Falling Forward

A cold wind blows through my hair. It’s fresh air, but it is enclosing me in myself. It’s poisoning me. As the seconds pass, I can breathe less and less. Even colder are the rocks beneath me. Jagged and unmoving, I can feel my lower body create a strong ache. I can even feel the negative weight in front and below me. All that space trying to pull me in to fill itself.

There is no ground in front of me.

—-

Who I am, and what I do, are of no consequence. I saw the way I lived my life. I saw the way I got rid of my life. I saw it all, and I was barely a part of it.

Whenever I watched TV, I escaped from myself. It wasn’t really a good thing. In fact, it was probably the worst of things. Whoever decided that escapism was a theme of human culture was sorely mistaken. I haven’t really seen much in it.

Watching TV is a lot like swimming. You can pretend that you’re keeping yourself afloat from your own effort. You can enjoy yourself. But it all comes down to the fact that you can do absolutely nothing. The lack of life could keep you afloat.

As I sat watching TV, I was brought back from my semi-consciousness with the sight of something in the corner of my eye. It looked like a colorful gust of wind. I saw many different hues, but not for long. I only saw something during the gap between not thinking and reminding myself to think.

Being a human, I dismissed it.

—-

Memory has always seemed so very important. I’m sure I’m not the only one that has noticed. Testimony is based on it. Happiness and sadness are based on it. But it’s only important because we have been conditioned to let it be that way. We could still judge ourselves without memory. We could judge ourselves without knowing what’s been done. We could judge ourselves without hindsight. But we don’t.

Self-judgement is hard because of the very fact that we do it wrong. We look back, we see things that have been done, we judge those things, and in turn, judge ourselves. But aren’t we a sum of our emotions? Can’t we judge ourselves without the aid of anything outside of our own emotions?

The things I’ve seen have always been good enough for me. But the things other people see never seem to be good enough for them. I remember things. I have to. Everyone has to. But I keep them as what they’re worth. They’re not worth the paper they’re printed on.

Memory is a blessing and a curse. If you can keep memories unadulterated, you can judge other people. It’s the only way to judge other people. The self is judged without memory. Others are judged only with memory.

There’s a reason that soap is incompatible with eyes.

—-

I like collecting sledgehammers.

They come in different colors. The come in different shapes. They come in different sizes. They’re like just about everything else in this world. Varied.

People accept the shape of rocks. They are as they are. Throw them into a lake, and they’re still the same shape. There are only a few ways to change the shape of a rock. One is erosion. Humans have nothing to do with the natural shape of environmental trends. But humans can still break rocks.

I enjoy the vibration that’s created when I smash a rock with a sledgehammer. It feels as though I can break the world. Or my own self.

—-

The phone had a gentle ring to it that day. Very often it sounded angry, like the growl of a dog who has known nothing of a home. But that day it was home itself. I could hear myself in the ring. It was alive, awake, and inviting.

I couldn’t answer it. I stared. I did nothing. I enjoyed the sound in and of itself. I didn’t need to answer it. I just needed to be aware of it.

As the answering machine picked up the call, I could hear the world. Everything was singing. All things alive and dead were alive in the sound of the wind.

As the voice died down, I felt the words sink through my skin. The mind need not be involved with listening. Listening is understanding. Hearing is different. More than anything involving my ears, I could feel the femininity in the wind escaping the speaker of answering machine. I did as it told me, got my shoes on, and left my house.

—-

The ground was working against me. It pushed up in front of me, and I could see my destination as I looked up at the sun. My blinding path became more difficult as time went by. I got to the place I needed to go, and I was exhausted. The stinging air in my throat told me of the long, pointless journey. It’s the pain of the lack of air. The lack of breath. A small sting in the back of the throat.

The door opened all around me, as seen through my eyes. Doors surrounded and doors vacillated. I walked in through the door nearest to me, right in front of me. Another being in front of me summoned me in, but I felt no warmth. I felt a chill behind me, shoving me forward. As the door closed behind me, I was trapped in my own body. Left to look inward, seeing nothing outward. Feeling nothing coming towards me.

Despite the actual texture of the seating, it felt unforgiving. As I sank into my setting minute by minute, my body collided into itself minute by minute. There was a large void beside me, taking up space, indenting the seat to my right. There was a certain attraction to it. Despite the direction of my being heading inward, there was a slight pull rightward.

Ahead of me was the screen. I felt like I was floating. My head lost its weight momentarily. A second later, I saw the image on that screen. It was nothing I’ve ever seen before, nor will I ever see it again. An eyeball sat on a white table in front of a white wall. Everything was immaculately white, except for the areas of bloodshot, iris, and pupil. In one swift motion, the sledgehammer made everything dirty. Nothing was white ever again.

Cutting through the heavy air, I got up and walked back to the door. A void followed me, but it lost shape as time went by. I could still see it on the couch. But I could feel it behind me as well, pushing me out. The mass of the void was nowhere near me. It was walking away. I could feel it moving in exactly the opposite direction of myself.

As I got nearer to the door, I felt a sudden push, and I stumbled through the unopened door. Inside the house was cold, the door was warm and comforting as I passed through it, and there was fire outside.

I burned. And I cried.

—-

I floated through my opened door. I had not opened the door. It blew open with the force of a two year old. I knew I was not alone, and yet I knew I was at the same time. Perhaps there was a presence in my house. Perhaps not.

My house was stale. It had the smell of all things old. It had the taste of mold. My breath was heavy and seemed to fall to my feet. The deeper into my house I went, the more I felt something. There was something awakening in myself. Whether it was good or bad is another story.

As my steps went forward, I went downwards. I reached my kitchen and I was crawling. I continued through the house with my face on the floor until I could no longer move. I had carpet burn. I couldn’t tell if the pain was coming from that or something else.

I burned. And I cried. And I slept.

—-

I awoke several hours later. My location was new to me. I was not surr

ounded by walls. I was surrounded by light. I saw nothing else. The was no ground beneath me, nor was I floating. I was just existing. I was not dreaming, though. Consciousness cannot fool me.

I closed my eyes and the light went away. I opened my eyes and nothing reappeared. I was alone. Nothing was there. I closed my eyes again.

I awoke again on my floor. The stinging feeling in my face was overpowering. I felt something above me. Although, I couldn’t be certain it was above me. My perception was sorely inhibited by the pain.

I turned myself over, and laid on my back. I saw nothing. I felt everything. Something was indeed above me. I tried to sit up, but the force was too great. Movement upward was impossible.

Rolling all the way, I found my front door. It was still open, although I had shut it when I entered my house. There was still something above me. It had followed me.

Suddenly, the phone rang. At least, I think it rang. It started it’s ring, and then exploded. It was literally a deafening noise. All sound left me, and I was left in silence, with the knowledge that my phone was on fire.

Rolling over to the phone, I tried again to get up, but I could not. The fire spread to the table containing the phone, and then to the carpet around the table. Feeling no fear, I rolled to the door, which was closed.

With no options remaining, I closed my eyes. I accepted the way things would be. The way things could be. I visualized the aftermath of my house burning down. Charred flesh. Still smouldering remains of wooden furniture. The stench of everything.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was unmistakably a human hand. I could feel small finger bones through skin coming through my clothes to my being. Opening my eyes, I saw nothing but flames. My shoulder was on fire. Out of instinct, I attempted to roll, but I accidentally rolled towards my door. I rolled through my door and outside.

Nothing oppressed me to the ground. I was once again free, in a manner of speaking. But so very tired.

I burned. And I cried. And I slept. And I dreamed.

—-

In my dream, I was on the street. An empty street with no cars. Three seconds later, the street was full, but not normally. Things appeared. Not just normal things and normal people. Everyone was me. Everything was mine.

I was surrounded by myself. I was surrounded by my life. No one paid any special attention to me. I was just another person to them. A passerby.

I walked down the sidewalk, looking for things that were not myself.

Looking to my right, I spied a window with glass figurines being displayed. The window was open, and at eye level. These were not my figurines. I was immediately drawn to them. They were beautiful. They were everything I was looking for.

A scene seemed to be played out in these beings. A little girl on the left side of the window was facing left, very close to the wall. She was stuck in a sitting position, hugging her legs, her chin on her knees. No expression could be seen on her face. On the right side of the window, a boy was standing with his arms out, also facing left. Pleading.

Between them were many various dogs and cats. They were peaceful, but they were all unmistakably dead. Some were flattened. Some intentionally had no expression to imply the death.

It was everything I was looking for.

—-

I awoke in a standing position, facing north. I walked the way I was meant to walk. Forward.

Cars meant nothing. People meant nothing. I was myself. I was solitary. I needed nothing. Nothing needed me. I walked.

As I climbed the rocks, my eyes never blinked. I never flinched. I never stopped looking foward. I saw what I needed to see and nothing more.

As I reached the summit I sat down. As time passed, the ache in my lower body quickened and strengthened. The dropoff in front of me speaks nothing of ground. It is black, full of nothing. The wind speaks and tells my eyes to perspire.

Warmth escapes me. Attempting to retrieve some, I reach my nearly numb hands into my empty pockets. The lack of objects in my pockets is colder than my hands, and I remove them. I breath on my hands, as is habit when the weather is cold, but my breath is colder than any ice. I reach my hands back into my pockets.

I pull from my pocket a small red lighter. It has no temperature. It takes a large amount of time for my numb, unnimble hands to create a fire.

With a small blaze in my grips, I hold the lighter in my right hand, and pass my left over the flame. Slowly, warmth returns to my fingers and palm. But only for a few seconds. The ice feeling returns.

I move my hand closer to the blaze. Ever closer. My hand is now in the blaze, and no warmth reaches me. Soon enough, my skin is on fire, and the fire spreads.

I burned. And I cried. And I slept. And I dreamed. And I fell forward.