So I'm highjacking my own blog. Not to say mean things about your life, though. I just finished reading this book by Douglas Coupland. Good stuff. It's gets the wheels spinnin'. At one point, five people who are part of a scientific research are forced to invent stories on the spot. Meanwhile, they're being fed cells of each other's brains (in these jell-o shot sorta things) in order to create a hive mind. Good read.
Well, it inspired me to write my own made up story on the spot. And here it is.
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Something lingers in my mind like a big-bellied spider hanging from a slimy thread.
I swat at the spider. It curls, and it uncurls its bony, spiny legs. I am upset.
Something shifts. It was not my wish.
I am plagued by thoughts of impending doom.
I re-evaluate my need for medication. The vodka, the cigarettes, the pot and the caffeine cannot fix me.
I gauge my happiness. I focus quickly on the last time I felt extremely happy. I was alone. I was happy alone. I no longer have any use for you.
Summer has ended. I know this because the moon was crisp tonight. I was chilly in shorts and it was barely ten o’clock. That’s when things became problematic. I did not feel the same. It was nine o’clock, and then it was ten o’clock. The two did not touch.
A door opened, and I shuffled inside.
I darted through a cardboard tube into a maze. I had always been part of this experiment. It usually happened the same way.
We each have our own maze. Chances are, yours will always be the same. Made up mostly of right angles, the occasional curve.
But I am different. I am from Lot 17. Because as I race through the maze that occupies my physical
being, I am also struggling with a much more complicated puzzle, the maze in my mind. Through it,
I stumble in the dark, my intuition a mouse barely using its whiskers as they brush up hastily against the walls of my human self’s brain.
I stumble in the dark, my intuition a mouse barely using its whiskers as they brush up hastily against the walls of my human self’s brain.
Unlike the maze I currently scurry through, frantically, the mind maze features not one piece of cheese.
I’ve never made it through the maze in my head. I get close, sometimes I’m right there. And then, like a snow globe the maze in my mind shakes up and then Etch-A Sketches its way into a brand new one.
On these days, I do not fare well.
On these days, I can barely focus on work.
Then I remember being alone.
Right now the maze is crowded with rats. It is hot in the maze and I cannot breathe. I am repulsed by my own kind. I run into the maze walls, searching for the end to the heat.
I long for winter. It was what I needed. I focused so well.
I begin to remember the coldest day last year. The foggy breath that escaped my mouth, feverishly like the steam from the tea kettle when I walked in the door.
And suddenly, I am out of the maze.
I am in my room. My pupils retract violently and I’m only left with a cool ocean stare.
Autumn arrives.
I shed my skin of summer and leave the rats behind, their tails springing off the walls of the maze as they scurry blindly, pausing only for cigarette breaks.
I am back on two feet. I am out of the maze, standing above it. The sight disgusts me. I reach a naked hand into the maze, focused to the upper left corner.
I grab the fattest, most repulsive rat and watch its browned, exposed teeth. I squeeze the rodent with vigor and watch its eyes bulge only moments before biting off its head.
I could go for a cup of tea.
