Lost In Thought

The Awakening

Soft starlight trickles through my eyelids, gently wakening me from my slumber. Where am I? Am I floating on a cloud through the inky night sky? Or drifting on an inflatable lilo through an endless glittering ocean? I open my eyes to whatever wonderment could lie before but all I see is a flickering streetlight and a city sky, devoid of any type of astral beauty. Instead of lying on a cushioned mattress, I feel the cold, hard pavement biting into my back. No smell of jasmine or apple blossom surrounds me; the only odour is that of thousands of people living in too close quarters with each other. They breathe, live and sweat together to produce a uniform stink. I sit up, no longer able to entertain my fantasies of grandeur. Where am I? There is an empty street. Empty houses. No cars. No people. I am sitting at the gate for an old Victorian house, standing proudly apart from the decrepit tenement flats huddled on either side. Every curtain is drawn, the soft glow from within creeping and crawling out the edges and onto the outside wall. Now I am standing at the front door. How did I get over here? I feel a prickle on the back of my neck, like I’m being watched. I turn around, but there is still no sign of anyone else here. Shrugging, I turn back to the house to find the door open wide in front of me. My curiosity gets the better of me as I warily step into the gloomy hallway. A small wrought iron table with a glass surface sits a few feet down in the middle of the hall with a scrap of what looks like paper lying on it. Waving my suspicions aside I stride towards it, picking it up and glancing down at the bold scrawling on it. Look behind you. I whirl round, almost knocking the table over in my hurry. The door shuts with a threateningly quiet click. Well crap. Looking down, I see the writing dissolve into the paper, now feigning ignorance about being anything other than blank. Curiouser and curiouser. Quickly scanning the corridor and finding nothing I decide to explore the house while I’m there, I might even find someone to explain this. Suddenly the door is in front of me, my hand outstretched and grasping the doorknob. This time I’m fully conscious and I realise that the entire world has shifted around me, placing me here. With images of quarks and neutrinos and other sub-atomic particles flying about my brain, I turn the handle. Pushing the door forward slowly, I peer carefully inside.

Dead Memories

Inside the walls are white. The floor is white. The ceiling is white. The child sitting on the floor staring at me is dressed in white. I stare at him, he stares at me. We stare at ourselves. The child is me, straight from the photograph on my mother’s mantelpiece. It was taken on my eighth birthday, but the eyes piercing me now are much older. They are filled with centuries of pain and suffering and grief. His sorrow breaks my heart, shattering it into a thousand pieces. Why did you leave me? His voice fills my head with an inaudible voice, tears trickle from my eyes at the unspeakable sorrow in it. You left me here to rot with only your memories for company. With stinking, decaying memories you fling toss aside carelessly! You leave me with this! He grabbed my hands and put them on either side of his head. At first nothing. And then the images. Snapshots and glimpses flooding through my head. Memories I’d hoped to have forgotten. Thoughts I’d pushed away, hoping to never encounter them again. Now they’re pressing on my skull. Pushing against each other for space. Forgotten voices clamouring over each other to be heard. My eyes are glued shut. All my senses have been blown apart, shattered to pieces. This is what I live through. Every. Day. There is no relief for me. At any point I can stop this pain for you. There is no one to help me. Now open your eyes. Open them! “OPEN THEM!” The last two words are yelled externally, ending the stream of sounds and flashes. I force my eyes open. Nothing is white anymore. Paint corrupts the walls. It colours them in with the images that have just invaded my mind. They are gruesome colours and horrifying shapes. I stumble backwards. The living breathing nightmare of a room is closing around me. The boy stares at me. He is dripping with crimson paint. I fall out of the room and through the door and into the next room.

 Meet The Monster

The next room is on first appearance, normal. It would appear to be a living room. The tables and sofas are perfectly lined parallel or perpendicular to the lines on the rug in front of them. The cushions are symmetric. I cannot see a speck of dust in the room. But in between me and this perfect room are bars. The kind you would find in prison cells for the serial murderers and psychopaths. Except there is no lock on the gate, anyone could go in. Or more importantly out. On the other side of the bars is myself. Yet I can barely recognise him. There is a smile plastered over his face. His eyes are cold, hard steel. He lounges against the wall like a cat, waiting to pounce on his prey. He terrifies me. There is no doubt in my mind as to who he is. He is every malicious thought that has passed through my mind. He is every drop of hate I have ever felt. He is all that I despise about myself. He is my reflection in my mirror. I am trapped in his gaze. Paralysed by fear and humiliation. He shows me all that I am, no matter how hard I try to hide it. He takes a step forward, breaking my trance. I turn and run. I do not want to know what would happen if he catches me. I run faster. I throw myself up a ladder and through an attic door on the ceiling. There is no sound of pursuit anymore. I look around at the night sky.

Frail Wings Of Vanity And Wax

The night sky illuminates the rooftop I am standing on. I stare down at the site before me. A figure lies motionless on the ground below. Soon they will wake up. Then they will open their eyes. Following this they will be disappointed by what they say. Then they stand up. This is how it has always been. An endless loop beginning in ignorance and ending with burning knowledge. Each time I reach my ultimate fate here. I am Icarus, standing on a precipice. I must have faith in something other than myself. Something that could hold me aloft with the birds. But the sun will burn too bright, too hot. My wings will melt and I will plummet. Plummet into the earth like an asteroid from the stars. But what if Icarus were to jump? Was his brief ecstasy worth the ever-lasting betrayal of his own beliefs? If he jumped, he would know what to expect. The earth would turn. Stars would burn. Children would be born. And he would fall. I close my eyes. The soft starlight trickles through my eyelids.