Chapter Y, as in You’ll Never, Never Know

A roaring something or other jolts my brain, and I’m shaking as my eyes open as my head snaps up.  I’m flat on my stomach and looking toward a bright light, and it roars by again, and again, somewhat close by and very close by and close by.  I shake my head and water goes flying — it’s coming down hard — and to the left a grassy trench fills with water, almost before my eyes.  I pull my arm out from under my body — it’s a lump.  It doesn’t work.  I guess I’ve been laying on it, so I use the other to prop myself up.

I’m on the side of a busy highway, and I’m very vulnerable — there is nothing between me and the road.  In fact, I’m ON the road, on a very narrow shoulder between the road and the ditch.  I’m laying facing downhill and the water is running into my pant legs, and water streams around my shoulders and down.  I’ve started to get up but like I said my arm isn’t working, so I have to push myself up and get my feet under me, difficult on this wet road — and while looking behind me here!  A horrendous rushing and whirring sound, of 400 and 300 and 250 horsepower and tires and exhaust and revving and braking, and it’s so close by, by and by, and I’m soaked in my clothes and in this water coming down, and by …

I’m not even wondering how I got here — I mean, I’m lying, I’m wondering how I got here — but I’m more concerned with where I am going, for seconds, and for firsts how I am going to get there and survive along the way!  I shield my eyes and look across the road — traffic going one way and it ooks like there is a watery ditch on the other side.  The ditch on this side, it’s running fast, and opposite that a very steep bank that looks like it’s made of clay — no way to get up that.  No good to cross the ditch, no good to cross to the other side of the road (not to mention the roaring autos!) because of the ditch and same type of bank on the other side, still raining, look behind me and see darkness, darkness and sound and roaring mechanical fierceness coming down toward me.  I wave frantically at anyone to stop, help, tell me where I’m at or if I’m luckier where I’m going, and with the rain and water splashing from the road into my eyes and ears and mouth, I’m fed up, I’m going, walking!

Down the road, traffic to my back, I’m realizing how I’m squinting from the rain and moreso the brightness ahead, hard to see, but I’m feeling my aggravation tensing up all the way to the fingers of my working arm, the other still dangling at my side!, and I’m slogging toward some light (this light, how much good does it do me) and walking as close to the ditch as possible, with my right foot on the grass sloping down, left in the middle of the small shoulder, cars still whizzing whizzing whizzing by, and me, on the move, in the middle of I have no idea where, going I have no idea where.

Something roars and roars behind and all of a sudden beside me and I’m enveloped and pushed by water over and around my head and shoulders, snapping my head back and my body forward.  I stomp my right food on the grass but it’s already on the wet slope and the slope carries my foot down followed by my body into the cold rushing water, my body swings around to grab for the slope so I don’t go down but with one less arm than I should have.

I’m now swimming around in the wetness (I mean, not swimming, but you know, under the water) and flopping and trying to get back up.  I grab at something that looks like I can grab on to, that is stuck in the ground, and it comes out!  And I slide back down, and into the water and down the stream, dirty water in my mouth and I can’t see underneath and the cold …

Note to Self : No Need to Open Up (Further)

It’s hardly a secret, my life, because I live it out in the open.  Anyone can come and observe it, analyze it, even scrutinize it, post public comments about it, whatever.  Not that I think anyone will ever do that, although I do entertain that thought, because what if it were to happen?

See, I think about public figures and their willingness to lay it all out for everyone to see.  Of course, that depends on the level of public figure and what he or she ever wanted to get out of it.  Some are desperate for the spotlight and continue their desperation once they’ve got it, some clamor for it and fight to hide from it once they have it, and others never want it and somehow land in it, forever wishing it never shone on them.  I am in the latter camp.  Not to say I am a public figure, but like I said, I am a figure, I am publicly available, and that is how I feel I WOULD act if I were to land in a pile of fame.

So here I am, now, laying myself out for everyone around me — my roommates, my doctors, everyone in between — and I’m getting it tossed back at me, getting turned around and beat down.

But I won’t back down, no, I really won’t.  I won’t change.  I won’t enjoy their fashions.  I won’t be a part of their system.  I will do what I do and cover myself when I need to.  You may wonder about my mask, why I choose to wear it when others may indeed know my true identity?  What is the point then?  Well, you may soon find out.  You may indeed.

Interlude : Humming

To “hum” is to bring a little song from inside you out, but only part way, and the beauty is not fully realized, and it never may be.  It certainly could mean something beautiful coming to the forefront, ready to tantalize you if you give it the chance.

But on occasion a hum is something sinister, something wanting to come out that should NOT, as it hums on the way to an explosion of the kind I am certainly not interested in. A flat line meandering with no sense of direction of what it is to do.

And in this cases a hum can be a single volume, a single pitch, a single tone, repeated and/or looped until it takes the soundshape of something entirely different, where instead of waiting for it to blossom, you hear each slight variation from the whole and it jars you into wanting it to NOT change, to wish that it will not blossom, that it will gradually fade to nothing, except it will continue, and continue to jar you, or me, or anyone, in it’s path.

These are the things that mesmerize a mind, that lull, into complacency, into not recognizing the details, into looking past the hum to the end, waiting for it to end, without taking steps to figure out how that is to happen, and in many cases, it never will.  I really wish it would, but it will never.

The Doctor’s Office : Act 5

I’ve never needed to explain ANYTHING that wasn’t a fictional explanation used to reach my goal, to get my necessities, and even then when I am existing in the back of my mind, distant, and throwing words and phrases from the front and top of my head and out.  As I sit on this couch it seems as if my agenda is quite different, and the frustration has set in, as I exist on the front-and-center of my mind and reach back and into it trying to tie things together these things that have happened to me as of late, and where I am.

I attempted to make my escape, to tread this new path on the out and up, only to crash against these unknown forces which place me in scenarios I do not understand, and now I am using this couch as I lay on it to pull these things out from the recesses and string some sort of cohesive thought to them, and right now I am failing, and I look up and he is looking at me with his hand on his chin, brow furrowed, not like the usual but with the distance, the far-away.

It seems as if I’m getting a spoon or pill or needle of my own medicine, to take liberally from an overused metaphor, because I am alone in deciphering this mystery which very much has taken into account my steps and plans as cracks and other disturbances are starting to appear where they once were not.  And I have other things on my mind such as the result (no one else has time to consider the result!) and the details should be minor, nothing to see here and nothing to alter the path except when it DOES, such as now, and I am left to my own (now meager) devices to understand the how and the why, and even the when, although I can’t remember when, and I look down at my watch that still is saying 5:30 and IT is not telling me when, at all.

I cover my eyes to look deeper, to see the lights behind my eyelids like I usually see, the constellations that morph quickly into firestorms and meteor showers, and I am still, looking for the shapes.  And for once I do not see any.  Only black, darkness.  I throw my hands down in disgust and blurt out an expletive and look

To nothing.  I mean, I see another chair, some random books on a shelf, a barred window presumably to the outside, and the humming of the lights above.  But no one else.  I am now alone, and I sit up to rub my eyes and look again and again realize I am by myself, as it grows quieter.

These times, I’m having, they are not for me.  They are for someone else.  I will read about these times, close the book, and then move on to my more important tasks.  But the book, it will not close, and it is open to the one chapter I don’t want to read, and I read the same line over and over and over and over, and over.  At some point I will start to nod off, because I realize I have come across some words turned into ideas that my head at this point is not willing to overcome …

Chapter V, as in Lateral to Vertical

I open my eyes again, and again I see darkness.  I mean, I can’t see darkness, but rather an absence of light, and it’s moreso because my eyes are adjusting than because I really can’t see anything.  But the more I look, the more I realize it is quite dark where I am.

As my eyes start to collect, my ears pick it up, the sound, from far away.  Some sort of mechanical sound, perhaps, but it is quite removed, and distinctly coming from …

Above.  I look up, and the light is bright, almost blinding.  Now I’m squinting again and covering my eyes, looking down, and now I see less than before.  I take some time to let my eyes adjust again.

I do see there is a wall of some sort.  I mean, I didn’t see it until after I reached out and felt it (brave, yes, I know, because who knows what’s REALLY out there, and if we make this a touching and feeling game, I KNOW of several ways I could lose out), but it came into focus, as I walked along it with my hands to my left, walking.  I’m now sensing the curvature of the wall, because as I move left I move backwards, gradually, and after moving for some time I have the sense I’m now moving in places I’ve already been.  Without looking up, but knowing what’s up there with the sound and the light, and feeling along this wall, it seems as though I’m in a silo.  How I got in here, not sure, and how I am to get out, not really sure.

I look back down into the complete darkness as I fumble toward my pocket, pull out the pack of the good stuff, select, locate my flame, ready aim fire.  I can now see, from the light of that flame and now a bit from the cigarette, that I was right about where I am, in a circular sort of silo, maybe ten feet in diameter.

I’m not worried about the smoke being trapped in here, although maybe I should be, because it should travel up and out of here.  So I’ll still have some oxygen, when I need it.  And for now I can see my surroundings, just a bit, a bit of enough to notice a bit of a route: a crude ladder, made of what looks like a damp wood.

I take one last pull and stomp it down, then approach and grab the ladder, testing it a bit by pulling backwards.  It seems to be sturdy, somewhat, at least sturdy enough to hold my weight for at least a few seconds.  It’s a ladder that seems to go up, toward the sound, that low whirring, and the blinding light.  I already followed the ladder up with my eyes a bit farther than I should have gone, because I caught a glimpse of the light source, and it’s blinding.  It almost knocks me out.  I have to look back down to readjust, for a few seconds.  But I’ve already decided I’m going to give this a try.  Probably because I don’t see any other way of passing my time, other than sitting in the dark, not knowing how much time is passing, without much on me!

I put my right hand on the right side of the ladder, and within my grip my hand slips down a bit.  It’s a bit moldy, but the rungs, at least the few lower rungs that I tested with my hand, seem to be sturdy, so I at least trust that part of this exercise.  I put my left hand on the other side and that too slips down, but not far enough to discourage me from slinging my foot up to that first rung.

Now I don’t even put all my weight on this rung, and I shouldn’t have to because I plan to jump right past it and up.  It snaps in two.  My grip on the sides is strong, but in not being prepared for this slip my whole body jerks a bit and it comes back down, my leg awkwardly jamming down into the ground (again, not prepared for that one either) and I lose traction, sliding and smacking the ground with my forearm and elbow.  This doesn’t feel good, and it snaps my head back into the moment.

I sit there for a second, holding my elbow and staying still.  I guess I’m contemplating my next move?  I can tell you that I am a bit perturbed!  But then I realize that I have a thing or two to worry about otherwise, as it comes down.

And down, and down.  Drip to drip to drip, on my forehead, each one getting stronger, first dripping in the same spot and then all over my body.  I slide on the ground on my side, gripping my elbow, heading for the wall — no respite — heading along the wall to my right.  The water keeps coming down, onto my hair, hitting my first layer — it’s soaking through, really through! — I move, now more actively, and I try to look up at the source — all I see is bright light, and drops coming down, neverending, through the silo from above and into my cavern, and the water starts to collect on the ground, puddle by puddle, millimeter by millimeter.

I shake my elbow off and grab the rung, this time surehandedly, and I don’t even test my weight as I shoot myself on the up and up!  The ladder creaks a bit, but at this point, with the water still coming down, I have other things to focus on, as I go up another rung and then another and …

The water stops.  And so do I.  I look up and quickly back down — the brightness — but the water is not coming.  I look forward at the wall behind the ladder, and then down.  There is an inch or two of water on the ground, no more.

Now that I’m already up here, I might as well keep going up.  I mean, where else am I supposed to go?  So I look mostly straight ahead as I go from rung to rung to rung.  The wooden ladder is splintery and wet, and sometimes the small splinters pierce the palms of my hands, especially when my hands slips down a bit on the slippery grip, although I’m most concerned with my footing on the rungs below.

But now I’m up and up, fairly smoothly, when several unidentified objects float in front of my face and down!  Bugs?  Butterflies?  Bats?  No, it’s more than that, and they start to collect on my arms and the top of my head, I can feel …

Feathers!  I look to the side and a bit down, and feathers are absolutely RAINING down past me and on top of me, and a quick look below proves to me these feathers are much greater in number than the drops of water just a few minutes before!  So much so they are already weighting down my shoulders on the wetness that has accumulated from said water!  I grab and grab and keep going up and up as fast as I can go, because when I glance back down I see a pile of feathers below, below, and I go up and up, because certainly I don’t want to drown in feathers!  The feathers are coming from the brightness, and the whirring noise from above is LOUDER, and I blow out of my mouth and nose to get these feathers out of my face, and now one went in my eye!  I shake my head back and forth still going up to somewhere getting louder and brighter and more feathers coming down and down and legs up on rungs hands grip sides and rungs and up and grab and FEATHERS and hand slips! and foot slips! and hanging from the edge of ladder with feathers and look up and brightness more feathers in eyes and gasping let go–

–and down–

–and muted smack of a feathery landing, several feet of feathers, sink down into, and lifting head up as feathers keep coming down and shielding eyes and seeing nothing but light and the raining down, and the louder buzzing, and muting, and fading …

Note to Self : Do Not Forget

As I find myself back in my room, almost immobilized by the combined weight of all the madness preceding, I find myself unable to understand what it is I ever wanted in the first place.  The weight of my cumulative systematic plans and my variably invariable layers is reducing my flexibility, most notably my mental agility in trying to understand, see, what is indeed being thrown at me, and who indeed is doing the throwing.

So I get lost in a cigarette, ready aim fire, and blow plumes of frustration into the ether, sometimes in ring form.  I get lost in remembering, and I’m now realizing the danger in this, as I only need to remember one thing: do not forget, see.

Do not forgot what it is that got me here in the first place.  And, most importantly, don’t forget that I know the steps to getting out of here in one piece.  It’s all part of the plan.

I let myself get swept up in events that pull me under, almost farther down than I can muster — I mean, everyone has a threshold of how much he or she can overcome.  I’ve FELT close to mine, but I can’t tell, and I don’t know how much longer I should push towards this very real edge.  I really don’t.

Chapter U, as in Under It All, You Can Still See

My eyes are open for at least a few minutes, really, before I settle in to the location at hand.  I’m laying with my back down, my face toward the sky, except the sky isn’t there.  It’s a ceiling.

I’m back in a room, and quickly (probably not quickly enough) it becomes apparent this is my ceiling.  But this revelation does not come to me before I get to my feet, quickly, make an advance for the door, grab the handle and twist and push until I’m going all the way forward, all the way in …

And once I’m in, I’m in.  There, I’m confronted with what I probably should have seen, or should have not seen.  I still haven’t decided.

(By the way, sometime around this time I look down at my watch.  5:30. Some things never change.)

Before I begin, I must add something, and that is I usually, as in never, come out of my room to witness much of anything, if indeed I am sure that there is life beyond those doors, which there most certainly is before the hour of nine and after the hour of five.  I must continue to add that coming at a half of an hour past the mark of five is not only unorthodox for myself as an individual, but highly unlikely and a sign of something, well, surely, amiss.

Then let me begin.  My eyes are sharpened for this very task, and the task is at hand: on one side of the room, one roommate of mine, sits.  On the other side of the room, my other roommate of mine, sites.  There is much space between them, and that’s not all, because in between them is a something, something that focuses my attention away from those who are familiar.

In the middle of the room, right on the floor in plain sight, and able to be engaged upon by anyone, including me, is an ear of corn.  I mean, I know what an ear of corn looks like, not just from the picture books but also from television and movies and my limited experience visualizing the many things in this world that I have never truly held and smelled.

Now, interestingly enough, both of my roommates remained entirely still as I entered the room (not that I expected them to greet me — certain things, I just don’t expect) and they continue to remain still as I now look at this ear, and then at each of them, and then back at the ear, which is obviously the focus of all attention at this point.  And being the center of attention, it will also become the center of action, I decide, and so I walk toward it, and kneel down.  Next to it. What I’m doing, I mean, I’m not entirely sure, but I am sure I won’t get a good idea of what I’m up against here if I just stand there without reacting.

It seems as if the entire room is frozen in time, really, if I wasn’t the one walking through that room.  I mean, I am in control of my movement, or at least it seems to be that way, for the moment.

I’m now in the center of the room, practically touching the ear, this inanimate ear that I’m entirely convinced will not move, flinch, grunt, shake, or do anything to otherwise prove that it is not a lifeless object, at least an ear that has been collected and that is recognizing that life, the one we all lead, is slipping away.  Or at least doing so as much as is possible considering the grand equation.

Now that I’m here, I feel obliged to take one last look up toward my roommates, to see what their reaction is.  Surely they have one, although at this point and at other points, it’s hard to tell what that reaction is.

Amazingly enough, or at least surprisingly, they are both looking away.  Now I have never been one for conversation, and have never been one to gather around a conversation piece and make idle conversation, but I would expect at a moment such as this — wait, it’s true, at THIS moment — that a conversation would be struck among all parties involved, of which I am one, at least about a benign subject that will eventually lead to an analysis of this subject, such as how or why things seem to happen in certain ways, and in the ways that have led all parties to be focused in one particular area, and we all know now what that area is.

Incidentally, I don’t know when these two individuals took the time to look away, as I was firmly concentrating on the subject at hand, and that subject, while SEEMING to be inanimate, could quite possibly have made a movement that would leave me to believe that its status as ‘inanimate’ might not be an accurate one, or at least accurate to anyone on the outside of this situation, such as me.

I know I was looking in a certain direction, in the direction where I was SURE that some action would occur, when the object now in front of me, the object of our attention, began to come to life.  It moved as if it were something else besides that which represents the label I’ve applied to it, a completely different object, one that shimmies and otherwise moves across the floor.  And makes music, albeit uncoventional music, as it goes. It may be singing.

It may be screeching, it may be rolling, only but certainly it is acting, and certainly it is holding my attention.  It then goes into trauma, as it moves across the floor in a not-so-linear fashion, seemingly affected by lighting or a sickness or a burst of energy (although where that energy came from, do not ask me these things because they are quite hard to decipher).  The energy continues as it drives the object into the air, and back down again, in such a way that it gradually sheds its skin, and in doing so produces noises that would otherwise be made by fire or a broken record (not sure about the latter).

In terms of an object with the visual and physical characteristics being displayed by the one before my very eyes, this corn was and is popping.  And it is doing quite a job of that.

I can’t take my eyes away from this object as it continues to shed everything on its outside, as it generates heat from this activity that in this case, in the case of this object, is an entirely natural process in its cycle, the cycle of birth, maturation, death (not to say anything about the world thereafter — I mean, I’m not saying if there is one or not, but only will recognize this issue).

And after a certain amount of time, it’s over.  Although I can’t say I’m ready for the pile of remains on the floor.  I lift my hand up from my side and reach forward to touch, only to not get quite all the way, maybe out of apathy.  I can’t really tell.

I do know I look up to the side and see nothing, and the other way, nothing.  I see nothing all around.  It makes me think quickly, as I stagger up, and look down, to the floor, where the action was, and see nothing.

Interlude : Ending Up on the Bank

Once someone told me, when describing a reaction to a certain type of situation, that he or she had “ended up on the bank”.  I have no opinion on this other than deciding this is a typical reaction to one who is in the act of observation, but is not sure whether to step away, further away, or to dive in, because neither may be appropriate.

The bank is the gray area between being in it and being out of it, inside and outside, purgatorial.  It is a movement waiting to happen.  I believe in the science world it is called potential energy, as in the potential for something to happen, and the energy being there.

Now, it’s possible that the energy can be caused by one of the two foci, the inside, or the outside.  I will assume that one of the sources emits either a positive or negative energy, in that an individual is eventually (I mean, this doesn’t happen immediately — there is a certain amount of time involved, and that very well could be affected by it’s own parameters and equations!) pushed or pulled away from or toward one of these sources.

There is a counter-argument, see, that the energy is generated as a reaction to both foci.  Then, the crux of the argument is whether one side causes more or less of that energy than the other.  It could be a balance, or it could be a counterbalance.  It could be more meaning less, or less meaning more.

Either way, it is possible that this equation means something more than the intrinsic power of each of the foci, as there could be an intangible — the mind, values, predilections, or inertia of the individual that resides on said bank.  If there is a reason for being there, as in a predisposed path, and that pathway is still leading somewhere, as in a journey unfulfilled, it’s entirely possible that the individual MAY find some way (again, how this happens is due to a complex set of chemical processes that I can not begin to delve into) to override any external energy and choose a path that is exactly the opposite to what has been determined by those or he/she who is making the decisions!  But I can’t stress how difficult it is to tell these things, especially when I am not privy to all the information that is to be divulged, perhaps because — and I do mean perhaps, and quite also mean because — there was never any information to divulge to begin with (I mean, at least no information WORTH divulging).

And this knowledge, then, is a key to the greater (perhaps greatest) equation.  If I were to say it wasn’t, I would be lying, see.

Addendum : A Cup Somewhat Full

After a certain amount of walking, your body doesn’t recognize what is walking and what is sitting anymore.  What I mean is, evidently I rose at some point and began walking again.  So here I am, pushing branches away from my face, moving forward, going forward.

The last branch I push opens up a clearing.  I slip a bit, and I detect a citrus smell, but that quickly dissipates.  I rub my hands together to remove whatever substance is on my hands from pushing leaves and bark to the side, I stick them in my pockets I take them out.

Straight ahead, a pool of water.  The pool has a reflection in the middle, on top of the water, not beneath it.  I can’t tell what is creating the reflection  — there is light in the sky, but the sun, I can’t see it.  Just light, although dim, as though the sun is setting or rising.  The wailing noise is in the distance, somewhere.  It could be a small engine running.  It could be a swarm of bugs or birds expressing their displeasure, or their indifference.  I mean, my ear isn’t trained to discern these types of things.

At some point I end up on the bank (if you can call it a bank) of this pool.  There are trees on all side.  And there’s me.  I mean, I guess this is all that needs to be here, but for some reason, I’m not sure.

I look down at my watch again.  Still 5:30.  No movement.  Must’ve stopped. It’s hard to tell how tired I should be.  Many times I gauge my exhaustion by the time on the clock.  I mean, numbers and arms and ticking noises shouldn’t cause me less or more tiredness. In this case, it won’t have an effect anyway.  Only the silence. The silence makes me drowsy, and gradually, it lulls me.

My right eye sees a shape underneath the water.  It could be a jar.  The tattered label on the jar could read XXX.

As I go out, I really hope to myself that I haven’t made a mess of things this time.  I really do.

Chapter C, as in Climbing Laterally

I know now — as there are a few things that I do know, even now — that I am at a point of neediness. There are things that I have (not much, see), and they won’t get me by, so I’ll first go looking for a source of water.

I look down at my watch. It says 5:30. I don’t know if it’s AM or PM, because the watch is the old kind, with just those arms. No digital. I haven’t look at it in a while, so I’m not sure if it has changed. I look up and still see a bit of light, but I can’t tell where it’s coming from . So I close my eyes hard, reopen them to focus, and head to the west. At least I think it’s west.

There isn’t much of a path laid for me. I mean, I’m not expecting the red carpet treatment, but cows and deer and other small animals and bugs are in these parts — I mean, I can just tell these things — and they have to go from here to there. From there to there. Here and back. I’m just going there. But I’m not sure how long that will take me. One foot at a time, as they say.

I move straight ahead regardless of the facts: a), I can’t see well, and b), I’m not really dressed for this sort of thing (the shoes, really, or lack thereof, of good ones). I’m moving forward and pushing branches and sometimes leaves and other times bigger branches away from my face, arms. I hop over some things, mostly logs. I slip a few times. I’m concerned about my traction.

After a certain point, when I really start to focus in, all I can really see is bark. You know, the bark on the trees. It’s everywhere. I thought there were a lot of leaves, but not anymore. Bark. In some cases the guts of the tree where the bark was chewed off, scratched off, struck by lightning. Whatever.

But I’m still moving forward. It seems to get lighter, where I’m headed, and darker at the same time. And I thought once I moved away from the wind I’d be able to determine where that sound was coming from. I’ve already walked for a while. A few minutes, a few hours. Could be a combination of the two. Or neither. I’m really not very good at these things these days.

At some point (see, I’m already starting to lose track), I sit down on a mound of mud and sticks on top of an uprooted tree. I sit down because I think the mound is dry. Upon sitting, I realize I am wrong. But I’ve been through this before, when I got myself into this situation by waking up some minutes ago. Soaked through the layers. I sat down because I was tired, and I’m sitting down because I am tired.