Chapter 1
DEAD MAN SLEEPING
They say you only live once, so live like it’s your last day on earth. I say you’re living for your future whilst you live your past. Does that make sense? If it doesn’t, my conclusion is life is a pattern. It’s a pattern that’s repeated over and over again. A spiral is probably a more accurate description. It spirals up and down, left and right, clockwise and sometimes anti-clockwise, all the while, despite the glaring patterns; you and I haven’t a clue what’s around the next corner. We just go along for the ride, holding fiercely onto the things that are dear to us like hapless children that don’t know better. Well, I knew what was around my next corner - endless heartache. But, get this, apparently there’s a meaning to all the suffering, ‘a method to the madness,’ they say. It’s a method that drove me mad, or at least I thought I was mad.
Does painting the same face over and over again in my paintings make me mad? Officially, and according to the people that witnessed me jump and rescued me, I was mad. The problem with a diagnosis is it follows a pattern. If the patient is exhibiting the following symptoms, ‘blah, blah, blah,’ he is indeed suffering from, ‘blah, blah, blah.’ In my case, I suppose I was exhibiting symptoms associated with madness, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I was mad… does it?
I’ve come to believe the only way to predict the future, is with hindsight. How I hate the hindsighters. They all see it coming, after it’s arrived. “How did ya not see it? Wasn’t it bloody obvious?” one of them, Jamie Diamond, was haste to ask me not long before I jumped. It was his perverse attempt to comfort me. I treated the question as though rhetorical and with the contempt it deserved. I glared at him with cold eyes, then I kicked him in the guts. If it were that obvious then I would’ve known, asshole. But it wasn’t obvious and I didn’t know.
Before I awake, I have to formally introduce myself. My name is Malcolm, Malcolm Froglie, pronounced ‘Frolly.’ Just ignore the ‘G.’ However, I’ve been called ‘Frog’ all my life, so I guess it’s okay for you to call me ‘Frog’ too. It’s kinda funny actually; with a nickname like that it’s probably fitting that I did jump. It’s all a spiralling pattern, you see. It’s possibly the right time to describe myself as I can feel you wondering. I’m going to do a lot of describing. It’ll help you and I piece together this extraordinary conundrum. Plus, all my life I’ve been told I’m far too sensitive with regards not just to words, but visually too, you know, memory and all that. I read somewhere that the human mind is at its most efficient when processing images… and emotions too, I suppose. Besides, adding meat to the frail bones of life is all a sensitive man like me can do to give it meaning.
My friends used to tell me I thought too much, looked too deep into things. It annoyed them. I was the type that would look at a painting with the most insignificant detail in it and come up with a whole load of malarkey about what it might have meant and attempt to feel the mind state of the artist in the process of its creation. I’ve actually learnt, from my own experiences, that some people are pretty good at it and others aren’t. Those that weren’t would often look introspectively at my work and waffle on about what it meant to them. Meanwhile, I’d be rubbing the back of my neck thinking, ‘just buy the painting for god’s sake.’ But, I guess that’s what art is really all about. That’s what life is all about. It means different things to different people depending on their perspective. Some have all the money in the world and still go to their graves unfulfilled, others just want to be happy, and some spend a lifetime trying to find love. That’s life… and art.
‘Pareidolia’ is what my friend, Landen, said I was suffering from when we used to hang out. I looked it up and read that it was a psychological hard-wiring that encouraged people to see more into things such as images than need be. For example, I’ve read so many stories where people reckoned they’d seen Jesus Christ’s or the Virgin Mary’s image on a slice of toast they were about to eat. What about the face on Mars? Is it really a face or just an illusion of one depending on the angle we look at it from? Being emotional beings we tend to see what we want to see. It gives us a sense of meaning or something like that, I don’t know.
Leonardo da Vinci seemed to think pareidolia was a useful tool for painters. His word was as good as gold to me, so I wore Landen’s tag with pride. You’ve probably guessed it. I’m an artist, though a late bloomer. Painting is my art form of choice. I come from a long list of artists on my mum, and dare I say, dad’s side. Different expressions of art, might I add? I’m quite tall, about six-foot-one, or 185.50 cm, to be precise, and slightly structured. I have brownish hair and hazel eyes and am normal in every other way. Normal looking, I dress normally and I walk normally; in a nutshell, you wouldn’t distinguish me in a crowd of normal people. That’s all you need to know for now. The rest you’ll uncover.
Oh, yeah, the location. I think I’m currently lying on a hospital bed. That’s where guys like me end up soon enough. The high-pitched beeping and buzzing noises that the machines are making are also a giveaway. But I feel sure that I’ll be awake soon. I can hear the voices from without and my own from within. I can tell it’s a scramble by the nature of the frantic yells. The screeching reminds me of peril and yet I’ve never been more comfortable with anything closely related to the word. Perhaps peril in this scenario is bliss in a madman’s mind, that same mind that made the conscious decision to jump. But I’m sure I intended it to be a leap of faith with surreal imaginings that I might reconnect with her, my star, rather than to disconnect from what was uncovered.
I think I’ve just had what many people have described to be a near death experience. My life up to now has literally flashed before my eyes, like some sort of panoramic movie. Then there was the bright light at the end of the tunnel. I felt like a moth the way I was attracted to the light, as if it was calling me and I had no other choice but to float towards it. As the light absorbed me, I felt the most wonderful love I’ve ever felt. I can’t even begin to describe it in words. More panoramic scenes popped up around me. This time, they were scenes that had yet to occur. I presumed I was walking in the direction of my future. In one of the scenes, I had indeed made it to my second art exhibition. All my loved ones were present; my mum, dad, Eric, even Diamond and his sister. In another scene I saw a little boy that turned out to be my baby brother. Annie was in most scenes, but she’s destined to be with me everywhere I go, that’s both a blessing and a curse. Doctor Brown referred to my plight as ‘a magician’s trick.’ You’ll understand why once I explain my story.
As slowly as it all started, it ended abruptly. I felt the sensation of falling from an extraordinary height and back inside my body. But now I know that it was intended that way. I don’t quite know how, but I know. There’s tenseness in my stomach because of it. I’m being given a second chance, and it’s left to me to give everyone who has ever let me down a second chance too. Either that or continue to carry the scorn I had reserved in the pit of my heart for them. As of right now, at this very minute, I feel it’s too soon to just forgive and forget.
I’m aware that I’m talking to myself. I can only be talking to myself, but I’ve often heard people say that you’re never really alone, even when you assume that you are. Some say there’s a voice inside us that knows the answers to all our questions, ‘Jus’ need to be still.’ There’s no better place to be still than in a hospital. Mine is a tale for anyone sitting still enough to listen to my words. It’s primarily about a magician and the girl I love. Of course, I have the starring role, but they often come close to stealing the spotlight. The magician fulfills his role admirably, without loss of enthusiasm, without missing a trick and as true to his art form as can be, deceptively.
How could I have been fooled for so long? When I found out the truth, I felt the heartbeat in my chest fading, as though infinite love had suddenly become finite. Reality became nothing but an illusion in itself, an illusion that was maintained and upheld by my own will and profound belief in something that it could never be unreal.
