I’ve always been searching for answers and alternatives to what I have in front of me. I’m perpetually unconvinced with the world, with my existence. Time and again I ask the eternal, ‘Why?’… The answer remains elusive.
Occasionally, I glimpse a fleeting transient light as it speeds across my vision, a nano-second thought, untouchable. A thought about the universe. What is this light that traverses my consciousness, leaving only a shadow trace? I contemplate what it could be.
I watch a program on the box, an actor sneezes as my neighbour arrives at his door, and I hear him sneeze a moment later. I read a magazine and my eyes scan the sentence with ‘green tree’ as a song on the radio in the background echoes the same phrase. I pour a cup of coffee and the Dj says ‘pour yourself a cup of coffee’. I sit in my car at the traffic lights and stare at a billboard with the picture of a fire engine, a fire engine crosses my view. Daily syncs, meaningless yet full of wonder.
As life’s events continue to conspire to destroy my sense of peaceful cluelessness, a realisation begins to manifest. IS the universe trying to communicate with me? ‘Are you talking to me?’ I ask in my best De Niroesque voice.
Throughout the Christmas period and New Year I kept coming across references to Genoa, and to Costa, either the coffee or a person named Costa. I was eating Genoa cake, reading a travel review about Genoa or being given a Genoa cake recipe. I began to wonder why so many people are called Costa and why I found myself constantly sitting in a coffee shop with the same name. I questioned the idea that I might be making a Genoa cake instead of the usual Mocha. Then the Costa Concordia struck rocks off the Genoa coast. That’s a mighty disturbing coincidence I thought.
It may be simply another one of those meaningless syncs that fill-up the day, but still weird none-the-less. The idea that there is any connection between my eating and drinking habits and a disaster off the coast of Italy is quite simply ridiculous. Isn’t it?
This week I was supposed to be trekking around Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on a work team-building event. Instead I found myself hooked up to a ventilator in a local hospital trying to catch my breath after suffering a life-threatening asthma attack. I haven’t had asthma in ten years and a day before I am due to fly I collapse after a series of unfortunate events.
Finally back at home, I get cosy with my hot-water bottle as I settle to watch a DVD, only to find constant references to the Kuala Lumpur Transport Department. I decide to cook myself something and open the cupboard to spot a Laksa Curry sauce packet which I refuse to open. I can now hear the Universe mumbling something at me.
Perhaps there is a message coming through the ether. That’s not a question, just a statement of possibility. I’ve stopped talking so much now. Being unable to breath helps a lot with this. Now I’ve made a conscious decision to stop asking ‘Why?’ Instead, I am just simply… listening.
