I have just returned from a place where the process of eating was the sampling of one another’s personalities. And working was a rearrangement of each other’s possessions. Now whether these possessions were actual or imagined was not perfectly clear, or whether subsequent rearrangement was necessary after each affair, not clear either.

In one instance I recall a vast field and rows of corn. I wondered at such wealth. The rows and fields extended to all horizons. There was not a house in sight. A middle-aged man stood in the middle of it all, surveying his domain. I wondered again, had he inherited or earned these visions.

And yet another time the concern was for the side windows that had to be broken to obtain access to the nerve centers of obscure vehicles to enable them to move. I was entering this other’s vehicle and while he didn’t resist he seemed to need my vehicle to be closer. I had left it at a distance and he was concerned that cables would not reach. It was different than driving. The vehicles were superficial, but somehow necessary.

Law enforcement was mostly concerned with the locks. One could not just go nonchalantly around leaving their vehicles at the curb. Everything had to be secured. But the process of securing was less for the sake of theft: indeed how could anything be kept safe from others when the mind was so powerful. The securing was necessary because of some propriety. Laws needed to protect identity. Could the scanning of another somehow reduce one’s presence? It hadn’t been my experience.

Imagine the complexity of intimacy in such a place, a place of swirling patterns of exchange. If I looked into someone’s eyes, I didn’t see their eyes but saw into their being. I assumed that they saw into mine, a kind of visual kissing. The blending left a pleasant sensation. I didn’t look back after each encounter. I’m not sure what effect was left in the wake of my presence, but I felt unchanged.

Returning home was confusing. Lingering sensations were keeping me from moving forward; ponderation had set in. I kicked at the covers but they entrapped me. Even the smell of coffee could not rescue me from my bonds. The air was cold, had become cold overnight. The windows were open. I finally hobbled to the closet and removed a robe and after necessary evacuations sat heavily at the computer and composed senseless paragraphs.

My son came and watched me for awhile. His comprehension was questionable. But I secretly wondered whether he was an inhabitant of the place from which I had just returned. Was he more powerful than I, but not yet ready to commit to invasive acts, restrained by a fearful preoccupation with being accepted? He played alone most of the time and returned there now. I felt a desire to eavesdrop. Perhaps I would discover him flying or talking with animals or levitating his breakfast.

– Larry Berger, HashtagWV #112. April 2019