To forget and then remember a rectangle -- a guided meditation

Do you remember what a rectangle looks like?  Most people always know what a rectangle looks like, so to remember one is mundane and without value, like seeing one's face reflected in a mirror.  But if you can forget what a rectangle is, and then be reminded of it, it's an incredible dual pleasure -- of reaching for something at the fringe of your conscious memory and grabbing it into focus; and of the neat symmetry of the rectangle revealing itself to you.  Today, we will remember a rectangle.  But before we can remember a rectangle, we have to...FORGET a rectangle.

To forget a rectangle, first, we must remember a rectangle.  First, remember a rectangle.  You see its four sides.  You see its ninety-degree angles.  You see that its perpendicular sides are of slightly different lengths (forgetting a square is a more advanced technique, which we will save for another day).  Are you remembering it?  Maybe there's a rectangle in front of you right now -- a book, or a table, or a television.  If you're having trouble remembering a rectangle, you might try remembering one of those things first and then erasing it of detail so that all that's left is the shape -- the shape of a rectangle.  Are you remembering a rectangle?  Good.  You might wish to remember holding or kissing a rectangle.  You may kiss a rectangle, but please go no further (do not fuck a rectangle).  When you are done holding and kissing it, remove yourself from the scene -- it is now just a rectangle.

No, you're doing it wrong.

Just -- the rectangle, remember?  Think about a rectangle, hold it in your mind.  Is it a rectangle?  All right.  Just, remember it.

Now: forget it.

Forget your rectangle.  Let the angles twist like a weak structure in a heavy wind.  Let the sides collapse like a pile of twigs.  What angles?  What sides?  You don't know; you don't remember anything like that.  The shape you held in your mind -- whatever its shape, whatever its name -- is obscured in a fog.  Your mind fills with this shapeless fog.  Although you find that you can manipulate the shapeless fog into shapes -- a circle?  Yes, that's that round thing.  A heptagon?  Yes, seven sides, you can see it.  Are there more shapes?  Sure, you can think of more shapes.  Different shapes, but not the one -- the one that...the one you can't name...the one that's there in the corner, hiding in the shadows, and if you turned your head to look at it it would be gone...

Great!  You forgot a rectangle!

Now it's time to remember a rectangle again.  This can be the same rectangle from before, or a new rectangle.  The important thing --

Your phone is ringing.  Answer the phone if you have to.  This can wait.

You hang up.

You stare at your phone.  It fails to resolve itself in your hand.  It's solid, glass and light, you can feel its cold hardness in your hand, but to your eyes, it looks like liquid.  It's unstable; you're afraid that if you look away, when you look at it again, it will have taken on a new form, unrecognizable; it is a monster.

Anyway, now that you have a second to reflect on the call, you just got some bad news.

Ok, but put that out of your head, because it's time to remember a rectangle again.  So close your eyes.  Put the news out of your head.  It'll be fine, you can reflect on it later, the important thing is to remember a rectangle right now.  Wipe your mind clean.  See the blank canvas, and now draw a rectangle onto it, with its...number of sides and its...angles, of various...

All right, you're a little distracted, that's to be expected.  Take all the pain and frustration from the phone call and whatever other garbage is going on in your worthless life, and pen it into a solid, clean rectangle.  Rectangle, remember?  It's -- it looks like -- I mean, it's kind of hard to describe, it's just...it's just a rectangle...you kind of need to just, like, remember it, I don't know how I can help you beyond that, you just -- you need to --

You were doing something -- what was it?  Something you were supposed to remember.  The laundry?  No, you did that yesterday.  Something with the cat?  The cat is sick?  You see the cat, lying on an unstable, liquid mass in the bedroom.  The cat looks fine.

You step back, out of the door frame.  You try take it in -- you're baffled and frightened.  This thing, with the hinges, and the knob, it's a "door," but -- what the hell is this thing?  Why does it have so many sides?  It's like a triangle, but...more...

The room doesn't move, but your perception of it does -- it seems to tear itself open and hurl you into a void of sharp lines and right angles without name.