of stars. A miniature galaxy of hazy pink, green, before returning to the normal golden glow of the landscape I�m hovering over.

Then I return to a ready state of consciousness � like I�m re-emerging from a trance. The voice of instinct comes crackling through into my conscious forum of being. I know this being is friendly, but incomplete. A tortured soul. A being sure to ache for millions of years, until the darkness was patches by it�s own love. It�s special and divine grace that would make it cleanse itself. Run golden thoughts through it � make it complete. Allow it to live. Exist beyond the curse that it was born with. I stick my fingers near the hole, looking away. It needs a letter.

It rattles into action like an athlete returning from injury. It speaks.
�I am incomplete. My name is only half what it should be. Please help� it croaks mysteriously.

It�s accent I can�t place � so it must be a place I haven�t been to. Perhaps somewhere far away. It repeats itself. Pleading. It�s voice that of a human trapped in a steel drum. Distant emotions contained within an echoey booming machine. From its space I feel a great deal of pity. Morphed from my letter that I cannot remember previously possessing it has been born without a heart. Incomplete. I feel it may be part of our quest. Which would be helpful as I can�t know why I was put on this strange diluted version of subreality.

The balloon. It seems to cackle. The trims that flap in the arid wind. The dog that I must have been holding all this distance. Yet it will not beg me to receive him. Then I heard his cries. It takes two to make a connection. Unless there�s that old spiritual game, connect 4. Or noughts and crosses.

My mind flickers back onto my postbox colleague. It seems to be pleading with me. I can�t stand to see him like this. His desperate conscious splitting inside. Splintering into jagged bits of emotion. Glass that needs to be stuck together. I pat it. The shrilling ceases. The dog does a pee up it and looks at me guiltily. The postbox groans, does a pee over the dog and the slot widens and morphs into a brief smile. The dog whimpers and I realise I need to get off the balloon pretty soon cos frankly this is disgusting � I�d better make these two get on and they can�t continue to do this very often- especially with the packed lunch in the way. So respectfully I pull down my trousers. It was tough but I managed it in the end. Yes, I did the shit.
Both were afraid. I was in charge again and both were at peace under my command. Unfortunately - we now smelled a bit.