Identifying a catalyst supposedly primed to prepare a man for an awakening, guaranteed by those before, with years of inquisition and hardship compelled and endured by or with neurons, the subconscious, or instinctual action, hadn’t yet arrived; a stranger implying that this man’s alienation exists because of his indifference, pernicious to his connections stabilized by love, unwavering but underappreciated, or stubbornly disregarded, wouldn’t accomplish such a reveal; it is possible that he was lost to the herds of his introspections—the wolves of interpretation meeting the river of presuppositions in an argument with a bed of rocks, lapping up the water that consciously streamed with frothy waves and conjoining ripples—and he considered the land below his feet scolding while saying to him: this place won’t do it for you, either. The sultry summer softened by its breath of wind, with a flick to the ear by a dread of hair from his head, as if to keep the man in shape as the loose tires of a sedan carried him along the hills of Texas, through the valleys around Boise, and then over the side of a mountain, should have been enough—as long as the question thought but seemingly not pondered by all ceased to persist. Yet, the deep dissatisfaction survived, while a specific revelation remained hidden. If two thousand miles couldn’t do it, what would?
He would think of his journey as an ice sickle, forming over time, in front of his face—on the window pane that reflected it. Over a roof’s lip, he would find purpose in the rigidity of his fate, in which a pouring of lessons hardened into an inherited position, just as the sickle before. The clashing of ice shattering over the pavement to exclaim a strong existence, where physicality meant more than intuition, would grant him a place to belong: on the earth, where there would be a damning display of his perfunctory attempts and reputation. There, he would find a notch for his reincarnation to aim for—come next winter—if he were his father’s child.
However, he could experience life after having already formed along that lip, as a gradual melting during which each hour that passed, as the sun raised again, dissolved his curiosity into expressive droplets, shaped by acceptance and release, composing a puddle in that the reflection of his sickle swore to meet his consciousness at the place it had been landing. There could be a puddle that collected what he valued the most: the lessons learned by the sickles in his company, that inked instead of engraved, painted instead of tackled, sang instead of yelled, edited instead of clipped, filmed instead of captured, and created instead of dreamed. The impression those sickles could leave for him showed him how to design then interact, compose, compel, solve, re-frame, and seek knowledge to address the welfare of the atoms, collaborating to build a collective conscience preparing for an eve, as well as that of refraction: a noticeable change like a destined revelation set over an Eden—if he was his mother’s child.