​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Edward

 

 

 

There are times when all the world’s asleep,

the questions run too deep,

for such a simple man.

Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned,

I know it sounds absurd,

but please tell me who I am.

 

LOGICAL SONG – Rick Davies / Roger Hodgson

 

 

You may not even wake up

just because a teacher tells you that you are asleep.

You can only wake up if you want to

and so begin to work on yourself,

to cut away all the rubbish

in order to come upon the nature of who and what you are.

 

THE LAST BARRIER – Reshad Feild

 

​

 

 

In the dream someone had dived into rushing water, it happened on the outstretched, pointed tongue of a meadow bank, the place where two rivers came together. Actually, it had been more of a fall than a dive. Without pushing himself off and with a turning movement the man had let himself fall forwards into the water and landed on his side. Within seconds the churning water carried him downstream to the riverbank where Edward stood watching. While the unknown, dripping swimmer crawled onto the bank, he asked the onlookers whose turn it was now.

​

   The significance of the water seemed obvious to Edward, he had to be the next to take a dive, literally and metaphorically. He didn’t know what to make of his son’s presence in the dream. In the beginning they had walked together along the riverbank and Sander had been younger than now, a toddler still. The child had wriggled his fingers free and ran upstream through the flowery meadow. Edward had called him back, but the boy didn’t want to listen and, because of that, had missed the event with the man.

​

   Edward straightened his back. Shaking the images from his mind he looked around in the pale morning light. Above the frayed horizon of rock walls glistened a star or a planet, directly to the south. He blamed himself for not knowing which. It couldn’t be Venus, which was to be found to the east or to the west, always close to the sun. There had been years during which he had kept record of the positions of the heavenly bodies, with the aid of a special calendar.

​

   The concepts of space and time had fascinated him for as long as he could remember. What did they signify, and what was their relation to one another? Were they established unshakably as laws of physical science and was that equally so for everything and everyone in the whole universe, or could one escape them? Perhaps they were no more than illusions that were accepted as reality because everyone had the same idea about them? He had been interested in that kind of questioning since long before he came into contact with the theory of relativity and with the revelations of quantum mechanics. As far as those were concerned, his inner world had already played him tricks when he was still a schoolboy. At that age he didn’t have words to put it all into, it was confusing when everyday reality started shifting unaccountably, like that time he had gone to the park with his mother to feed the ducks.

​

   Shocked out of his musing by Sander’s enthusiastic cheering, he turned his head towards the sound. The movements of the small figure between the rocks showed him that everything was okay. Absent-mindedly he stuck his arm into the air and waved his hand. His T-shirt clung to his chest, he pulled at the neck with a hooked finger. He felt anything but fit. Why had he brought his brother’s diaries with him, let alone read until late into the night? He took the water bottle out of a side pocket of his rucksack and shifted his position on the red rock he had settled down on to have a break. To avoid the heat, Sander and he had driven away from the motel amply before sunrise. As they had to cover many kilometers over the rocky bed of the gorge, he would have to monitor his consumption of water. The region was being beaten down by a heat wave he had called an inappropriate joke. Wasn’t the region’s normal drought blistering enough?

​

   Edward let his gaze stray across the dawn-washed scene, he loved those pregnant minutes when opposite realities flowed together. Low to the west the sky still referred to the blue-black nature of the night while in easterly direction the new day announced itself with a thin light. Everything around sharpened and was gaining color: capricious rock formations that dominated the landscape, old poplars with their scaly trunks, cactuses and succulents some of which were in bloom, grey and bleached deadwood.

​

   Even though he had grown up in a totally different climate and on another continent, since childhood Edward had always been hugely attracted to dry canyons. He remembered discovering dusty piles of National Geographic magazines, at the back of the hall cupboard in an aunt’s apartment, on the third floor of a building in town. It had become like a treasure trove for him, he could spend hours turning the pages. After this discovery, whenever his parents went there on a family visit, he would, without fail, go to his aunt and ask her if he might look at the pictures. The stories these photos told could evoke a melancholic longing in him, but at the same time seeing the images could feel as if the deepest wish was utterly fulfilled.

​

   It was his first encounter with the landscapes he would later visit. In his experience something within him was part of that environment, the orange-red rock faces were part of his very bone marrow and people couldn’t understand that it was precisely in such hostile surroundings he could feel blissful happiness. Eventually he had stopped looking for reasons. Thinking about it is pointless, he told himself, don’t try to explain it, I feel at home there, however irrational that may sound. To the climate of his birthplace he had taken a total dislike. He always said that the dampness seemed to seep into everything: from his bones to his books and his bedclothes, all clammy.

​

   ‘Dad, look what I found.’

​

   Sander came up to him and opened his left hand, the one missing it’s little finger, the sight of which Edward still found shocking. A cold fist planted itself in his chest, it was the little finger that forever bound together his son and his brother. In the open palm lay a moss green pebble, oval and smooth. Along the length of its face ran a line that looked like a twisting snake. The boy popped it into his mouth and then held it out again.

​

   ‘Lovely isn’t it, dad, see how the colors have got deeper? If you squint through your eyelashes, it’s like looking into the universe with a telescope. Those tiny speckles, can you see them? Look closely, as my spit dries they’ll slowly disappear. Look, there they go, shall I do it again?’

​

   Edward found his sons’ language unusual for a boy of twelve. Sander seemed to just dash off the sentences like anything, while Edward had to struggle to get something down on paper when trying to follow his gnawing longing to write. He had recently come across a note about that in the diaries. It had been salve for the wound, or salt in it, he didn’t know what affected him.

 

The best translators of inspiring literature are masters at conveying the essence of both a heart-rending dialogue and a philosophical account. Their words ring melodiously and their sentence construction gives the words great power. Their criterion is that the text needs to flow so easily that the reader can fly through the lines without hindrance. In essence they are themselves unknown writers.

 

   That was written there, in his brothers’ elegant handwriting. Theo had been a late arrival in the family. Edward wondered if some creative spirits burned out too quickly. Where had his brother, who had died so young, found the time not just to work as a journalist, write articles and short-stories, but keep a diary as well? It wasn’t really so surprising that Theo and Sander had gotten on well together.

​

   Edward held out his hand. His son had a thing about snakes and collected everything that had something to do with them, even indirectly, like this pebble. He was, however, scared to death of the animals themselves and had refused the opportunity to hold one, a small one, in a zoo.

​

   ‘Yes beautiful, exceptional. Where did you find it?’ He gave it back to Sander. ‘It’s almost impossible, here in this canyon. I don’t understand. To get these things so smooth, I would have thought you’d need water, millions of years of flowing water. Could that have happened here, did you see more of those pebbles?’

​

   ‘Don’t know. Didn’t notice, I just saw it lying there.’ The boy waved in the direction of where he had been searching between the rocks. It looked as if he dismissed something. ‘Over there somewhere.’

​

   My son all over, Edward thought, it would have occurred to me that the thing couldn’t just be lying there because all stones are rough and have a different composition but, full of admiration, the boy just takes it. Accepting what presents itself without giving it any thoughts, Edward had learned to respect that attitude. Since the traumatic events surrounding Theo’s death Sander hadn’t wanted to talk about his uncle any more .

​

   ‘Doesn’t matter, I am pleased for you. Lovely stone. Nice for your collection, seems to me. What do you think, shall we go?’ Edward slid across to the rucksack. While struggling to get his arms through the shoulder straps, he looked his son in the eye. ‘Be careful to keep drinking enough.’

   

   ‘You wanted to have a rest, dad,’ Sander said, with a teasing, good-humoured emphasis on the word you, and with a pitch that undulated in a lilting way. Then he sounded more serious. ‘You’re the one who should be careful, really, carrying that heavy thing. You’ll sweat more than you think.’

​

   Without being asked he went behind his father and lifted the rucksack. Edward pulled his T-shirt straight.

​

   ‘And of course you don’t like to hear it, but you’re even more pigheaded than I am. You can’t put that across me, dad’

​

   A wave of emotion swept through Edward. Even though the boy was too wise for his age, he could also be attentive and caring in such an apparently casual and swift way that, by the time you realized it, he had moved on and your words of thanks fell like flower petals onto the ground.

​

   ‘You don’t have to worry, San,’ he said, laughingly while turning round and taking a couple of steps backwards. He held up the plastic tube hanging by his chest. ‘Look, I’ve got the water in my rucksack. I don’t need to stop, there’s still plenty and I can suck on it while I’m walking. Come on, let’s go.’

​

   The walls rose higher and steeper, the canyon became narrower and more winding, occasionally making it seem as if they had got themselves into a cul-de-sac. It didn’t make Edward feel claustrophobic though, it was more a feeling of safety, deep in a pore of the earths crust, sheltered from the elements. He felt himself become calmer, starting to be part of his surroundings.

​

   At first he had wanted to remain master of this grand scenery rather than becoming it, he had had the feeling that the magnificence of it would drown him. Against his own better judgement he had given in again to the tendency to be an observer. When, after a long absence, he made his way into the landscape he loved so much he tried to understand it, to encompass it, see it in it’s entirety. Always in vain. It took him further away from the immediate experience. He realized that the creation requires submission. The vitally important thing to do was merge with it, be it nature, architecture, art or classical music. Slowly and turned in upon himself he stepped along, on the edge of his musings aware that this was an area where snakes might be found.

​

   A transformation from onlooker to participator, that’s what it had been, that time in the park, sitting next to his mother on a bench. He hadn’t told her what had happened. Because reality had begun to shift, he had realized that, until that moment, he had perceived everything as a film, a continuous succession of images, a chronological sequence of something outside of him. He noticed that the quality of the reflection in the water, of the children playing, of ducks being fed, of the shrieking gulls flying around, subtly changed. Edward could feel himself merge with the landscape. He became part of what was happening. The world didn’t just exist outside his retina, his eyes became a keyhole, a transfer point, with the same infinity on both sides. Later on he had come to understand that he had amalgamated with space, and simultaneously future and past had lost their meaning.

​

   It was great, but it also gave a strange feeling in his gut. He had been apprehensive that his mother would notice it. She would have reprimanded him. Looking back on it, Edward thought she would probably have enervated the experience with a silly joke. Dismissed it in jest, just as Janet would have done, a growing insight that flashed on in his brain, like a torch in a darkened room. He inhaled the relatively fresh morning air and allowed his breath to escape again with an audible sigh.

​

   They each walked at their own speed. Sander got so far ahead that he occasionally disappeared round the next bend when his father reached the one before. Edward saw that the boy had started taking photos. It made him feel good. He himself found it too much trouble at the moment, he preferred to quietly be part of the landscape. Watching his son, he saw himself climbing over rocks, jumping on stones in mountain streams, crossing a busy road, or lying on his side in a meadow for a favourable angle and the right foreground. It had produced some splendid pictures, all of them intertwined with memories.

​

   The events round the loss of his brother had been the gate to hell. After the divorce a few weeks later he had left everything with Janet, including the albums of his son’s baby and toddler photos. His few friends had warned him that he was going to regret that later. Not so, he thought to himself. More had been predicted about which he did not feel what they expected. Did people try to get a grip on his freedom by wanting beforehand to let his emotions flow along more conventionally acceptable lines?

​

   Almost everyone was attached to the past. Did they want to manipulate time, make it stand still, with photos of a course of life? Young mothers out for a walk with the pram could lament that their babies would not always stay so lovely. Edward found it an oppressive idea. He had welcomed every new opportunity to communicate with his young son. Facial expressions, touch and sounds and gestures, and verbal contact that became more and more refined. Changing held no secrets for him, in no time at all he had learned that a single safety pin was enough to fasten a cotton nappy that fitted perfectly. But surely this was not a business you did not want to waive? Theo had been the only one he had talked to about the questions of life.

​

   A week before Edward borded the plane with Sander, someone had brought the diaries. Unannouced he had appeared on the doorstep, a stylish young man with ginger hair who claimed to have been present at Theo’s cremation four years before. He wouldn’t come in. He had said that without explanation his friend Theo had given him the box of exercise-books to look after, shortly before the journey that had turned out to be fatal, and he had been worrying about it since. Despite the pressure of the preparations Edward had started reading. It was one of the passages about the meaning of time that had kept him awake last night.

 

There are experiences enacted inside of me that I don’t quite know how to deal with. Deep inside. At unequal intervals and at unpredictable moments. It can happen while I am doing the washing-up. Or cycling through town, or sitting against the thick trunk of a beech tree. I can’t share them with anyone, I can’t describe them.

​

If I try anyway, then it becomes exceedingly frustrating. My usual passion for explaining things        accurately collides with my lack of words for what can’t be expressed but only experienced individually. Not to mention the fear of not being understood – which produces an isolation more painful than when I cherish those experiences and insights within myself, in a place where by no means any harm could come to them.

​

It seems that emotions and thoughts arising during these experiences surmount the limitations of  linear time and physical space. Like the other day, when that one drop of water, falling into the empty shower tray, tapping with a hollow metal sound, made time disappear and could take me back to days of desperate loneliness. Like an abandoned child. Time is a strange invention. A birthday from years ago can feel further away than flashes of a previous incarnation. Where am I then, who am I in such a moment? What is individual and what is universal? Can the one become the other and can it be explained, discussed?

 

   Edward wished he had exchanged views with his brother more often. What had Theo and he cherished within themselves, rotating around each other, deaf and blind, without knowing they were like-minded? Hankering for contact without realizing it was there already, more than they dared to hope for? From the box he had taken the most recent exercise-books with him, the ones that had been written during the last months before the journey from which Theo did not come back. It became unbearable for Edward that, while their outlook on life was so similar, they had not achieved the state of intimacy that might have gone with that. In Theo’s writings Edward had also found the frustration that could overtake him concerning societal abuse. Like the tirade about art. The normally smooth handwriting was as virulent as the text.

 

In museums and other public buildings one can stumble over the rubbish as well. It is dead and cold. Empty of substance, without soul. It points to little other than the umbilical interest of the maker and his or her inner chaos. A series of Polaroid self-portraits held up with drawing pins, the artist standing in front of a mirror. A fake dead horse from which the entrails are hanging. Lumps of polystyrene foam fixed together with duct tape. Rusty pieces of old iron welded together in any odd way, the title of which offers no help in guessing the intention the amateur had in mind. The one video installation after the other – the good ones far between. The notion 'conceptual' as an explanatory clincher.

​

I could scream out loud to think that public money is being thrown away buying this stuff.                Municipalities waste millions on scandalous junk because aldermen do not dare to apply counter-      pressure, do not dare to say no to the produce of a botcher who, lacking weight, helped by bandwagon riding stuffed shirts and by way of a skillfully conducted PR-operation has become a ‘well known artist’. Afraid to say no for fear of being denounced as a philistine or a moral crusader. Or worse even: to be laughed at as back-numbered, uneducated layman.

​

True art calls forth a reference to what precisely cannot be expressed, not in lines, not in colours, not in sounds, not in shapes – and not in words, because the soul reads between the lines. Writers and poets should strive to express what is beyond words, painters and sculptors to reproduce that which is invisible, the composer to recall the thunderous silence. They should be striving to touch humanity in the area beyond the physical senses. The most beautiful work is the outcome of the artist’s struggle to break through the illusion of separation.

 

   The rucksack became heavier. Here and there a vague smell lingered between the rocks. The silence began to have an effect on him. Was he constantly being talked to? He got the notion that he would be able to understand the rock and the poplars and everything around him if he knew the language. Edward moved on as if in a trance.

​

   What do space and time signify, which processes do they indicate? He recalled another experience, after the birth of his son, in the period when he slept apart because Janet preferred to change and feed Sander on her own. He had impressed upon himself that the unbroken nights were just what he needed, because of the time consuming assignment and a publisher’s deadline. Lying on the guest bed in his study he had drifted awake, as gently as fingers of mist in the dawning light become visible between the hills. Silence was the first perception. He pleasantly floated through warm light. There were no thoughts, just blissful peace, completely fullfilled emptiness. It was a gift from heaven. In linear time, what followed had probably not taken long.

​

   So the first thing he noticed was the pleasant absence of thought and after that he felt a longing to remain in that state. He hadn’t known which day it was, accordingly the next mental activity was the worry that he might have an appointment that perhaps was important. The delight of his state of being was so all-embracing however, that he allowed those ponderings to evaporate again. But not for long. It became a matter for consideration. The need for control kept demanding attention, the inescapable need to know what time it was on which day. He fancied that the one didn’t have to exclude the other, just for a moment to the earthly reality and then back to the warm light. Having allowed his mind’s eye to check his diary, he appeared to have lost the chance to return. With the certainty that nothing could go wrong if he would remain laying in that state, the state itself had disappeared.

​

   Along with that came the insight that he was contained in his daily life by his thoughts, as an airship held down by an anchor. That was precisely how it felt, Edward realized. Thoughts were the cables he used to fasten himself to the earthly reality. Returning to bliss and unrestrainedness was not possible. The choice was not his to make, the freedom he had experienced apparently existed outside the domain of the will. He felt sorry he had never spoken about this with Theo.

​

   Half-way down the process he had perceived the anchoring concurrently as a painful obstruction to free-dom and a safe mainstay. So the return of thought had announced the disappearance of the experience. Edward wondered if a perception in itself was already a thought. Had the becoming conscious of the emptiness, of the unperturbed inner peace, set in the beginning of the end of the experience? He didn’t know. What was the relationship between such a condition and the consciousness with which we cross the street and get into the car to go to work? Or like now, following the path through the canyon, with half an eye watching out for a possible snake? Were they a continuation of each other, were they hidden within each other like little boxes becoming smaller and smaller, or were they mutually exclusive?

​

   Searching for the mouthpiece he sucked a couple of swallows through the little tube. He made a wry face, the lukewarm water tasted of plastic. There was a noise. Edward stopped off, he didn’t know what to make of it, the canyon walls were playing with the echo and involuntarily he looked behind him. Then it dawned on him: the clatter of horseshoes, they were coming upon the packhorses with the luggage of tourists who didn’t want to carry their belongings back up. That explained the sickly smell. He saw Sander being busy with his camera.

​

   Here the narrow path zigzagged between high blocks of rock. Edward took a few searching steps to the side and found a place to sit without having to take off his rucksack, thus the caravan of packhorses could pass him unobstructed. He wanted to continue his ponderings on the meaning and the possibilities of thought, on the illusory importance and the potential danger of it. He leaned backwards to relieve his shoulders and reluctantly came to the conclusion that his condition left a lot to be desired.

​

   We are not who we think we are, he had at times said it during conversations. When asked to clarify, each time the explanation was different because it went alnong with his inner movings. He found it a datum that could not be explained, at the most the principle of it, for the rest it had to be experienced. Actually an experience in that field had once stalked him and suddenly pounced upon him, while he was unsuspectingly taking a bath. The insight had cut through his nakedness like a blast of cold air: I am not who I thought to be. That notion had been all pervasive and it seemed to put all his certainties up for debate. He had had the feeling that nothing remained of the known patterns in which he had been safe.

​

   There are experiences enacted inside of me that I don’t quite know how to deal with. I can’t share them with anyone, I can’t describe them. Why hadn’t he talked to Theo more often? Ever since he had started reading the diaries, Edward had been painfully confronted with his brother’s disappearance. Sander’s presence became even more precious. He wondered what role his son had played in their mutual relationships, particularly in the last months, when his marriage with Janet was breaking down and the boy had stayed overnight each weekend at Theo’s place.

​

   In front of him, the bony horses trudged past. They pushed and bit each other, their hooves slipping and clanging over the stones. They were loaded with colourful suitcases, rucksacks and bags, in all shapes and sizes, strapped to a latticed framework on each saddle. It seemed as if no one was with them. All that baggage meant that later on there would be lots of oncoming hikers. Intruders on private land, Edward felt himself become possessive, particularly in surroundings like these he would much rather be alone. The silence of the canyon belonged to him, anyone else would disturb the quiet.

​

   The smell was not to be missed now. He thought the procession had passed. As he was about to get up, a young Indian trotted past. Short tousled hair, torn jeans, a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. Brand new, modern sport shoes. The earplugs of an MP3-player knocked a dent in whatever was left of any romantic image of the indigenous people. Edward didn’t know if the grubby boy had seen him and he pushed his annoyance away.

​

   Over the years old beliefs had given way to an inner knowing that man is more than he thinks he is. What he is can’t even be encompassed by thought. In his urge to make the world a better place Edward had wanted to share that discovery. His explanations were often felt to be pretentious. Partly he suspected what was happening in those impassioned moments. For the rest he was helplessly swept along as a drowning man by his unstoppable stream of words. His brother would take no part in these discussions. If only the enigmatical Theo had done so, Edward thought, instead of writing about it without my knowing. Another fragment came into to his mind, no less insistent than the outpouring about art.

 

For generations we have grown up with a system of values and standards, within a world of beliefs and concepts of man, based on ways of life and ideas – in short, with a form of consciousness that has brought us a considerable quantity of scientific knowledge and a large amount of technical skill. In this state of consciousness, thought plays a dominant role.

​

One of the properties of thought is that it runs along certain lines, that it wants to encapsulate reality in structures of explanation. In that sense a discipline such as philosophy could be described as a double-edged sword. There are areas within the human condition that can not be reached through thought. If you try anyway, you arrive at amputated visions of mankind along the lines of Sartre and Schopenhauer. Another characteristic is that it can’t do without proof. In fact thought shouts out: what can not be proved scientifically does not exist. We think we understand the machinery of creation. We like to have it all clearly structured, to be comfortable in material respect. Knowledge and abundance yield an illusion of safety, and in the nature of things we want to keep it that way. Letting go of our well-known structures and fundamentally change our being makes us feel threatened.

​

After centuries of being lulled asleep and kept on a string, of being patronized, oppressed, tortured or killed by the hierarchical structures of the main religions, we have attempted to regain power over our lives by entrenching ourselves in thought. Are there no other avenues but throwing out the baby with the bathwater? The stubbornness with which mechanistic scientists insist on pointing out that inner workings, such as near-dead experiences, can purely and only be ascribed to the electro-chemical activity of the brain – it is too ridiculous for words. The obsessive persistence with which they make the socalled evidence for their reductionistic theories public through the media, is starting to become laughably anachronistic – especially at a time when a scientific discipline like quantum mechanics is moving steadily closer to the humanities.

 

Those high old respectable practitioners of science may perhaps believe themselves to be in an ivory  tower and think they can derive their authority from that, but as far as I’m concerned they are sitting on a sinking ship, drifting on a vast ocean of inner knowing, busy sedating their fears by holding on tightly to the life raft they call knowledge. It is their fear of life, of death, of the unknown. Knowledge is not by definition the same as wisdom.

 

   ‘Dad, you’re walking a bit oddly, seems to me. Not normally anyway. Shall I carry that heavy thing for a while? I can manage that, I do.’

​

   Sander sat close to an overhanging rock, the walls appeared to be touching each other at the top of the gorge. He had a troubled frown on his forehead and looked impatient.

​

   ‘We need to eat, I’m hungry.’ He pointed upwards. ‘Just like sitting in cave. A few turns back there were marks, above a ledge, just under the top. Did you see them? I zoomed in and took a picture. Could they be rock drawings, from a long time ago?’

​

   While talking he unzipped his backpack. With a keen look on his face he took out the sandwiches they had got from a shop next to the hotel the previous evening. Pre-packed and ready to go.

​

   ‘My body has already burnt up the doughnuts from this morning in the car. I’m hungry, this looks pretty good.’ With a full mouth he looked around. ‘It sounds hollow, dad, can you hear it?’

​

   Edward didn’t say anything. He took off his rucksack and looked for a spot to sit down. He threw his son a warm smile. The boy was having a good time. If only loving would always be this easy. Sometimes his son had moods during which nothing much was good, as if he was being treated unfairly. At such moments it was a challenge for Edward to not get the feeling that in some irrational way he was responsible for it and that he had solve it.

​

   ‘I’m having a good time together with you, San, I’m happy with you. I’m pleased you came along on this journey. It means a lot to me. Really special, together with my son. I love you Sander.’

​

   Edward said it seldom. Whenever it presented itself, he spoke the words articulating slowly. He wanted to sample them and test his inner being with the vibrations. His son never said it. Not of his own accord, not in response.