Like Kubla Khan

Buck had the makings of a really good song stirring in his head. It needed to get out, so he opened up Notepad and began to channel his anger and confusion over recent personal events into words and rhythms with dark guitars heavy with the throaty, natural harmonic distortion that only all-vacuum tube amplification could render. The words themselves started pouring out, spilling onto the screen from some bleeding wound in his mind, a window that peered into someplace else, an un-place where thoughts and ideas exist independently of their thinkers, and whoever gets to them first claims them as their own. Raw emotions and truths are bottled up in this other realm, too many to be contained, all straining for release. For those who know how to open their minds to them they will gladly come through, suffering imperfect but necessary translation into the media of images, sounds, ideas and words that our minds are capable of shaping and at least trying to comprehend.

Words might begin with a trickle, dripping through to the mind one by one, but you can’t force them, can’t make the mistake of digging for them or you’ll destroy the truth. They have to come of their own free will, and will greedily accept any invitation offered by an open mind, be it a mind at peace or a mind in turmoil. Only then will they flow freely and eventually burst forth in a raging deluge through the rent fabric of the dividing layer.

Buck had written maybe fifteen words of his angry song when his client approached him from behind and requested a series of meetings. Quick as a flash and a keyboard shortcut the Notepad application disappeared to the bottom of the Windows stack, and Buck’s mind was rudely yanked back to the tedium he had naively come to accept as “reality.” Another three minutes and the deed was done; meetings were arranged, wheels were set in motion, and the appearance of usefulness had been cultivated. Buck had “added value,” and sooner or later word would get back to his masters at his parent firm. They would later offer Buck positively effusive verbal and written feedback, all the while keeping something trivial in their back pockets as justification for a smaller salary adjustment come review time.

As the client stalked away on his continuing quest for corporate glory, Buck returned to his song to find that the window had closed. Enough of his emotional energy had been dispelled with those first fifteen words that even the smallest interruption by a single Cubopolis agent had been sufficient to close that particular window and shroud it in the fog of ordinary office concerns. Buck knew from experience that this particular rupture into the realm of his muse would prove difficult to find and reopen again. So he forced a quick ending to the lyrics he had captured, called them a poem instead of a song, and decided to save the instrumental aspects imprinted on his brain for another song, another day, when he would have more ample opportunity to set it free.

Unbelievable
Look what you've done to her
Unthinkable
And for what gain?
The pain that you gave is
unforgivable
Did you think of her?
Or the kids
when she beat you
but now the
window’s closed
and my rage it gets caged
for now it’s not
releasable.