While my head was bouncing around between postnatal, postpartum, post-pre necrosis and any other confusing stage describing my body… I chose to focus on the little things for a start.
Gotta liven up that old testament, flip that will, make it my will to live instead. Turn that frown of thorns upside down, you handsome, glorified bed bug. Tell ‘em how strong I am going.
‘Twas not like I could run away from my problems being bound to a bed, with my legs feeling supportive of anything but weight.
Enjoy the boring, wooden ceiling for a bit. Stare at the forgettable faces of people that came and went like the day and night cycle. Look at the old clothing, resembling rags, patches spread all over them.
Marvel at the stale air or all the green things that turned my head into a bongo. There was something here to passively watch for everyone. There was a wooden chair that looked as chairy as ever. Four legs, accompanied by a flavour of dark oak, just begging to be visually assaulted by bored eyes.
Busy with trauma? Nah, be busy with busybodies.
Just have faith!
Have the priests do the whole 1-2-3, if one’s too free, huh? Tickled be my nose by the lovely smell of mint and other herby flavours, the usual suspect to deliver the land of blessed ignorance.
Now it was the sweet melody and soft whispers of green grass, feeding the little check-up on this awfully lively, dead body of mine.
My secret? I rock that secret skincare routine called autopsy report, a hint of formaldehyde gone wrong on top. Gives those dead spots that extra appeal: a touch of canned sardine.
Praise Be! Praise Be!
We are not sleeping with the fishes just yet!
A high five to the five senses: The tongue tasted foul things, even without food. The nose smelled funny, on it too. The eyes appeared short-sighted, seeing my future. Touch was at the tip of my fingers and grunting old people were my new heard.
There were no pain meds for this kind of sensual deprivation nostalgia, though I might be begging for some.
Ask and ye shall receive.
Ye, shall get a whole lotta nothing, but a world full of that. The age of man, everyone!
A question for the ages: why did humanity cope with drugs and alcoholism? Obvious the answer, the insight of the outside was to blame. The thinking were at fault.
Alas, thoughts like these were a relic of the past. Their influence today─nothing more than a false positive in name.
Minus Negative Nancy here, my ex-girlfriend, who was going to another school and lived on a farm for the rest of her days. She was the goldfish that enjoyed the great ocean in the sky, down below in the sewer system, after having been flushed down the toilet.
She had been replaced by her deadbeat brother, half-full Horatio, who tried many things, but somehow never found a place to stay or a way to work. Time would tell if the brother finally got long-term employment or if Negative Nancy was resurrected from the dead.
The optimist said, “have a heart” and I had one. It was likely red and beating in my chest. Someday, I shall stand on my own two feet too, standing toe to toe with the ones I was currently wiggling.
The glass half-full enthusiast advised to breathe in and breathe out, take it steady. It worked like a charm using these lungs of mine. The dynamic duo of airing out all the stale problems and airing in a quick breath of fresh air.
Was that not some food for thought? A dry topic for a drier drowning? A malignant spread for my daily bread. Aloof loaf, rechristened from his body…into a heavenly taste─the down-to-earth kind, the revolting, sent to hell kind.
Bread crumbs, down they go, burning twice.
They said the devil lay in detail, so the dreamer must lay in piss. The golden hope lived rent-free in the bladder─gone with just an expression.
Follow the bread!
The colon separated, black and white like in the 50’s, like it had a point or a point and a comma. My small intestines too were living large, while the liver was also doing a very good job. Liver filtered out the toxins, cutting out the toxic friends.
…’round ’ere we kept it simple. Brain produced its own homebrewed toxicity…none of that external, fancy stuff.
Out with the old, in with the new.
In light of recent rebranding efforts, a fresh label was needed. Less of the 19th century drugstore coke, more like diet zero coke of today. No sugar for the hyperactive brain, just zero purpose to this existence of mine. That should be proof enough─things have changed!
One did not need segregation, nor a rotting body, to tell that the former superficial thinking was bad.
Just look no further than this room. Ignore that you could not do so anyhow, but what does this room superficially have to offer? It was uninspired, sure…the ceiling was ebon, the furniture sparse and the bed looked like the bacteria in it had more action than the guy living on it.
The visual highlight of this interior masterpiece was a hole in the ceiling that still had not been fixed. As far as the eyes could see…wood…and if ya turned the head around…brown wood.
It was a room, and a room did not have to be more than that.
The issues were the meat on the inside, those inner values. From the coke full of coke to the whole lot of organs doing their job─ as a whole, a lot could go and likely had gone wrong. This train of thought quickly derailed my interest in checking every inch of my body.
That thing was on track to be decommissioned irrespectively. A total failure, lesser quality parts had long voided the warranty of anything, but a trainwreck.
The greater-than-sum line of argument did not apply, nor did it hide that life was a trolley problem in the making.
Switch it around however you may: You stand before the lever deciding the direction of the journey and it will be you, who is tied to the train tracks by the end of it.
Just like the bucket sitting in the corner of the room, we all are tied to our singular purpose, in the end, it’s all just a waste.
It often crossed my thoughts.
What are the odds that I was bound to what I can only assume to be a wooden cross? Shocked, I am absolutely befuddled. My ascending carpenter rearing would certainly not do exceptionally well in my curriculum non vitae.
Unlike him, I would not arise after 3 days, I was kind of nailed to a bed. My holistic trinity: Nietzsche’s god, the high-proof spirit, and the name I definitely took in vain just now.
My brain relapsed again.
Time and energy should have been spent on figuring out why this body was fixated in the first place. Otherworldly bondage gear imposed a variety of questions, certainly none of them being very bible-friendly in their nature.
It seemed improbable that any self-respecting scripture discussed placing growing children on a cross. Though, the odds are behind the beliefs…that may never truly cease to be an option.
Under the presumption of innocence, I take all of them to mean well. Their actions may appear misguided, but ultimately it must stem from goodwill.
Don’t attribute to evil what can be explained by incompetence.
Were bad intentions involved, the logical conclusion would suggest that the actors were certainly overpaid, even if they did so free of charge.
This veggie-induced nirvana can’t possibly be a harmful thing.
Would it lead me to be in harm’s way? Tie me to the tracks then, the train had long departed.
The damage had already been done.
The hole had been dug, my older self filled with dreams and aspirations laid there buried. No foul play without a witness, no crime without a body.
Thus, no one is to be blamed. There were no perpetrators here, merely victims─victims of empathy, victims of faulty knowledge, victims to powers beyond their imagination, victims of circumstance.
A balanced diet, totally not off the scales…
And me a byproduct of it all.
Old faces came to mind, the right Karen, Kevin…these fossils─their fake, fabricated smiles that irked me the wrong way. White teeth glistened my way as they talked to my parents, worry etched onto their faces.
They were not responsible, they were just trying to give me enough reason to think so.
But then, if no one is at fault…where are we to point our fingers? Whom are we to cast our judgement upon? Where are we to throw the proverbial stones to distract ourselves from the shards that remain of our glass house?
Dub it a cultural phenomenon or credit it to religious superstition. The reason for finding fault seemed like a default choice in this situation. Instead of ruminating about the intricacies of this entire thing I should just draw conclusions, drawing from inspiration.
One needed a lot of imagination to come up with potential terms and conditions of living in a stillborn body.
The ifs were iffy at best. What mattered was the future, the choices that could be drawn from it, not the choices that led to it.
It poses this big conundrum: is there a method to the chaos or is it just method-acting? Was one wrong to assume that there is logic behind, that there was methodology?
No answers for now, in the talk between me and I.
The absence of it screams into the void, demanding to be filled. For now, my thoughts still suffice.
I find myself thinking, as of late… The massages, they do go on more quickly than usual. Time, it goes on by.
I feel more, I see more, yet it just feels less.
One likes to assume that change has to be a big thing. That it is announced with fanfare and banners, and all other fancy shebangs in grand celebration.
But change was simple. Change was small.
A lesser frequency of massages marked the start. The intervals between lengthened. My daily thinking periods grew in length. I grew more aware, and I watched more. Saw more. Saw faces, saw and remembered those.
But, there was nothing to them. As familiarity grew, so sank their memorability─their faces did not linger in my mind.
Much like the room, it simply was there, not worth a notice, not worth any attention spent on its nuances.
Lost was the importance, lost was their value.
What mattered before did not when the desired became common. Days turned faster, though they were longer.
It continued, still. The soup, and other things added to it. Small stale bread, some vegetables, amongst other things. Daylight turned to night, equally worthless…blander than even the soup.
Little by little, it differed. It tasted terrible, but the idea of terrible became a commodity. Novelty was gone, continuing to fade. Into the back of my mind it wandered.
Little by little, I felt my body more. My back, it moved. My back, it straightened. My back, it wiggled. My back, it grew. My back had no cross on it. My back was free. I was free.
Without surprise, change from the outside affected the inside. The forms changed, the body changed, movement was easier, movements were harder. The body grew, muscles grew.
Everything felt different, but it felt the same as yesterday.
The human body began to change. Change was felt, the limbs tingling, the fingers moving. I felt everything, and everything in my body felt me.
Feedback was given, neurotransmitters delivered. I moved my body, the body followed my will. I moved it, the body followed my will again.
A thought, a will, a movement. A thought, a will, another one.
The results were great, the intentions behind, dubious at best.
Change, it was a miracle. Change, it was a perspective. Change, it was a necessary conclusion. Change did not change. Change was only changed.
I thought it to be special; it was not.
Minor advantages served major problems. Reality showed promise, if one turned a blind eye to it. Change was here… the problem at its core was left unchanged.
Every step forward amounted to nothing if we raced on the treadmill called time.
However, bleak was no fun, not my jam either. Positivity all around, my brain couldn’t believe either. But you are what you eat, so happy thoughts would be fed.
Tomorrow I shall wiggle my body more than I did today. I shall think Ten Times more positively about things, things that may bother me. YES. That I would do, I think, certainly.
I ought to marvel at the room, all its wood and all the furniture and be as thankful about them as I can be.
Good things happen to those who would wait!
The next thing to happen will totally change my life for the better, it will be a defining moment in my life, one that I will look back to in the years to come. You just have to believe.
My brain wanted to tell me how unlikely that would be, but I chose ignorance.
I was way more interested in the new development. Yes, there was more to this life than what I had experienced so far.
The gift of life it gave to me: a sister with a book.
The gift of life it gave to me evoked circumstantial evidence pointing at the funny anecdote that I could not read this language. Cue the laugh track because this one would not get any funnier, or so I've heard.
The book was old, rodents had bitten parts of it off. The cover merely showed letters, big ones, atop a brown leather paper. At least, not human skin, I hope. Who was thinner, the carrier or the book?
Hurray, two cheers to fortunate developments! Hurray! Hurray!! Clearly much fun awaited me on those pages that already were tainted by yellow eating at them.
I wanted to laugh.
Funny business for a funny new day. Happy, happy, happy, yes, I am happy, happy, happy. Gotta think positive, P-O-S-I-T-I-V-E. Positive, positive.
Soft footsteps echoed, the lord of soup approached!
My sister came, happy as ever, swinging around a book. Its aerodynamic qualities matched the cover. Prompted by the sister's antics, the carried object underwent a radical diet as bits of paper removed themselves…
That book looked third-hand-fancy; it even had pictures on the inside.
Not that it mattered, because my sister had planted her 4 letters onto the bed. Her big plan to tell me a story had failed! I neither spoke chicken scratch nor understood a single thing she cackled, what a surprise, everyone.
Mon ami, I could look at all those fancy pictures. They even had colour, and had people's faces on them. Wow! They had such advanced technology in this world. I am shocked! Totally rocked my bricks off, yeah.
Well, now let me take a closer look at the story told in pictures in a language I did not speak.
First of all, there was a sun, Oooohh~ creative storytelling. A sun, a story including a sun! It’s not like that had never been a thing. Riiiight? Riiiight? There is a sun in the story, and there are people there, people! With faces! How clever, how original! Wooww!
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
You will NOT believe it, there was a picture of a sun. Oooohhh, they also had grass, hold on to your seat, that was green! There was water! That was blue!! There were flowers and only in the next picture came a bunch of children.
Oh my GOD! They were playing lively, all smiling, all laughing, all acting like children would. COULD you believe that?! On green grass filled with flowers and a lake…full of water?!
So, they played, they played. And on the next page, one kid was gone! A dramatic twist, which would surely have no lasting consequences on the story aimed at 3-year-olds.
Who could that be? And why was that kid burning one page later? I mean, literally, that dude was burning brightly─ that kid was burning. Even viewed in context, it seems like a rather drastic development.
First, you have this beautiful scenery to introduce your main characters, and two pictures later, that kid’s burning.
Look, I’m not great with those kids’ night time stories either. I think most of them are just a waste of time due to their inane morals and lessons. But what exactly was the idea here? “Being born was your first mistake, kiddo. Now, suddenly combust like a good son?”
What were you trying to display in that type of story? What could that kid possibly have done to suddenly go up in flames and be a lesson to children? Oh noes, this random child showed up, doused itself in 5 litres of lighter fluid, and is suddenly playing with matches…such a tragedy, for the child to turn into a human bonfire!!!
Nobody could have predicted that.
Little children, don’t play with fire, or you’re going to turn into a human torch and die miserably. Don’t do that~
The slow narration of my sister, about the story and its morals, or whatever she was trying to say here, was not of much use either.
Look, I totally want to understand what you're trying to convey, but I still don’t speak the language. You should have noticed that by now. I know, I know, we both are special. Both of our intelligences, both of our IQs, are about as well developed as our sickly bodies.
Please, simply be aware that your dear listener has literal question marks escaping from his cranium! Call me the fabled Atlantis, because she can not seem to find it. Maybe if she were to squint, she could see the bright neon signs flashing atop of me.
To my confusion, story-time continued without a hitch. My question-filled eyes bounced off of her iron will and dull mind filled with the dense PB and juggle of otherworldly programming, clogging up her artificial arteries.
It was weird all around and before you could find the right words to describe how inane all of this was, the telltale hour had already passed on by.
My sister stood up and disappeared, book in tow, to the great beyond of this room. The stomach rumbled─time for the tradition of food insertion, named dinner time. Ongoing development, unnecessary to be vocalised.
Sleep came, morning arrived. I woke up, food came and it went on and on.
The next day came, a surprise I really could never have foreseen... And what do you know, my sister came again, a bright smile on her face. It was the same book.
Thinking there would be a difference, who would do that? There would be no difference. There would just be this meal, a soup that needed to be digested with the side dish consisting of staring at pictures for about an hour.
And guess what, the pictures didn’t change, colouration didn’t change, and I also did not magically become capable of comprehending a single thing they said, or what was happening.
It remained just a story about a boy, and a group, walking in a beautiful landscape, and one of them suddenly catching fire. That was all there was.
That’s what I thought at least. Though a lot more questions remained. Why the fire? Why did the sister seem so respectful and yet so apprehensive when telling the story? Something did not add up, I could tell. This was about as ordinary as every other event in this place.
My sister continued to passionately talk to me about the myriad meanings hidden behind this heart-wrenching piece of literary history. Her blond hair and malnourished figure smiled as she delivered as much content as her stomach held.
The young lass seemed hungry for more, as she fed me all sorts of things.
But my thoughts were not on her, her fate or why she was doing all of this. Her fair golden hair, her dirt-covered face and her body covered in rags were inconsequential. Her soup, her spoons, her thin legs and her frail arms…this poor man’s Cinderella was given the metaphorical boot.
My eyes were entirely fixated on the story that my eyes laid witness to one hour a day, every day.
My mind gradually gravitated to it, the unchanging rest proved not much of a hindrance.
The more I dwelled on the story, the more the days passed, the weirder everything seemed.
The expressions on their faces seemed jovial at first. But that impression was gone. As time flew by, I saw it, I saw that underlying worry.
It was nagging at me. This did not seem like this was all there was. Was I missing something or was it missing something?
Something was not told here, something seemed off... Children normally do not light up in flames and disappear into the water that swallowed his body whole. The story ended soon after…
A burning child turned into a burned, drowning child.
I might be overthinking. Yet, I could not accept that this was the ending. It was hard to accept the story in this state. The conclusion felt so forced, so unfinished.
This story kept me invested, to a degree that scared me. I could not formulate why that was the case.
It was not the language. It was not the pictures. It was just a feeling, gifted by the story. A part of me seemingly understood I had no idea what these pictures meant to me and I certainly missed their meaning.
Akin to some sort of resonance, I felt myself in these pictures.
Of course, I was neither fond of groups, nor had I been put up in flames in recent times, not that I know of at least. There was just something so oddly intriguing that kept me single-handedly focussed, hooked, trapped in this state of thinking more.
I needed to know what the story truly told.
My feelings were conflicted, the rational side of my brain tried to keep the focus on the bigger picture, yet my entire emotions were yearning for the ones drawn on the old, cheap, yellow-tinted one.
There is this strange sense of peace, of conformity, whenever my thoughts ponder about whatever these pictures entail; it is odd.
I had been expecting another story…weirdly that was the only story I got. To my brain this came to be my story. It was just my story. My one and only story.
My story, which did not stop when I closed my eyes.
Dun
Dun
Dun
First came the voice yelling things about me, the sentences repeated…each night they grew clearer and more emotional, distressed even.
It was a bit concerning, I will admit to that. Though nothing one can’t ignore, my brain had produced much stranger things. To name them was tempting the pink cranium devil to do worse.
Sorry Grandpa, you do not even rank in the top 10 here.
After those melodramatic words, after pouring his heart out…finally came the most valuable time of the day─my dreams
This was unlike anything else.
At first, it was just some flashes of colour, fuzzy details I could not make out. My mind did not think much about it.
Impassively, I witnessed it, moving on once next morning came.
To me, I had simply been staring into the darkness, my eyes not accustomed to the blur they faced. In the land of the sleeping, I did not feel awake, but embraced in details of wonderful design.
I could not tell how or why at first. Not the usual dread followed, its arrival was welcomed.
Every morning felt nicer instead.
At least, this is how everything appeared to me in hindsight, capturing the moments was an impossible feature.
In this space of my mind, I felt the warmth of the sun caressing my skin. I had not been outside in a long while, yet it appeared like I never stopped. Fresh air, a soft breeze tousling through my hair, calm was the sensation, so uneventful.
A detail a day, more the morrow brought. One by one a scene was set. One by one it took me in.
The sight did not function, it did not have to. This was supposed to be felt. To feel the touch of prickling green grass beneath the soles of your feet. To hear the soft chirping of birds soaring through the air, to taste the salt in the air carried by the sea’s wind.
One ought to experience that.
Not a night’s worth of development, but proof of my time spent in this new world. My dreaming hours… These impressions came together with time, building up one by one, capturing all tender, small, little things.
It felt right, I felt at home.
Yet, still the nights went on and so did the dream.
Blurry visuals, slowly taking form. Flecks of colour danced around. The periphery sharpened, but lessened again. Beneath the lines, I started to see glimpses into the paradise that lay in the back of my mind.
It appeared closer, I felt everything more intently, more extensively. The senses, the emotions, the sense of self…all was clear from this point onward.
Amidst the unclear scenery, a central perspective comes into shape. It becomes clear, seeing is an “I”. Realisation dawned for the first time, this was me perceiving its entirety. An awakening, not a rough kind, more so a natural consequence…one could say, it was a kind of balance, like a mathematical equation.
The state was one of subconscious awareness at best, by no means active or influenced by my thoughts. There was just the idea of self floating around in the constantly growing environment.
Back then, it must have been so. Putting it so feels right. I do not recall, but I know that must have been so. I wonder why the thoughts repeat…I was certain that I knew.
It was neither a déjà vu nor a flash of the past. Was it credible to regard it as a hunch, a gut feeling or an inner voice? None of those felt right.
…It… was an experience carved into the bones, done a million times, seen from countless angles. It was neither by instinct nor a sixth sense. To me, this seemed so far away yet incredibly close.
Beyond the grasp of intuition, it was more of a shadow clinging to my consciousness. In its definition, the privative antonym, was its place of birth. A parasitic influence confirmed that things had been, because itself was the way it was.
The dreams did not wait for my definitions, they simply resumed to paint the picture I was blessed by nightly.
Vision took on form. A sense of clarity washed over starting from the corner of the eyes. The periphery obtained more details, more details resembled known objects. There were trees, grass, a sky, water and there was me.
Blurred I saw my pale hands, my healthy fingers moved. My knees were bent, my feet touching green grass.
Seated I was, as the sensations from before interacted with this ethereal vessel. Careful, were the senses, telling the subconscious about the wonderful world it was temporarily staying in.
The scene built, things came to form a uniform conformation, all fell in place.
A rigid spectator, a silent soul was anchored in place, the land forming around him. In silence, he watched, becoming one with the sounds, the sights and the smells.
The construct assembled, till the circumstances lined up, till the inside matched the outside.
An existence waited, in patience, but expectant. It knew right from wrong, the moment due, was awaited. An opportunity destined to follow soon.
The scene, it concluded. Reality’s technicalities were a viral, chiral portrayal of the realm beyond the confines of four walls.
Everything came together as colours walked hand in hand with vivid objects born anew in a sleeping brain. A moment that 180 nights had worked towards, the moment when the surreal became real.
It was that moment when I opened my eyes.
The first moment, I started to have a healthy body again.
Initial reception was lukewarm at best, sitting in beautiful scenery or experiencing wind hitting my skin were not the kind of “normal” I was yearning for. Nostalgia for my former life on the blue marble did not exactly apply to the greener grass across the fence.
Confusion came second, ideas of me dreaming, tripping or finally having bitten the proverbial dust entertained the pink terrorist for a while.
Doubts were resolved when eyes returned to the same, old wooden prison and the body felt the bed gravity again. Questions arose still, since I could not comprehend the sight that played out before my sleeping self.
Never had I been the lucid type of dreamer. Most often, I fell asleep and woke up… not remembering a single bit of what my brain was tripping on.
This, however, was much different. There was a clear memory of my time here, although it merely consisted of me complaining about grass and the lack of things for the first few times.
It did not take long for me to realise the true benefit this place offered. Free from all the pain and all the distractions my current life brought to the table, for the first time in my new life was I able to think clearly without any outside factors.
I walked for a bit, but my legs were not all too steady at first. Who knew that walking was not like riding a bike? Slowly, I made my way through the wide world before my eyes and tried to see where my legs would carry me.
Old habits slowly rejoined, the legs carried again and the upper body stood straight.
It was a wonderful development that ruined many mornings to come, whenever reality proved to be a crushing reminder of the fleetingness surrounding this space.
I went on and made the most out of the least changing environment I had ever seen.
Not much awaited me, wherever I ended up I met more grass and trees that bore a great resemblance to their brethren. Going for a swim, wetted the body, though no signs of life entered my perception.
I simply moved on, trying to remember life back on Earth.
Tidbits of my time came back to me, but everything that followed was much clearer, much more vivid in my mind. Certainly, I did not miss that time. In some twisted sense, the time that followed was fun in an absurd kind of way.
It was interesting to see what had become of me.
Though I spent most of my time without past events telling me of what once was or might have been. Embracing one’s circumstances seemed the much healthier approach in this foreign forest.
Walking around unencumbered, without a second thought, was strange at first. Memories were too fresh of my stillborn activities. Yet, they did not impede in any shape or form. They simply joined in and faded into the welcoming arms of acceptance.
The breaths were unbothered, the gait free of problems.
The body felt free, the body felt new. Despite all, the freedom I sought and received felt the most pure when not moving at all.
Sitting down, still and sedentary, offered me a pristine chance to see through everything and take the time I needed to contemplate the issues that could never be brought to an end in the world of wood awaiting my arrival.
I could not complain, this space did not cloud my judgement and I could seek for answers.
Sure, it would likely take a while to come to any meaningful realisation, since the issues surrounding me should not be called simple. Though I felt progress and saw a clear path forward.
Without any outside factors, this was perfect to let the mind wander and take things at face value. With the fresh air, the blue sky, the flow of water at my side, everything seemed more mellow.
At first I thought I was lucky to have found my oasis. A little boon inside the turbulent life on the outside.
Not everything had to be bad in my life, right? I, too, could get lucky from time to time, I would have loved it if this paradise, this utopia could have stayed free from the worries of the outside.
But my brain here and definitely there knew the true nature of my circumstances.
Some might call it irony, it was just the inevitability of fate.
It did not happen in a day or two, time continued as it did before. Nothing unusual. The change was small, barely negligible, it merely was one more detail, a thing that had been had a thousand times over.
On paper, it was not much, but sitting here made it so much more.
I heard them, I heard the laughter of children…in my story!