Let the eye of your imagination be a camera…
This is the globe of the world, a glittering blue and white ball like the ornament on some unimaginable Christmas tree.
Find a continent… Focus.
This is a continent, a jigsaw of yellows, greens, and browns.
Find a place… Focus.
This is a bit of the continent, sticking out into the warmer sea to the southeast. Most of its inhabitants call it Florida.
Actually, they don’t. Most of its inhabitants don’t call it anything. They don’t even know it exists. Most of them have six legs, and buzz. A lot of them have eight legs, and spend a lot of time in webs waiting for six-legged inhabitants to arrive for lunch. Many of the rest have four legs, and bark or moo or even lie in swamps pretending to be logs. In fact, only a tiny proportion of the inhabitants of Florida have two legs, and even most of them don’t call it Florida. They just go tweet, and fly around a lot.
Mathematically, an almost insignificant number of living things in Florida call it Florida. But they’re the ones who matter. At least, in their opinion. And their opinion is the one that matters. In their opinion.
Find a highway… Focus… Traffic swishing quietly through the soft warm rain… focus… high weeds on the bank… focus… grass moving in a way that isn’t quite like grass moving in the wind… Focus … a pair of tiny eyes…
Focus… Focus… Focus. … Click!
From “Wings” by Terry Prattchet
December 19th, 2007 | Mental notes | No comments
