Apologia

I write. I have to write. I exhibit a tendency to pick up pens or other mark making objects and scrawl, recording meaning—meaning belongs at nodes, or across clusters, in a symbolic network driven by reproduction and homeostasis.

Something just happened. A particular interaction, in abstract. Two minds sparked and fizzled, running interlocking psychic code. A man sits across from his mother. Albeit thirty miles between them.

A memory from childhood. He’s in a wood. Alone. He plays in the wood but becomes lost. He finds an old train tunnel overgrown with ivy and with honeysuckle on one side. He follows it and emerges in a field on a hill. *Buzzing*

In the channel, formed by what a peasant and a lord six hundred years prior would agree was an act of spirit-magic, the man and his mother spoke. Telepathic vision he called it. Animal light shining through space.

The mother became elated as her pride burst out in smile and laughter. The man humoured this, clutched his chest. Their faces vivid to one another, flattened in their visions, beaming, frowning.

The vision ended. The man found himself alone. I should apologise. He was told to apologise. To make amends to all those he wronged in the dark—yearning. He pondered—what should I be sorry for—in spite of a mother’s pride.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry for those times that I belittled you. I’m sorry that I was so angry towards you. You that have always nurtured me. Unfailing. The man looked up at the shadow of leaves on the wall. Just a detail.

I’m sorry. I, lost, never could find you. To speak to you. You who rarely spoke to me. Deeply. I still should have said something. Let you know. Of my yearning in the dark. Tears. He took a deep breath. Then a yawn. Sleep overcame him.

He woke the next morning. They call him. The man’s mother had died. The man never said his apology. Hammered strings form a melody. The melody loops. A distant female voice follows the melody in song.

It’s ok. I forgive you. I once walked into the ocean. I couldn’t tell where the horizon was. Neither could you. I forgive you. Life through the tunnel. The pale interior hidden in the gloom. I see a golem in the dark.