Daily Prompt #28: Exit
Exit. Brexit. That’s my first response to the word.
And really, Brexit has no meaning for me. Really. But there it is, branded into my mind by the hot iron of social media memes. Is it a good thing, that I have opinions based on the opinion writing of others? This is a rhetorical question. It may not be a bad thing, but it definitely does not qualify as a good.
The front of my brain, the part I leave open for the ideas of others to come and have a cuppa with mine, this part is aflame. Like the LA hills today. Like dragons with flamethrower voices walking in the door, invited or not, and searing the walls of my mental home in order to change it. And if they can’t change it, burn it to the ground.
So I’ve barred the door, even though I know this makes it worse. The ideas blister and rot. Scab over then so the next time I open the door, the firestorm doesn’t stop me. In fact, I go out prepared with my own makeshift flamethrower. Oh, I’m not a dragon yet. I tell myself I don’t want to be but all the dragon fires out there force me to fight with my own fire, the only weapon they understand.
There’s water of course. But water turns to steam in the heat and just burns you more. Unless you have enough. Enough water to steam and still pour, to boil and still keep pouring until the embers die and the world cools. What’s left is black and lifeless. A skeleton of my inner house and yours. Our minds are charred chambers where once we tended idea sprouts and baked cookie feelings.
Some fear the world will end in fire by nuclear holocaust. I feel we are riding an Armageddon of the mind. Not everyone is caught up in it, but when the world ignites — or has it already ignited — the flames won’t go out until they have consumed every scrap of the social fabric, with trust the oxygen will cause the fire to snuff when it has been all used up and gone.
I am careful these days to only let in the ideas of my trusted friends and family while I change the bandages and soothe the burning in my mind. Once I have contained it, the next step will be to leave it open for the larger world. And when I do that, I don’t know if I will go out to meet it with fire or water. I hope for water, but my dreams are full of flame.
