The exercise:
Let's go with: a light in the dark.
Because Kat and I went up to Oliver to watch Cave of Forgotten Dreams, the first in this year's Oliver Film Club series. Kat's parents got me the tickets for my birthday, which was very thoughtful.
The rest of the day was spent finishing off the garden prep for winterizing, running errands in town, and attending our election worker training session. Election day is November 19th, and it's looking like it's going to be a long one.
Mine:
There were certainly plenty of flashlights slashing through the dark caves in the movie, but sadly that's not where the prompt idea came from.
You see, the movie had a rather fascinating subject matter (incredibly old cave drawings discovered in France), but with a running time of an hour and a half there was just too much... wasted space, I suppose. In fact I'd guess that there may have been, grand total, about ten minutes of interesting footage.
Sprinkled very sparsely throughout.
So, by the time the credits rolled, I had come to think of those moments as lights in the darkness.
The darkness of Boring Town.
4 comments:
That's a shame about the film; it sounded quite promising when you started writing about it. Still, I suppose you have to watch the occasional bad film to be able to appreciate the good ones :)
A light in the dark
"I'm nyctophobic, Dr. Fraud," said the middle-aged woman. She had ignored Dr. Fraud's instruction to sit on the chaise longue and was squatting underneath his standard lamp instead, which she'd insisted on turning on. After five minutes of him turning it off and her turning it back on again, she'd sat on the switch (which was inconveniently part of the cord) and Dr. Fraud had retreated back behind his desk, defeated.
"Only small children are afraid of the dark," said Dr. Fraud. He was aware that his manner was not as calm as usual, and was blaming the bologna he'd had for lunch. "I suspect that you have Munchhausen's syndrome."
"Whatever you want to call it," said the woman, who had brought up five children and knew how to handle sulky people, adult or not. "I still have it, and I'd like to be cured please."
"Only sausages get cured," said Dr. Fraud, thinking of his lunch and wondering if there had been too little mustard. He was sure that there had been only two empty pots by the end of the meal.
"You're being petulant," said the woman. "I'm paying for this."
"This is not America, madam!" shouted Dr. Fraud, launching himself to his feet. "Coin is not the sacred queen of this realm! You are here to consult me, you are paying for my experience and expertise. And you challenge it, uncontestable though it is, as if you knew enough to challenge me, you'd be able to cure yourself!"
"Oh," said the woman, a little bit stunned. None of her children had ever answered back like that.
"Here," said Dr. Fraud, scribbling on a pad. "Here is a prescription for a salt rub, and a recommendation to buy a night-light."
The woman perused the prescription, wondering that Dr. Fraud had such legible, elegant penmanship.
"Is their garlic in this salt-rub?" she asked.
"And cayenne pepper, cloves, sugar and ginger," said Dr. Fraud.
A Light in the Dark.
The void existed. Vast, dark, unending, apparently alone. But it was peaceful here, don't get me wrong. The vastness was a metaphor for infinity, eternity, stretching to forever - at least, that’s the best description I can give of it in human terms.
The aloneness was not loneliness. It's hard to explain - the aloneness was more like a state of existence, of being - yes, that's it - pure being, pure awareness; known consciousness, if you like.
Then a thought occurred. It looked like a small mushroom rising out of the black velvet fabric of nothingness. The thought rose upwards, as it were, although, in reality, there was no “up”, no direction to speak of. That hadn’t been invented yet.
The thought rose and the more energy it absorbed, the more focus it was given, the more it swelled and formed into...into something!
It was like a picture coming into focus. A light had turned on, not to be extinguished. Consciousness manifested into beingness; creation: life began.
From the Darkness, Light!
Soil, warm, dark, a rich brown. Deep inside, from the seed's point of view, a tiny thing glowed with life. Cells dividing, plasma seeping, all was busy inside the cell walls. A green thing shot forward, upward, seeking, as was its nature. It burrowed upward, as it were. Up there it knew, like the generations before it from whence the code began, was what it needed, the succour it sought. Up and out, out into freedom...into the...the...light!
A new plant had begun; not only that, it was a lowly weed, the strong ones of the plant kingdom, the ones that grew through and triumphed over trampled bitumen and forgotten cities, twice thus: from the darkness, light!
Greg - loved the way you managed to tie that all together with the meat theme :)
World of Exp. - fantastic imagery!
Writebite - more excellent imagery. Really enjoyed that... even if it was about a weed ;)
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