Sounds Like Static

On the Plateau of the Everyday you operate, far from the edge in a circular Trench carved out by your mindless beating feet — a legacy of drudgery. But, oh, the ease in keeping feet one in front of the other, no bother for the ledge — the Edge of Normalcy — and the Unknown beyond. 

But the time will come when the Precipice will call, beg you to fall into Uncertainty, to be free from your self-made monotony. A siren’s song to dive headlong into breathless descent. Toes overhang, knees bend then extend. A leap. Arms wide to embrace. A rush of wind to the face. And with no bottom in sight, at infinite height, feels like flight. No tracks, no roads, might crash who knows? But better the burn of sweet failure, than stale and hollow, numb Plateau.

What a dream, this foray into the Unseen, this wild untethering, this tremulous dismembering, as arms give way to wings. Why, then, should it remain a fantasy when it can be reality? How could your story conclude in Purgatory, when liberation is espied on the horizon.

The Trench — how it hems you in, provides stability, security, but hinders mobility. Make for escape, and you’ll trip, like a fawn you’ll stumble — those bumbling feet prepared to retreat at first sign of defeat. But the fumbling is natural, skinned knees collateral damage on the sprint to the Edge.

No sooner do you find your stride, than the static arrives — the voices that swell from within and outside, rend your heart steal your pride, say the Trench is where you must abide. Who are you to say otherwise? Hey, what the hell, they’re probably the wiser. And that is where the dreaming dies. 

But the static’s just a telltale sign that you’re nearly at the finish line. For change will never come to light without a bitter fight, without a shirt that snags, or a leg that lags, or a heart that doubts so hard it cracks; without losing friends who choose to stay when you hop the Trench to go your way — your price to pay to seize the day, to depart from crippling Plateau plane. This penitence well worth the cost, well worth the risk, for you made for times like this, made to exist, made to resist, to buck the trend, flee the Trench, find the ledge, alight, and take flight.