He looked back at his life, and with great pains he decided that it was time to cut it up. Walking through his mind was like walking through a garden long unattended to. Whatever mental sanctuary that he once allowed himself to retreat from the world into had turned into a vine-filled labyrinth, hiding away the secret place that once gave him peace. Now, standing before this entangled garden with a machete, he knew he’d have to rent deeply into roots of the memories he once held dear, in order to liberate himself, and to clean up his mind.

It began slowly at first. Each time he would lift his arm up to swing, he’d be faced with too many questions. How can I release myself of something so dear… these flowers grew because of us, they are ours, do I have the right to release myself from them? And he’d put the small knife down and sit for a while in that mess of a place. He had tried hard to simply pull out the roots of these once beautifully flowered memories, but his hands, they would bleed from the protective thorns around the base of each thought. These thoughts, they made him who he was, and he’d loved who he was before they started withering away. Failing at pulling them out, he’d try desperately clean up bunches of vines with his hands, pushing over one rooted feeling over another, combining emotions into more painful wholes that would sting him from all sides. Eventually, he’d just sit back down and look on depressed at his state, and at his inability to separate himself from his past.

On the outside, the world continued along. Trapped within the labyrinth, he looked on outward, wanting, wishing that he could find the exit, that this place that once gave him a quiet place to think would release him once again into the world. To freely enter his mind without being trapped by his own thoughts, that’s what he wanted the most.

One day, while sitting, playing through his tangled mess of a mind, he did something he hadn’t tried for some time. He stopped, and closed his eyes. As he did so, the brownish coloured wall of vines disappeared before his eyes, a quiet came over him as he found himself alone for a moment. In that moment, he saw himself standing in a dark room. Next to him appeared a silent shadow, nothing more than a reflection of whatever he thought, as a chameleon that could shape-shift into whatever came to mind.

The shadow looked at him, and, shaping to a mirror image of himself, said, welcome.

I know I’m still in my mind, he instinctively responded, I know I’m still inside… but how did I manage to escape the garden? All I did was close my eyes. I’ve been trying forever to get out…

The black room that they both stood in suddenly changed in all directions,revealing a sky so blue that it at first blinded him. But of course it could not blind him, for he was in his mind’s eye, where the expected physiological effects of the world could not reach him. The entire room had become an open sky, and he stood in plain air above and below the clouds and nothingness.

Whoa.

You know you are in your mind, but what you may not have realized is that you yourself are but a part of your mind. Even you are not eternal, changing as would a rock at the bottom of a powerful stream. As the raging water increases in strength and rapidity, so do you change with it.

The thought lasted forever in his mind, ‘Am I real? What makes me, me? Am I just a passing figure in my mind?’

The shadow watched from its flatness on the ground, suddenly shifting into the shape of a specter of colours, like shifting blotches. His human characteristics remained as the colour patterns slid over one another. I want to show you something, it said.

Suddenly the world changed again, and the open sky grew giant grey walls all around it, closing off into a lare auditorium with thousands of paintings hanging from its enormous walls. Lit by a dim and sourceless warmth, it was as silent as it was enormous, less like a museum than a very nice storage facility.

The coloured shadow knowingly observed the momentary amazement spread across his face, for this was the first time that he was actually becoming aware of the greater truths about himself. The shadow knew that this would be an essential moment, one of great pain and of powerful realization for him. You see these paintings? it asked.

Indeed he did see them, looking up at the seemingly endless array of pictures, he was stunned. Yes… they are moving… he whispered.

What do you see in the paintings, the shadow pressed on.

I see… I see me, in all of them.

The shadow pointed to one picture in particular, tell me about this one, it said quietly.

That’s me… when I was 3 years old. I’m in my bed and crying for my parents… I just woke up from a bad dream, actually I remember it was a dream I used to have regularly when I was really young. The dream involved some sort of evil figure, usually dressed in some futuristic armor of sorts, and he would always be attempting to take my parents away. He’d try to kidnap my parents, leaving me all alone. I was so afraid of being alone, and I didn’t want to lose my parents to anything. Haha, at one point, I actually remember fighting back against the monster who tried to take my parents, and I would use kids toys, like a little plastic bow and arrow… but no matter, it worked! I chased him away, and I stopped having those dreams…

He paused, thinking back to the memory he had just described. ‘That was me…’ he thought.

The shadow said nothing, came up to him, put his arm on his shoulder and pointed to another.

That’s me again, wow, I remember this so well… I was on the bus, on my way home from school. I was maybe 12 years old or so. The kids on the bus, they were making fun of a girl behind me. They made fun of her because she worked for the local nigger. My dad. They spoke loud enough for me to hear, and they were ruthless about it. I remember I cried to my mom that night about it, I just couldn’t understand why they would do or say these things so often. I grew harder as a person because of them, and came to resent that small town and its people for many, many years. But that’s not me, now I would have gotten up and beaten those little fuckers. I wouldn’t take that shit, no matter their numbers. But I was young, and alone then…

He looked over at the shadow, and feeling upset by the resurge of these old memories and thoughts asked, I don’t understand what you are trying to do to me… how is this supposed to help?

The color shifting shadow looked away suddenly, and stared off into the distance, not responding to the question.

Great. My subconscious self is a snob, he thought as he looked around at the thousands upon thousands of memories of his past self that he had. He walked over to one picture up on the wall, and saw himself at the age of 16, in a Japanese highschool uniform. That was the first time he had been aware of himself as a thinking individual, it had been an eye opening experience to live abroad for a year at such a young age. It made him feel proud to know what he had accomplished during that year, and felt the presence of those experience still holding firmly to his character. It felt good.

Another picture upon the wall was a scene depicting him with some of his friends in Ottawa. University buddies that he had come to love… they represented a long period of his life, as a major part of what made him happy. He breathed in deeply, remembering the amazing times they’d had together during those important years.

He looked back at the shadow who stood, transfixed. His gaze hadn’t moved even slightly away from that one spot. He walked up next to the shadow’s flattened cast, reconnected his feet to its, and followed his stare to the picture on the wall.

What is that one? The shadow asked, breaking his silence.

That’s nothing, that’s just me now, standing in my garden. As soon as I open my eyes, I’ll just go back to being that again. I mean, look at this room, I know what this is, this is my memory bank of people I once was and have ceased to be. It’s a graveyard of regrets and friends lost, of the person I regret having been and regret not being anymore. I’m nothing compared to them, I’m nothing now… just someone trapped in his mind and unable to release himself from his own misery. Trapped by the memories of a failed love, and held back by too many other failures that came all at once. It’s just, me.

The shadow took on a new shape at the mention of the last word. It was still of himself but looking… better. Looking like a new man, one who had shed the skin of the past and was ready to live for the present. He looked rested, fed, and healthy. He looked like the man that he himself wanted to be. The shadow pointed to the picture next to the one of the present self.

That one is just… blank. Of course.

Those two last words caused the entire scene to change once again, blasting the walls of his mind outward, disappearing into the distance of a newly formed field. Feeling the sand suddenly form into millions of tiny spots below his feet, he looked up from the ground to see his entangled garden before him. A million thoughts rushed through his mind, but the last words, of course, pounded the loudest inside of him and sent out visible vibrations that blazed through the foliage.

He began to walk, hesitantly, and as he did so spoke quietly to himself. It is blank, the canvas is blank. I’ve been a lot of people in my life, and yet I remain. But what makes me who I am is malleable, always changing and never static. I can’t keep holding on to this dying garden because there are other flowers that want to grow beneath it. This is not who I am, because I cannot be defined by any one memory. I am the rock in the river, forever being shaped by an ever moving stream. Nothing is static, nothing will forever be the same except for time and change.

With each of these thoughts the weeds and vines withdrew slowly and quietly into the ground from which they sprung. The machete lay in the place he had just stood a moment before, unused and useless. He walked towards the walls that once stood tall and impenetrable, passing right through them without being cut or restrained. He watched how the feelings of love which had turned against him, stopping him in his path whenever he’d try to move on, fade into simple memories, free from the emotional ropes that had held firmly to his joints. The images that had been once joyful, turning unbearably sad with time, began to lose their hold on him and he felt himself liberated, slowly.

As the vines withered before his eyes, his spirit lifted slowly from the lump of coal it had quietly become, and he began to run. He ran towards an ever-opening field of colour, with a deep blue sky that brought it all to life. Memories flew by him in all directions, they no longer stopped him from moving in whatever direction he pleased. He felt alive again, he smiled and began laughing madly as he chased nothing around in circles in his mind.

After some time he stopped dead in his tracks. He bent over as quickly as he could and pushed aside some uprooted memories that lay scattered before him. There it was, staring up at him, like a welcomed little ray of hope. The sun shone brightly on his face as he reached town to touch the small sprouting plant before him. It had yet to bloom, but it was there… new life, a new memory to attend to. A new him.

He stood up, looked around at the field before him, a field of possibility. And, without even thinking, he opened his eyes.