What Evils Watch From the Dark Corners of the Mind?
The Volgarian’s Garden
The Volgarian’s Garden
A heavy rhythm appeared first — a “rumpady-dump” that felt less like music than footsteps. Something large was approaching. The orchestra answered with uneasy strings, climbing tension, and sudden bursts of brightness that couldn’t quite hold back the dread. Before long, the piece revealed itself as a portrait of Fear — not of any real monster, but of the one imagination assembles from shadows and sound.
That is the peculiar talent of what I call The Me: it remembers, projects, worries, and invents. It cannot rest in the present, and it cannot imagine its own ending, so it populates the darkness with threats. A rustle becomes a predator. A shadow grows teeth. A simple rhythm becomes the stride of a green ogre advancing through a nightmare garden.
Then the music stops. The room is ordinary again — a chair, a clock, a quiet score on a screen. Nothing was ever there. Only The Me was frightened. The Present, as always, remained untouched.
Which raises the only sensible question:
What is a Volgarian?
