Member Poem

Saturday an overarching day that's both conduit and shelter for souls in transition.
For a psyche  unprobed, unfathomed.
Thoughts of the more disturbing kind and their covert operations intrude even in our leisure time.
Was there a latent paranoia lurking as I drew close to a roadside curb whose mortar fillings were desiccated by the passage of time ?
Were there omens surreptitiously in place?
Maybe there were portents of seismic events right in front of me.
Little did I know what lay ahead.
All these scenarios flashed across my mind as  the wheels of my car screeched to a halt.
Whatever lingering doubts I had  were soon  dispelled.
Shafts of radiant sunlight revealed an embroidered placard.  
It was cheekily captioned. 
A cryptic but apocryphal question -
Going somewhere?
Light green brush strokes and entwined leaves garnished the borders of this plaque with its work in progress allure.
A hitchhiker appeared with the most expressive eyes I had ever witnessed.
Like shining windows  openly admitting the rush of a golden dawn.  They seemed to invite the world at it’s most  scintillating  apogee.
One could almost hear verses within those dilating pupils.
A speaking voice that rippled with nuance and an instant rapport followed suit.
“Hello, I'm Lelia.  Life is a series of stops
and strange encounters. 
A journey of some kind.
But so what?”
Thought provoking stuff as ice breaker I thought.
She extended her right hand. 
A hand that gleamed with a well nourished supple skin care regime.
“Hop in.
I'm Joshua King.  Going anywhere in particular?"
I enquired archly after the ritual handshake was dispensed with.  
"Besides going somewhere or nowhere in particular.” 
I continued with a lopsided smirk.
"In one sense I' can never be certain.   But there is this place we should all go to.
You'll know what I mean when we arrive  there.”
Lelia mysteriously.
A teaser of a comment embedded in canopies  of intrigue.
"Not to worry.
Travel is a form of therapy for me."
What made me, Joshua King , say that I wonder?
The mind like the  imagination can be overpopulated with plethoras of figment.
Frustrated figments waiting to make that dash for freedom we glibly call loose talk.
But some might have within them the seeds of an alternative vision.
This svelte lady wearing  an azure blue padded zip jacket and a matching sea blue denim jeans  glided gracefully  into the back seat  of my upgraded Nissan.
A Hatha yoga asana of an entry.
My pinstripe attire seemed conventional to a fault.   It was more in keeping with a  candidate at an interview than a philosophical journey man.
"Love the aroma ....air freshener.
Hints of lime and lemon zest.
An orchard in a vehicle that tantalises the nostril.
A dash of citrus fruit in transit.
Symbol of a purge or attempted purge."
Her voice dropped a few keys to a lower register.
Redolent of those obscure metaphysics classes  I had to abandon.
As a person I was naive enough to believe that attending these courses would somehow fix my  “issues.” 
They  were more  than just momentary bugs.
They  couldn't  be spray canned out of existence.
I was however, adept at avoiding their resolution.
Like a draft dodger or a fugitive in flight.
My “issues” could  be best described as other "selfs."
Quaint as this might seem I gave them names.
I called them timid, anxious, fidgety,scrupulous withdrawn.
“Yes,  Joshua.  You have given them all names.
What’s more I chat to them.
Under my breath. These chats I call the "whispers.”
I had this penchant for the  "whispers” which others had noticed.
Will Lelia notice?
Will Lelia spot them?"
Joshua tethering on the edge.
My twin brother Jonah, a twin in every sense had this capacity for pointing out my tendency to flee as well as these "whispers.”
We have this peculiar relationship where we spot each other's flaws.
The twinning of tortured psyches.
Banter between mirror images of real selfs.
Jonah was an integral part of these "whispers" too!
Goes with the territory no doubt.
All these thoughts were doing hula hoops in my head as Lelia made herself more comfortable.
In the process peculiarities surfaced which seemed more than the usual passing quirks.
"I'm Lelia, again. Don't forget. You probably won't.
This place I alluded to is but a distance from here.
Distance is a gulf whose magnitude is shaped by it's smoothness of passage.
Or the fate that awaits one at journey’s  end.
Like all distances I suppose.
My destination if you can call it that  is another world altogether."
A lady who could structure her sentences with the adroitness of a cryptic crossword clue setter.
Tapping me on the shoulder at the most obscure angle she extended her hand again to be shaken.
Her fingers and thumb spatially arranged with the tutored
stillness of a TM Guru.
Was that repetition a neurotic oddity or a symptom of a deeper malaise?
As I was driving I nodded to the said hand gesture.
We both brushed this bizarre incident off as it had no instant moment.
At least at this point we could.
It seemed as if I was talking to someone quite out of the ordinary.
The spot on asides and the strict avoidance of that verbal litter referred to as small talk suggested as much.
Pauses.   A very human way of filling gaps in discourse did surface periodically.
The silence was then punctuated by a sudden remark.
"All those conifers.  Look at how they reach out to the sky.”  
This was just the start of one of Lelia’s poetic observations.
“They seem so close yet isolated. 
There is something almost within their grasp.
Almost.”
Lelia nonplussed.
“See the adjoining fields.  The green is but a cover.  They are as neighbours in a high rise flat. 
One could say they are both connected and disconnected at the same time.
As for those dips in the valleys? Well, they could signify some sort of rise and fall."
Lelia resting her case momentarily.
“A resurrection.  After the fall. 
Oh the Lazarus within us all."
Joshua deadpanned.
“I'm a bit of a writer and maths researcher.”
I proffered.
"Recluses some say.
Oh, I didn't mean you
Necessarily.” 
Ouch, said my shattered Id at that darting jibe with its wild but targeted precision.
Lelia, archer of the scar inflicting verbal.
Bow and arrow baroness of stinging broadsides.
This offshoot to our conversation was infused with a wry allusion.
Insight on a whim.  Fleeting.
Not explicit.
We both laughed at the incongruity of a conversation that had become very elliptical in form.
Even at this early phase.
Tangents cropped up  as impetus to the other person's willingness to reveal themselves.
Lelia didn't exactly volunteer her vocation but left clues.
Deviant clues one might expect  from a criminal trying to give the police a false trail.
Harsh maybe.
“You didn't say what you did?
Student ...essayist ...author."
Me sounding Lelia out.
No response.
“Oh no children….dashing right across the road in front of us. 
Squealing with delight.  Whoops of innocent joy?  They are sticking out their tongues now!
Where did they spring from?”
Hair-raising moment I hadn't anticipated.
Just as well I was driving at a moderate speed.
Having resumed control I spied Lelia sticking her tongue out at those reckless varmints.
She stopped the minute I noticed.
Odd.
“Children …….sometimes you have to act like a kid when dealing with kids."
Straight and to the point from this hitchhiker.
She now resumed the thread of an earlier topic.
“Work ….you asked me about work.
I sort of work and play with the mind. 
Play act too after a fashion.”
A retort of sudoku like complexity.
As I digested lelia’s response it dawned on me how much like people my "selfs” were.
Even when driving  I "dialogued” those various aspects.
“You've an interesting face.  The face is like a map,  I say.
Heard you mutter about your  "selfs."
Cheeky but pert side to Lelia slipping out.
This is where an exclamation mark sometimes appears in a story.
Silence as challenge creeping in again.
A form of Russian roulette within the rules.
“Watch your driving, there."  Lelia in a more down to earth tone.
Her different voices somersaulting in an incredible manner.
“Very quite aren't we, Josh?"
Josh mark you!
Sounding me out like an interrogator trying to crack a stubborn suspect.
Without a word of warning Lelia raised  her voice and got into a tantrum.
“What's the matter ….lost something ?”
Joshua said anxiously.
A curious search resembling a scrum ensued.
Then another curious silence suddenly kicked in.
I craned my neck and spotted an uncanny regression.
Lelia talking to herself in a child like manner and then changing tack with a more mature voice.
“Don't worry.  Found what I was looking for.”
Another void.  
A tense lull.  A little lockjaw does creep in when the juice runs out of the tank of discourse.
As I drove at speed I squinted in the mirror once more.
Lelia resumed her child like withdrawal.  This time talking to the palm of her hand.
Starring vacantly at her palm she kept repeating the name Linda.
Lelia continued oblivious to what I saw or might be thinking.
She hummed this strange lullaby which almost covered her conversation.
Suddenly my "selfs" surfaced in an uncontrollable flurry.
I tried to suppress them but failed abysmally.
The "whispers and selfs" started to have a life of their own.
This car is getting a bit crowded.
It's  being converted  into a train with fantasy passengers on board.
The sort one hears late at night  hurtling through the countryside with dim lights flickering.
Both inside and outside this vehicle a tumult of events was taking place.
Out of the blue  the rain poured heavily,  mercilessly assaulting the windscreen.
“The gods or the elements must be cross or something.”  Lelia opined.
“Come on, let's get introduced to my play mate in a palm.
Linda, these are Joshua’s true other selves.”
Lelia emitting a peculiar chuckle.
A comic situation arose where I changed my voice for each of my "selfs" by way of introduction.
My great powers of concentration helped me do this while driving.
"Pleased to meet you, Linda.”
Lelia altered her voice when teasing all my  "selfs."
Lelia conceded that she had some experience as a ventriloquist in passing.
But she was having this hypnotic effect too.
I was being manipulated.
One by one my highly personalised complexes were being extracted and subject to a rigorous  grilling.
Guinea pig or no something strange was happening.
This was some hitchhiker.
Was this car journey now becoming a high rent farce or a mock therapy session from an amateur shrink?
The rain continued to lash and my other "selfs" felt like the last sting of a dying wasp.
A certain lightness ensued.
Almost as if my “aspects” were floating away.
For the first time my "other selfs “ didn't seem to have this grip on me.
But deep down I knew in some strange way I wanted to keep a little of each of them.
Although they were a burden they did like everything else have their positive aspects.
Strange as that may seem.
“Jonah … he still bugs doesn't he.
He’s almost like one of those "other selfs!"
The "whispers" I heard earlier … I've a very delicate ear.
Those under the breath "whispers" gave  the game away.
The names and complex relations between them."
Lelia now probing very deeply.
A looping probe designed to unhinge and rattle an already stunned persona!
The wind howled and the rain splashed across the bonnet like waves on a sea front.
Their was a warped synchronicity here.
As my complexes receded so did the rain  and wind pummelling  my car.
Eventually.
It seemed as if they were  almost working in tandem.
“That's it.  Keep it up.  Wash it all away.
Come on, come on.   See me, I'm waving my wand.”
Lelia chanted.
The Exorcist film had nothing on the  scene that was unfolding.
A catharsis of the elements.
Before his very eyes Joshua's  "reticence" and the other "selfs" were fast disappearing or virtually.
Against the backdrop of all this inner and outer ferment Lelia kept looking out the window.
Was that this home she mentioned earlier getting closer as Joshua was
"going home” to himself?
“Windows are amazing.
They  show us the world but sometimes screen us from it.” 
Gently wiping
the fog  from the car window as she spoke.
“Trees and branches swaying to and fro.
Clouds that just a few minutes earlier drifted effortlessly now
darkened.
Thickening ominously.
Pedestrians as dots on the road seeking shelter from the rain. Or shelter from something else.
Hiding."
She spoke in a voice that began to sink deeper and deeper into Joshua.
“What is going on here?  Am I being cleansed of what they call inner demons?"
Joshua to himself now panic stricken.
"This otherworldly person has me  spellbound.
There's a chessboard in this moving vehicle.
I'm the pawn.
A complete  stranger has me in the palm … that expression  again.
Palm of her hands.” 
Joshua appeared powerless.
Lelia assumed various postures.
Many of which were  controlling and directional.
As Joshua was the driver she didn't want to send him to sleep.
Lelia's voice could veer between that of some hypnotist's drone one minute and an excited sports commentator the next.
It was beginning to dawn on Joshua that this was going to be an encounter he would never forget.
“Don't forget Jonah too. Joshua wherever he might be.”
Her tone rising tauter in a sinister manner.
“He's right here on this credit card.
I found it earlier when I searched manically for that script which I needed.
Joshua Jonah king.”
Joshua shook a little before confessing that he was an only child.
“Am I a prisoner ? Feel like one.
Must button my lip.
All these things are getting out and this lady is making me aware.
I'm being freed and incarcerated at the same time by this person the likes of whom I've never encountered before.”
The wintry weather conditions  returned and intensified even more as Joshua felt this final therapeutic process coursing through him.
Very little now was left of his "selfs" and even less
"the whispers."
The area Joshua  drove through was now a slideshow of passing images.
Their beauty preserved stoically but their haunting nature replaced by a stolid stubborn determination.
The picturesque landscape and his view of it shaped by what was happening to him.
“It was hard on me really.  To have all these half worlds revealed with such clinical accuracy.”
Joshua said to himself.
Lelia began to speak more clearly and her voice gradually lost it's domineering tone.
At this point by accident or design the rain eased as did the tense atmosphere.
“You are probably wondering where this is all going to end.
Maybe I have whispers, Jonah's and selfs to face too.”
Lelia randomly calling on her full spectrum of speaking voices.
On this occasion a composite of adult authority and infantile charm.
“Oh here we are, this place.
Little point in continuing any further, is there Josh?"
She stated.
Joshua had undergone a sea change of titanic proportions.
Relief bordering on incredulity that  all those tortuous "selfs" and "whispers" had been eliminated.
For the most part.
“Should I thank this lady or what? I’ll never be the same again but is that for a valid reason?
Jonah my make-believe  friend.
Don't really need him do I?”
Joshua pondered.
“Back to earth my dear. 
This is where we shake hands and part.”
Lelia again.
“Better change the name on that credit card. 
Keeping stuff like that from credit card companies could land you in trouble.’
A guffaw from Lelia this time.
“See that building.
That's what I meant early on.
It's called  Another World School of Acting.”
Lelia alighted and pointed to this centre.
"Acting is therapy. That's their slogan.”
Therapy in every sense!
But you don't want to take every word I say literally do you?
Forgot to mention they are auditioning for a play.  
It's called “Inside The Split Mind."  She said.
"Wonder will I get the part?”
As she leant over to shake hands  her eyes had a certain lost look about them.
“Off I go.  Enjoy yourself or yourselves or whatever is left of either.” 
Lelia  laughed to  herself in an evanescent manner  as she walked off.
But her laughter was tinged with real sadness.
“Better get out of here fast, Josh.”  Joshua to himself.
"Goodness, I'm beginning  to sound like her.  The sayings.”  Joshua now driving at top speed.
“It will be awhile before I offer someone a lift again. 
I suppose I should be grateful to her.” Joshua’s face now a deep red.
"Well, Jonah I guess I'm going to miss you and all those "issues" in a way.
But now at least I can be myself …. sort of.”