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Monday, April 11, 2005

No such thing

He sits down
In his favourite armchair -
The one by the window
With the slightly worn armrests -
To read the newspaper.

The main picture,
On the front page
Of the newspaper,
Is moving.

"This is like Harry Potter,"
He thinks,
"But less important."

Then he realises.
He is not sitting down
Reading a newspaper;
He is sitting down,
Watching television.

He turns a page carefully.
Televisions do not usually work
In this manner,
But he carries on.

The corner of the page
Is agreeably tactile
Between his thumb
And first finger.

It feels like 120 gsm
Fine wove paper,
Discreetly watermarked
Two thirds of the way down.

There are no pictures
On this next page;
Just vibrating coloured text
And sound.

Then he realises.
He is not sitting down
Watching television;
He is sitting down,
Watching his computer screen.

He turns another page carefully.
Computer screens
Do not usually work
In this manner,
But he carries on.

There is now no feeling
Whatsoever
Between his thumb
And first finger,
But the page turns over
Easily enough,
And there is an agreeably
Tactile, fluttery,
Slightly creepy sensation
In his solar plexus.

Then he realises
That the computer screen
Whose pages he is turning
Has no input devices –
No keyboard,
No mouse,
No stylus,
No line in,
Only his consciousness
Bluetoothed into
The operating system's
Sentient software.

Then he realises.
He is not sitting down
Watching his computer screen;
He is in a lucid dream,
And it is the kind of lucid dream
Where you are fully aware
That you are in
A lucid dream.

There is an agreeably
Tactile sensation
Between the middle
Of his eyebrows
And his pineal gland.

He concentrates his full attention
On the lucid dream's
Computer screen
And gives the now
Well-rehearsed
Telepathic command:
"Take me to
The Arcturian starship,
Athena."

And instantly he is there again,
In the Debriefing Room,
Of the starship Athena,
Talking, once more,
To his old friends,
The Arcturians,
In a routine etheric conference,
While, at the same time,
At a lower vibratory level,
His physical body
Is sitting down
In his favourite armchair -
The one by the window
With the slightly worn armrests -
Reading the newspaper.

Sometimes truth
Is stranger than fiction.

And Harry Potter has shown
That sometimes
There is no such thing as fiction.

..................................

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