Rational Delirium
The heart pumps, the blood boils, my feet and legs are unable to help themselves. They tap and tap and tap out a rhythm. My head bobs, my mind is clear and yet, filled (not cluttered, never cluttered) with a sense of frenzied and chaotic order. There’s a sense of rushing and yet the tempo is regulated and steady.
Images flash through my mind of blurred peripheral vision, the g-forces pushing me further and further into my seat. Weaving in and out of traffic, the click-click of the blinker in unsteady repetitions, speedometer needle steadily climbing despite the thickening volume of vehicles on an unnamed urban blood vessel.
Flash to a parallel but this time as the needle rises the windows are down and the wind is blowing against your hair. The rhythm and frenzy pulsing a steady beat into your ears, into your mind. The road is clear and unending and your worries are futilely trying to catch up, ultimately lagging behind and of no concern. Ahead is nothing but endless asphalt and clear night sky. The stars shine overhead and the moon is fat and content above you.
Your hands are dancing across the glowing and prismatic instrument panel in front of you. Outside the plexiglass viewport is nothing but the blackness of space and the white dots of distant cosmic bodies occasionally blurred by your vessel’s erratic and unpredictable flight through the vacuum. Your bob and weave and bank and continuously try to circle behind your unrelenting opponent as they mercilessly try to transform you from a solid into a flaming nothingness. Again your head is filled with a brisk, steady tempo of melodic thumps and softer intricacies woven into the tapestry of the music. It guides your hand, keeps your motions steady and unpredictable.
A torrential downpour relentlessly batters you as you stare across the clearing at your opponent. You are both of you tensed and anticipating that unspoken agreement between enemies that will signal the upcoming struggle for supremacy. Your feet pound against the dampened earth in tandem with the melodic discord that you hear from the back of your mind. The distance between the two fighters shortens until, suddenly, the falling droplets are interrupted by movements resembling a dance. You and your opponent manipulate the razor sharp edges of your blades into seeking the others flesh. The proximity is filled with glittering arcs of barely avoided motions as the two opponents duck and parry, riposte weave. It is a dance centered around the two finely tempered instruments of metal, of which the sole purpose is to sink into a person’s flesh. And yet, the rhythm is there keeping tempo; erratic in its constant pace.
Still the beat goes on, the rhythm goes on, the melody goes on. Different and the same. Chaotic and contained and beautiful.
