My mind lives on the border of nonfiction, dreams, and nightmares, but they’re all the same in the end.
“It Hates Me So Much;” the song which always wakes me up in the morning blazes into the cold quiet of my room. It takes less than a second for me to shut it off and relax as the saxophone screams to a halt. My room is dark and short. It’s as short as me, which isn’t very short, but in comparison to the other rooms of my house (and the International Residential Code), it's too short.
The shadow drooping against the space under my shelves bids me farewell as I flick on the lights and get up for the day. It’s dim, even with the lights on, but it’s the nice kind of dim which hides many of the various unpleasantries I’d otherwise be forced into seeing. As I wander from the light switch to the mountain of pillows which hides the set of chairs in my room, I can see the imprints left on the floor from where each bruise on my feet plants itself after each step. I’ll walk it off.
Sitting on the pillowed couch with a slow sense of lethargy, I stop for a few moments to watch as the beautifully blurry crystal-lattice of Christmas lights dimly dances around my room. I sometimes wonder if this is how I was meant to see the world. The lights look so much more attractive when I’m able to focus my eyes on each of the blurred jewels of colored light. How a lapidarist would envy the chance to simply touch one of these fluorescent minerals. Even as I move around the room, the vibrant gems seem to twist and rotate in 4 dimensional space as a different portion of my broken eyes fall on them with each step. Ouch. I’ll walk it off…
The couch set in my room is always covered with pillows which are occasionally organized into blocky piles. As I sit atop my plushy throne, I dip my fingers into the cool sensation of an invisible liquid, as I do every morning. If it weren’t for the squishy gel hiding at the bottom and the droplets that collect on my forefinger after I take it out of the small dish, it would almost feel like I was touching nothing. Into my left eye goes the first gel, and the second one slides into the right after a few moments of adjustment.
My vision is mostly clear now, and rather unexciting. The Christmas lights who wind their way down the center-post of my room are sharp and cast their glow in predictable ways. The unpleasantries I previously had the pleasure of avoiding invade my vision from down below while the ceiling covers the top portion of my sight, just inches away from eye level. I’ll just try to walk it off...
My mind has been booting up since the saxophone hit its first beat, and by now it’s busy scrambling together yesterday's events into a plan for today. Work tonight at 18:00. School for today is off. Homework can be done before class next week. Breakfast..? Debatable. Once it starts, my brain can’t shut off till it blows a fuse and shorts itself out. Usually by that point I’m in bed and able to deal with the back-surge of emotions and information I pushed away for the day, but I’m not always so lucky. The exact moment when my reasoning burns itself out isn’t always up for me to decide.
By now I’ve started to notice the drip-clack, drop-click of friendly raindrops tapping on my window and roof. I look outside to watch as they hit the thin glass sheet meant to keep them away. Each droplet hangs onto its spot for a moment before another one pushes it down, all curiously looking in to watch me as though I were an exhibit at the zoo. The light, which barely filters through the clouds, winds its way through the greenery outside, through the sheet of rain, and finally into my room. It’s beautiful. Each raindrop has its own freedom and moves elegantly with all the others dancing against my window. They blur the light as they fall, making the world seem soft and shiny. They’re little gem-drops.
I glance back to the lights in my room. After correcting my eyes they appear precise and structured. The raindrops on my window don’t structure themselves, maybe that’s why they’re so beautiful. If I could predict my entire life, there would be no beauty, I’d only be bored to death.
I’m smiling at this. At least I think I am. My mouth is a comically nervous contortionist. Life is supposed to be ordered and reasonable. Be on time and slow down. Take care of yourself and work hard. Be yourself and think straight. These are all things we can expect to be expected from us, yet there’s no assurance we’ll actually be able to enjoy our own lives for the sake of ourselves. Why is this something I’m afraid of?
Let it go, watch the rain. The interjection made by the sounds of the weather outside save me from a near overload. At least for now I don’t mind my face dancing itself into the deformed and warped figure we call a smile. If something as simple as the disorder of water on my window can cause me to grin, I don’t think that’s a problem. Smiles without meaning feel the best. They’re free. ‘Cause for now I get to be all on my own, with only my terrors, hopes, and truths to light the way.