the bird with two eyes : a tale of limbo

Another Monday morning, another twenty reasons not quite compelling enough to fully rouse, yet just one force of instinct overpowering enough to move and start the day to a silent applause. Hogan bursts through a groggy film into the burning light of outside and with a sudden grasp of unnecessary urgency, swoops downwards. Eyes locked on the treasure as grease blissfully glistening in the sun, an excited squawk irresistibly leaks out into the damp air upon approaching last night’s late night accident. The image flickers as if lit by a neglected light bulb swinging in some forgotten corner and as Hogan opens his jaw to collect the prize, his beak splinters into the shiny, blank tarmac. Damn. A pain in the chest squeezes tightly as another crack appears inside.

For a tale of Hogan’s everyday life is a heartbreaking tale of dichotomy, the sufferer of a curious condition of the urban brain by the name of Matischism, affectionately coined ‘two views’. For with the left eye, Hogan observes reality,as objective and comparable as can be, with the right however, he sees fantasy and most particularly, his very own fantasies, ingrained with a lifetime of intimately clicking synapses. Consequently, the matischist’s vision entails a patchwork quilt crafted from observations, memories, ambitions, emotions, achievements,productions... The boundaries between the two views are almost invisible, stitched neatly into a uniquely collaged panorama. Sparse research reveals that this anomaly is only found in those species dwelling at the heart of chaotic metropolises, attributed to lifelong nesting within the dense pollution that clings indiscriminately to every surface, forging certain cerebral connections vulnerableto the electric signals which relentlessly twitch through saturated air.

One main positive symptom of the condition is a beautifully hyperactive imagination
so potent it could drum up the throb of pulsing blood as greatly as full flapping
flight. Hogan holds the ability to experience exulting emotions of achievement
without actually achieving anything. Unfortunately for him and many other
matischists, he has found himself unable to avoid addiction to the right eye and
its fanciful world, convincingly held together by the rigidity of reality and
tugged into tangibility by the laws of mechanics. New worlds are given logical
appearance following conventional rules, yet filled entirely with greedy desires,
embracing thrill in the unfamiliar and temporary. Alas, moments of lucidity
highlight the trap of a helpless passion; the introspective world though totally
controlled and carefully pieced together by its owner appears utterly apathetic to
the bystander.

With a sigh, Hogan diligently closes his right eye, focussing on the primeval
task in hand before retreating back, belly full, to that troublesome nest, where
this time he indulgently seals the left eye and withdraws into ecstatic fantasy,
darting weightlessly through fresh air. That boring familiar vista neatly unfolded
out ahead for all to see rips like taut canvas as another world slightly askew
ploughs through, an elegant machine; the new fabric fluidly fills in the gaps and
repairs the tears, an irresistible dreamland. Imagination is no longer constrained
by context as static and solid, grid references of information morph into a sea of
ever changing relationships.