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9b6dd2a
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A certain amount of reverie is good, like a narcotic in discreet doses. It soothes the fever, occasionally high, of the brain at work, and produces in the mind a soft, fresh vapor that corrects the all too angular contours of pure thought, fills up the gaps and intervals here and there, binds them together, and dulls the sharp corners of ideas. But too much reverie submerges and drowns. Thought is the labor of the intellect, reverie it's pleasure. To replace thought with reverie is to confound poison with nourishment.
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reverie
intellect
thought
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Victor Hugo |
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fc3919a
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I cannot imagine a more perfect hell than being trapped inside my own mind.
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my-mind
reverie
stuck
trapped
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Beth Revis |
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00e3e2e
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The poor young man must work for his bread; he eats; when he has eaten, he has nothing left but reverie. He enters God's theater free; he sees the sky, space, the stars, the flowers, the children, the humanity in which he suffers, the creation in which he shines. He looks at humanity so much that he sees the soul, he looks at creation so much that he sees God. He dreams, he feels that he is great; he dreams some more, and he feels that he is tender. From the egotism of the suffering man, he passes to the compassion of the contemplating man. A wonderful feeling springs up within him, forgetfulness of self, and pity for all. In thinking of the countless enjoyments nature offers, gives, and gives lavishly to open souls and refuses to closed souls, he, a millionaire of intelligence, comes to grieve for the millionaires of money. All hatred leaves his heart as all light enters his mind. And is he unhappy? No. The poverty of a young man is never miserable.
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poverty
suffering
nature
humanity
god
reverie
contemplation
poor
soul
creation
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Victor Hugo |
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f1f72d7
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And then I realize: this isn't dirty water falling from the sky. It is--literally--blood. I look up, and a droplet of blood splashes directly into my eye. I curse, rubbing my face, trying to get the blood out, but it's everywhere, it's like trying to dry off in the middle of the ocean. Shielding my face as best I can, I stare up into the sky. I am in the center of a cyclone. Giant white clouds swirl like a spiraling galaxy above me, the eye a tiny dark speck. The storm rages, throwing out bloody rain like punches, the wind so vicious it tears my clothes and cuts my skin. Representative Belles's mind is swirling with dark thoughts--bloody thoughts--and they have created the biggest storm I have ever seen. I have to stop the cyclone. I have to get him into a peaceful reverie, something that he can hold on to while I root around his brain, looking for answers. I focus all of my concentration on stopping the bloody rain. The drops come slower and slower. I take a deep breath, imagining the clouds breaking up, spinning into fluffy bits of cotton-candy like clouds. I don't open my eyes until the sounds of beating rain disappear and I can feel the warmth of the Mediterranean sun on my face.
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rain
cyclone
mediterranean
reverie
clouds
stop
sky
sun
storm
nightmare
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Beth Revis |
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3b59e5f
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"Or... maybe I'm not going crazy. "Maybe I'm some sort of android-cyborg-clone-thing, and I'm just breaking down. I'm not sure which way is worse. Dad laughs. "You're not in your right mind, dear," he says. "No, no, no, you're not." And then-- --Silence. Dad fades away. The reverie chair disappears. There's just blackness. I remember then that I am in the reverie of something dead. Whatever that thing was, it was dead. And, just as I'm starting to wonder if, perhaps, I have died, too, I see a light, far away in the corner of the dreamscape. The light isn't soft; it's not glowing. It crackles like silent lightning, burning with electricity, sparks flying out and fizzling in the dark. I don't know why--it makes no sense, the way dreams often don't--but I want to touch the light. So I do."
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mind
silence
light
breaking-down
dreamscape
reverie
blackness
dead
crazy
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Beth Revis |
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0b31b08
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"Ella!" the voice yells, but I cannot tell where it is coming from. The sound wraps around me, spreading like spilt water and then evaporating into silence. "Where am I?" I whisper again. The darkness stretches out for eternity. I take a few steps forward, but the feeling is surreal--I cannot tell if I've actually moved or not, because everything is nothing. I feel something wet and warm slide down my cheek, and I touch the tear with my fingertips, swiping it away. Representative Belles is dead. I'm certain of that now. He's gone. I'm... I'm in the place where he was, and now he's gone, and now I'm stuck. I'm stuck in the nothingness of a dead body, and I don't know how to get out. My heart thuds against my chest, and I gasp for air. What if I can never get out? What if eternity is nothing more than me, alone, in the darkness? Trapped in someone else's death. I collapse, but it's not like I fall on the floor. There is no floor. There was the illusion of one, but as my body gives way, I realize that I'm floating. I stretch out, my fingers and toes aching to feel, but there's nothing, nothing at all, and I draw myself into myself, hugging my legs, my knees tucked under my chin. I'm alone. Maybe when Representative Belles died, I died too. Maybe this is it."
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dream
death
darkness
reverie
stuck
trapped
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Beth Revis |
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7dcc401
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"I half believe him, but I can't risk being wrong based on a gut feeling. [...] "What do you want me to do?" Jack throws up his hands. "If I could crack open my skull and let you read my brain like a book, I would!" My breath catches in my throat. Because I... I could read his brain like a book."
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reading-mind
reverie-mental-spa
reverie
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Beth Revis |
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dbf87fa
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As the dreamscape around me grows clearer, I slip further away from it. The mind is a magical thing, I'm discovering. A dreamscape is made of thought and is wider than the sky, able to grow large enough to fit not just our own world, but every possibility and impossibility beyond it. Once I quit thinking of it as being forced into the laws of physics, it's easy to manipulate the dreamscape into anything I want. I don't know how I know all this, no more than I understand how I know things when I dream. I just do. I throw up my hand, and a wall rises between the orange grove and me. Behind the wall, I start creating the world I need in Representative Belles's mind.
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mind
dreamscape
reverie
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Beth Revis |
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827ef69
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I reached inside her and pulled out the deepest memories in her body, the memories that words can't describe, the memories that are as much a piece of her as her arms and legs. Those are the ones she's filled with now.
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memories
peaceful
reverie
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Beth Revis |