My garden, my Eden
Mesmerizing beauty and form
Swallowing the world
I’d relaxed half inclined
Searching frantically for safe anchorage and certainty
On my chair comfortably reclined
An attempt forlorn
My desperate search for Tanelorn

Slowly my view dissolved in tears then cleared by eyelid wipers
A perspective of a different dimensional view
A vast flat featureless plane
Bounded by a 360 degree straight line horizon
Form and colour do not exist
Just shades of black and white

I stood in a small depression before a giant scarepost
A porcupine of overwhelmingly numbered pointed limbs
Agonisingly I reviewed each limb in turn
Each indicated a different direction
Identifying a meaningless location across the same barren plane
Not for every direction was a path defined
But for those that had each had been worn in a varying degree
All harboured their own promise
Yet each ended on the same horizon

I reclaimed my original position
Suspicious that the depression had grown larger
Not entirely convinced I continued reviewing the pointed limbs
A quick later glance confirmed my earlier suspicions
It had now become difficult to see over the crater’s cusp
I began to panic
Every part of my body cramped
Bodypaste began squeezing into my head
Soon I would be caught, unable to get out

Chosen; the pathway most used
The path, barely an impression on the ground
I followed it in the hope of desperate luck
After a considerable length of trudging and without notice
Another post appeared
Located in the middle of an identical depression
Inviting me to make the same decision
The result; as before

Eventually I tried making decisions based on different parameters
By evaluation and diagnosing the signs and environment carefully
By trying dumb luck
By bashing my head against the post
The results apart from the pain were always the same
Take too long to derive a decision and there would no longer be a need for one

Physically slightly different yet logically exactly the same
Or maybe all trace of me had been erased and I had simply been returned?
Calculated or not my decisions proved that free will was a logical fantasy
Boredom, loneliness and worthlessness were now added to the list of my afflictions
My head was spinning, turning end on end
I felt sick constantly
Dry retching, trying desperately to throw up my mind

How do you value a man?
Certainly not by the markings on your or anyone else’s ruler
Markings compare simple attributes and bare no intrinsic value
Primarily it is conferred by consensus
Rarely however, has there been time for a quorum to be called
Where do you hang a life that begins and ends on a wall that has neither?
How do you view an unfinished painting;  
With it’s finely placed structured brush strokes of love, pain, hope and despair?
How do you stuff infinity into a finite brain?
Not by the entities themselves but by their interrelationships; formulae if you will
It is therefore imperative to preserve these relationships at all costs
Every road leads in exactly two directions
With the most important locations never signed
The only meaning is the one you make for yourself
And it is left for you to embark on it
How can you break out of bars that you can never reach?
By inviting them to you – a very dangerous prospect!
It is only after having been forced to visit this place that I understand!

Continue the struggle, give in or find a new direction?
Giving in provides relief but with no recourse for hope
Continuing the struggle simply puts off the inevitable
I chose an unsigned direction and nailed it to the signpost
It will be dangerous and fraught with pain and obstacles
Pain that I am now capable and willing to subject myself too
Obstacles that I will endeavour with every thread of my being to overcome
I will pay the price, and hope to “make a difference” for him some day