He put on pants. It turned out to be a simple goal--there were plenty of pants lying around. He just put on whatever was closest.
His arms still tingled and occasionally felt sharp bursts of recirculating blood and newly feeling nerves.
He was standing without making that decision. It came with the pants. A shirt naturally followed.
A door.
A cramped apartment, the entire living area visible from the doorway. More clutter, unwashed items that should have been washed, and grime and dirt and damage.
Then, an abstract thought.
I am awake
Another:
My name is Brian
And a third:
I feel terrible
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Chapter 2
Not that dreams were much better. They were always bad. Not nightmares in the traditional sense--no monsters. There was just a constant feeling of being trapped, lost, and/or completely unable to accomplish a simple goal.
The eyes were nice, an oasis, but he still didn't remember those and never could while he was awake. But they were part of his dreams every night.
Mattress on the floor. Mess all around. Each waking was a new discovery of the world, as it seemingly generated in chunks around him, with considerable lag--his processing abilities couldn't keep up.
Chipped paint on the wall. Stains in the carpet. Clothes, and papers, and books he never read. And no light but the dingy sun filtering through a cracked and dust-coated window.
Muffled chaos from outside. Vague, generic, cityscape sounds. Aroma of banana peels and unwashed clothes and permanent tobacco.
Even awake, it felt illusory. Jittery frame-rate. Lack of concrete memories. Vague sense of deja-vu, like he was reliving tropes from all throughout literature and all artistic media (which he obviously was).
His mind was clouded, unable to process an original thought. He was stuck in observation mode:
Curtains orange. Bed brown. Wearing socks. Not wearing underwear.
A task--a goal. As some things fell into place, as the world gained structure and context, he knew something productive he could do--put on pants.
The eyes were nice, an oasis, but he still didn't remember those and never could while he was awake. But they were part of his dreams every night.
Mattress on the floor. Mess all around. Each waking was a new discovery of the world, as it seemingly generated in chunks around him, with considerable lag--his processing abilities couldn't keep up.
Chipped paint on the wall. Stains in the carpet. Clothes, and papers, and books he never read. And no light but the dingy sun filtering through a cracked and dust-coated window.
Muffled chaos from outside. Vague, generic, cityscape sounds. Aroma of banana peels and unwashed clothes and permanent tobacco.
Even awake, it felt illusory. Jittery frame-rate. Lack of concrete memories. Vague sense of deja-vu, like he was reliving tropes from all throughout literature and all artistic media (which he obviously was).
His mind was clouded, unable to process an original thought. He was stuck in observation mode:
Curtains orange. Bed brown. Wearing socks. Not wearing underwear.
A task--a goal. As some things fell into place, as the world gained structure and context, he knew something productive he could do--put on pants.
Chapter 1
He couldn't get those eyes out of his head. Not his own eyes, why would he remove those?
Her eyes. Cerulean, emerald, all shades of sapphire, sea-fog gray, shining and bright and full of wit waiting to sparkle.
And he swam through those eyes, almost drowned in the color and the mist and then came up sputtering, nervous and sweaty, dry-mouthed, tangled in his sheets.
His head ached and the inside of his mouth was vile, flavored like half-digested or rotting food.
And the harsh light seared his eyes, and he struggled to extricate his numb arms from the sweat-dripping blankets to get the blood circulating again.
And soon he comprehended it was day. The image of the jeweled eyes faded, drifted away, and he forgot them.
He fumbled at his own eyes, clumsily, like an infant just gaining dexterity. He scraped away the scales of minerals that accumulated at his tear ducts.
Waking up is the worst.
Her eyes. Cerulean, emerald, all shades of sapphire, sea-fog gray, shining and bright and full of wit waiting to sparkle.
And he swam through those eyes, almost drowned in the color and the mist and then came up sputtering, nervous and sweaty, dry-mouthed, tangled in his sheets.
His head ached and the inside of his mouth was vile, flavored like half-digested or rotting food.
And the harsh light seared his eyes, and he struggled to extricate his numb arms from the sweat-dripping blankets to get the blood circulating again.
And soon he comprehended it was day. The image of the jeweled eyes faded, drifted away, and he forgot them.
He fumbled at his own eyes, clumsily, like an infant just gaining dexterity. He scraped away the scales of minerals that accumulated at his tear ducts.
Waking up is the worst.
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