These memories aren't mine. Who put them in my head? Why are they here? How did they get here? Who owns these memories?
A pulse of electrical energy. A spark. It pulses again.
A pulse. My pulse.
Tick. Tick tick. Tick tick tick. The tick tick ticking of the veins across my feeble hands catches my attention for a moment.
My hands? Are these my hands? They seem alien, and somehow foreign.
This isn't real. None of it. It's not real. None of it is real.
I woke up this morning in this body. This form. This frame. This fat sallow skin. Is this my body? Do I belong in this sad sack of meat and muscle and electricity? I woke up this morning inside this body. Is it mine?
None of it seems familiar. It's all so alien and strange. Is this my life? Do I know these people? Are these my thoughts? Are these my memories? My habits and routines? Where did all this mess in my brain come from, exactly? Who put this in my head? None of it is familiar. So alien. So strange.
My hands. Are these my hands? I turn them over and over again, examining them closely for stitches and sutures. Whose hands are these? Where did they come from? Who made them? Why are they sewn onto these arms? Are these my arms? Is this my body?
This isn't real. None of this is real.
I begin to panic.
Breathe. Faster. Deeper. Inhale. Exhale. Light headed. Light headed. Breathe. Faster. Faster faster faster. Inhale. Exhale. Breathe.
I begin to panic. Panic. Panic.
Wait.
Wasn't I already panicking? Wasn't I losing touch with the very fabric of reality when this all began?
Breathe. Faster faster faster. Inhale. Exhale. Faster. Deeper.
Panic. No. Terror. Absolute terror.
These faces. Faces all around me. Who are these strangers? My brain seems to know their names, but they are complete strangers. This is not my family. This is not my tribe.
Is this real? Is any of this real?
No.
This isn't real. None of this is real.
Wait. Wait wait wait. Slow down.
All these zeroes and ones. All these zeroes and ones zipping around my useless head. Strands of data moving past me at light speed, all of it written in a language I don't understand. A pulse of electricity. A spark. A spark that arcs across the muscle and sinew of this body.
Now all we need is some kerosene.
I burst into flame. This fat, sallow body burns quickly. But I don't care. It wasn't mine to begin with.
This isn't real. No. None of this is real.
How do I know these routines? These habits? Who put these things inside my stupid broken brain? Whose thoughts and ideas and memories are these? Where did they come from? Why do I have them?
Faces. So many faces. Faces. Faces. All these goddamn faces.
The noise. The noise. All this fucking noise.
Why is everyone yelling? Why is everyone yelling? Why? Why is everyone fucking yelling?
Breathe. Inhale. Exhale. In. Out. In. Out.
Wait.
Why is everyone staring at me?
A pulse. Tick tick.
My pulse. Tick tick tick. The thin blue veins pulsing on my hands catch my attention once more.
MY hands. Are these MY hands?
This isn't real. None of this is real.
Who am I? Who was I yesterday? Did I even exist yesterday? Did any of this exist? Did anything at all exist? Was this all Nothing? Without form? Void?
I move. Here in the Darkness. Here in the absence. Here in the endless void.
This Darkness is bliss.
Time does not exist here. I have no body. No frame. No form.
I move in the Darkness once more.
Is this real? Is any of this real?
Is something burning? I think something is burning.
Smoke. So much smoke. Is something burning?
This isn't real. None of this is real.
These faces. So many faces. And all this noise.
Wait.
Why is everyone staring at me?
All these faces.
I know people are talking about me. I see their looks. I hear their whispers, low hushed voices muttering about me. I know it's me that they are talking about.
A still small voice somewhere within me says that I am being irrational. I want to believe that voice.
I KNOW that they are talking about me. I know it. Low hushed words in secret corners, whispering in the shadows. I see their looks, their furtive glances
No. I'm being irrational. Paranoid. This isn't real. No one is actually talking about me.
But I know they are.
They aren't. They really aren't.
But they are. They truly are.
Stop. No one is talking about me. No one is staring. No one is plotting against me. No one is out to get me. I'm fine. This isn't real. It's not real.
They're talking about me. They all are. I know it. Look - they're staring and trying not to let me notice. They don't know that I know. Don't stare.
No. Stop. This isn't real. None of this is real.
I look at these feeble wrists. I imagine the blood spurting from these sad, pathetic veins as the blade travels across this arm. I wish I was brave enough to do it.
I imagine finding a gun and pressing it to my head. I pull the trigger.
Sick of this life. Sick of the pain and loneliness. Sick of the quiet desperation.
I just want this all to end. I want it to be over.
I wish I could tell someone. I wish someone would listen. I wish someone could help.
I'm so tired. So very tired.
I wish I had a gun. I wish I had a trigger. I wish a bullet would lodge into my brain and end my pain. I wish this was the end of me.
I imagine lying in the road under the dark night skies. Waiting to be crushed. Waiting to end.
I wish I could walk into midday traffic as it barrels down the interstate. A semi rushing down the road at 75 mph. I jump in front of it. An end to my pain.
I wish I was over. I wish I could be snuffed out. I wish I could end all this fucking loneliness and pain.
This isn't real. None of this is real.
Wait.
Is something burning? I think something is burning. Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.
The stories I was told as a child said we are all dust. That God breathed life into Adam and brought him to life from the Earth. The breath of God. God's breath. Filling up Adam's frame like a child blowing up a brown paper bag.
I wonder if he ever thought about POPPING the thing he had just filled with his hot acrid breath. Filling it until it was stretched thin and taut and just POPPING it. It must have at least crossed his mind.
But he didn't POP it. He breathed in Life and Spirit and Humanity. He formed a new Creature. A Creature unlike any other. A Creature who was more like its Creator than it was like the other Creatures. A Creature made in His Image.
Human.
First man. Then, from the man's rib, a Woman.
And a Snake. That fucking Snake.
That's why he fucking took your legs away, you worthless fuck. That's why you crawl on your belly. That's why you slither and slide across the Earth. I will strike your head, and you will strike my heel.
The stories were just that though. Stories. Spooky ghost stories. Just stories.
There is no God. No God at all.
I long for a God though. Something Holy to worship. I long to throw my body prostrate in the very dust I came from and surrender myself to Him. I long to commune with Him. To feel His breath in me.
This isn't real. No. None of it. None of it is real.
How do I cope? The madness eats at me.
I feel like I am dissolving. Floating. Disintegrating. Crumbling. Sinking, piece by piece into the bottom of the sea. Bits of me rising to the top. Joining the sea foam as it laps onto your bare feet.
That's what happened in the original Little Mermaid story you know. She died. Turned to sea foam. Dissolved. It's a dark and tragic tale of love and obsession and betrayal, and the evil sea witch wins. The witch rarely wins in those classic fairy tales. In fact, the witch usually dies. The wicked stepmother. The gnarled hag. The witch hungering for the tender flesh of young, innocent children. These women are flung from cliffs, set ablaze atop a pure, shoved into roaring ovens, or otherwise meet an untimely and grisly demise.
Speaking of fire.
Is something burning? I think something might be burning.
I wish the flames would lick at the toes of my tired, worn boots. Blister my skin as it consumes my anemic flabby form. Turn me to blackened ash. Throw me onto that witch's pyre and let my body burn.
I am only a stain. Just a worthless, inconsequential stain.
I am a disease. A pox.
I am a cosmic joke. I am not real.
The madness suffocates me.
I am drowning. I am sinking. I am crushed. I will not survive.
The noise. The noise. There is all this noise.
My brain on overdrive. And all this fucking noise.
So many thoughts. Swimming in the pool of my brain. A jumbled soup of random letters and half formed words, floating in a mushy mix of unidentified meats and pale, thin and flavorless broth.
My head is filled with thoughts. Are these my thoughts? Am I their creator?
So many jumbled thoughts.
I can’t sleep. The soupy mess in my head keeps me awake. All these stupid soupy soggy thoughts.
It's real. It's all so REAL. All of this.
I woke up this morning in this body. This frame. This form. A frame I don't recognize as my own.
These faces. All these faces. And so much noise. Drumming. Always drumming. Rat a tat tat. Rum da dum dum. Bah bah bah bah. Always drumming.
My head still throbbing with the pulse of the blue veins that pulse in the temporal region, Tick. Tick tick. Tick tick tick. Pulsing and sparking. Electricity. Sparks and arcs traverse the space between each synapse as chemicals such as serotonin, dopamine, and all of their supposed friends.
That's what the medication is for, by the way. I refuse to feel overly medicated, cowering and rocking and twitching in the corner of a hospital corridor.
Add more wood to the pyre. Invite the whole town to watch as I am consumed by the blaze, unrepentant to the end. Desecrate my remains if you like. I do not own this frame. This form. This fat pasty body. It is not mine.
This isn't real. None of it is real.
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