Just to be certain I am not plagiarizing that title, I am taking it from a Stone Temple Pilots song (as I’m sure they took it from somewhere else). Ok, now that that’s out of the way:
The day has crept closer as tomorrow promises its reign over today. What has tread the pools resting just beyond and below the horizon now leaks into the floor beneath my feet. The child we’ve known of for near eight months has sent out his less than subtle hands to shape the world around me.
From within the womb, he has overseen the construction of a beautiful infant’s room, and supplied our home with tools we’ve (my wife and I) only imagined putting to use. From booger suckers, to diaper rash cream, to some very cool outfits (see PJ onesie below), we’ve become workers on an assembly line that will soon begin to roll.
Has the reality of what will be really tattooed its place on our world? Do we understand the venture we embark upon? Of course not, like all first time parents, we’re relatively clueless. We know this.
Even with my wife’s gift of a root of knowledge, coming from working with infants at a preschool, or day care (I’ve never really understand the difference in this case), we enter this room as so many before us have….clueless and probably a little scared, in a good way.
For example, this past weekend we took upon the task of installing car seats into our cars, of all places. If you’re like me, you never thought this would be a challenging chore, just a moment spent to strap in a device millions have bested before. Clearly a less than confounding assignment, or at least we, I, thought.
First, for those in the know, our cars were both put together in or before 2002, which is apparently a year many cars underwent a convenient design upgrade, in the form of LATCH connections. Put simply, this is a simple anchor system cars now have to attach child Car Seats to, as an added stability to simple seat belt strap in.
Of course, when the first car seat you have ever installed in your life is second hand and does not come with instructions, you’re probably unaware of this fact. Instead, you have two strange looking hook devices hanging from the seat with no apparent place to attach them. Trust me, it doesn’t matter how hard you look, if your car is as mine and was not created with the LATCH system, you won’t find them. You can search every thread of the seat, every page of the car’s owner’s manual and you’ll come to the same conclusion, “Just what in the f#@$ am I supposed to do with these latch things.”
After some frustrating moments, certainly meant to test us (quick question: If you and your wife become short with each other, curse out the seat, curse out the car, and teeter on giving up – do you pass the test? If so, then we did great.), we moved on to the brand new seat we meant to install in my wife’s car, and it was here that God decided he’d put us through enough and blessed us with the presence of instructions – where I found that lovely nugget about 2002 being the year the LATCH system become predominantly available.
You’d be amazed how much comfort can be found in a set of instructions, even crappy ones that seem to be written to someone who shouldn’t need them in the first place. Instruction makers out there, please be aware that if someone is using your instructions it is probably because they need them, not because they want good a good pamphlet to cuddle up to a fire and lose themselves in. I’m just saying.
To put a long story short, or shorter than it could be, the car seats are now installed and my wife understands how to use the straps to secure our child, thanks to her experience with them. I may still require some teaching, for the moment, to me, it appears as a confusing bundle of belts and buckles meant to entangle and ensnare any creature stupid enough to get close, but at least we enter that battle with one of us having fought it before.
Anyway, just thought I’d put this to paper (or the digital equivalent) to give myself a reminder of the naivety I once cradled so lovingly, for soon it will be crushed one tiny step at a time.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
"Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!"
For the first time in several seasons, or honestly, since the year that ended in the Golden State meltdown (and obviously, that year was tainted by the sting of a very recent Finals loss), I enter the Mavs' season with true exuberance. Even with the Cowboys and Texans both winning this Sunday, my mind kept wondering the open space reserved for this year's Mavs' memories.
It's hard to place exactly what it is, but this year's team has something that's been lacking in the recent past. Is it the smiles spilling from the eyes of players' in their interviews? Is it the infusion of talent and athleticism? Does it come down to something as simple as the players' body language. Is it the hint of a possible new, higher level of on the court chemistry brought on by a soundly constructed roster (we'll choose to overlook the center position for the moment)?
Yes, and no.
All of those things are subtly tugging at a thread dangling from the curtains of my fandom, trying to reveal a vast stage sure to unleash bountiful wonders and amazing feats of acrobatic accomplishment. But, there's something else as well.
For the first time in many summers, the team I follow, the Mavs, clearly got better on paper. Yes, they lost Bass, but they gained so much more. And yes, other top tier teams got better as well. But, that's for another day, because on the eve of the season opener, it is all about my team.
With the dawning of a another season, comes another delivery of unabashed hope. Today, anything is possible. The winds could stir, and the giants in our way could stumble, or our own sails could fill with enough strength to lift us beyond their reach. Today, there is only tomorrow, and tomorrow has yet to be defined.
Like Ralphie praying for that "Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!" in A Christmas Story, I'm all hope. Even as everyone warns me that I'll shoot my eye out, as the Lakers threaten to put their boot in my face and send me on my way down that red slide into, "there's always next year", my hope stands bold and untarnished.
For today, there is nothing else. No fact can crush my hope. There is no chance to catch my parents (David Stern) putting out tomorrow's gift (I hope). This is Christmas Eve, and regardless of how outrageous my gift requests have been, Santa hasn't said no to anything yet.
Instead, I hear the hooves touching down, see the shadows of 9 reindeer and a full sleigh folding down my roof and dancing in the glow of my neighbors decorative lights over my snow kissed lawn....and I know if I just wait a little longer, there's a chance, no matter how slight, that Santa carries with him exactly what I hope for.
I just hope I can sleep tonight.
It's hard to place exactly what it is, but this year's team has something that's been lacking in the recent past. Is it the smiles spilling from the eyes of players' in their interviews? Is it the infusion of talent and athleticism? Does it come down to something as simple as the players' body language. Is it the hint of a possible new, higher level of on the court chemistry brought on by a soundly constructed roster (we'll choose to overlook the center position for the moment)?
Yes, and no.
All of those things are subtly tugging at a thread dangling from the curtains of my fandom, trying to reveal a vast stage sure to unleash bountiful wonders and amazing feats of acrobatic accomplishment. But, there's something else as well.
For the first time in many summers, the team I follow, the Mavs, clearly got better on paper. Yes, they lost Bass, but they gained so much more. And yes, other top tier teams got better as well. But, that's for another day, because on the eve of the season opener, it is all about my team.
With the dawning of a another season, comes another delivery of unabashed hope. Today, anything is possible. The winds could stir, and the giants in our way could stumble, or our own sails could fill with enough strength to lift us beyond their reach. Today, there is only tomorrow, and tomorrow has yet to be defined.
Like Ralphie praying for that "Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!" in A Christmas Story, I'm all hope. Even as everyone warns me that I'll shoot my eye out, as the Lakers threaten to put their boot in my face and send me on my way down that red slide into, "there's always next year", my hope stands bold and untarnished.
For today, there is nothing else. No fact can crush my hope. There is no chance to catch my parents (David Stern) putting out tomorrow's gift (I hope). This is Christmas Eve, and regardless of how outrageous my gift requests have been, Santa hasn't said no to anything yet.
Instead, I hear the hooves touching down, see the shadows of 9 reindeer and a full sleigh folding down my roof and dancing in the glow of my neighbors decorative lights over my snow kissed lawn....and I know if I just wait a little longer, there's a chance, no matter how slight, that Santa carries with him exactly what I hope for.
I just hope I can sleep tonight.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
The Possum and the Goose
This summer, for the first time in a long time, my Mavs (yes, I own them) did something they haven't done in awhile....on paper, they improved. When the rest of the NBA was supposed to be playing dead (a prediction that didn't quite come true, for the most part), the MBT (Mavs Brain Trust) dropped hints of their intent to feed upon the wounded.
We watched Vince Carter, Richard Jefferson and Shaq all change teams while embraced in a spectator's silence, when our moment finally came to fruition. No, the MBT did not exactly pounce on a limping prey, but they did capitalize on Toronto's signing of Hedo, which left Shawn Marion available for spare parts.
Other than Wright, the MBT sent away a couple of links in the chain which served to constrain previous efforts. The roster space granted in return for Devean George and Jerry Stackhouse was already a good deal, but throw in Marion and the Mavs finally have a steal that works out in their favor....and that doesn't even take into account the possibility of what Humphries (an all out hustle guy compared favorably with Edward Najera - though recent hints suggest Humphries may not remain a Mav for long, per DB.com) and Jawai (a rugged, though undersized, young center who could also be short on time in a Mavs uniform) may bring to the table.
No, Gortat isn't putting on a Mavs uniform, and the failure to convert Greg Buckner's partially guaranteed deal into anything of substance can't be ignored, but in the end....this summer should be viewed as a positive one. If nothing else, the Mavs should be a very fun team to watch, and the addition of Marion will improve our perimeter defense tremendously - meaning, there is a chance Dampier's immobility won't be as exposed as it has been in the recent past.
Put me in the camp of the "yet to be convinced" on Drew Gooden, but on paper he does seem to at least address the problems the Mavs had with undersized, athletic centers. We'll see.
In short, while the league didn't quite play possum to the degree of the "nuclear winter" Mark Cuban predicted, the Mavs still came away with their golden goose.
Is that where the title came from, or was I simply remembering the time a good friend taunted a goose as a group of us floated the Guadalupe in New Braunfels, and that goose followed us down the river - as said friend continued to call it like one summonsing a slow to cooperate puppy, until the goose did finally catch up and proceed to attack that friend - causing him to have to; A. Use his inner tube as a shield and, B. Pocket the memory of how it feels to push a goose away by its throat.
Honestly, it could be either one and I can only hope that Marion leads to such glorious memories as that ornery goose.
We watched Vince Carter, Richard Jefferson and Shaq all change teams while embraced in a spectator's silence, when our moment finally came to fruition. No, the MBT did not exactly pounce on a limping prey, but they did capitalize on Toronto's signing of Hedo, which left Shawn Marion available for spare parts.
Other than Wright, the MBT sent away a couple of links in the chain which served to constrain previous efforts. The roster space granted in return for Devean George and Jerry Stackhouse was already a good deal, but throw in Marion and the Mavs finally have a steal that works out in their favor....and that doesn't even take into account the possibility of what Humphries (an all out hustle guy compared favorably with Edward Najera - though recent hints suggest Humphries may not remain a Mav for long, per DB.com) and Jawai (a rugged, though undersized, young center who could also be short on time in a Mavs uniform) may bring to the table.
No, Gortat isn't putting on a Mavs uniform, and the failure to convert Greg Buckner's partially guaranteed deal into anything of substance can't be ignored, but in the end....this summer should be viewed as a positive one. If nothing else, the Mavs should be a very fun team to watch, and the addition of Marion will improve our perimeter defense tremendously - meaning, there is a chance Dampier's immobility won't be as exposed as it has been in the recent past.
Put me in the camp of the "yet to be convinced" on Drew Gooden, but on paper he does seem to at least address the problems the Mavs had with undersized, athletic centers. We'll see.
In short, while the league didn't quite play possum to the degree of the "nuclear winter" Mark Cuban predicted, the Mavs still came away with their golden goose.
Is that where the title came from, or was I simply remembering the time a good friend taunted a goose as a group of us floated the Guadalupe in New Braunfels, and that goose followed us down the river - as said friend continued to call it like one summonsing a slow to cooperate puppy, until the goose did finally catch up and proceed to attack that friend - causing him to have to; A. Use his inner tube as a shield and, B. Pocket the memory of how it feels to push a goose away by its throat.
Honestly, it could be either one and I can only hope that Marion leads to such glorious memories as that ornery goose.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Well, That's Over
Sorry about that. It was actually quite a bit longer than I remembered...or at least seems to be, and were I to actually attempt to edit it into a more presentable package, I am sure that I would delete several of the posts from the middle of the story.
There is a fair chance that I was stretching it out just to have something to do on my lunch breaks.
Anyway, I hope anyone who read's it enjoys it. I wouldn't say it's one of the better things I've written, but I enjoyed writing it, and enjoyed reading over it again.
To wrap up: The beginning of the story is Part 1 - which is much lower on the blog, and the conclusion is in Part 18. If you don't want to spoil the ending, start at part one.
There is a fair chance that I was stretching it out just to have something to do on my lunch breaks.
Anyway, I hope anyone who read's it enjoys it. I wouldn't say it's one of the better things I've written, but I enjoyed writing it, and enjoyed reading over it again.
To wrap up: The beginning of the story is Part 1 - which is much lower on the blog, and the conclusion is in Part 18. If you don't want to spoil the ending, start at part one.
The Awakening (non-sports) - Part 18 - Final
My Final Entry
I write today, for the purposes of retrospection. Someday, I am sure that I will find the urge to read back on my time under the influence of the Wendisease, as they are calling it in some media circles, after the fast food chain whose tainted meat is now known to have spread the virus. Often this is followed by, “It’s way better than living long.” A play on the restaurants ad slogan, I am told.
Only the nature of the virus itself kept the number of infected low. Without a cut or open sore in the mouth or throat to grant entry, the virus was easily killed within the stomach of most that were exposed.
Being the first to survive, as well as allow doctors an insight into the disease, thus giving them the knowledge to heal it, has been a surreal ordeal, to say the least. Others have responded well to initial treatment, but seem to relapse in time. I’ve broken the pattern and given hope to those in a position to build upon it.
It was this very journal, along with my scribbling over the newspaper, which showed them the parts of the brain being attacked, as many of the other infected merely sat motionless, unresponsive, mute and eventually dead.
They tell me that had I not been found many others would have surely died before a cure could be developed. I’ve been told I am extremely lucky and perhaps some distorted version of a hero. Complete crap, of course, with the hero part, but I have to agree with the luck. How can you be a hero without heroic intent, without intent at all?
On a side note, why is it that bad luck is so often necessary to break the seal of the eye open to the presence of good luck? Had I not had the bad luck of biting my lip the day before I ordered a Baconator, I couldn’t have found the good luck of surviving my affliction.
Anyway, it feels strange to use a pen again, and to be using my actual notebook. Of course, a lot of things seem strange these days. Adjusting to the real world has not been easy, and certainly not as quick as portrayed in these writings. Well over a month has passed since my last entry, and though I felt like my entries were coming on a daily basis, I am told there were often clumps of days in between.
There have been several articles and stories about my experiences with the disease, and here are some of the key points I have gathered when combining those stories and what the doctors have told me first hand.
The disease begins by affecting the muscles of the eye or the visual cortex, which temporarily causes the infected person’s vision to be movement deficient. Meaning, with movement things became invisible to me, at first.
This symptom tends to fade as the virus progresses, but due to an overlap with the next symptom, can also remain predominant, though not physically present. I know, it all sounds odd, and had I not lived it, I wouldn’t believe it either. It’s strange, the power of the mind.
From the eye, the virus quickly begins to attack the brain. I’ve been told a few times exactly what part of the brain, but I’m sorry, the word escapes me, and generally when I am having it explained to me there are an overwhelming number of words beyond my vocabulary. So, this is not the only technical or scientific word that will be left out of my account.
This is only for my future curiosity, and given that I don’t care about these words being left out, why does it matter. Future self, if you want to know more just look up your name on the internet and I’m sure you can read all about it.
After the distortion to the visual cortex, an often dissociative dementia sets in. In short, the mind loses touch with reality and/or with key memories. Given that the eyes are often still immune to charting movement; this dementia can often create a reality divided from the world in motion. In my case, the chemicals danced around and embraced the idea of a hollow or post-apocalyptic society.
This is not the same in all of those that were infected by the virus, but I can only speak for me. In only one instance did this lead to violence.
One man believed himself to be under the attack of ghosts and fought back. He saw people jump from moments of stillness, but couldn’t see the movement in between. To him, it appeared as if spirits were materializing and vanishing all around him. Though my experience was quite different, I completely understand his fear.
By chance, my symptoms began while I was asleep beside my wife of sixteen years, who I was only reintroduced to a week ago. She is beautiful and I look very forward to getting to know her all over again. Sadly, the scarring the virus carves on the brain leaves permanent damage in the form of memories forever lost. Unlike some of the others, I am lucky enough to at least remember my own name and large chunks of my history.
Being that the first symptom to my vision began while I was asleep, I awoke beside my wife as the virus had already moved to my brain. The house around me was mislabeled as foreign, though it was my own room, and I could not see her as she rose with me.
From that night, I wandered the streets unaware that my brain and eyes were conspiring against my survival. From what my wife, Jovie…she said her name was Jovie, told me, the police almost caught up to me a couple of times prior to the encounter at Wal-Mart. Once, after I had walked in the unlocked door of a stranger’s home and once after I stole a fishing rod from another Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart was understanding enough to drop the charges.
Luckily, I fell asleep among people in the photo booth where I was apprehended, or I probably would have wandered until I’d starved to death. I really don’t remember, but I still see stories from time to time with people angry at the police for using a Taser when I had resisted arrest. Personally, I don’t hold it against them, and think they handled the situation as they should have. Of course, it’s hard to hold a grudge for something you don’t remember.
Once in custody, I did spend one night in a holding cell before being moved to a room at a mental health facility where I was nourished, treated and finally made to realize my condition. One stutter in my memory is the cell bars I continued to see for many days, even after my eyes began to readjust to and accept what was truly surrounding me. The doctors have said they believe this to be a lingering effect of the dementia, perhaps spawned from the feeling that I remained imprisoned by my sickness.
Not sure that I agree, but I suppose I can’t disagree either, as I have no other explanation.
Oh, well. All is well that ends well, I suppose.
Yet, I must admit to a rather strange occurrence this morning. While enjoying an assorted plate of food I can’t remember, and never could taste, I noticed a couple of things: 1. I seem to be continuing to lose weight. 2. I am not wearing a wedding ring, nor the circle of pale skin left behind after years of wear.
Also, just before I left the clinic this morning and walked out into the perpetually overcast setting of this new world, I went to shake the hand of the female doctor who’s been working so diligently with me, I can’t believe her name has slipped from my mind. I’ve only seen her every day for more than a month….or is it years….I’m confused. Jovie, that’s her name. Wow, I can’t believe I almost forgot.
What was I saying?
Oh, I went to shake her hand and nearly fell forward when the contact I expected did not come. My hand slipped right through her suddenly transparent skin. When I looked up in surprise, she was gone.
What was that?
There’s something moving around in here. This eerie silence that has become my home was broken by the small sound of…of something. I’m scared.
They’ve found me. They’re coming for me.
There are creatures with growling stomachs crawling beneath the scope of the eye. Searching this barren, left behind place their mouths water in starving anticipation as saliva drips over their many teeth. With callous black eyes, swallowed whole by pupil, they inch closer and closer to me, lips curling in a predatory grin as the thought of tearing me apart scintillates their impatient hunger.
The house I’d found shelter in only moments ago has begun to peal away and climb the back of a billion exhaled breaths. Wood splinters, glass shatters silently and disappears above in the whirlwind of an inverted tornado.
They can’t find me. I won’t let them.
I write today, for the purposes of retrospection. Someday, I am sure that I will find the urge to read back on my time under the influence of the Wendisease, as they are calling it in some media circles, after the fast food chain whose tainted meat is now known to have spread the virus. Often this is followed by, “It’s way better than living long.” A play on the restaurants ad slogan, I am told.
Only the nature of the virus itself kept the number of infected low. Without a cut or open sore in the mouth or throat to grant entry, the virus was easily killed within the stomach of most that were exposed.
Being the first to survive, as well as allow doctors an insight into the disease, thus giving them the knowledge to heal it, has been a surreal ordeal, to say the least. Others have responded well to initial treatment, but seem to relapse in time. I’ve broken the pattern and given hope to those in a position to build upon it.
It was this very journal, along with my scribbling over the newspaper, which showed them the parts of the brain being attacked, as many of the other infected merely sat motionless, unresponsive, mute and eventually dead.
They tell me that had I not been found many others would have surely died before a cure could be developed. I’ve been told I am extremely lucky and perhaps some distorted version of a hero. Complete crap, of course, with the hero part, but I have to agree with the luck. How can you be a hero without heroic intent, without intent at all?
On a side note, why is it that bad luck is so often necessary to break the seal of the eye open to the presence of good luck? Had I not had the bad luck of biting my lip the day before I ordered a Baconator, I couldn’t have found the good luck of surviving my affliction.
Anyway, it feels strange to use a pen again, and to be using my actual notebook. Of course, a lot of things seem strange these days. Adjusting to the real world has not been easy, and certainly not as quick as portrayed in these writings. Well over a month has passed since my last entry, and though I felt like my entries were coming on a daily basis, I am told there were often clumps of days in between.
There have been several articles and stories about my experiences with the disease, and here are some of the key points I have gathered when combining those stories and what the doctors have told me first hand.
The disease begins by affecting the muscles of the eye or the visual cortex, which temporarily causes the infected person’s vision to be movement deficient. Meaning, with movement things became invisible to me, at first.
This symptom tends to fade as the virus progresses, but due to an overlap with the next symptom, can also remain predominant, though not physically present. I know, it all sounds odd, and had I not lived it, I wouldn’t believe it either. It’s strange, the power of the mind.
From the eye, the virus quickly begins to attack the brain. I’ve been told a few times exactly what part of the brain, but I’m sorry, the word escapes me, and generally when I am having it explained to me there are an overwhelming number of words beyond my vocabulary. So, this is not the only technical or scientific word that will be left out of my account.
This is only for my future curiosity, and given that I don’t care about these words being left out, why does it matter. Future self, if you want to know more just look up your name on the internet and I’m sure you can read all about it.
After the distortion to the visual cortex, an often dissociative dementia sets in. In short, the mind loses touch with reality and/or with key memories. Given that the eyes are often still immune to charting movement; this dementia can often create a reality divided from the world in motion. In my case, the chemicals danced around and embraced the idea of a hollow or post-apocalyptic society.
This is not the same in all of those that were infected by the virus, but I can only speak for me. In only one instance did this lead to violence.
One man believed himself to be under the attack of ghosts and fought back. He saw people jump from moments of stillness, but couldn’t see the movement in between. To him, it appeared as if spirits were materializing and vanishing all around him. Though my experience was quite different, I completely understand his fear.
By chance, my symptoms began while I was asleep beside my wife of sixteen years, who I was only reintroduced to a week ago. She is beautiful and I look very forward to getting to know her all over again. Sadly, the scarring the virus carves on the brain leaves permanent damage in the form of memories forever lost. Unlike some of the others, I am lucky enough to at least remember my own name and large chunks of my history.
Being that the first symptom to my vision began while I was asleep, I awoke beside my wife as the virus had already moved to my brain. The house around me was mislabeled as foreign, though it was my own room, and I could not see her as she rose with me.
From that night, I wandered the streets unaware that my brain and eyes were conspiring against my survival. From what my wife, Jovie…she said her name was Jovie, told me, the police almost caught up to me a couple of times prior to the encounter at Wal-Mart. Once, after I had walked in the unlocked door of a stranger’s home and once after I stole a fishing rod from another Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart was understanding enough to drop the charges.
Luckily, I fell asleep among people in the photo booth where I was apprehended, or I probably would have wandered until I’d starved to death. I really don’t remember, but I still see stories from time to time with people angry at the police for using a Taser when I had resisted arrest. Personally, I don’t hold it against them, and think they handled the situation as they should have. Of course, it’s hard to hold a grudge for something you don’t remember.
Once in custody, I did spend one night in a holding cell before being moved to a room at a mental health facility where I was nourished, treated and finally made to realize my condition. One stutter in my memory is the cell bars I continued to see for many days, even after my eyes began to readjust to and accept what was truly surrounding me. The doctors have said they believe this to be a lingering effect of the dementia, perhaps spawned from the feeling that I remained imprisoned by my sickness.
Not sure that I agree, but I suppose I can’t disagree either, as I have no other explanation.
Oh, well. All is well that ends well, I suppose.
Yet, I must admit to a rather strange occurrence this morning. While enjoying an assorted plate of food I can’t remember, and never could taste, I noticed a couple of things: 1. I seem to be continuing to lose weight. 2. I am not wearing a wedding ring, nor the circle of pale skin left behind after years of wear.
Also, just before I left the clinic this morning and walked out into the perpetually overcast setting of this new world, I went to shake the hand of the female doctor who’s been working so diligently with me, I can’t believe her name has slipped from my mind. I’ve only seen her every day for more than a month….or is it years….I’m confused. Jovie, that’s her name. Wow, I can’t believe I almost forgot.
What was I saying?
Oh, I went to shake her hand and nearly fell forward when the contact I expected did not come. My hand slipped right through her suddenly transparent skin. When I looked up in surprise, she was gone.
What was that?
There’s something moving around in here. This eerie silence that has become my home was broken by the small sound of…of something. I’m scared.
They’ve found me. They’re coming for me.
There are creatures with growling stomachs crawling beneath the scope of the eye. Searching this barren, left behind place their mouths water in starving anticipation as saliva drips over their many teeth. With callous black eyes, swallowed whole by pupil, they inch closer and closer to me, lips curling in a predatory grin as the thought of tearing me apart scintillates their impatient hunger.
The house I’d found shelter in only moments ago has begun to peal away and climb the back of a billion exhaled breaths. Wood splinters, glass shatters silently and disappears above in the whirlwind of an inverted tornado.
They can’t find me. I won’t let them.
The Awakening (non-sports) - Part 17
The Awakening
My head played with notions of how this conversion will work itself through. Scenarios traveled the channels of reason within roads loaned to the map by the sparrow’s transitory course.
Each rope I found to pull truth (veritas) from beneath the horizon lent a new line to the proper side of the lion’s gate, into the beautiful world of Miriam and Max. Into the perfect national and international geography drenched with overtures of elusive yet attainable happiness. Into an ocean offering fruitful fishing among schools of unassigned, unclaimed fates, I’d float. Into a realm where solitude’s drowning grip would slip its chain from my ankle to sink into the lost fathoms of the forgotten.
Like a mattress strapped to the back of a giant, I waited to be crushed in the fall of the facade veiling this place. I listened for the severing of the tether that once held a mockingbird to its iced station in the desolate arctic.
While these playful thoughts raced in my head, and the sun slit the darkness with a beam from my window (yes, it’s still there) to the floor, another note came from the emptiness beyond my cell to rest beside the pile of my journal, causing my crayon to rock gently back and forth before resting.
“Your progress is amazing. Only one step remains. Your journal, which helped us so much to understand, what of the pages this newest version is written on? We gave you a tool for realization when you arrived here. You only have to accept it. Only you stand in your way. You are not the shadow of yourself, but remain the one blocking the light from shining through. Good luck and see you soon. ”
I could rant for hours on the content of this note, but haven’t the will. Rather, I’ll just recount what I found. Besides, progress is often responsibly letting go of boundaries that once constrained.
My first reaction, after the whirlwind in my head settled, and I gathered the debris of fragmented thought, was to do much as I had the day before. My hand set the note on the cold tiles of the floor, and I turned my focus to my newly organized journal. The last I remembered, it had been slightly askew, but it was now neatly piled. Regardless…
And, as before, it took a moment, but then I saw murky signs of life in the pages. Dark wisps, like the twirling trail left by a hand quickly passing through a thick exhale of cigarette smoke, began to rise from deep within the pages.
Gradually letters, then words, and finally sentences and paragraphs began to form beneath the uneven, sideways lines of my green crayon script. At first, there was no true essence to the words, only the neatly shaped columns around a large picture at the top center, below the large text of the newspaper’s name.
Then, as clarity and firmness took over, the picture jumped out at me.
It was me.
My own writing stretched over and tried to conceal the picture, as well as they body of the article, but it was clearly me.
I was in the grasp of two police officers, looking more than a little dazed, being escorted from the entrance of a Wal-Mart. In the forefront of the pictures bottom edge, you could see the open door of a waiting squad car.
My mind wouldn’t settle enough to allow me to read the entire article, but here is what the caption beneath the picture said:
“Above, Thomas Addison, the newest victim of the WDD Virus is escorted from a local Wal-Mart store.”
My head played with notions of how this conversion will work itself through. Scenarios traveled the channels of reason within roads loaned to the map by the sparrow’s transitory course.
Each rope I found to pull truth (veritas) from beneath the horizon lent a new line to the proper side of the lion’s gate, into the beautiful world of Miriam and Max. Into the perfect national and international geography drenched with overtures of elusive yet attainable happiness. Into an ocean offering fruitful fishing among schools of unassigned, unclaimed fates, I’d float. Into a realm where solitude’s drowning grip would slip its chain from my ankle to sink into the lost fathoms of the forgotten.
Like a mattress strapped to the back of a giant, I waited to be crushed in the fall of the facade veiling this place. I listened for the severing of the tether that once held a mockingbird to its iced station in the desolate arctic.
While these playful thoughts raced in my head, and the sun slit the darkness with a beam from my window (yes, it’s still there) to the floor, another note came from the emptiness beyond my cell to rest beside the pile of my journal, causing my crayon to rock gently back and forth before resting.
“Your progress is amazing. Only one step remains. Your journal, which helped us so much to understand, what of the pages this newest version is written on? We gave you a tool for realization when you arrived here. You only have to accept it. Only you stand in your way. You are not the shadow of yourself, but remain the one blocking the light from shining through. Good luck and see you soon. ”
I could rant for hours on the content of this note, but haven’t the will. Rather, I’ll just recount what I found. Besides, progress is often responsibly letting go of boundaries that once constrained.
My first reaction, after the whirlwind in my head settled, and I gathered the debris of fragmented thought, was to do much as I had the day before. My hand set the note on the cold tiles of the floor, and I turned my focus to my newly organized journal. The last I remembered, it had been slightly askew, but it was now neatly piled. Regardless…
And, as before, it took a moment, but then I saw murky signs of life in the pages. Dark wisps, like the twirling trail left by a hand quickly passing through a thick exhale of cigarette smoke, began to rise from deep within the pages.
Gradually letters, then words, and finally sentences and paragraphs began to form beneath the uneven, sideways lines of my green crayon script. At first, there was no true essence to the words, only the neatly shaped columns around a large picture at the top center, below the large text of the newspaper’s name.
Then, as clarity and firmness took over, the picture jumped out at me.
It was me.
My own writing stretched over and tried to conceal the picture, as well as they body of the article, but it was clearly me.
I was in the grasp of two police officers, looking more than a little dazed, being escorted from the entrance of a Wal-Mart. In the forefront of the pictures bottom edge, you could see the open door of a waiting squad car.
My mind wouldn’t settle enough to allow me to read the entire article, but here is what the caption beneath the picture said:
“Above, Thomas Addison, the newest victim of the WDD Virus is escorted from a local Wal-Mart store.”
The Awakening (non-sports) - Part 16
Cell + 8
I awoke to another typed letter this morning. Today it sat on top of my journal, rather than hidden beneath it. There is nothing I can recall of its arrival. It was simply there when I woke up.
It said:
“Having already made an overture towards understanding your plight, we think you are ready for the next step. You will see us in time, but today we ask that you focus on something else. Your “cell”, is it truly as you have described? Your bed, for example, is it without sheets? What about the rear wall? Look closely, and don’t be afraid of what you may find. There is nothing to fear.”
The last line is separate from the rest of the note, and in a larger, bold text.
I can’t say that this note put me at ease, but I will admit that my terror for it is unborn. After so long with nothing to do, nothing to stimulate my interest, it is a welcome interaction, even if it only amounts to a correspondence with myself. I may as well find out what that other version of me has to say.
Accepting the challenge, I turned and stared blankly at my striped mattress void of sheets. For a moment, there was nothing, and then within a soft undertow my eyes felt the outline begin to softly change. There was no sudden or jarring shift, only a slow metamorphosis from one shape to another.
Gently, creases rose from the mattress to form rolling hills of fabric, and a pillow began to inflate at one end. I don’t recall it dropping, but realized my jaw was wide open in bewilderment. A moment later, there was the clear image of sheets and a thin comforter folded down below the pillows front edge.
From a barren, naked mattress came what was clearly a fully dressed bed. It was tossed in appearance, as if someone had slept there without getting under the sheets for some time.
Unsure, I closed and rubbed my lids. When I opened them, it was only a mattress once more. My shoulders slumped as sadness slid its cold fingers in. One blink later, the image reverted back to show the sheets and pillow.
Still unable to place trust in my eyes, I got up, walked to the shape shifting bed, and reached out to touch the pillow. My hand flinched when the pillow’s soft, plump skin touched back. Quickly, I lowered my hand once more and traced the edges of where pillow dropped to sheet, to where sheet gave way to comforter.
Each came with a change in feel, in texture. The voice of my hands echoed that of my eyes. They claimed together that what I saw, what I felt, was real.
Once again, I closed and rubbed my eyes. This time, when I opened them there was no change.
As I stared in wonder, I noticed the wall behind the bed begin to change. Where there was only stone, white began to bleed, emanating from the bed out and up in a growing half circle. Stone eased and softened to sheetrock and paint.
Devouring the stone, the white crept beneath my feet as well, turning the floor to linoleum or tile.
Climbing the walls and bleaching the floor, the room shed the gloom of an ancient prison cell and began to resemble something like a modern hospital, with one exception. In the emptiness of the open wall, iron bars spilled slowly from the ceiling to the floor.
Caught in the moment, I remembered what the note had said and turned to the rear wall.
Again, there was a moment of nothing, and then it began to change. Centered high in the wall pierced a blinding light. I squinted at its brightness and lifted my hand to provide a brick of shade to my eyes. It was like watching a sun burst to life mere feet away, and to further this notion warmth fell over me.
Still shielding my eyes, I turned them down to the light pouring over me. Caught in an aura of white, my skin and clothes eased my pupil’s tighter. In a moment, I was able to drop my hand and look back at the wall.
Like watching a dense cloud of white smoke bath the stone, painted walls radiated out and buried the coarse rock. At the epicenter of this color wave, a window painted itself into the wall, and left path for my eyes to the bright sun beyond. It struck alive, and breathing out its warm breath, against a square of deep blue within the window’s frame.
It felt like years since I’d seen the sun, and my eyes drank the sight with lusting appetite. Could it be that I’d never trapped such beauty? Could it be a sign of the changes this surging tide promised?
Could it be I found the remnants of a burned and wounded deity long buried within? Could this be happiness pushing its way to the door, and gathering its strength to dash through?
I can’t say that I’ll sleep well tonight, but I must put this down. I’m too anxious to write.
From the emptiness just outside my cell…sorry, my room, a small piece of paper slid across the floor.
“Baby steps can still trace the circumference of the globe if given time. Congratulations.”
I smiled and absorbed the warmth dripping in my new window.
I awoke to another typed letter this morning. Today it sat on top of my journal, rather than hidden beneath it. There is nothing I can recall of its arrival. It was simply there when I woke up.
It said:
“Having already made an overture towards understanding your plight, we think you are ready for the next step. You will see us in time, but today we ask that you focus on something else. Your “cell”, is it truly as you have described? Your bed, for example, is it without sheets? What about the rear wall? Look closely, and don’t be afraid of what you may find. There is nothing to fear.”
The last line is separate from the rest of the note, and in a larger, bold text.
I can’t say that this note put me at ease, but I will admit that my terror for it is unborn. After so long with nothing to do, nothing to stimulate my interest, it is a welcome interaction, even if it only amounts to a correspondence with myself. I may as well find out what that other version of me has to say.
Accepting the challenge, I turned and stared blankly at my striped mattress void of sheets. For a moment, there was nothing, and then within a soft undertow my eyes felt the outline begin to softly change. There was no sudden or jarring shift, only a slow metamorphosis from one shape to another.
Gently, creases rose from the mattress to form rolling hills of fabric, and a pillow began to inflate at one end. I don’t recall it dropping, but realized my jaw was wide open in bewilderment. A moment later, there was the clear image of sheets and a thin comforter folded down below the pillows front edge.
From a barren, naked mattress came what was clearly a fully dressed bed. It was tossed in appearance, as if someone had slept there without getting under the sheets for some time.
Unsure, I closed and rubbed my lids. When I opened them, it was only a mattress once more. My shoulders slumped as sadness slid its cold fingers in. One blink later, the image reverted back to show the sheets and pillow.
Still unable to place trust in my eyes, I got up, walked to the shape shifting bed, and reached out to touch the pillow. My hand flinched when the pillow’s soft, plump skin touched back. Quickly, I lowered my hand once more and traced the edges of where pillow dropped to sheet, to where sheet gave way to comforter.
Each came with a change in feel, in texture. The voice of my hands echoed that of my eyes. They claimed together that what I saw, what I felt, was real.
Once again, I closed and rubbed my eyes. This time, when I opened them there was no change.
As I stared in wonder, I noticed the wall behind the bed begin to change. Where there was only stone, white began to bleed, emanating from the bed out and up in a growing half circle. Stone eased and softened to sheetrock and paint.
Devouring the stone, the white crept beneath my feet as well, turning the floor to linoleum or tile.
Climbing the walls and bleaching the floor, the room shed the gloom of an ancient prison cell and began to resemble something like a modern hospital, with one exception. In the emptiness of the open wall, iron bars spilled slowly from the ceiling to the floor.
Caught in the moment, I remembered what the note had said and turned to the rear wall.
Again, there was a moment of nothing, and then it began to change. Centered high in the wall pierced a blinding light. I squinted at its brightness and lifted my hand to provide a brick of shade to my eyes. It was like watching a sun burst to life mere feet away, and to further this notion warmth fell over me.
Still shielding my eyes, I turned them down to the light pouring over me. Caught in an aura of white, my skin and clothes eased my pupil’s tighter. In a moment, I was able to drop my hand and look back at the wall.
Like watching a dense cloud of white smoke bath the stone, painted walls radiated out and buried the coarse rock. At the epicenter of this color wave, a window painted itself into the wall, and left path for my eyes to the bright sun beyond. It struck alive, and breathing out its warm breath, against a square of deep blue within the window’s frame.
It felt like years since I’d seen the sun, and my eyes drank the sight with lusting appetite. Could it be that I’d never trapped such beauty? Could it be a sign of the changes this surging tide promised?
Could it be I found the remnants of a burned and wounded deity long buried within? Could this be happiness pushing its way to the door, and gathering its strength to dash through?
I can’t say that I’ll sleep well tonight, but I must put this down. I’m too anxious to write.
From the emptiness just outside my cell…sorry, my room, a small piece of paper slid across the floor.
“Baby steps can still trace the circumference of the globe if given time. Congratulations.”
I smiled and absorbed the warmth dripping in my new window.
The Awakening (non-sports) - Part 15
Cell + 7
Things are changing.
I feel my mind polarizing, causing the plates to shift and stressing a fault line down the middle of my skull. I dreamed about the goddess at the bottom of the well again, and awoke feeling ashamed of my fear.
Like a grown man fleeing a girl scout armed with thin mints, there is no justification for this emotion, no explanation for the little red light blinking in the peripherals of my head.
There is now another severed cry, another rift whispering the fragile nature of my stability. I’m losing track of the bond between my mind and my eyes. I’m losing faith in my sanity, for my grip on this place.
For example, this morning delivered another hammer strike in the form of a small note. Just another straw added to the weight that will eventually snap my back.
I’d almost overlooked it as I gathered the growing collection of my loose journal. It sat servile beneath the pile, waiting to grow sharp upon observation. A single sentence was typed at the center of the page.
“We’re here to help when you are ready.”
Had it always been there? Perhaps I’d mistakenly picked it up each day, keeping it hidden at the rear of the pile.
Who is the “we” referenced, and why don’t they make themselves known?
When I’m ready for what?
My head hurts and I’m afraid. My will is weakening, and the unexplainable is beginning to outnumber the known. This battle over my sanity is deferring to the growing populace of the lacking. The tide is only pulling out, grasping hungrily to drown.
If I split in two, will the result be considered homicide or suicide?
Still, through all this, against the surging wave a fear hovering over me, beneath the weight of the cross strapped to my back, there shines the tiniest of hopes. Have I come to a crossroads?
Only days ago, such a note as I found today, would have sent me parading down the chasm of self annihilation waving a bloodied white flag of surrender to whatever demons waited to rip me apart, but today something is different.
A slight chemical transformation has taken place. The oil and water have somehow begun to mix. A bridge is threatening to span the ocean between myself and I.
Frightened and hopeful at the same time, I’ll embrace the storm growing in me and try to trust that the rains it brings will serve to wash away whatever stain holds me, and not reign over the process of my demise. Am I giving up or fighting back? I don’t know and don’t care.
Wherever this current chooses to drop me is out of my hands.
Things are changing.
I feel my mind polarizing, causing the plates to shift and stressing a fault line down the middle of my skull. I dreamed about the goddess at the bottom of the well again, and awoke feeling ashamed of my fear.
Like a grown man fleeing a girl scout armed with thin mints, there is no justification for this emotion, no explanation for the little red light blinking in the peripherals of my head.
There is now another severed cry, another rift whispering the fragile nature of my stability. I’m losing track of the bond between my mind and my eyes. I’m losing faith in my sanity, for my grip on this place.
For example, this morning delivered another hammer strike in the form of a small note. Just another straw added to the weight that will eventually snap my back.
I’d almost overlooked it as I gathered the growing collection of my loose journal. It sat servile beneath the pile, waiting to grow sharp upon observation. A single sentence was typed at the center of the page.
“We’re here to help when you are ready.”
Had it always been there? Perhaps I’d mistakenly picked it up each day, keeping it hidden at the rear of the pile.
Who is the “we” referenced, and why don’t they make themselves known?
When I’m ready for what?
My head hurts and I’m afraid. My will is weakening, and the unexplainable is beginning to outnumber the known. This battle over my sanity is deferring to the growing populace of the lacking. The tide is only pulling out, grasping hungrily to drown.
If I split in two, will the result be considered homicide or suicide?
Still, through all this, against the surging wave a fear hovering over me, beneath the weight of the cross strapped to my back, there shines the tiniest of hopes. Have I come to a crossroads?
Only days ago, such a note as I found today, would have sent me parading down the chasm of self annihilation waving a bloodied white flag of surrender to whatever demons waited to rip me apart, but today something is different.
A slight chemical transformation has taken place. The oil and water have somehow begun to mix. A bridge is threatening to span the ocean between myself and I.
Frightened and hopeful at the same time, I’ll embrace the storm growing in me and try to trust that the rains it brings will serve to wash away whatever stain holds me, and not reign over the process of my demise. Am I giving up or fighting back? I don’t know and don’t care.
Wherever this current chooses to drop me is out of my hands.
The Awakening (non-sports) - Part 14
Cell + 6
Last night I had a dream of seeming significance, but I have no feeling as to why. It’s as if facts I’ve not learned dance and pulse in my head casting their scriptures off in carelessness, living vicariously in the waves their crashing sends.
My head pulls in so many directions at once. I’m simply waiting for the spray of small maroon geysers to erupt from my temples along cracks that must soon give way. So many voices, and I’ve no idea which ones to trust.
My dream, as I remember it, refuses to hide. Even as I found myself once again tied to a cold bed bathed in a field of warm white light this morning, and felt the prick of something like a bee sting high on my forearm, the dream’s topography mapped itself on the back of my eyes.
I’ve charted its grounds again and again since I’ve been back in my cell, and perhaps it is only my ignorance which forfeits my understanding.
Anyway, I’ll do my best to lay the dream here for later interpretation.
It begins in a place I don’t recall, and can’t outline, but what I saw is all that is of importance. At least, I think that’s the case. I want to say it was in the middle of a field of tall tan grass swaying under the fingers of an overcast sky dragging hands of warm air. The sky was that of a harsh winter storm, but the air was warm and without precipitation.
Feeling the grass slide over my pant legs or fold beneath my weight, I waded forward to a waist high circle of gray stone. Once upon it, I peered down into the hollow center of a well.
Far beneath where my feet held the floor of my dream, light flickered like a phantom moonlit candle. Many shades of gray caressed and spun over each other just beneath the surface of what had to be ancient holy water.
From this twirling mesh of shimmering gray came the haunting white of a beautiful woman’s face. Her hair floated on the currents in the water before her face, and I realized the water was slowly rising, bringing her closer.
There was nothing to be afraid of. Yet, fear rose in me, matching the growing height of the water inch for inch. I wanted to turn and run, to fly up and through the clouds and feel the wonderful heat of the sun blister me as I soared into its flames, burning me beyond ash, leaving no residue of my existence.
I wanted nothing more than to turn my head away. As often is the case, what I wanted was of little regard. Instead, I watched the water rise and the woman beneath its churning surface come closer.
As she came, her features blinked in and out of focus. White folds of waving fabric sank from her shoulders into the darkness below. There was no malice in her eyes, and no ferocity to her gestures. My heart sped and pumped the fear throughout my being, like a fever of rolling razorblades, leaving my insides, my self, shred and bleeding in agony.
The well, now only feet from filled, began to shake and without order, my body took one step back. Just as I did, water jumped from the opening towards the sky. The woman rode the blast to its peak and then burst free of the falling water. Her arms lifted from her sides. White cloth trailed her ascent, and then she was coming down to me, leaving the fabric to twist up behind her.
She was angelic, godlike. She was a living representation of some Roman goddess I could not name.
There was still nothing menacing about her, other than the overall situation of her arrival. Again, I tried to move, to run, but my body was disconnected from my will, leaving me sitting, waiting to be crushed as she fell towards me.
Just as we were about to make contact, my eyes closed in the dream. When I opened them again, I was again standing beside the well, peering in. Far beneath, I could see the shimmer of the water’s surface, and nothing else.
Taking a step back, I realized the structure of the well had changed. Where there was only the circle of the well’s rim, there was more. A wooden arch now rose over the well’s stone mouth. There was an arm to the right of the wood frame, connected by a pulley and rope, where a bucket should hang, directly over the well’s open mouth, there hung a rusted sign.
I read the words, and directly after, woke up.
Four words, by my own lack of knowledge, they are a mystery to me, but something about them calls the fear within me.
It read:
Veritas on the Horizon.
Who or what is Veritas, and why am I afraid of it?
Last night I had a dream of seeming significance, but I have no feeling as to why. It’s as if facts I’ve not learned dance and pulse in my head casting their scriptures off in carelessness, living vicariously in the waves their crashing sends.
My head pulls in so many directions at once. I’m simply waiting for the spray of small maroon geysers to erupt from my temples along cracks that must soon give way. So many voices, and I’ve no idea which ones to trust.
My dream, as I remember it, refuses to hide. Even as I found myself once again tied to a cold bed bathed in a field of warm white light this morning, and felt the prick of something like a bee sting high on my forearm, the dream’s topography mapped itself on the back of my eyes.
I’ve charted its grounds again and again since I’ve been back in my cell, and perhaps it is only my ignorance which forfeits my understanding.
Anyway, I’ll do my best to lay the dream here for later interpretation.
It begins in a place I don’t recall, and can’t outline, but what I saw is all that is of importance. At least, I think that’s the case. I want to say it was in the middle of a field of tall tan grass swaying under the fingers of an overcast sky dragging hands of warm air. The sky was that of a harsh winter storm, but the air was warm and without precipitation.
Feeling the grass slide over my pant legs or fold beneath my weight, I waded forward to a waist high circle of gray stone. Once upon it, I peered down into the hollow center of a well.
Far beneath where my feet held the floor of my dream, light flickered like a phantom moonlit candle. Many shades of gray caressed and spun over each other just beneath the surface of what had to be ancient holy water.
From this twirling mesh of shimmering gray came the haunting white of a beautiful woman’s face. Her hair floated on the currents in the water before her face, and I realized the water was slowly rising, bringing her closer.
There was nothing to be afraid of. Yet, fear rose in me, matching the growing height of the water inch for inch. I wanted to turn and run, to fly up and through the clouds and feel the wonderful heat of the sun blister me as I soared into its flames, burning me beyond ash, leaving no residue of my existence.
I wanted nothing more than to turn my head away. As often is the case, what I wanted was of little regard. Instead, I watched the water rise and the woman beneath its churning surface come closer.
As she came, her features blinked in and out of focus. White folds of waving fabric sank from her shoulders into the darkness below. There was no malice in her eyes, and no ferocity to her gestures. My heart sped and pumped the fear throughout my being, like a fever of rolling razorblades, leaving my insides, my self, shred and bleeding in agony.
The well, now only feet from filled, began to shake and without order, my body took one step back. Just as I did, water jumped from the opening towards the sky. The woman rode the blast to its peak and then burst free of the falling water. Her arms lifted from her sides. White cloth trailed her ascent, and then she was coming down to me, leaving the fabric to twist up behind her.
She was angelic, godlike. She was a living representation of some Roman goddess I could not name.
There was still nothing menacing about her, other than the overall situation of her arrival. Again, I tried to move, to run, but my body was disconnected from my will, leaving me sitting, waiting to be crushed as she fell towards me.
Just as we were about to make contact, my eyes closed in the dream. When I opened them again, I was again standing beside the well, peering in. Far beneath, I could see the shimmer of the water’s surface, and nothing else.
Taking a step back, I realized the structure of the well had changed. Where there was only the circle of the well’s rim, there was more. A wooden arch now rose over the well’s stone mouth. There was an arm to the right of the wood frame, connected by a pulley and rope, where a bucket should hang, directly over the well’s open mouth, there hung a rusted sign.
I read the words, and directly after, woke up.
Four words, by my own lack of knowledge, they are a mystery to me, but something about them calls the fear within me.
It read:
Veritas on the Horizon.
Who or what is Veritas, and why am I afraid of it?
The Awakening (non-sports) - Part 13
Cell + 3
Maybe not.
I remember stories and mythologies of a role sparrows are said to play. Couriers towing souls from this world to the next, they are the reaper’s trailing shadow. They turn the page to reveal the next written line.
Now, given the fact that I haven’t even seen a hint of sunlight in….in however many days and can find no link from the outside world to my cell, the fact that I saw a sparrow today is a little disconcerting.
What’s more troublesome is that the sparrow wasn’t even the strangest thing about the moment of its appearance.
Let me regress to earlier in the day or night. I’ll just say to earlier, as I again have no proof of the suns standing.
The day, as defined by my sleep pattern, began once more with a quickly subdued panic as I found myself bathed in white light and strapped helplessly to a table before awareness blinked and I was again sitting here in my cell. This is disheartening, but as it was the second occurrence, I’ll not go further into it.
Some time passed, when suddenly, there it was. My head spun quickly at the small sound of its beating wings to see the brown and gray sparrow gracefully land just beyond the veiled wall of my cell. It stared at me with dark eyes, like droplets of floating ink. Needless to say, I was more than a little surprised, and honestly terrified.
My entire body tried to creep back into a tiny space behind my spine, to shrink itself to an easily overlooked and non-threatening molecule not worth inspection. Like a child pulling the sheets over their head, I hid in plain sight.
It was only my mind that attempted to retreat, as my body was paralyzed with fear. This was the first living thing I had encountered in weeks, possibly months. As I stared at the small bird, something else began to happen.
Like staring at the screen of an etch-o-sketch, lines began to trace themselves from nothing into reality. It was as if a tear in the wall of my perception revealed itself in the wake of the sparrow’s path. From left to right iron bars outlined and then filled themselves along the edge of my cell.
Simultaneously, before them, I watched as the blank pages which I now write on, filled with pictures and typed script beneath my messy green crayon handwriting. What now only resembles a newspaper in shape became just that, a complete and filled newspaper, and something caught my eye at the center of the front page.
The picture was folded and half hidden, but I could have sworn I saw me there in faded color beneath a headline that I saw but cannot recall.
Suddenly, the outline of fingers wrapped around one of my cell bars. The lines then traced an arm, torso and quickly filled out to be an entire person who was staring in at me with a quizzical look. A moment later, there were two of them, one on either side of the sparrow.
They wore white lab coats and held clipboards, one horizontal at her waist, the other limply at his side, as they observed.
In that moment the fear sunk its teeth into my head and tore away any sense of….of…of sense.
As the horror stole me, I felt something in my head, something from my childhood. A thought which I cannot label as comforting or bothersome fell through the twisted web of my consciousness.
“Not even a sparrow can fall without God’s notice.”
Confused, I closed my eyes just as the new world around me began to peel. The sparrow fell into the floor and disappeared. Leaving the emptiness I’ve come to know.
When the strength returned to open my eyes, it was this hollow, familiar, comforting (?) place I found. As easily as not, it could have been a dream. I feel a change coming, like the cool winds tugging a storm overhead.
I’m scared.
Maybe not.
I remember stories and mythologies of a role sparrows are said to play. Couriers towing souls from this world to the next, they are the reaper’s trailing shadow. They turn the page to reveal the next written line.
Now, given the fact that I haven’t even seen a hint of sunlight in….in however many days and can find no link from the outside world to my cell, the fact that I saw a sparrow today is a little disconcerting.
What’s more troublesome is that the sparrow wasn’t even the strangest thing about the moment of its appearance.
Let me regress to earlier in the day or night. I’ll just say to earlier, as I again have no proof of the suns standing.
The day, as defined by my sleep pattern, began once more with a quickly subdued panic as I found myself bathed in white light and strapped helplessly to a table before awareness blinked and I was again sitting here in my cell. This is disheartening, but as it was the second occurrence, I’ll not go further into it.
Some time passed, when suddenly, there it was. My head spun quickly at the small sound of its beating wings to see the brown and gray sparrow gracefully land just beyond the veiled wall of my cell. It stared at me with dark eyes, like droplets of floating ink. Needless to say, I was more than a little surprised, and honestly terrified.
My entire body tried to creep back into a tiny space behind my spine, to shrink itself to an easily overlooked and non-threatening molecule not worth inspection. Like a child pulling the sheets over their head, I hid in plain sight.
It was only my mind that attempted to retreat, as my body was paralyzed with fear. This was the first living thing I had encountered in weeks, possibly months. As I stared at the small bird, something else began to happen.
Like staring at the screen of an etch-o-sketch, lines began to trace themselves from nothing into reality. It was as if a tear in the wall of my perception revealed itself in the wake of the sparrow’s path. From left to right iron bars outlined and then filled themselves along the edge of my cell.
Simultaneously, before them, I watched as the blank pages which I now write on, filled with pictures and typed script beneath my messy green crayon handwriting. What now only resembles a newspaper in shape became just that, a complete and filled newspaper, and something caught my eye at the center of the front page.
The picture was folded and half hidden, but I could have sworn I saw me there in faded color beneath a headline that I saw but cannot recall.
Suddenly, the outline of fingers wrapped around one of my cell bars. The lines then traced an arm, torso and quickly filled out to be an entire person who was staring in at me with a quizzical look. A moment later, there were two of them, one on either side of the sparrow.
They wore white lab coats and held clipboards, one horizontal at her waist, the other limply at his side, as they observed.
In that moment the fear sunk its teeth into my head and tore away any sense of….of…of sense.
As the horror stole me, I felt something in my head, something from my childhood. A thought which I cannot label as comforting or bothersome fell through the twisted web of my consciousness.
“Not even a sparrow can fall without God’s notice.”
Confused, I closed my eyes just as the new world around me began to peel. The sparrow fell into the floor and disappeared. Leaving the emptiness I’ve come to know.
When the strength returned to open my eyes, it was this hollow, familiar, comforting (?) place I found. As easily as not, it could have been a dream. I feel a change coming, like the cool winds tugging a storm overhead.
I’m scared.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
The Awakening (non-sports) - Part 12
Cell + 2
It’s taken several hours for my nerves to quell the calamity of fear and panic which had set them alight, but here I finally sit with a crayon in my hand beginning to spill the contents of another day to these hollow, unresponsive pages. Is it sad for one to find security, to find comfort, in this manner?
My only remaining family is consisted of the compressed and slowly decaying remains of trees I never saw clutch the ground while searching for the sky. Trees I never spent a second beneath. Never felt the relief of their cool shade. Never found the solace of thoughts left behind while rocking carelessly in a tire suspended from one of their abiding limbs.
No, they were severed, devoured by machine, compacted and recomposed in these lifeless pages long before I ever found them. Still, I covet them like brother, sister, mother and father. They are as much me, as the hand which tattoos them now.
So, it’s with them I’ll share this growing fear, or is it a realization? My life is not my own. My fate is not of my choosing. I am simply a passenger of thought staring from the windshield of a vehicle I have no control over.
I awoke this morning tied to a bed, bathed in a room of pure white. Unable to move anything but my eyes, I could make out nothing other than the essence of blinding light which stole the edges from shape and gave the illusion of hovering at the middle of an empty and colorless vacuum. Never have I felt more detached from the life I once knew than in that moment.
My arms roared for freedom, but found themselves bound with their calls disregarded. Legs were simply ornaments to the table I felt supporting my back. Only my eyes were alive and moving, as my head found itself without the ability to turn or rise. Like a deer strapped to the roof of a speeding SUV while the life had yet to completely drain out, I was caught and escorted by anything but my will, a piece of meat awaiting the press of cold, sharpened steel to carve the awareness away.
As I once again sank into the anti-Eden of hysteria’s belly, something like a warm breath pushed its way through my inner halls, and this world once again slipped away beneath the cloak of sleep in the wake of a soothing whisper.
“Feel no more.” A calming, gentle woman’s voice echoed as it traveled the final channels of thought in my receding consciousness.
My next moment of clarity comes from here in my cell. Alone, other than that woman’s voice, which continued to play somewhere beneath the chorus of my slowly untangling mind, I eventually eased from my bed with no sheets to this pile of pages I call kin.
Was she real? Do angels actually take the time to visit the realm of men, of man? Have they taken the time to set aside a glimpse of thought for me?
Perhaps I am not forgotten. Maybe there is a train coming in search of me, coming to deliver me home.
All of my relatives and friends stand at a station anxiously awaiting my arrival, and my bags are already packed and tagged, having long since cleared security. They curse my delayed departure, and laugh over stories we shared parts in as they huddle in wait. Only my attention, my touch to the ticket’s stub, remains to set this journey adrift over rails long since laid.
Maybe hope has not had its heart pierced to bleed its life out in a slow release of life’s slippery hand.
Maybe….
It’s taken several hours for my nerves to quell the calamity of fear and panic which had set them alight, but here I finally sit with a crayon in my hand beginning to spill the contents of another day to these hollow, unresponsive pages. Is it sad for one to find security, to find comfort, in this manner?
My only remaining family is consisted of the compressed and slowly decaying remains of trees I never saw clutch the ground while searching for the sky. Trees I never spent a second beneath. Never felt the relief of their cool shade. Never found the solace of thoughts left behind while rocking carelessly in a tire suspended from one of their abiding limbs.
No, they were severed, devoured by machine, compacted and recomposed in these lifeless pages long before I ever found them. Still, I covet them like brother, sister, mother and father. They are as much me, as the hand which tattoos them now.
So, it’s with them I’ll share this growing fear, or is it a realization? My life is not my own. My fate is not of my choosing. I am simply a passenger of thought staring from the windshield of a vehicle I have no control over.
I awoke this morning tied to a bed, bathed in a room of pure white. Unable to move anything but my eyes, I could make out nothing other than the essence of blinding light which stole the edges from shape and gave the illusion of hovering at the middle of an empty and colorless vacuum. Never have I felt more detached from the life I once knew than in that moment.
My arms roared for freedom, but found themselves bound with their calls disregarded. Legs were simply ornaments to the table I felt supporting my back. Only my eyes were alive and moving, as my head found itself without the ability to turn or rise. Like a deer strapped to the roof of a speeding SUV while the life had yet to completely drain out, I was caught and escorted by anything but my will, a piece of meat awaiting the press of cold, sharpened steel to carve the awareness away.
As I once again sank into the anti-Eden of hysteria’s belly, something like a warm breath pushed its way through my inner halls, and this world once again slipped away beneath the cloak of sleep in the wake of a soothing whisper.
“Feel no more.” A calming, gentle woman’s voice echoed as it traveled the final channels of thought in my receding consciousness.
My next moment of clarity comes from here in my cell. Alone, other than that woman’s voice, which continued to play somewhere beneath the chorus of my slowly untangling mind, I eventually eased from my bed with no sheets to this pile of pages I call kin.
Was she real? Do angels actually take the time to visit the realm of men, of man? Have they taken the time to set aside a glimpse of thought for me?
Perhaps I am not forgotten. Maybe there is a train coming in search of me, coming to deliver me home.
All of my relatives and friends stand at a station anxiously awaiting my arrival, and my bags are already packed and tagged, having long since cleared security. They curse my delayed departure, and laugh over stories we shared parts in as they huddle in wait. Only my attention, my touch to the ticket’s stub, remains to set this journey adrift over rails long since laid.
Maybe hope has not had its heart pierced to bleed its life out in a slow release of life’s slippery hand.
Maybe….
The Awakening (non-sports) - Part 11
Cell + 1
If nothing else, being held in the proprietary palm of unknown captors renders the contours of time smooth, and indefinable, and presses the national collection of geographic monuments to the dust of forgotten never to be found artifacts.
For most of my life, I would not have found this to be an endearing quality, but here in a corner that time overlooked; it is something of a relief. Why concern myself with days, weeks or even years when I’ve lost the ability to track them? Why impress upon myself the importance of a world that I cannot see?
I suppose I could begin to count the moments, but the tedious nature of this task lends itself to discard. Free of the need to chart my destination lacking journey, I can focus my mind on other things.
Unfortunately, this leads me back to the negatives of being caged. There is nothing of interest here. I do seem to be a little cleaner than I was, as if simply escaping the outside world somehow removed a film of filth from my skin. Was I simply sticking my legs from the base of a cage before, and walking it around like my own personal Bedrock Cadillac? At least now I can’t roam and prove the vast emptiness is exactly that.
Who am I kidding? There is no silver lining. I can’t even begin to explain what has happened. Perhaps, the weight of it all has finally flattened me. Stolen the muscles from my frame, and left me as a sigh harnessed to the wind to be carried wherever it may lead, casting off my will with indifference.
I’ve begun the gradually sudden process of giving up, but hey, admitting it is the first step to recovery, or so I seem to remember. So, I’ve got that going for me.
Since I have nothing but time, I’ll take a moment to recount how I came to have this here notebook, which is not the same one I’d kept before, as you may have noticed by the entries written in crayon. Simply stated, it is not near the quality of my former, but what is?
It could have been minutes, but something tells me it was closer to hours, after arriving in this cell when an experience I’d found before returned for an encore. At the wall, that is not a wall, of my cell there appeared a folded stack of cheap, thin paper suspended about waist high. Suddenly, it fell to the ground, where it lay for some time before I found the courage to approach it.
My memory, and who’s to say anything there can be relied upon, says it resembles a newspaper, minus the print. Just cheap paper, folded and stacked over its self in several sections, all tucked within an outer, slightly larger, creased sheet. There is no binding to hold it together.
I suppose it wouldn’t make sense if my notebook did not deteriorate at a parallel pace to the rest of the world.
At first, there was no writing instrument of any kind, but after searching my cell with growing frenzy and what was soon an overwhelming desperation, I watched as the green crayon this is written in rolled from nothingness to lay beside the newspaper void of news.
Lucky me.
I’m sorry, I will now quit for awhile. I wouldn’t want to wear my crayon to a thin slice of colored wax. What if no other comes to replace it?
If nothing else, being held in the proprietary palm of unknown captors renders the contours of time smooth, and indefinable, and presses the national collection of geographic monuments to the dust of forgotten never to be found artifacts.
For most of my life, I would not have found this to be an endearing quality, but here in a corner that time overlooked; it is something of a relief. Why concern myself with days, weeks or even years when I’ve lost the ability to track them? Why impress upon myself the importance of a world that I cannot see?
I suppose I could begin to count the moments, but the tedious nature of this task lends itself to discard. Free of the need to chart my destination lacking journey, I can focus my mind on other things.
Unfortunately, this leads me back to the negatives of being caged. There is nothing of interest here. I do seem to be a little cleaner than I was, as if simply escaping the outside world somehow removed a film of filth from my skin. Was I simply sticking my legs from the base of a cage before, and walking it around like my own personal Bedrock Cadillac? At least now I can’t roam and prove the vast emptiness is exactly that.
Who am I kidding? There is no silver lining. I can’t even begin to explain what has happened. Perhaps, the weight of it all has finally flattened me. Stolen the muscles from my frame, and left me as a sigh harnessed to the wind to be carried wherever it may lead, casting off my will with indifference.
I’ve begun the gradually sudden process of giving up, but hey, admitting it is the first step to recovery, or so I seem to remember. So, I’ve got that going for me.
Since I have nothing but time, I’ll take a moment to recount how I came to have this here notebook, which is not the same one I’d kept before, as you may have noticed by the entries written in crayon. Simply stated, it is not near the quality of my former, but what is?
It could have been minutes, but something tells me it was closer to hours, after arriving in this cell when an experience I’d found before returned for an encore. At the wall, that is not a wall, of my cell there appeared a folded stack of cheap, thin paper suspended about waist high. Suddenly, it fell to the ground, where it lay for some time before I found the courage to approach it.
My memory, and who’s to say anything there can be relied upon, says it resembles a newspaper, minus the print. Just cheap paper, folded and stacked over its self in several sections, all tucked within an outer, slightly larger, creased sheet. There is no binding to hold it together.
I suppose it wouldn’t make sense if my notebook did not deteriorate at a parallel pace to the rest of the world.
At first, there was no writing instrument of any kind, but after searching my cell with growing frenzy and what was soon an overwhelming desperation, I watched as the green crayon this is written in rolled from nothingness to lay beside the newspaper void of news.
Lucky me.
I’m sorry, I will now quit for awhile. I wouldn’t want to wear my crayon to a thin slice of colored wax. What if no other comes to replace it?
The Awakening (non-sports) - Part 10
Day ?
It’s been a few days. How many? It’s hard to say from my cell. I can explain, sort of, how I got here, but why is beyond my comprehension. It’s all very confusing, and more than a little worrisome.
Let me begin where I last ended.
I had fallen asleep behind the counter of a picture booth at a Wal-Mart, when I was suddenly awakened by a jarring presence overwhelming me. From the nothingness of dreamless sleep, I snapped into the hazy reality of unseen hands or vices gripping me just beneath the shoulder on my arms.
Like a magician’s assistant, minus the beauty, I was lifted perpendicular to the ground with my legs still folded beneath me. Confused and shaking off the remnants of sleep, I moved as a lifeless puppet suspended from a conveyer belt, from behind the counter and along the rows of small shops that line the front wall of nearly all Wal-Mart stores. My feet slid uselessly beneath and behind me as I glided to and through the front doors.
Panic began to settle in as the realization that this wasn’t a dream took hold. Frantically I got to my feet, twisted and pulled with all my strength to free my arms from whatever held them, while kicking at the ground in a failing attempt to run.
I screamed and tried to spin away. For a single moment, my right arm came free, and fight or flight swung purely into flight. I pushed off hard, but found only another large weight slammed against my back causing me to lose my balance and fall to the ground. Suddenly it was on top of me, like a roller pressing down over still balled dough in the act of creating a tortilla. Sadly, I was the tortilla.
A moment later sharp pains pulsed through my body and somewhere between my brain and limbs the connection was lost. I lay unwillingly motionless and panting, still making a sound that weakly resembled a mixture of screaming and crying, like prey pinned for consumption by an unknown predator.
At that time, I must have passed out for a few moments, because the next thing I remember I was laying sideways suspended on a bed of nothing a couple of feet above the pavement of a road quickly slipping by beneath me. It was the closest thing to flying I have every experienced, and if not for the fear of what was happening to me, I may have actually enjoyed it.
My fingers and feet twitched at the buzz of swarming nerves reaching to reconnect beneath my skin. Gradually, I could feel my power over them begin to return, but the speed of the road beneath me and the fear of what may occur should I move, kept me still, though not calm.
My thoughts were like fish in a sealed glass beneath the ocean. They darted in every direction only to hit invisible walls and grow more chaotic with every failed attempt at direction.
How do you escape the shadows of the night when there is no light to be found?
I could feel the fear climbing over every space of my muddled mind, conquer it, and move on. Soon, there was nothing to my being to reign over it, and I was no longer anything more than a gasoline drenched twig in a raging forest fire. Terror lapped at me and devoured me whole. In its belly I found nothing but more fire to scrape away any reasonable sense of sanity. Without the cognition to gain control of my surroundings, I let out a deep howl of pain and horror.
And as soon as this nightmare had come to claim my waking mind, thought was lost and the serenity of ignorant darkness reclaimed the ground beneath me. I passed out.
When consciousness came back for me, I found myself here, in what must be a cell. There are three windowless, stone walls, with the fourth being left open, or at least from appearance, left open. The truth of this fourth wall is still imprinted on my cheek and forehead, as I’d walked face first into it hours ago. There is a steel toilet opposite the wall that hides from my eyes, and a worn striped, cot mounted on the wall to my left when facing the toilet. I’ve all the amenities any king could demand.
Is this where I’m meant to die? Am I dead already, moved from purgatory to hell’s waiting room?
From there, the oddities only continue, but my mind is sore and tired from trying to remember, and make sense of, these days passed. I’ve no way to decipher day from night, and no idea how much time has passed, but the need to rest is strong.
Like a mockingbird stationed at, and tethered to, the South Pole, struggling with weary wings to break its chain while waiting for the cold to steal its life away, I fly in the cage that is my life awaiting impending death, and for the cold to bury me.
It’s been a few days. How many? It’s hard to say from my cell. I can explain, sort of, how I got here, but why is beyond my comprehension. It’s all very confusing, and more than a little worrisome.
Let me begin where I last ended.
I had fallen asleep behind the counter of a picture booth at a Wal-Mart, when I was suddenly awakened by a jarring presence overwhelming me. From the nothingness of dreamless sleep, I snapped into the hazy reality of unseen hands or vices gripping me just beneath the shoulder on my arms.
Like a magician’s assistant, minus the beauty, I was lifted perpendicular to the ground with my legs still folded beneath me. Confused and shaking off the remnants of sleep, I moved as a lifeless puppet suspended from a conveyer belt, from behind the counter and along the rows of small shops that line the front wall of nearly all Wal-Mart stores. My feet slid uselessly beneath and behind me as I glided to and through the front doors.
Panic began to settle in as the realization that this wasn’t a dream took hold. Frantically I got to my feet, twisted and pulled with all my strength to free my arms from whatever held them, while kicking at the ground in a failing attempt to run.
I screamed and tried to spin away. For a single moment, my right arm came free, and fight or flight swung purely into flight. I pushed off hard, but found only another large weight slammed against my back causing me to lose my balance and fall to the ground. Suddenly it was on top of me, like a roller pressing down over still balled dough in the act of creating a tortilla. Sadly, I was the tortilla.
A moment later sharp pains pulsed through my body and somewhere between my brain and limbs the connection was lost. I lay unwillingly motionless and panting, still making a sound that weakly resembled a mixture of screaming and crying, like prey pinned for consumption by an unknown predator.
At that time, I must have passed out for a few moments, because the next thing I remember I was laying sideways suspended on a bed of nothing a couple of feet above the pavement of a road quickly slipping by beneath me. It was the closest thing to flying I have every experienced, and if not for the fear of what was happening to me, I may have actually enjoyed it.
My fingers and feet twitched at the buzz of swarming nerves reaching to reconnect beneath my skin. Gradually, I could feel my power over them begin to return, but the speed of the road beneath me and the fear of what may occur should I move, kept me still, though not calm.
My thoughts were like fish in a sealed glass beneath the ocean. They darted in every direction only to hit invisible walls and grow more chaotic with every failed attempt at direction.
How do you escape the shadows of the night when there is no light to be found?
I could feel the fear climbing over every space of my muddled mind, conquer it, and move on. Soon, there was nothing to my being to reign over it, and I was no longer anything more than a gasoline drenched twig in a raging forest fire. Terror lapped at me and devoured me whole. In its belly I found nothing but more fire to scrape away any reasonable sense of sanity. Without the cognition to gain control of my surroundings, I let out a deep howl of pain and horror.
And as soon as this nightmare had come to claim my waking mind, thought was lost and the serenity of ignorant darkness reclaimed the ground beneath me. I passed out.
When consciousness came back for me, I found myself here, in what must be a cell. There are three windowless, stone walls, with the fourth being left open, or at least from appearance, left open. The truth of this fourth wall is still imprinted on my cheek and forehead, as I’d walked face first into it hours ago. There is a steel toilet opposite the wall that hides from my eyes, and a worn striped, cot mounted on the wall to my left when facing the toilet. I’ve all the amenities any king could demand.
Is this where I’m meant to die? Am I dead already, moved from purgatory to hell’s waiting room?
From there, the oddities only continue, but my mind is sore and tired from trying to remember, and make sense of, these days passed. I’ve no way to decipher day from night, and no idea how much time has passed, but the need to rest is strong.
Like a mockingbird stationed at, and tethered to, the South Pole, struggling with weary wings to break its chain while waiting for the cold to steal its life away, I fly in the cage that is my life awaiting impending death, and for the cold to bury me.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
The Awakening (non-sports) - Part 9
Day 11
Loneliness isn’t a violent occurrence. It creeps and embeds itself into the fiber of one’s soul with soft subtlety, leaking its toxic stain into the veins until your blood is its blood. Your breath feeds it, and every passing moment of solitude strengthens your parasitic marriage until it becomes a skin over all that is, or was you. All separation is lost, and it wonders absently under the badge of your name.
You become the host to one that never promised you anything, yet intended for nothing less than stealing every thing. Even memories once held away in protective cocoons become coarse and sharp as they tear their way through once hallowed corridors of nostalgia, now the shredded and dying halls of bruised skies.
With these talons clutching my insides, I happened upon another artifact of lives past. And, though my experience from only days before had been less than ideal, to say the least, my new, worn point of view whispered no warning, spawned no fear at all.
This was not the same store I’d been to, and the surroundings were not of those being faded in my memory, like photographs bleeding to a solid and faceless gray. I’d wondered into a place I’d not been before.
Though this was a Wal-Mart, set up almost precisely as the last, it was new to me. Head down, I approached through the paved prairie parking lot, remaining in the unpainted lanes between rows of vacant yellow lines as my mind’s muscle memory clung to habit, and came to the front doors, which again slid casually open. They glided apart like nothing had changed and the world was still thriving with life.
Today I had no set course and no defined need within the store, but once I lifted my head and perused the available scenery I found a point of interest and headed in that direction. It was the small cubicle that housed both the new memory card or disc based photo developing terminals, and the rows of colorful envelopes holding developed photographs behind a counter awaiting customers to arrive and carry them home.
These rows are what drove my curiosity. With only a slight hesitation, again old habits die hard, I moved behind the counter and began to flip through the envelopes before removing a random pack of pictures.
My mind was like a sock in the dryer, tossed from thought to thought. It had been so long since I’d seen another’s face, or heard a stranger’s voice. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d caught my reflection. Did the past exist, or was all simply born to this moment? Am I a forgotten notion wandering the abyss of nothingness in a purgatory of my own design?
Now, as a voyeuristic alien exploring a foreign world, I removed a small stack of glossy photos and began to study the tracings of lives I had never known in the faces of people I had and would never meet.
My heart sank into my stomach, stirring the butterflies sleeping there. My mind climbed over itself with sudden violent attention, clamoring to fill the front row behind my eyes. My breath hesitated and then sped in anticipation. In my hands came the proof of a past that had been slipping further and further away from any tangible reality.
The photos were of a couple who appeared to be blatantly in love. Perhaps in awareness of the camera’s eye, they seemed unable to discard their shared smiles. They appeared to have a firm grasp on something I can only vaguely remember, happiness, companionship.
I have no fact based notion of their names, but in my own head I called them by name none-the-less. The woman was Miriam, and the man held within her embrace was Max.
Miriam and Max were the world I could not find. They were the past and future which had fled this place, leaving me as an orphan at the doorstep of a tenantless building. They were what I chased and never caught up to. They were the dream sleep couldn’t track down.
Fearing something worse than death, I slowly sat and then lay on the ground behind the counter of the photo booth with the pictures in my hand.
I feared I would live here forever, alone.
Gradually my thoughts mixed all the colors they could catch into an edgeless chasm of swirling black and sleep did it’s best to comfort me by removing this place, and allowing the serenity of complete emptiness, void of thought and memory and…of anything.
I slept….when suddenly….
Loneliness isn’t a violent occurrence. It creeps and embeds itself into the fiber of one’s soul with soft subtlety, leaking its toxic stain into the veins until your blood is its blood. Your breath feeds it, and every passing moment of solitude strengthens your parasitic marriage until it becomes a skin over all that is, or was you. All separation is lost, and it wonders absently under the badge of your name.
You become the host to one that never promised you anything, yet intended for nothing less than stealing every thing. Even memories once held away in protective cocoons become coarse and sharp as they tear their way through once hallowed corridors of nostalgia, now the shredded and dying halls of bruised skies.
With these talons clutching my insides, I happened upon another artifact of lives past. And, though my experience from only days before had been less than ideal, to say the least, my new, worn point of view whispered no warning, spawned no fear at all.
This was not the same store I’d been to, and the surroundings were not of those being faded in my memory, like photographs bleeding to a solid and faceless gray. I’d wondered into a place I’d not been before.
Though this was a Wal-Mart, set up almost precisely as the last, it was new to me. Head down, I approached through the paved prairie parking lot, remaining in the unpainted lanes between rows of vacant yellow lines as my mind’s muscle memory clung to habit, and came to the front doors, which again slid casually open. They glided apart like nothing had changed and the world was still thriving with life.
Today I had no set course and no defined need within the store, but once I lifted my head and perused the available scenery I found a point of interest and headed in that direction. It was the small cubicle that housed both the new memory card or disc based photo developing terminals, and the rows of colorful envelopes holding developed photographs behind a counter awaiting customers to arrive and carry them home.
These rows are what drove my curiosity. With only a slight hesitation, again old habits die hard, I moved behind the counter and began to flip through the envelopes before removing a random pack of pictures.
My mind was like a sock in the dryer, tossed from thought to thought. It had been so long since I’d seen another’s face, or heard a stranger’s voice. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d caught my reflection. Did the past exist, or was all simply born to this moment? Am I a forgotten notion wandering the abyss of nothingness in a purgatory of my own design?
Now, as a voyeuristic alien exploring a foreign world, I removed a small stack of glossy photos and began to study the tracings of lives I had never known in the faces of people I had and would never meet.
My heart sank into my stomach, stirring the butterflies sleeping there. My mind climbed over itself with sudden violent attention, clamoring to fill the front row behind my eyes. My breath hesitated and then sped in anticipation. In my hands came the proof of a past that had been slipping further and further away from any tangible reality.
The photos were of a couple who appeared to be blatantly in love. Perhaps in awareness of the camera’s eye, they seemed unable to discard their shared smiles. They appeared to have a firm grasp on something I can only vaguely remember, happiness, companionship.
I have no fact based notion of their names, but in my own head I called them by name none-the-less. The woman was Miriam, and the man held within her embrace was Max.
Miriam and Max were the world I could not find. They were the past and future which had fled this place, leaving me as an orphan at the doorstep of a tenantless building. They were what I chased and never caught up to. They were the dream sleep couldn’t track down.
Fearing something worse than death, I slowly sat and then lay on the ground behind the counter of the photo booth with the pictures in my hand.
I feared I would live here forever, alone.
Gradually my thoughts mixed all the colors they could catch into an edgeless chasm of swirling black and sleep did it’s best to comfort me by removing this place, and allowing the serenity of complete emptiness, void of thought and memory and…of anything.
I slept….when suddenly….
The Awakening (non-sports) - Part 8
Day 10
I’ve yet to completely separate myself from the pity party I held yesterday. There are things that flash and implode to nothing a hundred times in a single blink, and there are others that grow thicker with time and exposure, like a well fed fungus or mold. I’ve clumsily clutched myself to the latter.
As the curator and sole visitor to the museum, mausoleum, called earth, I wonder the streets bored and listless like a child on a forced vacation to the doldrums of adult interests. There is nothing of consequence here, nothing of significance. Tombs and relics slip by, all headstones in a forgotten, yet well kept, graveyard I’ve no interest in mourning.
I’ve stopped bathing, stopped seeking shelter, stopped searching out food, and seriously welled up a near intolerable indifference. I could argue with myself for hours, or could have once done so, debating whether indifference is precluded from being intolerable by nature, but today it’s all for naught.
Anyway, not that there was a direction to my movements before, a method to my madness, but today my steps do not hunger for the next, nor flee the prior. They simply come and go like constellations adorning a blind man’s sky.
I did see something strange, or rather feel it, today. Once again, I find the words to describe it elusive. That being said, future me, I’m sure you won’t let it bother you. If you do, maybe you should have considered this before reading. You’d think you’d know better. I mean, you, we, lived it.
Sorry, what’s a moment to force a smile, but an instance thrived upon, especially in times of desperation.
Back to what I experienced for an odd moment today, it was only a fleeting feeling and probably holds no importance, but with nothing else craving my time, here goes.
It was in the afternoon, and my newly polished mausoleum spoke the absent words of death without the stench of decay as the sun was just growing tired of its perch’s view and stepping down towards it’s next stop, it’s next day, when I noticed a towering Wendy’s sign reaching to poke the cloudless sky, an attempt to puncture the blue ceiling and drown me with its’ oceans.
With a sudden panic, a red glow stole my sight. My head throbbed violently and I buckled down over myself in pain. As soon as the sign was replaced by the nondescript gray of the sidewalk beneath my feet, the feeling passed and the pain left me to genuflect for a moment longer, feeling nothing.
That was it. I made sure not to look back to the sign, and like a giant with a mattress strapped to its back, I fell back with little regard, into my monotone life. Gradually, the butterflies which flicked their wings against the interior of my stomach began to tire and I was once again left with simple melancholy.
Besides the single moment, I have nothing of interest to recant today.
So, until tomorrow, I bid you a good night and sweet dreams.
I’ve yet to completely separate myself from the pity party I held yesterday. There are things that flash and implode to nothing a hundred times in a single blink, and there are others that grow thicker with time and exposure, like a well fed fungus or mold. I’ve clumsily clutched myself to the latter.
As the curator and sole visitor to the museum, mausoleum, called earth, I wonder the streets bored and listless like a child on a forced vacation to the doldrums of adult interests. There is nothing of consequence here, nothing of significance. Tombs and relics slip by, all headstones in a forgotten, yet well kept, graveyard I’ve no interest in mourning.
I’ve stopped bathing, stopped seeking shelter, stopped searching out food, and seriously welled up a near intolerable indifference. I could argue with myself for hours, or could have once done so, debating whether indifference is precluded from being intolerable by nature, but today it’s all for naught.
Anyway, not that there was a direction to my movements before, a method to my madness, but today my steps do not hunger for the next, nor flee the prior. They simply come and go like constellations adorning a blind man’s sky.
I did see something strange, or rather feel it, today. Once again, I find the words to describe it elusive. That being said, future me, I’m sure you won’t let it bother you. If you do, maybe you should have considered this before reading. You’d think you’d know better. I mean, you, we, lived it.
Sorry, what’s a moment to force a smile, but an instance thrived upon, especially in times of desperation.
Back to what I experienced for an odd moment today, it was only a fleeting feeling and probably holds no importance, but with nothing else craving my time, here goes.
It was in the afternoon, and my newly polished mausoleum spoke the absent words of death without the stench of decay as the sun was just growing tired of its perch’s view and stepping down towards it’s next stop, it’s next day, when I noticed a towering Wendy’s sign reaching to poke the cloudless sky, an attempt to puncture the blue ceiling and drown me with its’ oceans.
With a sudden panic, a red glow stole my sight. My head throbbed violently and I buckled down over myself in pain. As soon as the sign was replaced by the nondescript gray of the sidewalk beneath my feet, the feeling passed and the pain left me to genuflect for a moment longer, feeling nothing.
That was it. I made sure not to look back to the sign, and like a giant with a mattress strapped to its back, I fell back with little regard, into my monotone life. Gradually, the butterflies which flicked their wings against the interior of my stomach began to tire and I was once again left with simple melancholy.
Besides the single moment, I have nothing of interest to recant today.
So, until tomorrow, I bid you a good night and sweet dreams.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
The Awakening (non-sports) - Part 7
Day 9
I’ll begin with a simple fact. The pole I retrieved yesterday is gone. I carried it for the better part of this morning, yet lacking the proper items to give it usefulness combined with the growing soreness of holding it, pitched it aside.
In a strange way, a small sadness crept into my thoughts at the sight of it hit hitting and scraping against the ground. I’m not sure it was this act that brought the feeling on, as much as what it represented. Putting this into words is difficult, but I’ll give it my best attempt.
Two semi-parallel feelings twist around each other. I’ll begin with memories and things left by the wayside, like a funeral at sea leaving the dead to sink behind a ship that cannot be slowed, or even steered. Ghosts of the life I once knew haunt my waking, sleep walking mind. This place is a coffin for every hope or desire I once held close. Every sweet memory, every cherished lullaby of a story lived and recited back in dream, while sleeping or awake, for a vicarious tracing of footsteps which once found their way to happiness.
These things slip from me like rain over an oil slicked windshield, and I haven’t the will to catch or gather them back. Ghosts cannot be held. They can only haunt.
Secondly, and perhaps scales of this can be found shed in the first sentiment, comes the discarding of hope. With an anti-Midas’s touch, it is not gold my fingers leave behind, but heavy lead bricks tied to the ankles of a tiring man above the deepest of ocean crevasses.
Ignore my self pity. It can do no good.
So, like bait adorning a hook I am cast out into this world to call in whatever callous monster waits in the darkness to feed on my shrinking shell. For what worth has the last of anything, but as a reminder of goals left incomplete and unsatisfied; a memento of the lost.
Am I the last man on earth?
My eyes scream it to be so. My ears sing its lonely song. My heart beats out a rhythm of solitude, a palpitation without need of or defined by harmony. My soul searches for some semblance of familiarity, for some domesticated sense of home without result. My feet climb from step to step, but do they lead to or from a destination?
Regardless of hope, I’ll press on and find my only sense of companionship in this diary of the end of the world...if need be.
I’ll begin with a simple fact. The pole I retrieved yesterday is gone. I carried it for the better part of this morning, yet lacking the proper items to give it usefulness combined with the growing soreness of holding it, pitched it aside.
In a strange way, a small sadness crept into my thoughts at the sight of it hit hitting and scraping against the ground. I’m not sure it was this act that brought the feeling on, as much as what it represented. Putting this into words is difficult, but I’ll give it my best attempt.
Two semi-parallel feelings twist around each other. I’ll begin with memories and things left by the wayside, like a funeral at sea leaving the dead to sink behind a ship that cannot be slowed, or even steered. Ghosts of the life I once knew haunt my waking, sleep walking mind. This place is a coffin for every hope or desire I once held close. Every sweet memory, every cherished lullaby of a story lived and recited back in dream, while sleeping or awake, for a vicarious tracing of footsteps which once found their way to happiness.
These things slip from me like rain over an oil slicked windshield, and I haven’t the will to catch or gather them back. Ghosts cannot be held. They can only haunt.
Secondly, and perhaps scales of this can be found shed in the first sentiment, comes the discarding of hope. With an anti-Midas’s touch, it is not gold my fingers leave behind, but heavy lead bricks tied to the ankles of a tiring man above the deepest of ocean crevasses.
Ignore my self pity. It can do no good.
So, like bait adorning a hook I am cast out into this world to call in whatever callous monster waits in the darkness to feed on my shrinking shell. For what worth has the last of anything, but as a reminder of goals left incomplete and unsatisfied; a memento of the lost.
Am I the last man on earth?
My eyes scream it to be so. My ears sing its lonely song. My heart beats out a rhythm of solitude, a palpitation without need of or defined by harmony. My soul searches for some semblance of familiarity, for some domesticated sense of home without result. My feet climb from step to step, but do they lead to or from a destination?
Regardless of hope, I’ll press on and find my only sense of companionship in this diary of the end of the world...if need be.
The Awakening (non-sports) - Part 6
Day 8
Today, I decided to shed the shackles of my own mental cracks, which have chained me to undeniable fault lines and wrecked my stability in rhythmic quakes still crashing against my reason like the surging waves of an incoming tide. Though weathered and eroded to a version of myself that would no longer recognize my former self, today I chose to smile.
Leaving the intertwined branches of paved limbs and houses in suburbia, I ventured into an area of once thriving retail. My search, though taking longer than I intended, was fulfilled when I came across a Wal-Mart. This venture, spurned by a desire for a variety in sustenance, led me towards the rear of the store.
Perhaps I was also urged on by memories I’ve yet to cast aside of fishing trips with my father as a child. I was the child, not with my father when he was a child. That would be impossible. Of course, given my current circumstance, who am I to argue with plausibility.
I digress. I found what I was searching for among an assortment of fishing gear, and barring the constrictions of finance, picked exactly what I’d come for, the IM6 Lightning Rod, “top of the line” as my father had always said.
“Pure fishing,” he’d also planted in me, a seed that lay dormant only to have sprouted today’s adventure. Should I use that word, adventure? Perhaps exploration is slightly more apt.
With a smile on my face, and the rod and reel in my hand, I’d headed back to the exit. It was at the doors that my world stumbled away, once again, from pleasant semi-normalcy. I felt it quite clearly this time. Something grabbed tightly onto my shirt at the back of my neck, pulling the collar tight against my throat.
Several choked coughs squeezed out beneath the strain as my upper body tilted back. I quickly spun to face the store behind me. My eyes searched from empty registers to vacant aisles for some proof of….of something, anything.
Shroud in the silence of desolation, the sparkling ghost town of my world peered back. My breathing sped up and I felt my head waver, and then every thing stood still. I know, how does something without movement suddenly become still? Maybe it was only my own breathing and thoughts, but for a moment a celestial pause button was pressed. An instant later, that same heavenly remote released the pause button and mashed fast forward.
I turned and ran from the store, spinning and nearly falling when the automatic doors failed to open fast enough. Thinking back, I can’t decide if the fact that the automatic doors were still working is relevant or not. Is a man taking a piss off the coast of Japan relevant to the water purity in Arkansas? On the molecular level, isn’t it, even if it’s in the tiniest of percentiles?
I’m sorry. Again, my mind tends to break the tether from coherent thought more and more these days.
I ran until my legs and lungs would no longer allow. When I finally stopped and took a few minutes to catch my breath, my eyes traced the new surroundings, nothing familiar to be found.
Walking step after step in directions that accumulated to only chase away the fading day, I carried my only possessions; my new pole and this notebook.
If granting nothing else, perhaps physically stressing myself so thoroughly will lend itself to inviting a good night’s rest.
With that thought, I’ll retire from this pen and chase whatever dream sleep sees fit to deliver me. Perhaps there I will find a perfect lake bountifully stocked.
Great, I just realized I didn’t get any bait, or even a hook, and I’m not sure I house the nerve to go back for them.
Today, I decided to shed the shackles of my own mental cracks, which have chained me to undeniable fault lines and wrecked my stability in rhythmic quakes still crashing against my reason like the surging waves of an incoming tide. Though weathered and eroded to a version of myself that would no longer recognize my former self, today I chose to smile.
Leaving the intertwined branches of paved limbs and houses in suburbia, I ventured into an area of once thriving retail. My search, though taking longer than I intended, was fulfilled when I came across a Wal-Mart. This venture, spurned by a desire for a variety in sustenance, led me towards the rear of the store.
Perhaps I was also urged on by memories I’ve yet to cast aside of fishing trips with my father as a child. I was the child, not with my father when he was a child. That would be impossible. Of course, given my current circumstance, who am I to argue with plausibility.
I digress. I found what I was searching for among an assortment of fishing gear, and barring the constrictions of finance, picked exactly what I’d come for, the IM6 Lightning Rod, “top of the line” as my father had always said.
“Pure fishing,” he’d also planted in me, a seed that lay dormant only to have sprouted today’s adventure. Should I use that word, adventure? Perhaps exploration is slightly more apt.
With a smile on my face, and the rod and reel in my hand, I’d headed back to the exit. It was at the doors that my world stumbled away, once again, from pleasant semi-normalcy. I felt it quite clearly this time. Something grabbed tightly onto my shirt at the back of my neck, pulling the collar tight against my throat.
Several choked coughs squeezed out beneath the strain as my upper body tilted back. I quickly spun to face the store behind me. My eyes searched from empty registers to vacant aisles for some proof of….of something, anything.
Shroud in the silence of desolation, the sparkling ghost town of my world peered back. My breathing sped up and I felt my head waver, and then every thing stood still. I know, how does something without movement suddenly become still? Maybe it was only my own breathing and thoughts, but for a moment a celestial pause button was pressed. An instant later, that same heavenly remote released the pause button and mashed fast forward.
I turned and ran from the store, spinning and nearly falling when the automatic doors failed to open fast enough. Thinking back, I can’t decide if the fact that the automatic doors were still working is relevant or not. Is a man taking a piss off the coast of Japan relevant to the water purity in Arkansas? On the molecular level, isn’t it, even if it’s in the tiniest of percentiles?
I’m sorry. Again, my mind tends to break the tether from coherent thought more and more these days.
I ran until my legs and lungs would no longer allow. When I finally stopped and took a few minutes to catch my breath, my eyes traced the new surroundings, nothing familiar to be found.
Walking step after step in directions that accumulated to only chase away the fading day, I carried my only possessions; my new pole and this notebook.
If granting nothing else, perhaps physically stressing myself so thoroughly will lend itself to inviting a good night’s rest.
With that thought, I’ll retire from this pen and chase whatever dream sleep sees fit to deliver me. Perhaps there I will find a perfect lake bountifully stocked.
Great, I just realized I didn’t get any bait, or even a hook, and I’m not sure I house the nerve to go back for them.
The Awakening (non-sports) - Part 5
Day 7
I’m sorry. A couple of days seemed to have slipped away. Time sneezed them off.
It’s hard to write. They’re all around me, eyes without faces staring without being seen. As flutters in the corners of my vision, they track me. They’re clever, but I know they’re there.
Other than the presence of whatever they are, things have actually tripped somewhere back within the range of what I currently call normal. No more bumping into invisible walls. No more sitting on things that aren’t there, and no more items materializing in midair to crash to the ground. I guess you could say things are on the upswing.
Still, how do you rest when you can’t get comfortable? How do you sleep when you feel like a deer held by a zoo on the wrong side of the lion’s gate? There is no shelter left in this place that they cannot penetrate. There are no walls to keep phantoms out.
As night comes to cloak their movements once again, I’ve found a place to call home for a night under a bridge. Not the most grand of accommodations, but for some reason I find the lack of walls a plus. As they have failed in the purpose of keeping things out, walls only serve to imprison me. At least here, I am free to run whichever direction I choose.
…
I’m back. Several hours have passed since the paragraphs above. The night has now fully descended upon me, and there are not shadows in this place, as there is no light to give the black contour. Forgive my handwriting, as I cannot see my hand before me, or the page it passes over.
I write because I was awakened from my slumber (I call it that almost in jest), by what I can only describe as an airquake. Imagine finding yourself enveloped by a storm cloud, and shaken in the bowels of a tremendous thunder. This is what I experienced.
There was the emptiness of semi-sleep, and then I was wide awake with the air around me enraged in a sudden civil war. My world rumbled and shook under the sound of a million air soldiers firing their air cannons and screaming in rage, sorrow or pain.
Rising quickly, I caused myself to slide a couple of feet down the concrete embankment of the bridges underbelly. The hard surface grated against my clothes and skin. My arms and hands were busy covering my ears. Leaving my shoes to brace against and correct the slide. There is a chance I was screaming, but recollection fails to say definitively.
And then, as soon as it had come, it was gone, yielding to this hollow nothing. Pulling my hands from my ears, I realized the intensity of my grip in the wet smudges of blood on several fingertips. Perhaps it also decorates this page. In the dark, it’s impossible to know.
Needless to say, I will not be sleeping again tonight. Rather, I’ll stare out into the many eyes I cannot see, as they stare in on me.
I’m sorry. A couple of days seemed to have slipped away. Time sneezed them off.
It’s hard to write. They’re all around me, eyes without faces staring without being seen. As flutters in the corners of my vision, they track me. They’re clever, but I know they’re there.
Other than the presence of whatever they are, things have actually tripped somewhere back within the range of what I currently call normal. No more bumping into invisible walls. No more sitting on things that aren’t there, and no more items materializing in midair to crash to the ground. I guess you could say things are on the upswing.
Still, how do you rest when you can’t get comfortable? How do you sleep when you feel like a deer held by a zoo on the wrong side of the lion’s gate? There is no shelter left in this place that they cannot penetrate. There are no walls to keep phantoms out.
As night comes to cloak their movements once again, I’ve found a place to call home for a night under a bridge. Not the most grand of accommodations, but for some reason I find the lack of walls a plus. As they have failed in the purpose of keeping things out, walls only serve to imprison me. At least here, I am free to run whichever direction I choose.
…
I’m back. Several hours have passed since the paragraphs above. The night has now fully descended upon me, and there are not shadows in this place, as there is no light to give the black contour. Forgive my handwriting, as I cannot see my hand before me, or the page it passes over.
I write because I was awakened from my slumber (I call it that almost in jest), by what I can only describe as an airquake. Imagine finding yourself enveloped by a storm cloud, and shaken in the bowels of a tremendous thunder. This is what I experienced.
There was the emptiness of semi-sleep, and then I was wide awake with the air around me enraged in a sudden civil war. My world rumbled and shook under the sound of a million air soldiers firing their air cannons and screaming in rage, sorrow or pain.
Rising quickly, I caused myself to slide a couple of feet down the concrete embankment of the bridges underbelly. The hard surface grated against my clothes and skin. My arms and hands were busy covering my ears. Leaving my shoes to brace against and correct the slide. There is a chance I was screaming, but recollection fails to say definitively.
And then, as soon as it had come, it was gone, yielding to this hollow nothing. Pulling my hands from my ears, I realized the intensity of my grip in the wet smudges of blood on several fingertips. Perhaps it also decorates this page. In the dark, it’s impossible to know.
Needless to say, I will not be sleeping again tonight. Rather, I’ll stare out into the many eyes I cannot see, as they stare in on me.
The Awakening (non-sports) - Part 4
Day 4
Today has replaced yesterday’s tomorrow, and here I sit in a home that is not my home. Night has yet to arrive, but growing shadows have spoken their promise to seal this day beneath their weight.
I wrote yesterday of strange moments I could not explain, and to my growing worry, that road has loaned itself to today as well. The world is rolling on, tracing a new line of rail that remains mapped beyond the horizon of my eye.
Like a roach, I live on as I was, while the world around me has evolved into something much more complex, and thus much more fragile. There seems to be a balance growing in tilt with every passing moment, and I am alone here to dangle from one edge to the other, like a pendulum swinging without rhythm or course.
I’m sorry. I’m confused and probably not making much sense. I can just feel that something isn’t right with me, with this place. I’ll try to explain, but how do you explain what you don’t understand. I haven’t the words to fully describe how raw products become a working car. Yet, I can tell you we have cars and they do, did run.
Yesterday, after I left McDonald’s, I walked, still abiding by the rules of a lost society, along the sidewalks. There is no point to this, as the streets have no passengers, only habit. It was here, on the sidewalk mid-stride that I again stumbled upon the unexplainable.
The closest feeling I can equate to what happened would be bumping your shoulder on a corner you cut too close. My thoughts were lost within themselves, a snake eating its own tail, so I may have missed something, but for the life of me, I cannot remember anything out of place. There was just one step after another and then suddenly an invisible corner or hand thrust hard against my left shoulder.
It spun me around, or at least I think it did. Honestly, I can’t remember, but I was suddenly facing the opposite direction, kneeling over myself with a sore shoulder. There were no sounds, no follow up touches, only the first abrupt hit.
Did my mind come to a hurdle and forget to jump? I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on.
After a moment of bewilderment, that I left unresolved, I stood and began to walk. My head tried to create a parallel to normalcy, but could only spin. I began to feel nauseous. There was a bus stop ahead, and I aimed myself haphazardly towards it. Unfortunately, this didn’t make things better.
As I went to sit down something else happened. I’m sorry, for again, I find it difficult to explain. Just because I don’t know the physics of why the sun burns, doesn’t mean it won’t rise tomorrow. Am I arguing with myself? I think I am, and it doesn’t feel like I’m winning. Is that possible?
I sat, but didn’t make it all the way to the bench. Does that make sense? I mean, I sat on something, but it was quickly pulled out from under me, causing me to flop hard against the actual bench. In the end, I essentially sat down twice in one fractured motion, or at least, that’s the best I can explain it.
Now, I’ll skip forward a little bit, if you’ll indulge me. Feeling uneasy, and more than a little drunk, minus the alcohol, I found my way to a house with an unlocked door, thinking shelter would help calm me down.
But, once inside, I’d swear I watched an open book materialize in mid-air before saddling up on gravity and galloping recklessly into the floor. I wanted to run. I still want to run, but where would I go? If you can’t see the sharks in the water, how do you know which way to swim, or if swimming itself will only make it worse?
I’m sorry. Am I chasing my tail? What happens if I catch it? I’m so confused.
Maybe tomorrow things will make a little more sense.
Today has replaced yesterday’s tomorrow, and here I sit in a home that is not my home. Night has yet to arrive, but growing shadows have spoken their promise to seal this day beneath their weight.
I wrote yesterday of strange moments I could not explain, and to my growing worry, that road has loaned itself to today as well. The world is rolling on, tracing a new line of rail that remains mapped beyond the horizon of my eye.
Like a roach, I live on as I was, while the world around me has evolved into something much more complex, and thus much more fragile. There seems to be a balance growing in tilt with every passing moment, and I am alone here to dangle from one edge to the other, like a pendulum swinging without rhythm or course.
I’m sorry. I’m confused and probably not making much sense. I can just feel that something isn’t right with me, with this place. I’ll try to explain, but how do you explain what you don’t understand. I haven’t the words to fully describe how raw products become a working car. Yet, I can tell you we have cars and they do, did run.
Yesterday, after I left McDonald’s, I walked, still abiding by the rules of a lost society, along the sidewalks. There is no point to this, as the streets have no passengers, only habit. It was here, on the sidewalk mid-stride that I again stumbled upon the unexplainable.
The closest feeling I can equate to what happened would be bumping your shoulder on a corner you cut too close. My thoughts were lost within themselves, a snake eating its own tail, so I may have missed something, but for the life of me, I cannot remember anything out of place. There was just one step after another and then suddenly an invisible corner or hand thrust hard against my left shoulder.
It spun me around, or at least I think it did. Honestly, I can’t remember, but I was suddenly facing the opposite direction, kneeling over myself with a sore shoulder. There were no sounds, no follow up touches, only the first abrupt hit.
Did my mind come to a hurdle and forget to jump? I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on.
After a moment of bewilderment, that I left unresolved, I stood and began to walk. My head tried to create a parallel to normalcy, but could only spin. I began to feel nauseous. There was a bus stop ahead, and I aimed myself haphazardly towards it. Unfortunately, this didn’t make things better.
As I went to sit down something else happened. I’m sorry, for again, I find it difficult to explain. Just because I don’t know the physics of why the sun burns, doesn’t mean it won’t rise tomorrow. Am I arguing with myself? I think I am, and it doesn’t feel like I’m winning. Is that possible?
I sat, but didn’t make it all the way to the bench. Does that make sense? I mean, I sat on something, but it was quickly pulled out from under me, causing me to flop hard against the actual bench. In the end, I essentially sat down twice in one fractured motion, or at least, that’s the best I can explain it.
Now, I’ll skip forward a little bit, if you’ll indulge me. Feeling uneasy, and more than a little drunk, minus the alcohol, I found my way to a house with an unlocked door, thinking shelter would help calm me down.
But, once inside, I’d swear I watched an open book materialize in mid-air before saddling up on gravity and galloping recklessly into the floor. I wanted to run. I still want to run, but where would I go? If you can’t see the sharks in the water, how do you know which way to swim, or if swimming itself will only make it worse?
I’m sorry. Am I chasing my tail? What happens if I catch it? I’m so confused.
Maybe tomorrow things will make a little more sense.
The Awakening (non-sports) - Part 3
Day 3
Have you ever been in silence for an extended period of time, and after chasing the tail of a spiraling thought, been caught off guard by a whimper of sound climbing your throat, and actually jumped back in recoil? No. Well, as of today, I have.
I can’t actually pinpoint the last sound of life I heard, nor whether or not one initially escaped my throat today. Yet, the vibration alone was enough to startle me. Then, realizing I had only been afraid of myself, laughter pocketed my focus and held me in its warm embrace, and for the first time, I actually found myself thankful for the absence of others. Had there been a crowd to witness, I am quite sure I would have appeared delirious.
That moment aside, or not withstanding…either way, this day has been a strange one. To put it bluntly, I feel like I took a dart to the temple, with the metal tip remaining caught and occasionally scratching the surface of my brain, tangling the thoughts beneath its point.
Flashes of memory, or dream, or fantasy….or, I don’t know, but they’ve come and gone like whispers sewn into a fleeting breeze. I find myself confused, and truly wishing for someone to talk to.
Am I going crazy? If so, is writing here cathartic or only adding wood to the fire? Of course, if I am losing my mind, what’s one more match thrown into the sun? It won’t change the lighting of my day, or the shadows of this place. I’m sorry, me. I’ve strayed from the point. Today was odd.
I found myself strolling down an abandoned sidewalk, wondering this barren landscape of skeletal buildings connected by fossil roads like the dried, petrified veins of a dead, moved on society, when I came across something familiar and strangely inviting, a McDonald’s restaurant.
It could have been memories of meals past, or just the shiny, reflective glow of the fresh red and gold everywhere, but it called to me none the less. Once through the door, the absence of scent and sound was apparent, as my nostrils and ears expected to find the songs of beef and potatoes frying, but those siren songs remained housed in unfounded lungs. Aimlessly, I continued in.
There was no surprise when a swipe of my finger over the counter returned without dust. It was as everything here, left behind and unused, but somehow brand new and kept. Though it had been weeks since a customer stood there and pondered the bright, almost neon, menu, I’d have sworn the age did not show, and a cleansing rag had been swirled over the surface only hours, minutes, before, and then it hit me.
Suddenly, there were people all around me alive with sound and pushed by the current of life. At the counter a woman held one hand in her purse, while pointing high at the menu with the other, as the number 3 spilled from her lips.
Spinning around, I found the dining area full of patrons, and then as soon as it had come, it was gone. Only empty tables and a hollow room stared back at me. Unable to find any other response, I began to laugh.
“What was that?” I said to no one with a near frantic laugh, and when no one failed to answer, I walked away from the counter. Beside the bank of fountain drinks on a bench sat a lifeless ceramic Ronald McDonald, a statue that waved at me with one leg crossed over the other before blank, and near hysterically jubilant eyes.
With no one else to turn to, to share this moment with, I strode to stand, and then sit beside the statue. As I sat there, muttering some incoherent words to Ronald with a smirk of my own, it happened again, though much quicker this time. Like an inverted blink, the world was there and alive, and then it was gone.
Feeling uncomfortable and slightly rattled, I fled the building into the silence of the empty planet surrounding it.
There was more, but again night threatens, and I find the need to take shelter. So, I will return to this tomorrow, should tomorrow come. If it fails and jumps from the tracks of time, well…well, then I guess I won’t.
Have you ever been in silence for an extended period of time, and after chasing the tail of a spiraling thought, been caught off guard by a whimper of sound climbing your throat, and actually jumped back in recoil? No. Well, as of today, I have.
I can’t actually pinpoint the last sound of life I heard, nor whether or not one initially escaped my throat today. Yet, the vibration alone was enough to startle me. Then, realizing I had only been afraid of myself, laughter pocketed my focus and held me in its warm embrace, and for the first time, I actually found myself thankful for the absence of others. Had there been a crowd to witness, I am quite sure I would have appeared delirious.
That moment aside, or not withstanding…either way, this day has been a strange one. To put it bluntly, I feel like I took a dart to the temple, with the metal tip remaining caught and occasionally scratching the surface of my brain, tangling the thoughts beneath its point.
Flashes of memory, or dream, or fantasy….or, I don’t know, but they’ve come and gone like whispers sewn into a fleeting breeze. I find myself confused, and truly wishing for someone to talk to.
Am I going crazy? If so, is writing here cathartic or only adding wood to the fire? Of course, if I am losing my mind, what’s one more match thrown into the sun? It won’t change the lighting of my day, or the shadows of this place. I’m sorry, me. I’ve strayed from the point. Today was odd.
I found myself strolling down an abandoned sidewalk, wondering this barren landscape of skeletal buildings connected by fossil roads like the dried, petrified veins of a dead, moved on society, when I came across something familiar and strangely inviting, a McDonald’s restaurant.
It could have been memories of meals past, or just the shiny, reflective glow of the fresh red and gold everywhere, but it called to me none the less. Once through the door, the absence of scent and sound was apparent, as my nostrils and ears expected to find the songs of beef and potatoes frying, but those siren songs remained housed in unfounded lungs. Aimlessly, I continued in.
There was no surprise when a swipe of my finger over the counter returned without dust. It was as everything here, left behind and unused, but somehow brand new and kept. Though it had been weeks since a customer stood there and pondered the bright, almost neon, menu, I’d have sworn the age did not show, and a cleansing rag had been swirled over the surface only hours, minutes, before, and then it hit me.
Suddenly, there were people all around me alive with sound and pushed by the current of life. At the counter a woman held one hand in her purse, while pointing high at the menu with the other, as the number 3 spilled from her lips.
Spinning around, I found the dining area full of patrons, and then as soon as it had come, it was gone. Only empty tables and a hollow room stared back at me. Unable to find any other response, I began to laugh.
“What was that?” I said to no one with a near frantic laugh, and when no one failed to answer, I walked away from the counter. Beside the bank of fountain drinks on a bench sat a lifeless ceramic Ronald McDonald, a statue that waved at me with one leg crossed over the other before blank, and near hysterically jubilant eyes.
With no one else to turn to, to share this moment with, I strode to stand, and then sit beside the statue. As I sat there, muttering some incoherent words to Ronald with a smirk of my own, it happened again, though much quicker this time. Like an inverted blink, the world was there and alive, and then it was gone.
Feeling uncomfortable and slightly rattled, I fled the building into the silence of the empty planet surrounding it.
There was more, but again night threatens, and I find the need to take shelter. So, I will return to this tomorrow, should tomorrow come. If it fails and jumps from the tracks of time, well…well, then I guess I won’t.
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