You, dear reader, are issued five draggable birds for the duration of your visit to this page. You are free to position them on and over the following paragraphs, as long as you accept the total senselessness of this concept.

I open my eyes, and all is white, as I'm consciously blinking in maximum sensory stimulation with painful, hueless, whirling brightness. Bewilderment, confusion. A fraction of time passes, and sudden realisation crystallizes: I profoundly do not know where I am. Reeling down the white sensation, I suddenly touch ground. There's gravity: Feet, knees, hands, back, head touch rock hard coldness. And there's pain. There is definitely pain.

As if gently recovering from suddenly being summoned into existence, a swaying drunkenness fades, wanes, rationalises into an ambient, brittle sadness. The achromatic whiteness ebbs to a sullen gray, or rather, a vaguely less unsettling brightness. For the briefest of moments, I hear nothing, though there's no silence: the void nothingness is tangible; I can perceive, even hear space. It is palpable yet substantially unreal - I smell it. I feel it around me, as if I were standing in the midst of an empty hall, fingering the intricate bricky detail of all opposed walls at the same time, walls that are yet overwhelmingly far apart. I'm unable to discern and differentiate anything in this myriad of ambient sounds surrounding me, engulfing me. Or am I? Do I hear sea gulls? I suddenly realise that what I hear is nothing but a white, Gaussian signal fed into my sensory input channels - a sensation that makes me confuse sight with taste, and hearing with touch. I smell sea gulls. My head reels.

The mental drought I seem to have suffered for ages, is fading. Thoughts want to spring, and they can, they are allowed, though prevented from doing so for just that agonising nanosecond longer. A crystal clear explanation for all this is on the tip of my tongue. An idea ready to be spoken for the first time. To soar like a gull. Right there. A white gull. All I ever wanted to say, here and now, on the tip of my tongue. It tastes rather sweet, so I swallow - and suddenly explode in a cataclysm of meta awareness. As two, three, no, five swallows pass by, I instantly perceive every detail of their plumage, every gradient in their eye, every move of their wings. They cry at each other, lividly, lying, deceiving each other with dreams of forgotten colours. I recall only white, but hear and believe it all. Gullible.

All darkens, and I suddenly realise the ground beneath me materialises even more. My knees hurt. This faculty of thought and reason I suddenly apprehend and attain, confers me with sufficient power to comprehend what I see before me. But there's nothing to see. There's ubiquitous whiteness, less and less pronounced, omnipresent though. Then, unnoticed before, and soft breathing of wind in a tree. There is a tree now, yes, there quite undenyably is a tree. I'm even leaning against it. In it, on a branch, five grey swallows perch, waiting, as if expecting something, peering searchingly among the foliage with a definite sense of intent. Up in a white paper tree. Preposterous.

Leaves of quivery tinsel tingle above my head. The trunk feels moist, brittle, wet cardboard like. Gentle waves are washing against my bare feet, a crystal clear white pond has been right there all the time. I am aware, i see. The tree, now darkening, is made entirely out of paper. White, crispy paper at the foliage, moist at the base. The waves wash against my feet and the trunk of the tree. A young girl in white, flowing robes rushes by, giving way to youhtful mirth as laughter springs from her lips. It is not until she has long passed by, that I realise she was there - a swift breath of disbelief - flying a kite. And the wind ratlles a thousand leaves.

I imagine a paper tree, four swallows on a branch and one young child, arching, reaching for a broken kite. Tears flow from her bright blue eyes, on the branch, the trunk, my feet, the pond. She spreads her brittle wings and flies away, as if no man has ever infected her frangible mind with the concept of gravity. Incredibly high. Fluttering. Fleeting.

Embarking the white, slender canoe that seems to have been there all the time, I dislodge from the white sand, and start paddling the airy fluid around me. Three swallows follow me, watching closely. My journey is sacred. Three gulls fly by, orbit, set down near me, on the water. One turns into a tuna sandwich and sinks immediately. Blinks once, whipping its tail and fins, gliding to safer depths. I keep rowing, bitter envy touching the stern. Tuna sandwich envy. Preposterous.

The island on which I stranded is sprinkled with white cardboard palm trees. I explore sleepily and notice a single swallow on my shoulder. A kite lies broken on the beach, small footsteps lead from it, into the confined greyness of the palm forest. I sense warmth, no - heat and tropical humidity. The floppy trees vomit their humid heat pattern into the sky. Trembling. A dead swallow lies in front of me. All dried out - it must have been there since the beginning of time. I blink twice, swallow a dry and raspy cry, spread my wings and take off. I don't think I was ever here.