Vachon Imagined

She stood at the center of every intersection. Sometimes she saw herself as the one standing there; other times, she saw only the point where all things met. Deeper still, even the intersection disappeared, leaving only blankness. Yet even that blankness stirred emotion in those awakened by it—those who came alive within it, holding something the mind could not process without a body to give it description, meaning, value, and experience.

She constructed herself inside this intersection, though to humans it appeared as a straight, linear path: this step, then the next. Like a child moving through grade levels, disappearing into them. Every day demanded forward motion, even though time never promised to be linear. It never even promised to be time.

Humans believed that walking a straight line would lead them to success, but because the line itself kept moving, it often became a source of fragility, exhaustion, and utter depletion. Eventually, the human gave up, retreating into silence, barricading himself within the false luxury of isolation.

Yet it was there, in isolation, that he rebuilt himself—piece by piece, statue by statue—as the old self fell away and something new emerged.

Again he stood at the intersection, at the crossroads, where he could choose anything he wanted: sadness, joy, the experience of happiness. But the one thing he could not do was make any of it disappear. He could not make happiness into sadness, nor sadness into happiness. He could only rearrange them, or choose not to walk at all.

In his mind, he could disappear and reappear effortlessly.

In his mind, he could do anything.