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Cork Smoke InterpreterBy Kat e Sykes Have you ever wondered what they are? Those little plugs protruding awkwardly from all over your body? You don't know which ones? They look almost like corks or the stoppers you had to squeeze into the top of test tubes at school. Ringing a bell? Ok this should help. Sometimes they begin to rattle, you can feel them jiggling and vibrating against your skin. Sometimes little whisps of smoke escape, with a hiss like the hiss of a steam train, thsssss. Sometimes they explode the cork flies right out, like a little man in a cannon, poop and he's gone. This is when it gets most exciting or scary or both. The smoke that escapes that I told you about comes rushing out, bellowing sometimes great clouds of the stuff, sometimes just thin whisps like the smoke from a cigarette, but in a multitude of colours, mine however is always pink. When I first noticed all this happening I used to grab the stopper that had flown off and close it up tight. ‘Enough!' I would bellow. Fearing that as the smoke begun to solidify something would form that I was terrified to see. Do you know what I mean? No? Perhaps if I tell you my story you might understand. Those corks continued to pop out of me, one day my leg, the next my head, despite desperately stuffing them back in. Sooner or later I began to take risks, letting the smoke solidify, and then pictures appeared, faces, voices, and I listened but I couldn't understand the words. It wasn't scary just strange. But you mark my words as soon as someone came in I would stopper up those outbursts tight, just in case they should laugh or think me mad. One day a miracle happened. I found it, this slip of paper, white paper, with a face and a name and a title “Cork Smoke Interpreter” it read. I said, “ Cork smoke interpreter, that's exactly what I need.” So I went and met her, this cork smoke interpreter. Just as soon as I saw her I felt corks start rattling all over me, like someone suddenly gave them permission to try and escape. If she had been old, she most certainly would have been covered head to toe in wrinkles, and in those lines would have told stories of wisdom and knowledge, and in her eyes compassion resting on the surface but reaching deep within, and arms, thousands of arms all tumbling around her, like a strange eastern goddess. In each hand she held a different tool. As we sat each week, she offered me each one, one by one. Tools for what? Tools for interpreting the pink smoke, the pink dreams of course, tools later to be used to pry open those corks that were a little more firmly wedged. So what did she tell me you might ask? How did she interpret the smoke? Well let me tell you, and this is the strange thing. She didn't, well not mostly, mostly she just handed me tools and occasionally pointed with one of her many hands at a rattling cork I hadn't seen or a sealed up tight cork, hiding from view. Then, I would do the work, listening to the voices in the smoke until I understood, or chip chip chipping at the stuck corks until they popped out, much louder and with much more smoke than the others. So what did I interpret in this smoke? Is that your question? Well a great deal, but there is not enough space to write it all here. But I can give you an overview. See the thing is that we as humans are born without corks. We come into this world, bursting little shoots of multicoloured smoke everywhere we go. Those shoots you see are us, they are what makes me, me and you, you. But you see some people are afraid of the smoke that they see in these new children, and stick a cork in here and there, and then these children urged by the others begin to stick in their own corks, until we are stuck up tight like a little pressure cooker, bubbling, bubbling. These popping corks are the ones that can no longer stand to be cooped up. We can choose you see to let them stay open or close them up again. I tell you the release in letting them plume their beautiful smoke is wonderful. I recommend it to anyone. You see I have left many of my little geezers open, smoking no less, for all to see. There are a few that remain closed. But with the tools that the ‘cork smoke interpreter' has shown me, I shall open one by one in my own good time, I am quite sure of that. “What then of the ‘cork smoke interpreter'”, you ask, “what of her?” Well you see, she is just like you or I, she has cork smoke too. You see, as more of my corks popped, I began to see them in others popping right out of their bodies, or rattling like crazy, everywhere I went. I began to see them in the cork smoke interpreter too. Suddenly she had huge bellows of smoke rumbling all around her. It had always been there, I just hadn't been able to see it before. I don't doubt that most of her corks have already popped. But probably there might be one or two, she still wants to open, and this is why she has gone. She has gone to find her own tools to open her last remaining corks. Just as she gave me the tools to open mine. Thank you for being my cork smoke interpreter! Thank you for helping me see me and the beauty in me . |