#1: PRISM LIGHT, WHITE HOT (Page 3)
Prompt: “Write a stream of consciousness without stopping, using the quote below as an initial spark of inspiration.
‘Let the world burn through you. Throw the prism light, white hot, on paper.’
– Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing (1990)”
I used to read this quote and imagine the harshness, horror, and deep cold of the world like a perverse light source of its very own, and somehow it channelled through me; my own reactions and interpretations would pour out the other side. These days – well, I don’t believe that. I have a different imagining. Now I see all the pain, regret, and disappointment literally burning through me. Not harmlessly passing like light shining on glass, but a nuclear blast hurtling from some unknown distance, destination far beyond, destroying everything in its path. And I’m in its path. I imagine it reaching me, a tidal wave of flame and energy scorching my skin, turning my hair to dust, baking my heart solid like a Pompeii corpse. The world burns through me because I am not a lens – I’m the focus. I am an ant beneath a magnifying glass. The world blasts against me, destroying everything I was and everything I’ve become. Every wave that hits, I think there must be nothing more left for it to strip away, but there always seems to be some remnant shred of me it can still incinerate. And not just once. The world has burned through me so many times, I don’t recognise myself anymore. People turn away in sick disgust at my twisted and melted visage. How many more times can I face this fire before my shoulders slump, I give in to the burn, turn to ash, float away? But nothing is ever really destroyed – it just takes another form. I wonder. Maybe I am that prism, but I have absorbed and contained every hurt and heartbreak the world has ever sent me because I never knew to simply let it pass through me. Let it through. Let it go. I fear it has been so long – that there’s so much ferocity in me – that the moment I stop, take a breath, plant my feet, grasp my pen, nod my head, and look down at the page, I’ll obliterate the paper completely, along with the rest of the world.
‘Let the world burn through you. Throw the prism light, white hot, on paper.’
– Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing (1990)”
I used to read this quote and imagine the harshness, horror, and deep cold of the world like a perverse light source of its very own, and somehow it channelled through me; my own reactions and interpretations would pour out the other side. These days – well, I don’t believe that. I have a different imagining. Now I see all the pain, regret, and disappointment literally burning through me. Not harmlessly passing like light shining on glass, but a nuclear blast hurtling from some unknown distance, destination far beyond, destroying everything in its path. And I’m in its path. I imagine it reaching me, a tidal wave of flame and energy scorching my skin, turning my hair to dust, baking my heart solid like a Pompeii corpse. The world burns through me because I am not a lens – I’m the focus. I am an ant beneath a magnifying glass. The world blasts against me, destroying everything I was and everything I’ve become. Every wave that hits, I think there must be nothing more left for it to strip away, but there always seems to be some remnant shred of me it can still incinerate. And not just once. The world has burned through me so many times, I don’t recognise myself anymore. People turn away in sick disgust at my twisted and melted visage. How many more times can I face this fire before my shoulders slump, I give in to the burn, turn to ash, float away? But nothing is ever really destroyed – it just takes another form. I wonder. Maybe I am that prism, but I have absorbed and contained every hurt and heartbreak the world has ever sent me because I never knew to simply let it pass through me. Let it through. Let it go. I fear it has been so long – that there’s so much ferocity in me – that the moment I stop, take a breath, plant my feet, grasp my pen, nod my head, and look down at the page, I’ll obliterate the paper completely, along with the rest of the world.
