Agoraphobia

They stream alongside each other like trains of thought, a jumble of words and ideas and egos. They move together, synchronised and side by side, yet totally isolated. Gears wrenched and furious, pistons heaving souls down highways faster than our ancestors could have ever dreamed. Scraping the heavens, higher then Everest, far beyond Shangri-La, belching fumes to speed us towards city smog and cancer sticks. This is the global village. This is Earth in the twenty-first century. Billions upon billions of fellow travellers, spun like stars and scattered to the four corners, everybody rushing this way and that, bathed in so much light and noise.

People are returning to the womb. Scared senseless by the dangers of the world, torn from a comforting solitude and tossed into steaming crowds, gasping for the nutritious solipsism of the gestation chamber. The world outside is fierce and terrible, filled with terrorists, taxes and burials. The only way forward, the only way to bear anything at all, is to regress. Back to the beginning, where the only sounds were the gentle murmurs of our creator's heart, tenuous glimpses of the future the only sights.

Every morning we climb out of the foetal position and into the womb. From the shield of slumber to the comforting incarceration of our automobiles. From boxes - to cubicles - and back to boxes.
Air-conditioned, windows-shut, radio on. Here I am, once again God's perfect creation. Here I am, the apple of my mother's eye. Here I am, an only child; I am only a child.

Out there. Burglars, rapists, Hungry Jacks. Carbohydrates, multiplexes, Microsoft. All of this shit is so overwhelming, is it any wonder we want to escape? There are only three ways out, and I know only one to be foolproof. Drugs, sleep and death. That's it. Otherwise, we are all here until FIN hits the screen and the house lights urge us to depart. With this knowledge, can we be blamed for wanting to surround ourselves with reminders of that calm before this storm? Is it any wonder that at all times of day we have subconsciously built connections to our most innate
needs?

Forget phallic symbols. Entangled beneath a thicket of cords, humming and radiant, all I feel is umbilical signs.