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[Aug. 28th, 2009|10:31 pm] |
finding it
Yes, it feels like the last day of the world. I have this abnormal feeling of finality in my head, of an inarguable closure nearing with the setting of the sun. I believe that I'll never see this orange sun again, nor the apricot sky, nor the eucalyptus branches silhouetted by it. A schism grows between me and my former self. I am finally conscious of reality, and the reality is that it's that last second before the TV set goes dead, the lapse between the switch being flipped and the last electric impulse being sucked up. I feel like one of those flopping fish in the white plastic vats in Chinatown. I'm taking my last breath this day.
I don't necessarily like that it's the last day I'll be alive; I'm simply dumbfounded. Everything seems a little tireder today than usual. It seems to know there's no point in fighting.
I left school early today. I don't really remember why, but I just walked off campus right as it ended, rather than spending a few hours shooting the breeze, as I usually do. Today, I don't know. Today, arguing and joking and saying stupid things just appeals less than usual. I'm waiting for the bus at City College on the unmistakably urban Ocean Avenue, the stop just after the one at which I normally wait. The weeds that grow around the giant cement pit of a parking lot across the road are blowing in the strangely dusty breeze. I see this place every day, but it suddenly seems very foreign.
Everything is very beautiful right before it dies. Perhaps it's that last burst of life before it all goes out. The dying breath is the one most filled with life. It is all that there is left.
So I am clinging to the day like one wet piece of paper to another, ink running and bleeding. Everything loses its definition on this day. I no longer feel I am a separate entity, one capable of independent thought and motion. I move as one with the world today. It feels I am moving as the wind today, it feels as if I am trailing streamers of existence from my ankles. Their pale coloration flutters and flickers, changing a little, unnoticeable to an eye not watching closely.
Today I am looking at the world in a new way. This is the afternoon I must redeem my existence.
The bus is arriving. It is an old bus, one that sputters and creaks, one whose interior fake wood paneling is covered with things people have done to it; ink coats it, chewing gum makes it sticky to the touch, and unnamed fluids divert the eyes of the passengers. A symphony of scents wafts through the space; I know the song as soon as I carry my body up the corrugated metal stairs of the front door. I show the driver my November bus pass and attempt a smile. He seems oblivious. I am supposing he has his own way of dealing with the last afternoon of the world. His last night of existence is going to be at home. I can see it in him. He will sit in bed quietly, maybe chatting with a wife or relation, wondering what he'll eat for breakfast. And he'll cease to exist in a peaceful state of not-knowing. He has his own way.
As for me, I'm breathing fully the fusion of smoggy city air, malt liquor, people, and something I can't give a name to. I am feeling it swirl in my cold, raw lungs, settle in the bottom of them before I release it. The air feels warm in the bus. The light falls dustily from the windows, disregarding the fluorescent bulbs, for they hold no more dominion over the sun.
I assume my seat in the empty back of the bus, with the clanking aluminum beer can rolling vivaciously around with the motion of the vehicle. He and I are alone in the back of the bus, both careening aimlessly, letting the San Francisco Municipal Railroad take control of my direction.
It takes us across the front of City College, with the constant reminder over the arched doorway that THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE but from what, I'll never know. I've no intention of asking.
I'm trying to imagine what it's going to be like when it is all ending. The way I envision it is different from what the Bible and the scientists tell you. No Horsemen, no speeches, no geysers, no leeches; no virgins, no gardens, no god forgiving pardons; no engines, no fire, no judgment, no mire; no Jesus, no savior, no superhuman behavior. Everything will simply cease to be. We will be reduced to a void.
So I am on the bus. The trees pass, the people pass, the buildings pass, the traffic passes. I am stationary. I suddenly feel out of place like this. Being static on a day such as this is simply not an option. My restless arm pulls the cord, and I hear the snap and the ring. I'm maneuvering toward the back door of the vehicle.
Leaping from the raised steps, I collide with the earth unfettered, and hit the ground running. I run as fast as I can past the generic buildings of the Sunset district, coursing down the empty sidewalk like blood through a vein. I can see everything turning gray as the clouds clot in the sky. I slow down. I'm panting like a big dog in a parked Civic.
I stare at what's before me. The wide street stretches, gray silly putty in the hands of the green, pink and mauve houses. In the distance, on the horizon, a strip of gray-blue: the beach.
I know where I'm going to watch the world stop.
I take one deep breath of the cold air and hold it in my fresh lungs, then let it free. I watch the condensed gas re-vaporize and observe its Diaspora, it's many-miles-an-hour dispersal into the world.
Running, running, running, I can't stop now, I've got to make it to the beach. Everything is turning blue. The gray accents in the sky tell me the atoms are slowing down and condensing. I'm speeding up.
A new scent arises from below as my body surges ahead, the dusty smell of wet sidewalk. The droplets of increasing size sting my face satisfyingly. I can see sometimes the razor-thin motion trail of each droplet; sometimes the droplet is in stopped motion, "The Matrix"-style, while I gush towards it; sometimes, I can only see the wall of sizzling grey whir past me. It's terribly gratifying to watch these stages intersperse in my vision.
My leg muscles ache. I'm working them harder, contracting, releasing, contracting, releasing, when the endorphins take over. My mind bursts and I am taken by momentum to the end of the block where I bend in half and breathe relentlessly. I'd regurgitate, but there's nothing in me to regurgitate. I raise my head to the beach.
I fall to my knees.
The soft pads of my fingers are enjoying the tiny spines of the concrete. Its tiny, cold peaks send my nerves rattling with electricity.
Little pools of water are diving from the sky, splashing in huge explosions on my cold skin, my wet clothes. I am soaked through. I look down.
I cannot run further. The air has been tearing at my lungs. Their tissue is shredded and worn away. It feels good to breathe. It hurts.
I think of what I've left behind, the school I ignored, the warm flat with a fire burning and a cat curled into a ball, the messy backpack on the bus. I'm unshackled as I extract myself from the ground. I pull my shoulders heavily upward and they take with them my abdomen and hips, and my legs unfold. My head rolls up. I stare ahead for a second, then bring my foot ahead of me. I know I can't run, but the movement must continue. So I lurch forward, step by step, as the torrent slows down. I see the beach now, and I can almost smell it through the rain. I've only several blocks left. I wonder how I've reached it so fast.
Everything has turned a bright teal color; the clouds are glowing, diminishing. It's going to be a cold, clear night. The sky holds my gaze and won't return it until I ask out loud, when I look forward again and see the stream of silent cars rolling smoothly and swiftly down the Great Highway. And I know I've reached it. I see the LED white walker and dash unabashedly towards him, passing his pole, his electric box. I feel my feet land on the fine sand of Ocean Beach, just in time for darkness.
I swish my feet around in the softness of the ground here, and I feel I've finally reached It. I'm here.
I cannot see the ocean itself, only the crests of the coming waves, and the lighthouse far away, the lights of a boat, slowly drifting along the horizon.
I sink into the grainy, shifty sand, my back feeling the residual wetness of the sky's water, my knees feeling it in the air. The sand beneath me settles.
I lie there, unmoving for quite a while. I can see foreign suns above me, within my reach, it seems, tiny lights hung from wires. Are they really photons of light traveling millions of light-years before reaching my eager eyes? Are those suns dead like my planet is?
I'm still now. All my thoughts are quelled, and I close my eyes and see the universe stand before me silent and motionless for just a second…
//source: http://www.webspawner.com/users/topnolived/ |
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