Friday 15 March 2013

The Modern Mersault


"If a state is governed by the principles of reason, poverty and misery are the subjects of shame; if a state is not governed by the principles of reason, riches and honours are the subjects of shame." Confucius.


To walk was to participate in the very nature of life, the rhythm, the instinct, the pulse, and so on. To regard the walk, to value, respect and consider was at the very heart of being a frog.
Antoine the frog walked at every opportunity and found that if there was any contentment to be found, it would only be while locked in movement. He refused to hop or jump like his colleagues, but rather took to ambling with a big swinging motion on his powerful hind legs. This unnerved his fellow pond workers who, in turn, would spread hostile gossip about him, attributing him with a wicked and secretive disposition and an unholy association with the Predators. Antoine, however isolated, was motivated only by his belief that any static position equated to instant death. There would be no disembarking onto the platform signposted "Happiness" for the exhausted Antoine.
Walking went some way to stimulating his mind and Antoine used it as such, he pounded the treadmill to distraction. Distraction.
Certainty, he thought, was a barely conceivable abstract of the past along with words like tadpole and Freedom. There were only a few very fallible and destructive ways to move outside The Machine if you disagreed to being refined and used in its essential oils. Antoine walked alone. For most frogs, the very idea of attempting to forge the Lonely Path was taboo. But Antoine had no choice.
Fellow amphibians were draped in the shadows of a uniform and under the guise of contributing, wholeheartedly submitted to the very beast which trod on and subjugated them. The blood of their friends and family served to strengthen the invisible tendrils of a vengeful and paranoid bureaucracy, full of supposition and filling of gaps. Time empowered the irrepressible magic of greed on the north side of the pond and the west had been lost to the expensive blindside of ambition long before.
There must have been only four or five who had ever made the attempt to reject the monster completely, the Admirable. There was a shining path to be found in the hearts of those frogs and for one single moment Antoine could be inspired to conscientiously leave the influence of the mass and find his way to the stairway scratched Truth he would surely ascend and taste something new...
...and so Antoine walked given any opportunity, while contemplating the world around him and his journey. He would move as much as his physical self would allow but the gnawing, futile, all-consuming truth was not a physical manifestation. It was an inner-knowledge, an intangible fact which burned from the inside out - no matter for how long or how far he got away, he would always return to the ignorance of the pond.
Antoine had discovered some brief reprieves from that pain and vowed to keep moving while he was still able. He knew very well that if anything got a chance to stop him, it would.

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