Two flows to every river.

My job makes me deeply unhappy.

Everyday a monotonous, deeply unenjoyable, hard slog of eight hours reading case files and submission documents for police forces and private clients regarding crimes of the highest order. The most depraved and effecting betrayals of the human spirit and soul.

I arrive, I throw myself into it in the vain hope that by investing heavily, the hours will fall off the clock, and everyday time moves at a glacial pace toward 5pm where I can finally turn off my overactive brain and collapse into the silence that is the car ride home.

This is my ritual, day after day, Monday through Friday... broken only by those happy days when the sun is shining, the air is clean, rain does not pour and drench the streets and roadways and bridges - and I can step out of the confines of the four walls to which I am imprisoned and can breath clean air, bask in bright warm sunlight and stomp the impatience and worry from my bones by taking the walk around the canal.

This ritual within the ritual is a rare treat, But when it presents itself, it can make even the dreariest, saddest, most haunted days shine incandescently.

A total distance of 1.2 miles, the stretch of canal that lays parallel to my workplace is a ribbon of lush green and fertile brown that is full of animal life, insects and a variety of graffitti.

Half way up the waterway there is a Lock that is perched atop a small hill higher than the water level of the rest of the canal and which acts as a step within an incline in the pathway. From a distance the sudden rise in the path plays tricks on the eye and adds an air of mystery to the landscape.

It is here that I take my rest.

On these perfect days taking a seat on the thick wooden stauncheon that acts as the arm of the Lock - that pushes gates closed and traps water levels to allow canal barges to traverse these arteries that spiral and flow from the River Avon - I sit, cross-legged on the oak beam, with music flowing like the Canal flows, the river flows, the ocean flows, within my ears. I close my eyes and I meditate. Thinking of all the things that make me happy... or... not thinking at all.

Barely breathing. Barely there in any real sense of the word.

I exist.

The energies of that canal flow through my veins like ethereal dust. Igniting and inspiring, no longer a creature of flesh and blood. In these solitary, solemn moments I am nothing but an entity of story and daydream.

Sixty solemn minutes is all I have.

Ten to walk to the canal entrance, ten to get to the lock, thirty minutes to allow my brain to turn off, take leave and my body to melt into nature's vibration and soak up the silence and stillness of the water and a final ten minutes to get back to work, having finally trudged the last section of the canal, rounding the bridge and back up to my office.

Back to the burden of proof and evidence, the never ending phone calls and the miserable reality of the world. Yet, for a moment, a quiet lonely beautiful moment - the world is mine to bend as I wish with meditive pause and the flicker of inventive fire that ignites the second I close my eyes.

Lost, yet found, flowing freely like a carp upon the current.

Loose upon the surge, free and innocent upon the water.