Level 7

MAY 27

Today it got me again.

It had been an ordinary routine day, nothing unusual, until sometime between 17.00 and 18.00 hours, when I suddenly saw the green fields near my native town. I knew perfectly well that it was my imagination, but the whole scene was sharp and bright in front of my eyes.

I do not know why it happened. It may have had something to do with the good violet perfume used by the nurse sitting next to me at lunch—she must have brought it down with her. I remember thinking how nice it smelled. Then I must have forgotten it until several hours later, when the memory brought with it the image of the meadows.

Different shades of green grass: some dark, some light and fresh. Trees and hills and the cool breeze of a spring afternoon. Blue skies with bright clouds. And people scattered here and there, and twittering birds. And a deep peace of mind, a feeling that I was alive and that being alive was enough. No need to do anything, or achieve anything, or struggle for anything. And deep breathing to welcome all the sweet scents of soil and grass and spring flowers into my breast.

No, it’s no use trying. It takes a poet to convey sensations like those. I have never been one, and poets do not grow in caves. But today, I think, I felt the way poets must feel. The vision was so sharp, so powerful, that for a moment I forgot where I was.

Was it for just a moment? I have no way of telling, for I have lost all sense of time.

But then the image disappeared, and in its place came longing for those meadows and those days. It came like a sharp pain, throbbing with increasing vigour, until I wanted to cry out and bang my head against the clean, hygienic, sterile walls.

I did nothing. Gradually the pangs subsided. But despair filled my mind, despair as black as those fields were green, as bitter as that spring breeze was sweet. There is no need for poetry to convey that.