Submerged Realities

There is a road for everybody to follow and we often wonder to ourselves... What would happen the moment we step off that beaten path. I often exchanged small saccades at the people who had escaped, on the surface they appeared truly cheerful playing amongst the marigolds and the tulips. Was it truly what they had dreamed of as the layers peeled away, just a construct of sociological idealisms.

I saw a pond in the distance, I reached over still imagining I had some sort of agency in my actions. The waters were calm and stagnating, but soon enough the pond drew me in deeper and deeper. As the evening grew darker and I played and amongst friends parading in the moonlight, I submerged my head in the cool but refreshing springs, now I was alone and isolated and long forgotten. I had been misplaced in my own confidence and self security. The dark of the night was obscuring my proprioception, but the water was calming so I dove deeper. Afterwards then suddenly before I had even noticed the the bramble, the marigolds and the tulips had drifted, using all my strength I pushed as hard as was humanely imaginable, but the bramble did not budge, I was desperately awaiting a grasp of oxygen, I had pushed a leaf a above the water line perhaps only just a millimeter, I took one final gasp pressing my lips against the flesh of the leaf, I wanted to believe that last exertion had helped, however I felt depleted, I knew I didn't have the strength to overcome the bramble.

So there I was, I had given up hope, drowning in my own thoughts In the dark of the night I couldn't know which way was up, down, left or right. I wanted to give myself any chance of survival, I had to calm myself, to block out any sense of distraction. I drifted there with the bramble, the marigolds and the tulips in my calm as the minutes passed. Perhaps I was delusional or well aware, to this day I will never know. I just continued to drift eternally, each second had spanned out to an infinity. I cannot recollect my memories, but I imagine I alternated between the conscious and the subconscious mind and through some layer in-between, but I drifted. My thoughts became heavy as the eddy currents that encompassed me, continually spinning me, jading my realities with the ebb and the flow. As the seconds passed by I'd fallen into the darkness, deeper and deeper.

Then a beam of moonlight crept through the darkness, I slowly edged nearer, I lifted my hand into the light. I was caught by my brothers embrace, in one sharp action he heaved me up, propelling my body out of the gloomy dark pond. Then the others came, we were not supposed to be off from the path, just dazzled by the golden pedals of the marigold. Still in shock and dismay I needed to escape, I needed to run faster than I had run before. I had reached a tall fence, I launched my body at the railing, still breathless, completely consumed by asphyxiation, I hurdled myself over the top and without even consciousness I fell through the leaves of a tree, getting caught on every twig, snaps and crunches the whole way down, I was not worried but to land on my feet, I just needed to escape so abruptly I stood up full of abrasions, a deep dark rich freshly cut bleeding from my thigh and my malleolus pointing the wrong way spatially. The adrenaline had consumed me.

As I made it around the corner, I realized the depth of my situation, I had wanted to change my ways, to have different experiences, but the path cannot be remade and you can only move forward. I look back up at the road where the mainstream society cruise along comfortably, perhaps regretting that I'd stepped off from the path, I still am bedazzled by the marigolds, a luring hold over me that will never let me return. Whilst others from above make sure to keep me down as they stand to benefit from my actions.