I am groping under my bed this morning, hoping to pick up the thread of my labyrinthine existence wherever I left off. As every child knows, the Underbed may have frightening aspects: demons and monsters may reside thereunder. As a child I used to be afraid to get out of my bed lest the Awful Thing under the bed might reach out when I set foot on the floor, grab me by the ankle and pull me under.

The monster evidently transferred its residence to my closet when I discovered that the Underbed’s drawbacks could be supplanted with prohibited things I wanted to secrete. Fortunately for kids, an uncertain number of grownups retain some fear of the Underbed in their adulthood, and are therefore disinclined to crawl under the beds to find out what their kids have hidden away in the springs. Other parents are not afraid but are simply too lazy to investigate; permissive parents do not really mind; negligent folks just do not care; - indeed, there are many reasons why so many kids get away with hiding things under their beds.

Investigators of occluded things have said that the Underbed is not only a place for hidden things but it is in itself a force that hides those things. Of course there may be unseen things that we have material cause to believe exist because the lawful behavior of observable things presumably influenced by them indicates that the unseen things probably exist although we cannot observe them directly, such as subatomic particles and planets out of the range of our means of immediate observation. In such scientific cases we would be errant to suppose some active agent was trying to hide particles and planets from us. On the other hand, although we do not have scientific proof for the existence of willful spirits, angels, devils, otherwise sensible people, including scientists, believe they exist.

As for inner space, we might imagine an Underbed analogous to the places under the beds in our rooms. And to give it the benefit of the doubt, we suppose it might contain willful ideas that we shall never fully comprehend. The Underbed might be hiding some really strange stuff from us, some of which might pop up occasionally and roll back under again – therefore iceberg climbers avoid tying themselves to icebergs. Modern psychoanalytical theories of the Underbed, not having the benefit of thousands of years of sophisticated theology, are rather ugly substitutes for ancient poetic mythology. Still, as a layman, I can state in my own crude words what the Underbed means to me.

First of all, I prefer to fear the seen rather than the unseen. I can place a sacred sign under my bed to direct the demonic traffic away, but a symbol might not suffice to stop a speed demon in my neighborhood. Therefore, when crossing the street, I look both ways first of all, and never rely on the traffic signs for my safety.

My Underbed is not such a fearsome place now that I am myself about to disappear. I keep my favorite things there. True, strange things are taking place there, seemingly of their own accord. I have found several brand new toys that I did not consciously hide there; for instance, the most recent issues of the transcendental publication entitled Plaything appears by mysterious means.

Since I am in a revelatory mood, I confess that I think my Lost Mother is in command of my Underbed. I mean the Goddess who inspires, preserves, and guides me in my flight, as if she were my automatic pilot upon whom I can safely rely to keep me from going astray. She once cradled me intimately, but she put me down to tend to my kind. She did not forsake me, although I felt dropped into a death spiral: therefore I am such as I think on that feeling. I find small comfort in the thought that my dying is for more living; in the final analysis, thoughts are all too pallid for me. Sometimes I am too preoccupied with myself. I think looking for my self is a way for me to get lost and lose the self I seek.

My jealous significant other, Alter Ego, has interpreted my preoccupation as a narcissistic perversion of the natural need to die so others may live. That may very well be, but I persevere in my perversion with full confidence that the Underbed makes no mistake with me. A dose of narcissism may be just the right remedy for the current objectification disease. It might be a tiny but potent stimulus for the reform of the established institution of dissociated or divided dividuals. After all, Narcissus’ hunger strike was for a self we all share, although I regret the Mahatma was not there to counsel him to put it to good use.

Therefore I am because I know it is I who feel something or the other or the gaps in between. But I accidentally switched off my autopilot after I arose this morning, and I am now clutching again for the clue, for the yarn to get me out of the darkness of today and into the dark light under the bed of existence. According to Daylight’s officious editors, the yarn must get to a sharp, conscious point. Indeed, everything must have a sharpened point for pinheaded existence. The predilection for particular objectives, with straight and narrow paths tapered off to sudden dead ends, overcompensates for the terrifying suspicion that there may be no way out of the labyrinthine network elaborated to imprison the bull-headed man.

Minotaur devours narcissistic misfits, adults still in their childhood who are preoccupied with themselves and who consequently resist the self-defeating system. The perpetually young at heart are especially condemned to be his regular fodder. The Minotaur’s minimum dietary requirement has compounded since ancient times, from seven boys and seven girls every nine years, to untold millions of children and adults trained to cast themselves into the defeat-system on a daily basis. Perhaps the seldom-told scandal of the Minotaur’s genesis, if exposed, will serve to lay to rest the bull that is consuming so many selves, or at least provide the captives with a yarn sufficient for their escape, whereupon they may embark on independent escapades. Minotaurus is the monstrous offspring of a bestiality that is impossible without the abuse of human inventiveness. Pasiphae’s love for Minotaurus’ father, the White Bull presented to her husband by Poseidon, would never have been consummated or incarnated without benefit of the apparatus fashioned by Daedelus to make her into a cow for all bestial intents and purposes.

Yes indeed, I have found another clue under my bed: a toy Minotaur. To stay on my naturally meandering course, I shall furthermore pick up whatever else comes to mind from my Underbed and follow the thread of association wherever it might lead. If I feel I am getting nowhere, I shall reel in the line for food for thought much more appetizing than empty space. Who knows where such a fishing expedition might lead? Perchance I shall find my fate and thus know myself. Perhaps I shall discover a forbidden enchanted island, a liberated Cuba of the mind, and find Pythia sitting there on her tripod over the Underbed, reading the news, in which case I shall drink a few mojitos and ask her to dance.

-finis-

Biographical David Arthur Walters is an independent journalist presently residing in the United States.