I find myself shuffling the pack of miniature ‘Self Mastery’ cards. Cutting the deck. A waking routine. A soul poker habit to make sense of the Universal mayhem. A shot in the dark. On this sun-kissed spring May day of days.
Days, months, years, and decades long gone – eclipsed by many, many moons – I would have been shuffling the Tarot cards, consulting the Universe, speculating on matters of Fate and Destiny.
All before the fires of the Soul Asylums ignited, near-gone fifteen years ago, when all the cards landed the wrong way up, and I wound up incarcerated in the state institutions.
And shuffling the deck today, the ‘Angel’ cards, as my soul partner calls them, it feels like I am breaking open a Chinese take-away fortune cookie, ready to read the saccharine wisdom inside the crispy shell. But I am not feeling it. This morning it feels more like the throw of a dice.
I am the dice man.
Gambling with affairs of the soul.
And this morning feels like the familiar, thick churned, concrete slurry – from the long years of shadowy, self-imposed convalescence – has been poured over the domestic, porcelain ornamental bliss, of my home sweet home.
I am reminded, cast back in time, to the days I would sleep for Britain. Rip Van Winkle had nothing on those heavily medicated duvet days. The Sandman would visit all hours.
And I would dream. An anxiety dream of writing, editing, and unravelling the same knotty paragraph from some deep, buried, novel of my subconscious brain. The same dream that vaporised into outer space on embarking on my own story, ‘The Soul Asylums’.
In the waking hours, I would shuffle round the house – psyche-burdened, heavily medicated, middle-aged, ghostly footprints – on scruffy beige carpets and wooden floors. Lost in a maze of shadows. A torturous soul labyrinth, where every corner led to a dead end. And on some days a deadly end, of a heavily breathing, psychosis minotaur, ready and waiting to battle my mind.
I was alone, invisible, and estranged. Away from life. Away from the bustling streets, pedestrian currents, and high vibrating cities. Away from the pre-Lockdown life of busy café’s, heaving pubs and loaded night life. Away from old lost friends, distant colleagues, and friendly faces. Away from life.
There was, of course, the routine of collecting the ‘Script’, tunnelling down psychiatric blind alleys, and ghosting through the state medical system till I was blue in the face.
I turn the ‘Angel’ card over. Load the dice. The affirmation for the day is ‘Healing’ and a line about the ‘old self falls away’. I feel for a fleeting moment – the inner soul wall’s masonry vibrating, shaking, plaster falling, dust clouds rising – and, placing the cards back on the bedroom shelf, I go in search of a brew.
Downstairs now, I peer through fresher, hopeful, frazzled eyes at the sun glinting on the pink blossom tree outside my lounge window, wondering, scratching my head, at the years spent in exile on suburban street.
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