Awakening : The Last of It

The end of my day, as is typical, is a moment of reflection, panic, and forces me to question my very being. I mean, I know my days are busy, and I fill my time, but I’m not exactly sure how.

One of my docs told me, when I described to him this run of emotions I felt at the end of the day, that I spend more time during the day evaluating my life in 15-minute increments. So today, as I spend my last waking minutes reflecting on doc visits lost (really, never an entire lost — I always end up getting what I want), I wanted to divide my day up into 15-minute increments, starting at square one:

12:15p = woke up
12:15-12:30 = lit my first cigarette, thought about my sheet life
12:30-12:45 = lit my second cigarette, continued
12:45-1p = went into the kitchen, looked for food, found nothing (worthwhile)
1:00-1:15 = went back into my room, lit my third cigarette
1:15-1:30 = thought about going outside, started getting dressed
1:30-1:45 = put my last layer on, decided I didn’t want to go outside, removed top layers
1:45-2p = lit my fourth cigarette
2:00-2:15 = started a book, put it down after a page
2:15-4:45 = started my daily ritual, blacked out, awoke on the floor
4:45-5p = lit my fifth cigarette
5:00-6:45 = nothing of importance
6:45-8:15 = roomies come home, sit quietly in the dark to not draw their attention
8:15-9:15p = searched through a list of doctor’s to seek out next
9:15-1:30a = I don’t remember

Done. I figure if I do this every day, and log it, at some point in my life I can look back and see a pattern of wrongness, as to why I’m having problems justifying my existence, see. Right now I see no warning signs — just the behavior typical of someone like me, someone intelligent enough to realize the sheet world out there, Miami, and those fashionistas that force me to bury myself within my quarters in order to avoid.

Or I might just sense that all I ever wanted was to be left alone. I mean, when a person positions him or herself to be a certain way, and I only wanted to spend my days just spending my days, then that person can be comfortable with his/her moral fibre, his/her destiny, his/her fluctuating demeanor over the long haul, see.

I’m usually going going until I completely run out of steam — I have no “set hours” of operation. But as I lie down I’m hit immediately: what made today any different than any other day. And I have no answer.

See, I’ve rationalized to myself, over the course of the day, every day, that tangible results mean nothing in this world. Then, I do not strive to produce said results. It is possible for one to exist and exist only in terms of fulfilling one’s destiny as a particular personality, yet leave behind no trail of existence that can be scrutinized, or even that anyone else can learn from. I really think that, that many put too much weight on turning the human existence into some kind of showcase, even if just to be a footnote in the record books.

But not me, see. I’m not going out like that. I mean, that’s what THEY want you to do.

Me, I’ve never had expectations placed on me. And if I have, I’ve blown them off accordingly. Things such as these are not worth my time. I can see how a lesser personality would benefit from these types of things, from having those around them tell them that they should be this or that or something entirely different from who they really are.

Really, I will not fall for that, here or elsewhere. My personality, here in the moment, is what I am for tonight, last night, and many nights to follow, until I succumb to whatever it is that will take me. This is very clear in my head, see.

These are the types of things I think about. And then I close my eyes and spend time looking at the shapes inside my eyelids, the constellations that shapeshift as I squeeze my eyelids tighter and tighter. This amuses me, and drives my interest, and it won’t easily bring the end of my day:

1:30-2:30a = see the lights in my eyes

Tomorrow could very well be much different than today, but it won’t be. It wasn’t meant to be. It was meant to be a vehicle for my personality, as was today and yesterday and the days before and the days to come. I may smoke more or less during the course of the day, I may entertain ideas that I wasn’t keen on entertaining today, I may says things that I never would have considered today, and herein lies the beauty of my situation, the consistency, see.

Really, that’s what drives me every day. Because I know my personality will cause me to behave in a way that represents how I want to be represented. And each day will have the same results at the end of the day, with me contemplating my existence in the same way and me thinking less of my roommates in the same way and me squinting my eyes together in the same way. Consistency makes the days go by more smoothly, and in the end that’s what I want. Really, that IS what I want.

2:30-2:45 = realize what I want
2:45-3a = realize what I want is what I wanted the night before

Tomorrow, then, is a day, but it is not THE day. I will not have it that way.

Awakening : Saturday

It’s a cleaner smell, on the weekend, mainly because I don’t feel the obligation that I do during the week. I mean, no one really puts the obligation on me, but I feel it. I prefer the cleanliness.

I’m still in my space. Things don’t change. I wake up to the sound of things happening outside my door, and by and large I ignore them. I mean, everyone has to have his or her own lives. It’s part of the equation.

I get up and turn over on my side. Even though I have the feeling of something, something being different, I have to think why today is any different than any other day. I mean, looking at it now, I can’t remember what or why or when.

I already hear voices outside my door. That’s fine. My roommates, they have their own lives. The more I hear them the more I want to turn to the window, look out. I can see the heat almost; I look down on the plants below and they look (if I could hear them, yes, it would be different) like they are crying for help in the morning sun. They don’t have a good grasp of the heat, and where they need to be when the sheet goes down. It’s a problem, I know, and they know, and I’m glad I’m not them.

I lean to the left, still on my bed, and pull my ashtray up on the mattress. I scrounge around for matches next to my one canvas shoe lying next to my bed, and I find four left in the book. The first one never lights, but the second one always does. It doesn’t take many puffs before smoke gets in my eyes, I turn my head to the left and exhale.

At least I’m using an ashtray. Other days, I may not have.

What I like about the ashtray: it collects my ashes.  But it also collects my ideas as I smoke; my thoughts coalesce as the cigarette sits in the ashtray, smoke rising up into the rays of sun that come through the window (I always thought it was the sun, but really it’s the dust, the sunlight illuminating the particles) and above, and I look straight down to the point where the cigarette burns and the smoke begins to furl up from it.  This is the heart of the idea, when I focus in on some problem that has long eluded me, and I hope it eludes me no more.  And–

then there’s a beating on the door.  I’m up, now, extinguishing my cigarette, as any sense of urgency would.  I call to the door, and no one answers.  I call again.  I smash the butt of my cigarette as far as it can go into the glass of the ashtray, all the while holding my gaze toward the door.  There is a shape on the other side I can see through the thick glass pane; I can’t tell the exact shape, but I know it is someone– and the knocking begins again.  I call for it, and again no answer.

I jump up and walk toward the door, reaching for the knob, turning– I see nothing.  Nothing on the other side.  Whoever made the noise must have left.  I stick my head out further and look left, right, nothing.  I close the door, slowly.  Still waiting.  Nothing.  I’m turning and going back to my bed, lying down.  As I grab another cigarette out of the soft pack, I’m lighting in with one of the last two matches, my eyes fixed toward the door, awaiting something, although I don’t think anyone is waiting for me.  I really don’t.

Awakening : Friday

I think, for one, I’ve had an awakening today. I realized I don’t need to interact with anyone to survive.

See, I’m in it in the worst way. I have this anxiety that causes me pain on a daily basis. This morning I heard the chirping again of my roommates and I couldn’t deal with it. I still, mind you, had to wait until they left to get anywhere. Donning my mask, I stuck my head right in the crack that I created when I opened my door, right after I heard the front door close. Safety. I waited a couple more minutes with my masked head hanging out the door, ready to retract and jump back into the fold, before making my way, quiet-like, out that door.

No one notices me when I have my mask on, which should surprise me — I mean, a masked man! In public spaces! — but wouldn’t nerve me today anyway. See, I’m on a mission, again. Luckily my roommates didn’t find my stash — I mean, what was I thinking leaving it in the medicine cabinet, in the kitchen? But I was smart enough to wait it out, just after my roommates went to sleep each night, tucked tight with dreams of candies and merry-go-rounds and whatever other shite they think about on a daily basis, before creeping into the kitchen, opening the cupboard without making a sound, slipping that plastic bottle out from underneath the rest, extracting my daily ration and oh so carefully placing the bottle back where I pulled it from — I can’t disturb even a particle of dust in these parts, always guarded and patrolled in the mornings, over lunch, and after work until the sleepytime evenings when I can again make my journey. Day after day — or should I say, night after night — of getting my daily need has reduced my ration to a conspicuous amount (if I take even ONE more, they’ll notice, they will), so they’ve FORCED me into public, into interacting with that outside world, south Florida, what I loathe so much.

And in order to play the outside game, as I drop my trailing foot from the last step to the pavement, I need to be “in cognito”, to keep my important parts covered — all of them, see. The sun has fully taken over the sky, and I’m still covered, the heat, and my layers — have to manage my layers — but my mask, it must stay, it cannot leave. The last layer is the key to my successful journey, and will allow me to complete it with maximum efficiency.

It’s not a long trip, not more than a couple minutes, from the time I exit my safe suburban haven to the time I hit my secret location, into the illicit apartment, to get my fix. I don’t particularly enjoy the company of “these people”– of course I am not one of them! — and the transaction is always fast, and they never question me (more than the snide comment here and there) about the mask — I mean, the know my situation, and that I have something to hide (my integrity along with my identity). But we’ve been doing it like this for as long as I care to tell, as long as I can remember now, really, and it will continue unabated while my roommates continue to hold me like this, PRACTICALLY against my will! (I mean, I know I’m strong enough to leave them if I want, but why bite the hand who feeds you?)

I’m not into those “party drugs”: the X, the nose candy, the needle-loaded weak-ass stuff that is about as much of a party as a caffeine high, the stuff every tight-ass sub-28-year-old boy and girl blows week in and out, sucking away their parents’ trust fund by the sniffle or spike or whatever they call it.  My stuff transcends beyond that; it’s what the big kids use, and it will continue to do me just fine until I find something better to do with my time.

The return trip seems to take twice as long as the trip over — the anticipation, you see, and a lot of it by yours truly.  If I didn’t get hyped up for this moment, who would, and I know the journey will end eventually, but not before I weasel my way back in, careful not to leave a set of tracks, shutting the door quietly even though I know there’s know chance anyone will hear me, and slipping right back in the door I left what now seems to be just seconds before (strange how time warps when you haven’t even had any fun yet).

Soon the mask can come off, but I like to fully complete my journey first, so I head back out to the kitchen, slip back into that illicit cupboard and rearrange things carefully the way I do to allow the bottle a clean exit, where I load one, just one, of my special narcotics back in the very space in that bottle that last night’s bit occupied the night before.  So later tonight, when I need to get my fix when the roommates are on the next snooze cruiser to sleepytime island, I can resume my routine of one in, one out, just like nothing ever happened.

So why do I do it this way, you ask?  Why don’t I just horde my ill-gotten gains in my personal sanctuary and never bother to come out to play this game?  See, that’s the secret I can’t give away.  Just yet.

In due time, in due time.

But first, I’ll have my fix in peace.  I enjoy it that way.  I really do.