The Ascetic

He sat alone, eyes closed to the external world. His ascetic pose would have conjured connotations of tranquillity and benevolence for other mindful entities - the image passing through the subjective mediatory which wrought dichotomy between inner and outer truths. Whether the dichotomy was itself a symptom of subjective interpretation was often pondered – when each is hemmed in by idiosyncratic structures, difficulties can be engendered which fray the rope bridge of communication between autonomous entities. In this way friends may become enemies.
Yet his pose remained. In a narrow clearing he sat, amidst a thick wood – subjectivity may have interpreted that the trees reached out, gnarled arms frozen in an attempt to grasp his flesh. Their leaves had wilted brown and begun to shed. Thus space had opened up above his head and the cloudless sky could have been seen had he opened his eyes. All appeared still as his being projected itself outwards and onto his surroundings – connotations extending through the Meta to the physical… this may have been the interpretation.
If it is believed that causes bring about effects, a subjective entity would have deduced that he who was deep in meditation had been holding his breath. For he now exhaled slowly with practised control. Connotations of amazement may have been experienced through the subjective mediatory of yet another entity: for the fallen leaves which lay at the ascetic’s feet began to shift as a light breeze animated their dead form. The trees began to creak slightly and from their branches were cast down more corpses – corpses from the copses. There was salvation in their demise however; their rot fed the Earth in Ouroboric solemnity.
His breath had now gone and so had the wind. There hung in the air a silence which eschewed corporeal transience – nothing moved, nor creaked nor shrieked. The vast quiet was broken through breath. He inhaled with yet the same tempo and control as the binary of its function; his lungs filling till his body met with the boundary of comfort. The clearing resumed a stasis of tranquillity matched by the calm of the ascetic’s brow. Within his inner self, however, there began an echoic quale; a singular experience of his own, free from the spectatorship of other entities. It was projected outwards also: from the wood there came a mantra, synchronistic in its vibration as it emanated from various origins with different inflections centred on a common tone. The lowest bass came from the Brobdingnagian trees and the highest cries from trivial insects; though the vibrato of each oscillated with a social depth teleological in their correspondence.
The tones became a crescendo; the sky above, once clear and remote from emotion gained an interest of intensity. In the space between man and sky there formed a dense cloud primed for bursting. It appeared eldritch in its aspect and positioning as it lay low convulsing with a phosphorescent effervescence. The ascetic’s brow furrowed slightly and then he relinquished his breath to the wind; the mantra of the wood ceased. Synchronicity reigned once again for a thunderclap was heard in the same moment. The fey cloud above began to weep. The droplets of rain became as tears: dripping through the hair to the brow over the eyes and past the cheeks of the ascetic. The fluid came to a point at his chin. It leaked into a pool between his crossed legs. In time he opened his eyes. Cupping his hands he drew the water from the pool to his mouth. He drank his pain as though it were nourishment.