He knew that it would be going too far to assert that he was deceptive. He hadn’t figured that out yet. Besides, the one thing he knew was that a perfectly normal person was rare in society. But even this rationalization might be construe d as self-deception by reasoning. Exasperated, he at last concluded that being normal might be unattainable. “So, what’s normal?” a little voice asked him. “I don’t know,” he answered. “Then ask yourself this: Do your needs move you towards others, do they move you away from others, or do they move you against others?”
.
Always, as the
wind howled, and the
waters swirled around him,
his life would filter through the
moments like sand through a sieve,
immersing him in conditions that
only worsened the audits of a
stubbornly unyielding soul...
.
Prone to underplaying, he gazed languidly
into another eddying context, one unforeseen,
and unwanted, and (according to his own stuttering
attempts at interpreting life) rife with the unnecessary...
.
Hoping to simplify whatever lesson
was being doled him, the man strained
and struggled against the rage of impulses
reaming his personal and treasured designs.
And though he drank
himself carefree; he endured,
for himself, and also for the alter-egos
he’d conjured, that would represent the parts
of himself he wanted to keep hidden...
.
And being settled to dissemble his
neuroticism as being inconsequential,
he zipped up his nonchalance like a jacket,
and then bolstered his pride as if all the facets
of his being were as they should be...
.
His anguished life would be a lake,
(elemental, unadorned, approachable)
something that people were easily drawn to.
He recognized that surfaces were what mattered most,
and he was laudably skilled at creating semblances...
.
His would be a planar creation, a pleasing
facade that others could look at (en-passant) or dip
their hands into momentarily without being scuppered.
He would wear tailor-made suits, and no one would ever
again have to intellectualize his collection of knickknacks,
now effectively hidden behind a pricey jade bolo...
.
At last, he knew he was
reachable, especially by those who
unknowingly fondled his deceptions. And as
pleasantly benignant words were freed daily to
swarms of passerby’s (all too self-absorbed to care)
he smiled and smoothed the lapels of his tailored suit
in anticipation of something normal happening...
.
© richard lloyd cederberg
2021

             Between the Cracks - A Monumental Journey Series