7. Chains

As the noose of adulthood tightens around my neck I have barely enough resources to spare a memory … there was this boy.

He hid in the corner, alone. He was different, as He always had been. As surrounding voices announced the master's arrival, He did not speak, but after a silent acknowledgment of his presence the Boy resumed His own musing for, not bound by the chains of conformity, He was free.

He had never given up His freedom. As all others filed past Him to receive their serial numbers, He stood back and watched as freedom of the mind was all He had; without it He was nothing. As He watched He wept mute tears for those who were gambling their individuality in the meek hope that it would lead them on an easier path through life.

The little Boy in the corner observed the androids marching to their common duties; He did not follow. He ached for His own company as He watched them together, but there was no-one like Him because only His concrete defences could withstand the attempts at infiltration by shallow ideologies and stereotypes that are constantly battering at the mind from birth. Realizing that genocide of the mind was taking place, He created his own beliefs and fears.

They were told and they believed, and because they believed, they told and were believed; and so the Boy’s environment became a perpetual motion machine with which He dared not tamper as all opposing forces to the system were immediately nullified so as to maintain the equilibrium of the system.

This gradual annihilation of thought was not even realized by those teaching it -- their sight was limited by horse-blinkers and they could see no other direction; but when they did occasionally slow down to take a look around, the sharp spurs in their sides reminded them of their goal in life -- to win the race to the end.

They were all controlled by one electrical “brain” which had been developing since the Dark Ages. This was programmed to execute instructions as they were given. They were existing in the Age of Enlightenment -- the light ages, the age of Nothingness.

The boy lived.

From his vantage point in the corner he watched the earth revolve on its axis 24 hours a day, 365.28 days a year and wondered what it meant to live.

That constant battering caused erosion and after many years those magnificent defences were overcome like the walls of Jerusalem and the pure, sweet fruit of thought became contaminated and infested with emptiness. That once holy land was conquered and ravaged and eventually razed to the ground. The chains that enabled the merging of my mind and his rusted and broke. We separated and I then became free -- free of the Boy, free of thought, free to be no one and nothing. I have spent many hours searching for the Boy in the corner, but all that’s left of him is a broken link.