In the Colosseum

Which way do the walls work?

Walk out of the world and step into the surrogate.

Walls built to separate the world from the show, the world from the sport, the world from the spectacle. Leave that giant thing behind and work your mind well into this smaller one. The sound will suptransport your strength in this new place. The feeling of your feet first falling faintly then asserting their sound around your found strength.

Louder still (clipclop...) landing harder looming larger (...sploosh!). Warming to the impending row. The reason remembered faintly or not at all or completely. The action rules the moment, regardless of who started the fire. Build the pressure.

Look around before the moment engulfs. Before the winlossdraw. Before time is dilated by focus, breathe in the timeless separation. The way the sky always kisses the earth. The way the earth always embraces your body. The way your body holds tight to the mind. Breathe the moment into the past.

Then, the walls are present. Then, the walls are gone. The walls are in your mind or outside? The space is defined by walls or by minds? The difference is real, no matter who started the fire. This is here, that is there. The game is here (I just lost the game. I'll have to contact Furf. He'll have to call his mother), the not-game is there.

Or, which do we play to win, and which do you, like Ford Prefect, play to lose?

The division is mortar and stone. The division is neurotransmitter and receptor. The confines are comfy. The confines are cold. This space is a space I breathe life into. I create it around myself or Vespasian erects it to hold me.

What will follow me when I leave?
What will I carry with me?
What will I leave behind?

Will they remember me?
Will I remember them?

Where is life?

When I die inside the dream, do I wake up a butterfly?
When I wake outside the dream, do I remember my death?

Who breathes my air?
Who walks my path?
Who am I (t)here?

The rules inside rule the rules outside. The wins and losses. The pains and joys. The close enemies, the distant friends. The rules are my own, win or lose.

The field is set, the moment is next:

The rumors are true, I've performed well enough to be offered a series roster spot as a lion in The Pride of New York. The pain is different, but the game is the same. Play it, push through it. Wait, reverse that?

We run for each other.

---

No justice here, no liberty
No reason, no blame
There's no cause to taint the sweetest taste of blood
And greetings from the nation
As we shake the hands of time
They're taking their ovations
The vultures stay behind
In the colosseum, in the colosseum
In the colosseum tonight
- Tom Waits, In the Colosseum