Superimposition

I have an image in my mind of a forest — shades of green and brown extending in all directions. There are trees and plants and animals of all shapes and sizes. It’s not Eden, but there’s something primeval about it, something essential and terrifying and free.

It’s cold in winter and warm in summer. The nights are hard and long. I am hungry and searching for food. I can feel the warmth of the campfire. I can hear birds singing at daybreak. My eyes can see the horizon.

I doubt I’d survive even a week living in this image.

Then superimposed on this image is another … one of concrete, shades of grey extending in all directions. I can see bricks, and boxes, and buildings as tall as trees. And machines, so many machines, everywhere, machines! Cranes and screens and trucks and cameras, with glass windows to witness the logoed construction … or is it destruction?

And yet I can’t avert my gaze!

It’s not a Blade Runner world, but there is something disconcerting, something addictive and comfortable and sedating, yet slightly false and even menacing, about it.

Why are people talking to themselves?

Why isn’t anyone smiling?

Why is the noise never-ending?

It’s cloudy today, and yet I’m bombarded by artificial light.

There are so many plants — and they are beautiful — but none are outside.

They’re in a box within a box. Am I, too?

There’s a large fridge with drinks inside it in the corner of a restaurant. All the colours of the rainbow are there, bottled and ready for consumption.

My eyes hurt when I first look, but then they become adjusted to wonderland, and it’s as if the original image was never there.

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