He swam oceans thronging with multi-toothed carnivorous marine dinosaurs, fast-moving diving sharks, mythical monsters, and brightly-coloured but ultimately poisonous darting fish
He fought his way through thickets teeming with snakes, venomous spiders, armies of dark flying insects and predatory tigers
He engaged in life-and-death struggles with demons, angels, friends, foes, ghosts, gods, winds, animals, and himself
His friends on his journey were brigands, buccaneers, outlaws and outcasts; witches, wizards, poets, shamans and people of soul
His allies were assorted animals, spirits of plants, places, mountains; potions, plants, and the energy that encircles the cosmos come what may
His foes were the television people, the politicians, the people of money, law, and power, and other builders of the great necropolis
Many were the battles he fought, running; there were times when it all appeared too much, and he fleetingly felt tempted to fall upon his own sword
Until, one day, while eating a late breakfast, with a shaft of morning sunlight falling on a jar of peanut butter placed in the far left-hand corner of the table, he inadvertently stumbled into the very centre of the brain
Where he found
a deer clattering down a hillside at dusk
an old woman waiting for a bus to nowhere
a four-inch strand of mottled brown seaweed beaming magnificent in its uniqueness
a Zen master burning books at midnight
a young woman's nipples erect in the morning sun
a walnut tree trembling with excitement in the knowledge that he also knew
a cloud pass in front of the moon, then dissolve
three million years of hard-won but ultimately futile human endeavour explode in a yellow flash, then disappear into the night sky
a sodden clump of sphagnum moss vibrating subtly in connection with every other single thing in the universe
a stone by the roadside reflecting everything that ever had been and is yet to come
an old man standing by the evening sea as the rain lashed down, and a tear fall from his left eye as his heart opened slightly
a fourteen year-old boy and twelve year-old girl clasping hands for the first time, and smile
a woman being lifted from a hospital bed and taken home, to die
a lone heron watching, one eye on the stream, the other in eternity
He wiped the crumbs from his mouth and smiled
He fought his way through thickets teeming with snakes, venomous spiders, armies of dark flying insects and predatory tigers
He engaged in life-and-death struggles with demons, angels, friends, foes, ghosts, gods, winds, animals, and himself
His friends on his journey were brigands, buccaneers, outlaws and outcasts; witches, wizards, poets, shamans and people of soul
His allies were assorted animals, spirits of plants, places, mountains; potions, plants, and the energy that encircles the cosmos come what may
His foes were the television people, the politicians, the people of money, law, and power, and other builders of the great necropolis
Many were the battles he fought, running; there were times when it all appeared too much, and he fleetingly felt tempted to fall upon his own sword
Until, one day, while eating a late breakfast, with a shaft of morning sunlight falling on a jar of peanut butter placed in the far left-hand corner of the table, he inadvertently stumbled into the very centre of the brain
Where he found
a deer clattering down a hillside at dusk
an old woman waiting for a bus to nowhere
a four-inch strand of mottled brown seaweed beaming magnificent in its uniqueness
a Zen master burning books at midnight
a young woman's nipples erect in the morning sun
a walnut tree trembling with excitement in the knowledge that he also knew
a cloud pass in front of the moon, then dissolve
three million years of hard-won but ultimately futile human endeavour explode in a yellow flash, then disappear into the night sky
a sodden clump of sphagnum moss vibrating subtly in connection with every other single thing in the universe
a stone by the roadside reflecting everything that ever had been and is yet to come
an old man standing by the evening sea as the rain lashed down, and a tear fall from his left eye as his heart opened slightly
a fourteen year-old boy and twelve year-old girl clasping hands for the first time, and smile
a woman being lifted from a hospital bed and taken home, to die
a lone heron watching, one eye on the stream, the other in eternity
He wiped the crumbs from his mouth and smiled
