Pride and Prejudice
The Thoughts and Words of Brian Pride

Eyes Between by Brian Pride
Copyright 2002 - Pride

    I was in the cellar hall working on a detailed scene in my painting "The Monelmorency of the Dauphic Lily Act III - Abominations in Their Desolation" when the strange music started playing. I was painting in details in Martin Barre's beard, which required me to fashion a paintbrush from clippings of my own hair in order to have an instrument thin enough for the fine detailing. Sitting on the cellar floor in the front hall where I had stretched the canvas I was thrilled to have at last a brush fine enough to accomplish much of the finer detailing I had missed with other instruments. At long last I was able to paint in each strand of hair, fine wrinkles in the skin, and even striated lines pulsing in the irises of open eyes. Though the brush of my hair would never hold enough paint for more than one small stroke I keenly applied my skills to make every application count.
    I became immersed ever so deeply into the imaginary realm of the epic painting while balancing my concentration over the administration of the craft. Often hovering between a dash of paint and a glance into a space yet to be filled, not as void of creation as application. Trying to see where it was I was going as to how it compared to where I had been. Was what I was painting near as it might be to the finished image I held in my mind? Little wonder painters are oft considered mad men. In order to paint one must tempt the verge of madness if not bridge its brink. To see something that isn't there then usurp ones own facilities to make it so. Yes, that is a kind of madness.
    Then came this sound, a strange sort of clunking song. Playing as it seemed from somewhere in the house. I set down the brush to give it a better listen. I ran to the next room to turn up the radio and made a startling discovery. I was unable to turn up the volume as the radio wasn't even turned on. As a matter of fact the radio wasn't even plugged in.
    I was a tad bit disappointed as the more instruments joined in. This were a new song, one I hadn't heard before yet there was something about it I liked. It had a strange cacophony that didn't even sound like music. I was greatly lured to it… it was calling to me. But from where? With no other source of music in the cellar I decided to check upstairs. Though I could clearly hear the music playing I could not tell which direction it was coming from. As I climbed the stairs and opened the door to the kitchen it stopped. I looked to the clock hung above the dining table. It was about 11:00 in the morning and all was quiet in the house. The only other person in the house at the time was my mother who worked nights and would most likely sleep until one or two in the afternoon. I tried not to disturb her as I checked the television and stereo in the living room. She heard me stirring around and called out from her room to ask what time it was. I asked her then if she had been up and playing any music. She said no of course and asked that I wake her in an hour or so. I asked then if she had been up or heard any music to which she replied no - she was asleep. Asking me then to be quiet and go back downstairs.
   I poured myself a glass of juice and then went back down into the cellar to stare at my painting and decide where to go with it. It's an artist thing. Sit and stare, stare and sit, then get up and paint furiously until the next rush of inspiration. Back in the front hall I opened the door and looked outside to see if someone may have been nearby playing a radio or with a car stereo… but nothing. I sat down on the cold floor wetting my hand made paintbrush and proceeded to finish Martin Barre's beard when my left arm started to pain me furiously. It was an awful pain like no other I had ever felt before, a debilitating pain. It was odd. I painted with my right hand but the pain in my left arm was so intense I had to stop painting. I couldn't imagine what could have brought this on so I decided to go lay down and try massaging the arm. I had all but forgotten about the music and could only think of nursing my arm. I lay in the poolroom on a sofa gently rubbing my left arm with my right hand.
   As soon as my head hit the sofa the music started again. This time much louder, so loud in fact I was worried it might disturb my mother's sleep. This time I would have to find out where it was coming from if for no other reason than to see if I could turn it down a notch or two. I attempted to lift my head but couldn't as a black veil fell over my eyes. In my life I have only experienced one other sensation quite like this. When I was put under anesthesia for surgery. It was as if a black curtain came down over the movie of life. Below the hemline of pure blackness I could see the world I knew being blotted out by the heavy dark curtain's fall.
   I wanted to forget about the pain in my arm, to forget about the strange music playing. I needed to stop the curtain from falling but could do nothing. I found myself in an instant on the other side of life, in a world full of darkness with misty shapes and clouds of vapors. I could still hear the music playing but now as if in a hollow box. I was walking, it seemed, through a dark abyss with no bottom, no walls, no heights, just darkness all around. Yet I could sense now where the music originated from as I followed its call until I saw a gathering of twinkling lights.
   I moved closer to the lights and saw that they were grouped around each other in pairs of two. The music was louder nearest the pairs of lights so I moved in close to one pair and realized the lights were sets of eyes. Eyes through which I could look back into the world I had just left. I looked through one pair of eyes and saw a most frightening thing. I saw a face I'd recognized of a musician I might have known. It was the face of Ian Anderson, lead singer and instrumentalist from the rock band Jethro Tull. He looked upset; perhaps surprised as he came towards me, or towards the eyes I was seeing through. What frightened me most was that I thought he could see me. He seemed to look right back through the eyes I was looking through and look straight at me… and he didn't seem happy about it at all. I jumped back and fled as fast and far as I could travel.
   Surprisingly enough I could travel pretty fast and rather far in this altered state. I saw clouds whizzing past me and looked down at the sun reflecting off green waves in the ocean. I saw ships bobbing on the waves like snow peas floating in a bowl of soup. I saw a shoreline and city emerge from the distance. I saw the thin thread of a highway and followed it home.
    But getting back inside my body was not going to be as easy as leaving. Silly enough as it may seem but I never left. Or at least I never tried to. Of that part I had no control. If I only hadn't panicked it might have gone easier. If I had just relaxed and just let it happen like it did when I left I might have had a safer return. But I was so frightened by those eyes staring back at me. Eyes that could look in as well as out. I felt if he wanted to he could have reached right through the portals I peered through and pull me out the other side. Flying back over oceans and forests was not quite the gentle stroll through the dark that got me there in the first place. I became frightened and lost.
    I found my self in the wood near my house in an all too familiar scenario I didn't much wish to relive again. I was in a small fury body crawling through leaves. I was at the same time in a larger feline body with heat in its blood. My cat self was racing to the spot moving in the leaves where my mouse self was hiding. This time wasn't like the time when I was younger. This was not like being the fox and the hare (see "Fox Trot"). This was more real, intensified by fear. I could sense in an instant that it was fear that would be my undoing. It was this state of fear that was perpetuating the situation. It was fear that was trapping me inside the mouse body as my cat self faded in the heat of its blood moment. I had but an instant to relax. Just one instant to let go.
    I found myself jerked back in my body and thrown off the sofa in pain as the fierce claws raked into my back and sharp teeth clenched down on my neck. I was panting and covered in a cold sweat as a bright light filled the room. The light coming through the west window was so intense I thought it was the sun setting. Had this all been a dream? Had I slept through the day? I forgot to wake my mother. I rushed upstairs and looked at the kitchen clock. Still only twenty minutes had passed. I eased the door closed and returned to my painting with the pain in my arm gone, as was the music. Remaining was only the mystery of what I had just experienced
    Shortly thereafter I learned Jethro Tull had been in the studio recording a new album about the time this might have happened. I waited anxiously for the album's release to see if I recognized anything on it that remotely resembled the song I heard that mysterious morning. The new album was titled "Heavy Horses" and its title song did have a strange clunking sound. The album was immersed in odd vignettes of cacophonous sounds yet it was hard for me to place any tune in particular from that moment in my life. I dare not say that any of this really happened. I dread to think of what might have been or not. Trusting that I did so want to find what I heard that day on this new album and have gleaned at least for my own revelation that this indeed had been a real experience I alas could not say for sure from anything that I heard later on. Still, somewhere in silence there sits a mouse police who never sleeps standing watch over a mouse who sleeps eternal.