A Distorted Reality.

Colours splayed out over the walls: transiently going from being merged in an aesthetic symbiosis to pulling apart from one another with all of the grace of a back-alley separation of conjoined twins. Back and forth: these two binary states, each with their own infinitesimally small graduations far too gradual for any change to be noticed in small amounts; only the leaps from blended colours to distinct separations were discernible.

It reminded me of nothing but that experiment my physics teachers did with cellophane and a projector to amaze the more simple-minded, more blackbird-like students amongst my peers: they’d take this sheet of cellophane and rip it in front of the light to show the effects of this increased stress upon the material on its refractive properties. There would always be a point where the plastic ceased to be clear upon the screen and the yellow, red and green coronae would appear in their resplendent glory instantly; without no prior warning as to what was about to occur. ‘Ooh’s and ‘ahh’s accompanied this demonstration, of course, to be met with my almost trademark cynical sneer.

It wasn’t so much the opening and closing of the shutters which was bothering me: it was the separation of the colours of light. Perfect single-coloured bars were formed with each time that the shutters were closed: the red, green and yellow filtered strobes ceased to combine to create an elegantly off-white light on the wall of the office; each colour bled its diffracted light to me through usage-weathered polypropylene. Everything was unbalanced; unsymmetrical; unnatural.

The shutters opened once again, and I was bathing in my preferred pleasant beige light; capable of doing the glamorous office dogwork for which someone of my abilities and qualifications is so wonderfully suited. You know; filing, photocopying, even, on good days, the unparalleled glory of post sorting: those tasks designed for the graduate with First Honours from a top-ten university. I suppose that this is what I get for taking an Arts degree, though: a lack of definition in the job market and an overwhelming predilection for the subjective.

Just as the light split into its constituent parts once again, my mind mirrored its change in state: my surroundings were no longer my mental habitat. My thoughts splintered into the realms of home: the opening of the kitschly rotting door bearing it’s gift of that unusual scent which could only be defined as that of my home; that combination of the natural smells of the innumerable amount of fruit and the chemical smells emitted so strongly from lazily unclosed bottles of ammonium thiosulphate happening in such a small studio apartment, whilst overbearing, was mine and mine alone. Esters meeting ammonia - the perfect example of the concept of neutrality: the sweet meeting the foul. This was my haven; my sanctuary.

The laziest of partition walling split that tiny room into two: a single piece of chipboard with a five foot, six inch ‘doorway’ cut into it. Thick black drapes hung from the top of this hole-in-the-wall: the perfect protector of my little voyeuristic antics from the derelictor of them that light would be. This was my true workplace.

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