Shotgun
The conscious act of rowingHey… this looks like my ashtray. It’s mine so I’ll take it. I never liked the color blue. But then again this is a dream… maybe I’ll go with a different color. I take burgundy. I throw my burgundy ashtray into my backpack and hear it smash against the floor. So what? It’s mine… I’ll do with it whatever I want.
SulfurGod, I’m thirsty. It’s the third time in the past five hours that I’ve woken up, sweating in a 20ºC air conditioned room. I’m thirsty… like I was running a marathon… with no competition yet somehow it feels like I’m a distant second place to someone… Or something… This… would be bottle number five. Those nightmares are new… my sleep has always been dreamless. My bed never had anything to share. It was just me and my stressed out muscles resting… and my empty brain clearing out my days. That has always been the case. Something’s different. I’m scared. Prior to last week and for a good two months, I’ve been sleeping a lot. Nine hours every day would be a record for someone like me who’s gotten through half his life getting five hours of sleep a day at best. Maybe it has to do with me cutting down on ciggies; but then again, am I? All I did was downgrade to a lower level, same brand… less tar and dirt being shoveled down my lungs. It feels like something’s frying in my head. My brain’s too warm it’s on the verge of melting. For the past 20 something years my head has always been my friendly calendar. Everything I need to do would always be stashed in it, prioritized… Lately, I’ve been forgetting everything; names, faces, incidents, words, words, and words. Feels odd forgetting names of people I’ve known for a year. Something’s different. You know when you wake up out of a dream and a few minutes later you seem to remember bits and pieces of it with a hazy shade surrounding that memory? To me, that was how I could separate what’s real from what’s not, what’s actually happened and what’s a figment of my imagination. Lately, that hazy shade surrounds everything that makes way into my head. I walk around with a little notebook in my pocket so I can take notes of things; but by the time I pull the notebook out… I would forget what I wanted to right. It’s gone… just… like… that. It’s like… nothing is important enough to be remembered anymore. I gotta say though… it feels kinda funny when everyone you know are looking up to you to guide them, to lead them, to save them… when all you’re doing is searching for that hole in your brain to block… to catch the things that are dropping out… Things you may wanna hold on to for a very, very rainy day… And it’s raining now. It’s raining little drops of things that matter. I’ve always been my own shrink. I sit down and talk it out, analyze, and recuperate… maybe that’s why I’ve managed to survive that long without giving in. But then again maybe that’s why I have so many unresolved issues that would years of studies to look at and discuss. Assuming that all of the above was due to being stressed out, no matter how deeply I think and how many patterns I can interpret… nothing could explain the burns I felt on my hand a couple of weeks ago; an invisible fire that left me with burnt hair on the skin on my hand; brownish broken burnt hair. I presumed that it was possibly me day dreaming it… but that was only the first time. The second time it happened a couple of days later is when I got worried. It’s like accidentally burning your eye lashes while lighting up a cigarette. Now… the question is, what should I relate this too? Sulfur residues on my skin from a non-existent dig site? The newly adopted nightmares, the continuous thirst, the sudden lack of sleep… I can relate all of those to stress… or something. But spontaneous combustion… now that’s new. Something’s terribly off and… I’m scared. Now… the burns have stopped. At least the ones on my skin, but I still cannot sleep. My nightmares are still taunting me to give in and realize them. I’ve been chased down very dark and wet alleys by big raving dogs; too big to be real but big enough to wake the hell out of me to a scared man trying really hard to catch his breath. There’s blood on the floor tiles. I’m not sure if it’s mine or not. And there is always that dark figure of a man in my dreams whom I choose not to acknowledge. Many days I can’t breathe… I sound different and most of the time, I can’t even manage full meaningful sentences. Nicotine withdrawal syndromes ya think? I think not. It’s like the floor fell from underneath me… and I bet that little bump on the back of my neck ain’t helping. I miss… my empty, dreamless, and meaningless sleeps. They gave me comfort that nothing would ever happen to me when I’m unconscious. My eyes are always wide open now and my brain attempts to seek the short lived patterns, take notes, attempt to remember… even if it leads to me wondering if those hazy pulses of very real things may have happened in my sleep. Good night.
