I can’t stand this, the boy cried out his body sobbing deep in despair. Cold, wet, hungry, and hunted, he wedged himself deeper into a refuge among some of the great rocks scattered in groups and singly across this unwelcoming moorland terrain. In his thin pitiful voice he repeated himself over and over against the moaning and rushing of the wind. Can’t stand this, over and over his dissatisfaction. Then in the dark of this a wild man appeared before him, crazily scurrying into the shelter the boy had found. Wild he was but not without compassion which took him tenderly to the boy sobbing then frozen terrified, numbing himself in preparation to be eaten. The animal-man gathered him up and carried him to his hidden lair where with food and heat of fire drew together again the threads of life within the boy.

The need to escape is the prison. If for each and every living soul reality is a prison then that is so. But if there is one who at this moment or at any present moment does not regard reality as a prison then all suffering souls serve that one soul whether they wish it or not. As reality imprisons one it makes one the slave of its favourites. As a prisoner of reality no matter how apparently free, one remains a servant of the satisfied. To be a prisoner of this particular aspect of reality is to be forced to serve the satisfied against one’s wishes.

Can’t there be any hope for such a one? asked the boy, recovered enough to enter into conversation.

A fugitive remains a potential prisoner. The boy’s eyes became rigid, did not blink until tears ran down his face in rivulets wiping lines into the grime.

Wind howled, fire cracked, the two sat on into the night, the boy searching for the purpose of the wild man’s ruminations.