People are like jelly.
Imagine a tower of jelly. Sitting on a dessert plate. Surrounded by empty 'plateness'. You see it sitting there? This tower of jelly. You shake it. It wobbles a little. You shake more vigorously. It wobbles some more but, but it keeps its shape. You throw something at it. You throw a cherry at it - it bounces off and falls to the ground. You knock it on the head with a spoon. It bounces off too.
You stare at it. This castle of jelly. You look into it and notice that it is not uniform or homogeneous from inside. It's like marble. With striations and patterns and whorls and cracks. It has structure. It has form. It has textures. You shake it some more. It wobbles but the patterns inside never change. After a while you recognise them and they become familiar, dependable, boring.
People are like jelly. Set. Set like jelly. Everybody a fortress of jelly I see. With insurmountable redoubts, formidable turrets, crenellations, a deep moat - and views that never change. Try scaling a jelly fortress.
When do we become jelly fortresses? I wonder often. I wondered today. Sealed as we are. In our fortresses. Views that never change. A landscape that see's the seasons shift, but it's the same old seasons, every year. Year after year. And as they go by. The jelly hardens. Toughens. Grows a skin, like crusty cheese. Caked as it is with time. Ah time. Don't talk to me about time. And then, it no longer even wobbles when you shake it! Oh no! Rock solid now. A fortress of mortar and bricks. And the view? It shifts no more. The seasons no longer change. A painting now. By a painter that never sees.
Am I a jelly fortress?
Oh no!
Not me. I'm a puddle!
A squalid runny puddle. Of Jelly. Not set. Globular. With blobs. And bits. Like a lumpy custard. I don't look like anything. I should know. I look in the mirror and see a kaleidoscope. With no form. I occupy whole swathes of the dessert plate. I am runny. And I run. From one end of the plate to the other is my Kingdom. Thinly spread, widespread. The kingdom over which I rule. Of which I am king. But a king with few rules.
If I'm lucky.
Really, really lucky
I'll never set.
Oh no!
Do you know what my wish is?
To fall of the edge
of the dessert plate.
Just to see
what else there is
on the banquet table
of life.
