way way way way down
Counting backwards from ten. Nine. Eight. I’m not so sure of this. Six. Something is wrong. Four. Three. Oh well. One.
It's somewhere between here and half past nowhere. I haven't calibrated the pattern of my thoughts to really mean anything, but I know that there is truth in something out there.
I'm trying to grasp at straws. I never really knew what that meant. I don't know what that means, but they are slipping through my fingers. They will tumble and fall like the great empires past. The buildings of now are shrine to our former glory and they stand resolute. To pray to. To pray in. That is a natural high. Perhaps an uncomfortable high. The modern Messiah of our technological age might deteriorate the moment it sets foot in the sunlight and become relic before it's even been unboxed, but happiness is in the next new thing. These are the things that hold our society together. They connect. They interact. They integrate. For the common good. Don't tell me that's not the case. I see it on the t.v. I see it on the billboards. I see it in the magazines. They can't all be lying.
I digress down the road to where the others are leading us. To follow. Which is not a bad thing. It's not like the realms of control are truly in our realm of control. You should have a long hard look and laugh if you ever thought that was going to be the case. But it's ok. Everything is going to be ok because our stuff and things protect us in our squares upon squares rising high in the sky out of reach from the filth on the street. And when we leave our square in the sky, we travel through the dirt in our square on wheels. We are protected. We give up our control for this protection and we are all ok with that because we are all going to be ok.
The sky doesn't mind either. It would have told us so otherwise. It likes the shade and shares our protection from us. We don't look up, they don't look down. Way, way, way, way, down. We can gossip about them and they can laugh at us, but we don't mean no harm. We get on with our day, just as they do theirs. But I have often wondered what is so great about up there. Everybody else is too busy trying to keep it out to care. Or perhaps just too busy. We are busy people and our things help us lead a more productive life so we can work to buy more things to better our lives. The technological advances we've achieved is nothing short of amazing.
I have some things which benefit my life greatly. I feel sorry for those who are in their later years that haven't been able to enjoy all that life has to offer us because they haven't had such wonderful things to make their lives more fulfilling. And I know that my children and my children's children are going to have even more things. Though, this makes me sad. I want those things. Those things that I don't know of yet. Those things that I know are going to make me happier, healthier and live a more important life. But it's not for me to decide if and when I get those things. I am happy with what I have now because I know it is not what my parents had and what my parents had my grandparents did not have. It feels good to be looked after like that. That is the protection we pay for.
Sometimes I look up, though. I try to do it when nobody is around. I think I'm ashamed to look up. Like I'm trying to find something else up there because I'm not content with the things I have down here. I can't be the only curious person though, surely. Sometimes I feel like there is something missing. Even with all my things they told me would make my life complete. I don't know if anybody feels the same. Does anybody else know that when you look up, sometimes the sky is blue? Like, the bluest of blues. Sometimes there is white drifting across the vast blue like the Sweet Dreams pillows we use for "the best night's sleep you'll ever need". Sometimes there is no blue at all. It is grey. A grey of willingness to overcome the area between night and day, dark and light. It is not a sad grey. It is a determined grey. At least that's what I see. Sometimes water materialises from the sky, making people even more determined not to look up. We have our SHIELD 360 umbrellas and Everyday Waterproofs to hush this water into submission as if it were not there in the first place. This is the best time to look up. When everybody is looking down. Don't make any sudden movements though. Not towards the water. People notice that. People notice when you're wet and wonder what happened to your Everyday. They panic that theirs might not work when the water comes next. I have to remind them what the t.v. and the billboards and the magazines have told us about the Everyday Waterproofs, 100% waterproof, 100% every day. My hand must have just slipped out. It's my fault. 100% waterproof. 100% every day.
The truth is in the science of the television and the billboards and the magazines. I watch and read them religiously. They tell me what I need next. They guide me on to the path I follow with others. They tell us right from wrong, up from down. “Don't look up”. “Keep your head down”. I am deviant for looking up. I am a secret up-looker. I tell no one of this. I've heard stories of those who look up. Just through the grapevine, urban legend to scare the children. The air of mystery in what goes on up there. What lies beyond our squares that protect us. We don't have a name for them, or it, or whatever lives in the skies, but we're told it's there and that is the truth. I haven't seen anything yet.
I have to be more careful. Too many times have I been on the verge of being caught. I just want to shout out, to them, to us, to somebody who must know more than the truth; "LOOK!". "Look up". "Look down". Just look at what is going on around you. Are you really happy with everything that's going on? Are you happy with your things and your stuff that keeps you protected from the unknown entity living in the sky that we're too afraid to look at because we've been told bad things happen to those who look up? Are you happy? I don't think I'm happy. I don't think I've ever been happy. I've never been told the difference between happiness and sadness except what the t.v. and the billboards and the magazines have told us. "This will bring so much more happiness to your lives!" Sometimes, I want to get caught.
I want to reach the top of the highest point of our tallest squares. I want to be able to touch the skies. I want to be able to see my people from up there, the way the beings in the sky must see us. I want to see down. Way, way, way, way down. Further down than that. I hear that’s where they take those people who dare look up. So I want to look down from up there. I have tried to make it up as far as I could go, but I’m not cleared for those kind of heights. I know where my level is, here on the ground and my number in the squares upon squares and I am happy with my number. I think I’m happy with my number.
I have tried to get to those places that I have not been authorised to go. I count the steps, the levels, backwards from ten, but I think something always goes wrong. I have only done this a handful of times. I don’t really want to get caught in these places. Looking up is one thing, but climbing the squares past your authorised level, well, you’re just asking to go down. I don’t want to go down. I don’t really know much of what any of this all means from the numbers, the squares, the words we use. I try to ask in a subtle way without stepping out of place. I don’t think that’s going too well.
I have been informed that my behaviour has become erratic and irrational of late. They throw these words at me like I’m supposed to know what that means. I am a ticking time bomb. I feel like we’re all just ticking away now. If I have one more chance to look up then I would. But for now, I have to keep my head down. Way, way, way, way down. I like the society I live in and I know there is happiness here and everything that I could possibly want from life is set right before me. I get to have my things and my square and my protection because I have earned it through this society. And I will keep watching, reading and listening to the people who know better than I, who will tell me what I need next. What I need to do next. I am grateful for all this that I have and all that I will get in the future.
So I guess this is where my story ends. Not with the heroic rise from the ashes that can be obtained from the things that we have generated in our lives that we leave behind, but the flutter of something that was not yet fully achieved. Though, I know it is still achievable if I want it. I am a patient disciple of the world that has been made for me and I just hope I can do it the justice and recognition it deserves for all it has given us. One day, if we want, we can be the righteous who can inform others of what we need next. Just don’t look up. Way, way, way, way up.