Black Box - Jan 17 2022

 

Black Box

Jan 17 2022

Waiting for my teeth to be drilled

I reach in

among the well-thumbed magazines

and tattered back issues

scattered on the table top.

And remembered the one

they handed out at school,

its chatty articles and lame jokes

harmless time-wasters.

There was always a brain-teaser

where you had to find the hidden objects.

You would stare at the picture

look to one side,

go cross-eyed

or soften your focus,

and the image would suddenly emerge,

the mind’s eye

resolving the thing

if left to itself.

The key was not to try too hard;

to look away

and let the mind wander.

Like when you walk,

lost in thought

undirected.

Or play

and free the mind from rules.

Even boredom has its uses,

the human brain

feverishly seeking

to fill unoccupied space.

It feels like revelation

when a vision comes stunningly clear

and you wonder how you missed it.

A memory emerges

dredged from some deep mental recess,

the word on the tip of your tongue

trips seamlessly off;

like crystals

appearing out of vapour

on a frozen windowpane.

Our own minds

are inscrutable even to us;

black boxes

revealing the world

according to their own internal logic.

At least the version of the world

we have no choice but accept.

Things hide in plain sight.

And the workings of the mind

are ineffable,

despite our conceit

we are in charge.

My tooth hurts like hell,

until the needle prick

and the flood of numbing liquid

makes it disappear.

I sink back in the chair,

neck tense

hands tightly clenched,

head filled

with the high-pitched whine of the drill.

My brain, in the dark.

My jaw no longer there.