Ice Fishing

An orange notebook rests on the end table next to Gordon's couch, eclipsed by the lampshade hovering above it. I can only imagine that it belonged to Gordon—each cyan line carrying the weight of his thoughts.  The unfilled pages will now remain so, or rather, if they are to be used, it will not be for their intended purpose. Gordon purchased this notebook to house his mind, to help carry the burden of his thoughts, to calm the turbulence within... and now...?  Now perhaps it will be kindling, or with any luck, it will remain unused and incomplete. Perhaps I can save his thoughts from combustion?

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An excerpt from Gordon's notebook, a random page:
​
I was committed to drifting
and floating in the belly
​of a corporate whale, alone
​in a ghastly conference room.
​I was trying to find myself in the large hole
I had cut into the ice in order
to touch the water beneath.
I had a dream in which some transcendent shift
​seemed to take place. I drilled through this
​ice; a window opened into another realm,
the dazzlingly bright sunlight shining through
​the blue sky and off of the white
​snow and ice. Our lives are
​meaningless.

And another—untitled, crumpled on the floor, discarded, unworthy. The hand-writing is different on this one - a response?

​We sometimes call this flyover country,
about two-thirds of the way out from the spiral;
​the lesser-known areas at the outer edges.
​Hierarchical bubbles are blown
​by nurseries to the sparsely populated
​outer fringes. Young
​are blooming, some in clusters,
some alone.
​Young in early phases of their lives
sprouting
jets of material from their
​star-studded core. The more
barren regions tend to look inward.