🔵 By Charles Hill. Photo by lauragrafie.
After medication, on occasion, I may be the same old person, but most of the time, it sounds like I am under the influence. The psych meds they inject take hold of my brain and slow me down. Not included in the list of people in my life in this cage that are no longer there, no last goodbyes, no last views. Stuck in this place with no physical escape, they force me to deal with the loss of life since there is nothing I can do. This turns into the same sensation as a bug hitting a windshield while cruising down the highway.
Amid this deep thought, a bird finds you, calling you with a chirp. You turn to look over the spiral of barbed wire and twisted steel that surround you. The deep sky blues, so pure and comforting, fill your eyes with soft white fluffy clouds that warp slowly into different shapes. For a second, or a minute, you are there, lying down in that what field. It was there that you talked your girlfriend into walking out to the middle of the field, laying a blanket down, and making love, the coconut shampoo from her hair, now tickling your face.
Living in a place where one cannot escape physically drives a person to find a place of sanctuary. That place is one where you find a moment of peace and separation. For me, I always seem to find that place when I’m walking, when the sun is high, alone. But sometimes I find it when I’m walking in the line down the heat radiating concrete sidewalk, stuck in one of the most generic conversations about absolutely nothing with a random guy I’ve passed many times.
The conversation turns into a list of complaints and things gone wrong that roll down a hill of tongue-twisters, turning into a rant. I, on the other hand, could care less and proceed to not and say “yeah”, “wow”, “really”, and “interesting”, trying to bring a close to this distracted moment. Thoughts about my own personal problems lose me for a moment, problems that I keep to myself in fear that I will become a jabber mouth like the body I am walking next to.
Finally, I don’t respond, and the conversation turns into silence. Wiping the sweat now spreading off my forehead and lengthening my stride, thinking of my future and whether I will make parole whenever I come up. Plus, I think about family issues and now battle with since my brother is going crazy, and they diagnosed him as a schizophrenic. The cool breeze kisses my face, turning the air comfortable. The wheat bends and bows, creating a living picture frame. I can feel the voice of nature coming from the ground speaking through the lazy clouds that whisper to each other at the sight they just saw.
As the hair on my arm stands up. I realize I have found a place, or maybe it found me, that place where time stands still, where all memories start to end, the place of sanctuary for my mind. It is the one I look for when I need to rest from all the world’s torments. Like a breath of fresh air, I exhale with a smile, and I’ve gone back to the place where I live, only to wait till I find a place of sanctuary again.
To read more stories from my collection buy “Emotions” by Charles Hill and Dorothy Smith.