Monday 9 February 2009

Caged

I am trapped in a cage. I made it myself. You would not expect anything less, I am sure.

It is nice and safe. It is hard to hurt me when I am behind these thick, strong bars that I made (ironmongery of the mind is one of my many talents). I have spent years forging them just so; they contain me.

I suppose that trapped isn't really the right word - I can get out of it. It's just that the door in the cage is very high on one of the walls.

When I get there I can either go straight ahead into another cage (tunnel-shaped; getting narrower), or jump into the unknown and see what happens. It is dark outside my cage; it could be a long fall and there may be nobody there to catch me, just people cheering me on from afar.

There could be another cage where I land. This cage could be less comfortable and safe.

I am building steps out of my cage. Once I get within grabbing distance of the door, though, it will be time to take action. I am building the steps slowly so that this does not happen too soon. As I said, it is safe within my cage.

My cage is not bare. There are plenty of playthings. They do not melt the bars, though.

My cage is portable. It won't go very far, but it does not have to stay in exactly the same place: some variety is permitted, although not welcomed. The doors have to be padlocked shut to facilitate any moving, and it is a while before they will be opened again.

I can still build the steps while I am waiting, though. I can stand at the door and try to gauge what will happen when I step through.

I actually feel as though I might explode. If this were not impossible, I would be mildly concerned. There would be limbs everywhere. People might trip.

4 comments:

Lisa Moon said...

How very fascinating! I have interesting mental imagery you've helped construct for me, too.

I gather you're feeling trapped (caged, trapped - good guess, Lisa) and I'm sorry for that. It's the combo of the PhD and organ building and moving and... and...?

Were I feeling more clever this morning, I might feel brave enough to attempt some brilliant armchair analysis, but instead I will hope you can expand for me in simpler terms for us slower folk to follow. ;)

Optistatic said...

The cage is my current circumstances, which I set up/allowed to happen to me. The jumping and falling is the organ building, and the cage which gets narrower is the PhD.

The portability of the cage is the fact that it will allow me to relocate to City. City is not very far from here, though.

It felt good to have typed that, though. Sometimes I think of things and they sound great in my head, then I forget them. This time I made it to a computer in time and actually wrote it down. Not entirely convinced I like it, but I am glad it is down there!

Lisa Moon said...

Oh, no! It's very clever... just wanted to make sure I wasn't grossly misinterpreting things.

Yes, well, we all build cages at times, don't we? How clever you are to see yours and even moreso to be aware that you can move it!

My screen Captcha/word verification says 'hikies'; I think it's suggesting either I take one or you should go on one?

Optistatic said...

Does one want to move one's cage, though? It is very cumbersome.

At least it is feeling like a comfortable sort of cage at the moment. There are secret passages I did not know about. Essentially I get to stay in the cage (and construct my staircase out of it) while exploring some other bits.

Not everyone builds cages, but most people do. Some people work very hard to avoid cages, but I am not sure that they are necessarily happy as a result.

Word verification can be fun. Sometimes I think that I might like to use one of the words as a pseudonym. I like this blog, though - when it knows who I am it lets me post comments without using the word verification. Very friendly.