Apples Of Gold - RicPerrott.com

Empty Cocoon

The sunlight beams down, though I cannot see it. I am shrouded in the sins of my past and the road ahead is long. Born into havoc I dwell. Not completely sure of my surroundings; longing for the golden promise that is always a teardrop away. Time careens by — emotionless — never ending in its cascade of images and emotions. A wall is created, only to be destroyed and rebuilt a thousand times over.

Fear is the omnipresent force that powers this journey — forever unaware and uncaring. The results of actions taken may be meaningless, or fatal. It is this boundary that separates the real from the unreal; the stable from the unstable; and the sane from the insane. This force fills upward from below, not unlike the molten lava that thrusts itself higher, until the pressure becomes too intense — the volcano erupts. The critical point that results is the situation that I am now asked to endure.

The feeling of helplessness abounds as the familiar slowly fades into obscurity. It is quickly replaced by the blinding pain and emotional wreckage that is life. Simply a bundle of cells am I, thrown into this cold, ubiquitous game; a pawn with neither peers nor stability.

It is I suppose the acidic nature of pessimism to assume the worst. However, as I have never been given a reason to expect anything more, I believe that a certain pattern develops over time — that unforgiving wretch — that determines our nature and individual characteristics. Never really having been the recipient of good fortune — if such a thing exists — I have been tossed into a pool of isolation and confusion.

To further exacerbate an already futile situation, a superior intellect does not take easily to quotidian surroundings. Superior not to all, mind you, just to some — most often the ones that you find yourself subordinate to. An arduous task it is, to flourish where there is no peer level. In as much as a superior athlete will soon stray from non-physical companions, intelligence will outgrow the mindset of the plebeian masses. Is this a blessing or a curse?

I find myself more often than not, wanting to leave it all. This is the mundane ritual that I find waiting for me with each sunrise. I am constantly expanding and broadening myself, and I find that the others often lag so far behind. I sometimes whisper silently, a wish that I were not so precocious. The others find pleasure in simple things that either bore or disgust me.

As I continue to search for my meaning, I continually find myself trapped in a plight that I am unable to control. The frustration and anxiety are paramount reasons I sit here now. An inability to change things for the better is saddening; it would be the most disastrous situation to find that that I had passed on without ever realizing the potential for what I was to become.

So I sit here; fear as my neighbor, disquiet my bedfellow. All my pride is stripped, and keeping focus becomes more grueling the more time is spent in their company. I need an upheaval; to be uprooted and planted in soil more suited for my kind. I need a rebirth; to shed this skin and start anew. I must undergo my metamorphosis, and become the butterfly.

For I have been a caterpillar much too long.

Writer's Commentary for Wishes...:

I can remember writing this one very clearly; I suppose that's because at the time it may have been one of the most powerful and provocative things I'd ever written. At the time that this was penned, I was working in a warehouse shipping out orders by picking them, and then placing them on a conveyor belt to be sent to the loading dock. It would not be altogether untrue to say that it was particularly unfulfilling, both emotionally and monetarily, but at the time I had little recourse. To make matters worse, my so- called "supervisors" at this job were direct descendants of that ancient species Homo Moronicus. While I and the rest of the peons worked our fingers to stubs, these jackasses would sit around playing cards and telling off color jokes to each other. Each day my emotions ranged from fury to despondence to complete depression as I came to realize that I was powerless in the situation.

Well, one particular day the conveyor belt broke down and the toiling minions were given a slight reprieve from the incessant grind. I pulled out a piece of paper — shipping manifest actually — and began to write. I can honestly say that I was unprepared for what my pen scrawled across that pristine slice of pulp, but I was helpless to stop it; whatever it was saying needed to be said, cried to be released from deep within my subconscious. I let it take me as far as it wanted to and when I (it) was finished, Empty Cocoon was the result. The work appears in this book virtually unchanged from the day it was written and every time I've ever revisited it with the purpose of editing it, I can never seem to find anything to change.

I like to think that all of us have a butterfly waiting to be released, and all we need is the right set of circumstances to start out metamorphosis in action. For some it comes naturally, but others — me in particular — have to work very hard to facilitate the process that we hope will result in the shedding of our old identities, and bring forth our new, beautiful selves to face the World�each of us leaving behind our own empty cocoon.

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