ps-20: 3 prologues
(to trace a path)
Greetings all,
For today’s post-script, I’ve got three mini-stories for you.
Two of them I wrote in college, while the third was something created at the request of my therapist a few years back, her way of encouraging me to return to writing. And all three serve as prologue to a fourth, which was already published here a while back.
I share them not only as hopefully fun diversions (which all these post-scripts are intended to be), but also because they trace a path for me, a path I hope to extend as both an explanation and an offering.
Holding these three stories together in my mind shows me a single thread spun out by my unconscious over many years, a feedback loop that I’d missed at the time, but which hung around until I’d developed to the point where I could recognize the information it was holding for me.
The tracing of this thread through the four stories is the explanation.
And the offering is to help you find such threads in your own life.
As you may know, I also offer guidance services at The Kind Knife (details are here). One of the main things I do when I work with people is to look for feedback loops in their life, things that have stuck with them for many years, and we work together to uncover the messages these loops carry. It is my firm belief that such repeating patterns, whether physical, emotional, mental, or otherwise are things that bring us more benefit the more we pay attention to them.
By repeating patterns, I don’t (just) mean an inability to keep to an exercise program, or the tendency to end up in the same type of relationship over and over again, though those are valid entry points for this work as well.
These three stories are also examples of a repeating pattern. They are things which have stuck with me for many years. I recognize them as such because these old creations of mine still hold a sense of meaning for me, and the sense of held meaning is also a feedback loop.
I kept the manuscripts of the two from college for decades. The other two are more recent creations, though still a few years old at this point.
And yet, all four stories fit together perfectly, the pieces of an arching doorway, the threshold to a path of healing upon which I have been walking for quite some time.
I’ll explain more as I go along, but for now, let us simply begin…
The Boy in the Brambles
A light bursts out in the dark, on a small bramble covered hill at the edge of town. A young boy stands atop the hill, eyes blazing. He points his finger and a small flame blossoms amidst the brambles. He turns his head to the heavens, opens his mouth, and a gout of flame shoots up into the night sky. The brambles catch flame…
They bring buckets, douse the flames. The brambles smolder, and they pull the boy, now sodden and cold, from the vine’s thorny embrace. His eyes blank, his jerkin soaking, he is wrapped in blankets and sat in front of the hearth fire. He stares idly into it, speaking to no one. Eventually he brings his hands out and holds them to the fire, but they stay cold and blue throughout the night.
The next morning, he rises early and sets about his chores.
His hands, however, remain cold.
Through some deep dives into my internal world and into my personal history, I’ve discovered that this fiery boy with the cold, doused hands is someone I carry within. Learning to relate to the flame of his anger, learning to feel the frozen coldness of his hands, has been a life-long journey. But it is one I am doing consciously now, and it is a beautiful thing to get to know that part of myself again without fear.
The Man in the Box
There was once a man who lived in a cardboard box. He wore it everywhere he went, and when he was sitting around with nothing to do, he would paint pictures on the surface. He could only ever paint them upside down though, because he could never take the box off. People would look at him and say, “Those are some great paintings on your box, but they’re upside down, so we don’t understand them.”
This made the man sad because he liked his paintings and he wanted to share them with other people in a way they could understand. To do that, though, he would have to take the box off and turn it around, and he could never allow himself to do so. The thought of it terrified him.
So he lived the rest of his life painting upside down pictures that only he understood, and he died a sad man, never able to share his work with anyone. After he had been buried, someone took his box and turned it over. Everyone immediately understood his paintings. He became renowned the world over as a master painter, and a great many people now mourned his passing.
Here we see the boy in the brambles grown up. His cold hands have turned into a box, his fire now manifests as paintings, always misunderstood. The terror of taking the box off is the terror of thawing his hands and letting the flames spew forth again. And the renown after death is a desire for fame as compensation for the lack of true expression.
The incredible hulk
The incredible hulk has taken up residence in my bathroom.
Time was, he lived down the hall, where I could go down and knock him around a bit whenever I wanted. He always seemed cool with it, but not anymore. I don’t know when he moved into my bathroom, but he’s here now and he’s not explaining himself.
Maybe he was tired of getting knocked down and always coming back for more. This is, of course, something of a requirement for him. He’s the incredible hulk. He cannot go down and stay down; the world does not work that way. Superheroes always come bouncing back for more, and the hulk is definitely a superhero.
But the other morning, when I walked into my bathroom, there he was, standing in the corner, the overhead bulb lighting a spread of white tiles on either side of him, his skin a lurid green, his blue denim tattered and torn. He said nothing, but he held my gaze, rage glaring in his eyes.
Now, one thing you have to understand is that this is a tiny studio apartment with an even tinier bathroom. There is barely enough room for one normal person, let alone myself and the incredible hulk.
So of course, I can’t knock him around any more. If I did, he might bounce off the wall and smack right back into me. Not fighting back exactly, just a sort of natural repercussion.
Maybe this is why he’s moved into such an enclosed space. Perhaps he is tired of being knocked down. Or maybe he’s afraid that, if he gets knocked down again, he won’t be able to come bouncing back on his own this time...
I don’t know, and he definitely won’t tell me.
He just stands there, rage glaring in his eyes.
Based on a true story. My college roommates had a sand-filled blow-up punching bag with the Incredible Hulk on it that would navigate itself around the dorm room. One day it showed up in our small shared bathroom, and I was struck by the expression of anger in such a small space. To tie that into what I am doing here, in this piece we see the man in the box, oblivious and young, coming across the fiery rage of that boy in the brambles. Failing to recognize it as his own, his is confused and perhaps a bit frightened.
And all of these prologues lead up to:
Wherein we see what happens when the man in the box: realizes he is the incredible hulk of the boy with the frozen hands; gathers up his box-labyrinth of the childhood bramble-hill that still exists within and around him; and takes a flying leap toward the heart of the dying star he still carries, in the hopes of bringing the star of that boy’s fiery hands back to life in a way that brings warmth and life, rather than destruction.
Thank you for coming with me on this little journey. If you’ve enjoyed it, I ask for your support in continuing my work. You can do so either by subscribing here (and my many, many thanks to those who already have),
or you can investigate working with me, turning this perspective towards your own life in a way that will, I hope, bring you warmth and life as well. You can simply reply to this email to begin a discussion or check the Guidance Services page for more info.
With much love,
Ian Reclusado
of the Kind Knife