Emotional Sandwiches

by Sarah Ashley Neal

  The interviewer was about to give everyone an opportunity to say something regarding their feelings that surfaced during their recent journey into self-awareness. It allowed everyone to describe their feelings in their own words. Feelings had been present in every scene and will have been wafting throughout the book too, finding emotional cycles to dip in and out.

  There are so many feelings associated with all the words that colour our language. No doubt you could look through the dictionary and link a feeling to some of the more common words that exist in your everyday vocabulary, and these will be personal to you. Other words may need to be translated first, before you get any inkling that they could provoke a sense of desire or misfortune. As it stands, for now, we only have time to listen to a few, summarised by some of the hardest-working personalities in the business during their final interview.

  So turn the page and take the time to pay them a little attention, giving each character a voice that allows them to make a stand and tell you, in their own words, that they have feelings too!

  The Final Interview

  “One-two-one-two; can you all hear me?” said the director, using a surround system to show off her authority.

  “All good over here,” shouted Trust, raising a hand, who you knew could be relied upon to give an opinion that counted, while sitting beside Honest as a show of solidarity.

  The interviewer took the microphone and introduced himself as Pete. His real name was Pierre but after overhearing the recent rumours about the actor he didn’t want any glib jokes being made while he was aiming to be professional (not wishing to let the director down!). He had been dying to ask his first question and decided to just throw it out to his audience, knowing full well that this would shake things up a bit from the outset.

  “So, what did it feel like – to play a sandwich?” said Pete, smiling cheekily throughout the time it took to ask the question. “Yes, Normal… what are your thoughts?” noticing the puppeteer absent this time!

  “I think I can speak on everyone’s behalf when I say that we didn’t waddle around in costumes smothered in sauce!” Normal rolled her eyes to ensure her point was being taken seriously. “I liked the fact that, between us, we were able to push boundaries. The ‘in the moment’ experiences which exposed our feelings, at the time, pushed our buttons too!”

  “And we weren’t all running around in Hawaiian shirts, either,” Hope added, laughing as he pointed across to Fear whom he’d had to sit beside throughout the plane journey, during one episode, witnessing it at work in full disguise. Hope felt like he had played a silent part, as the good guy, next to his troubled partner, Fear, who, as an aside, didn’t take off his shades the entire flight!

  Fear quickly retaliated: “Behave! One night, you had Wardrobe literally throw together a Hawaiian costume for Need; she ended up flirting outrageously with the crew dancing the Hula well into the early hours of the morning.” Defending his corner, Fear knew that he wasn’t the only one who had a soft spot for Hawaii. Or for Need, come to think of it. He couldn’t resist watching her blush with embarrassment as they all went on to recall the moment it fell apart, cracking at the seams as she lost her footing, landing conveniently in the arms of her admirer.

  Pete listened as they all took turns to say what had obviously been on their minds as they decided to go public with their jokes. “So, if you weren’t really ‘sandwiches’, why do you think the writer wanted to represent you as such? You don’t look edible to me.”

  Humble stood up and spoke a few poignant words and the laughter rapidly died a death. “When we use our senses to explore further, we can often discover more than what appears to be present on the surface of any situation in any given moment. Food is able to illustrate this rather well. In just one bite you can open up your senses. These include your sense of smell, taste, what you see, what you feel and what – believe it or not – can be heard. You become mindful, in that moment, and realise that the art to trying something new isn’t to ‘force’ yourself to like it, afterwards, but to know that you had the courage to try something new in the first place. The outcome is another story.”

  Everyone looked astonished; yet that in itself was surprising. After all, Humble was a profound teacher and featured in ‘Fillings that educate the taste buds’, so what did they expect to hear?

  Humble carried on with its performance, despite being averse to doing a monologue, earlier, and began to pick up momentum in what was fast becoming a speech: “Sandwiches are usually food products that can also be multi-layered, appear multi-faceted and contain plenty of potholes that get you wondering what it is that you have actually bitten into at the time. The flavours rise out of the crevices and catch you off guard, the ingredients make you sneeze and suddenly a whole new perspective is born – just because you took one bite!”

  Only stopping for a second, to draw breath, Humble edged closer to his captive audience, animating while talking them through the process of engagement. “Imagine it’s your first attempt: you only have to lift up one layer of spongy carbs to take a sneak preview, and any number of things can happen. Whichever way you hold it, eyeing it up from a distance because it looks too big to handle, then approaching it from the bottom (instead of the top) to make an indent, simply adds to the overall experience. However, planning to hold it with both hands and heading straight towards it, only to find that you bounce back off again, is not dissimilar to a stunt performer who crashes into a skyscraper in an action film. They misjudge the point of entry, thinking it is an open window. You can feel overwhelmed or…” Humble paused and, suddenly, seemed lost for words.

  No one was quite sure what to say next! The room had gone exceptionally quiet until Darkness piped up and attempted to complete the analogy to avoid a cliffhanger ending. The sandwich had been described so vividly and sounded rather enticing; it would seem a shame if it became out of reach.

  Sounding more like Churchill addressing the nation, Darkness stood up to address the room and declared, “And remember! Our path in life is full of delights and obstacles. There is often another way to get around an obstacle. You will not feel dismayed for long…” Breaking character, Darkness chuckled as he was clearly lacking the profundity that Sir Winston had managed to find, suggesting that opening the window first before making an attempt to dive through it could be helpful. And making a sandwich smaller without the scaffolding to hold it up could mitigate the risk of a collision at its borders. Joking aside, this is one character which encourages obstacles on our path in life to become better understood by getting to know their darker elements, in order to be overcome. Oh, and the stunt performer was fine.

  “I had the impression you wanted to keep us all in the dark,” jested Control. Pete cringed as he covered his eyes, choosing to listen instead to Darkness about to return fire. This was while the rest of the cast watched in anticipation, their eyes darting back and forth to see at what point that was going to happen.

  “I DON’T keep you in the dark. Haven’t you understood a word that I’ve been saying?” Sighing heavily, Darkness went on to admit, in less frantic tones, that he knew he could be annoying and his sensitivity to light didn’t help matters. Of course, he didn’t mean to scare anyone or make them feel sad. They usually did that to themselves. Sitting down again, he said (with more profoundness than when he started off), “An emotional state is something you get yourself into. I know. I watch people do it!”

  By now, Pete had a fair idea how the characters felt during the filming of ES and that it was becoming clear that they each had their place on our paths.

  “I felt challenged,” confessed Control.

  “That’s often how I felt too!” declared Blame, standing up to shake its legs. It was still seeing the chiropractor for a bad back after reshooting scenes which demonstrated the numerous ways in which to lie; it would defy anyone to curl up in a jam jar – gasping for air – until the lid was unscrewed. It took hou
rs to unfold.

  The director agreed that it had been emotional to film. She sighed and looked at Confidence asking, “Come on then, what are your thoughts? You’ve been quiet tonight or are you merrily enjoying the bubbly with Patience, which incidentally I can see needs topping up!”

  “Well,” said Confidence, “I wanted to take part in the storyline to demonstrate how easily I can be influenced – probably more than people realise. I felt dragged into endless double-act scenarios and now I know how Control must have felt,” looking over to him with compassion. “I felt lost at times and have Patience to thank for helping me to cope with those periods of waiting. Granted, a person waits for Confidence to find them; but I wait too and hope to be found.”

  Those last words, spoken by Confidence made the director smile and Pete nodded in agreement as he took back the microphone to see if anyone else in the room had anything to say, aware that time was getting on. Actually, Time was sitting asleep on the sofa and had suddenly aged. He must have been sapped of his strength while putting in the hours.

  Patience looked up and in slightly slurred speech told everyone that she felt undeserving of being put on a pedestal. But she thanked Confidence, anyway, for her kind words. She did agree, though, that her role involved waiting, reminding those in the room still listening, that this was usually while others took their time to buy into (or give into) her school of thought. Once they’d made a commitment to join her, she would wait alongside her new recruits and explain that ‘doing nothing’ is often the right thing to do. The latter had to be handled with care to avoid Doubt from creeping into their relationship.

  Rounding off a confident performance with an unexpected afterthought, Patience spat out her final words: “And Time will tell you that too!” Sounding desperate for his approval, in case no one would believe her, Time was, without doubt, her soulmate. Sometimes, between them, they only had a few seconds to make an impact and waiting longer for something to happen was not always an option.

  Pete had planned on getting them to open up on their feelings a little more, but they had seemingly been washed away by barrels of beer and magnums of champagne that had forgiveness written all over them from the start. That reminded him of something: “Hey, Forgive,” said Pete, looking around the room, “is there anything you want to say?”

  Forgive had resorted to Chair Pose now, in the corner of the lounge, and could quite safely say that it had left tree hugging well behind, in the forest. He showed signs of being ready to perform a cappella with his roommates who, unfortunately, looked as though they had just undergone a session of hypnotherapy. Forgive’s plan, to have them all sing along to a version of ‘Feelings’, was short lived. On reflection, it wasn’t the most uplifting of songs for ‘an end of show’ party! A renowned empath, Forgive had more than enough experience in engaging with feelings on a day-to-day basis and was probably due to have a rest from them.

  Guilt had irritated Need far too much during filming and couldn’t resist teasing her now, asking her to challenge herself more about her reasons for existence. Interrupting Guilt’s flow of hypocrisy, Need spoke up in agreement. “Actually, I was asking Fear, only the other day, that exact same question. We agreed that we both face this dilemma and have choices to make. Sometimes we simply make the wrong ones.”

  “And what feelings come up for either of you, when you are faced with this decision-making process?” asked Pete, looking smug because he’d read about Choice. Noticing that neither the documentary nor the book had turned Choice into a cheeky chappy, giving him a voice per se, he still managed to keep the army of opportunities active on the path throughout the entire script! Choice had left the party early with Sometimes. Despite being picked to launch the show, she had felt more like a side garnish in each episode as opposed to the temptress she’d envisioned playing. But appearing in the same section as Choice was a good career move and they worked well together – so far.

  Fear had been hesitating to speak, unsure if Need wanted to say something else first, then filled the silence. “I feel a degree of empathy for the person I tag along with and would like to think that everyone can choose to work through fear or walk away from fearful situations. I know this isn’t always the case and so I am not going to insult anyone, who has come this far on their journey, to think that my last words are meant to be derogatory. A big word admittedly for this time of night as I have since had a few extra miniatures from the bar! But I can be useful to have around…” Fear definitely had a sentimental side to him.

  Judgement woke up as Fear was in mid-flow and interjected, reminding everyone how we are all more than capable of judging ourselves a bit harshly at times.

  “Yeah, yeah, point taken,” said Fear, wishing that Judgement had remained asleep. Now was not the time for another speech. Any games of Pass the Parcel would have to wait for another time so wrapping up any advice now (kind or otherwise) wasn’t going to protect Fear from experiencing a hangover the next morning; early signs had already threatened to run wild. Fortunately, Judgement didn’t go on to discuss any more points of view, settling on one generalisation as his only contribution for the night.

  Failure couldn’t argue with the fact that this had been a great evening and there wasn’t much that it wanted to add – only telling Pete that it had been upstaged by the extra-terrestrial. It felt that the alien visitor had said plenty on the subject and Failure wasn’t sure if that was only a ploy to become more widely recognised, on Earth, through appearing on our TV network. Pete thought Failure was sounding a little envious but saw from watching and listening to how this character spoke, that Failure wore some interesting shoes which were probably ill-fitting at times. It was often called names. The alien kept spelling his name out, as if Failure couldn’t hear, making it mean something different each time. It seemed to like the ‘F’ word!

  Clearly, this bunch of characters could contribute to global warming all on their own, just by talking! Pete nicknamed the documentary ‘Green House Emotions’, hoping that his own imagination would win him the opportunity to return during the next series. Maybe they could call him Pierre, after all.

  Well, it was getting on for midnight and even though this was early for the emotional fellowship, it was clearly a Cinderella moment being felt by all and time for everyone to retire. There was one final observation, to consider…

  Path had been lying around all evening propping up most of the cast as they became mildly intoxicated which it had chosen to do since day one. It hadn’t really got much of a mention in this interview and it didn’t volunteer either when Pete, soon to be Pierre, willed them all to be honest and open about their feelings. Talking about Honest, where had it been all evening?

  Honest was keeping a low profile and just as Pete was about to ask it a question, Honest put its finger up to its mouth and whispered, “Shhhhh… not now, sometimes the truth hurts”, and Pete got the message.

  The director, who also played the master of ceremonies for the evening’s activities, was about to leave. After saying goodnight to the cast first, she went on to wish Pete a safe onward journey. Knowing that the book had given Path more acknowledgment in its closing chapter, she said no more and preferred to share a final moment with Path, alone, as it led her to the exit and on to her next journey.

  Then the doors shut.

  The Folders of Your Mind

  Looking up at the sky there seemed to be plenty of activity going on. A flock of birds appeared to be heading off in a direction that made me wonder if they actually knew where they were going! One or two were gliding in the opposite direction an inch below the other formation; well, that’s what it looked like from a distance, and neither one looked like they were on a mission to get anywhere fast. An aircraft intercepted their paths with no repercussions and the clouds passed between them as though the gaps had been made just the right size to prevent a catastrophe.

  I soon came to the conclusion that I had
safely returned through the small arched doors. I wasn’t cut out to be a director anyway – but what a ride! I could only assume I had made it back to reality; the one where you had just polished off your fifth course and I had rudely interrupted your imagination, taking us both on a detour. Sorry about that!

  An interesting challenge that I face, sometimes, is deciding whether something is realistic or not. I’m a born optimist. I wake up in the morning and have a new idea that alters the perspective on an idea that I had the day before. It wears me out! But isn’t that what learning and developing is all about? We can change our minds – because, as humans, we are gifted with this wonderful ability to learn. We are capable of challenging our own points of view and, in turn, we might change our perspectives. How many times have you done this with these Emotional Sandwiches?

  Also, I’d love to see past the first layer of action in my field of vision and learn more. If I could look up and explore the solar system without using a telescope, whilst continuing to lie flat on my back to avoid falling over (only cricking my neck to view another planet), I’m certain I would see pathways lit up by the stars. These would beckon me and I would follow, and I’d probably remain their travelling companion until I had no more reason to follow. Alas, my sight is limited. I can only see what I can see and the rest that is hidden may be left to my imagination or witnessed through my third eye. Perhaps we aren’t meant to see everything and maybe that is a good thing.

  Path, on the other hand, has been witness to plenty of shenanigans without the need for magnification. It usually wanted to chuck the Emotional Sandwiches off for misbehaving but, given time, some of them went on to find their own way. In contrast, Path has seen Beauty and Darkness meet somewhere in the middle and become friends, suggesting that people can turn a corner in their lives and find peace. They can find a star to guide them on. I was going to say home but I believe it is more important to know there is somewhere else we can be if home isn’t all that appealing either. We don’t all have a home. But maybe home, in this sense, is where the ego hangs up its hat to retire for the night or it may be a place we aspire to go when all has been said and done on Earth. You choose.