One balmy August evening,
a young boy ambles along a gentle stream.
It's the same trail he's followed for many years.
He peers absent-mindedly across the water,
squinting as the soft crepuscular light
dances between the sprawling branches.
Coming to a clearing,
he lays himself down and sinks swiftly into a dream,
all the calm of dusk washing over him,
the trickling water lulling him to sleep.
And in that dream,
his soul floats up out of its fleshly form
and hovers in the waiting air.
How peculiar!
He looks down at the empty shell with curiosity.
Then he looks up
and finds he cannot see the source of his own thought.
He looks back down again.
It's a sight he's never seen before
and for some time he simply gazes in wonder.
Soon,
the realisation that he has shaken the cloak of human likeness
comes upon him.
And he thinks what it must be to exist purely as thought,
without image,
without vanity or ego.
Not just to think thoughts but to be thought.
He shouts.
Nothing.
And once more.
But his calls of despair
do not disturb the tranquillity of the scene.
How cruel it is to be robbed of one's own tongue.
Yet he finds a solace
in being a silent observer.
And then,
something altogether more startling occurs.
He starts to perceive, at once
not just the here and now
but the before and after
in one great sensational flurry of colour -
a panoply of snapshots illustrating themselves before him.
Slipping behind the curtain of time,
past, present and future meld together
like sheer layers of plastic over a warm flame.
A lifetime elasticates, contorts and doubles over and over
until every momentary frame stands in perfect alignment.
And here,
true serenity is found:
to know every task already complete;
to find every path already forged;
to have every puzzle already solved;
every river crossed;
every heartache healed;
and all the day's work already done
to stop doing;
to take one's hands from the wheel
and submit to the whims of the wind;
to be the lone passenger on a crewless vessel
to switch off the engine and glide on the waves;
to drift without want of purpose or meaning.
The boy looks down again
and sees the body of an old man.
He recognises the face:
it's his own.
He smiles -
remembering, now, a life well-lived -
looks up
and quietly departs on a passing breeze.