DT_Too

Something happens; you black out. You travel through a passage with shifting images, various shades of white, and a foreboding but visceral sense of the unknown.

You’ve been given a restart. Despite having passed out, you have awareness of being in a new place and the feeling that home is gone.

The sensation of parasthesia sets in while your mind and body claw towards each other from different planes of non-existent existence.

You try to move your leg, but your mind shifts to the smell of pine trees. You touch your fingertips to feel something familiar, but your head takes you to the sound of the wind. After struggling through the synesthesia of sleep and wakefulness, you taste what dreams look like and see the balance keeping you grounded.

When you come to your senses, you take off your glasses and pull down your mask.

Hold on. I’ve seen you somewhere before.

Yes, it’s this familiarity, this nostalgia. Spiraling, I’m taken aback.

Blank faces, black sesame. Frozen in time, perfectly fragile. I see it.

It’s the memory of something happy. The crispy texture, the cool spaces, the warm sun, the softness of myself.

The me seeing this experience was there then and is here now. They’re here too. We’re there in the future as well.

Where are you headed?

You tell yourself to shush. You’re just after your shadow.

Sad. Blue.

You’ve read up on that walk toward the wall.

Shh, it’s a secret, but you already blew it. The light traveling to what’s been read.

Red. Anger. No cap. An inappropriate pull towards the weight of the wait.

What do you stand for?

There is nothing but beige ahead, and the everything darkness is still behind and vaguely conspiring.

Be here. You don’t want to go, but you really do.

The burden is yours, but it didn’t begin with you.

Your loss?

It’s raised on greatness and groomed for lust’s victories. Without much thought, people see it as the winner.

Wine and dine. Travel and leisure.

Rest and relaxation. Power and influence. Ease and happiness.

You say to me, “I’m what you’re after. You’ll never reach me though. Keep trying; keep failing.”

I turn you small and notice how you are.

Pick you up; notice the lightness.

Toss you into the air, and you float like the rest.

Your sound disappears as the breeze passes, and I notice the plate in front of me.

I am whole, and you’re just a piece for me to have.

C: I guess I don’t really like the way things are going.

D: Life sucks right now.

C: I mean with everything happening and losing my job, I do not believe I can find another job. Not with everything happening.

D: The virus made you lose faith.

C: No no, a virus can’t do that. It’s like that movie I saw, the one with the spinning top at the end, where there’s a dream within a dream within a dream, and if you convince yourself in the dream that something is real, you believe it in real life. It’s like something got instilled in me since it all started. I just want to crawl into a cave or just run away, but I get this idea that I’m not allowed to have my own cave, and I literally cannot go anywhere.

D: You’re infected with ideas while avoiding infection.

C: Yeah, I guess you could say that. I mean these ideas aren’t foreign though. They’re mine. They just keep coming up again and again, like the top that just keeps spinning, and you just never know what is going to happen. It’s kind of maddening.

D: You actually feel really anxious.

C: Is that what it is? It feels like I just can’t breathe sometimes. It’s like instead of a dream inside a dream, it’s reality within my head within reality, and I don’t know. I don’t even know what I’m talking about anymore. I feel like this whole conversation has been a bunch of metaphors.

D: You’re here now, in front of me.

C: I’m suffocating.

D: Breathing hasn’t been the same since all this started.

C: I mean the air is cleaner.

A: I don’t know why I’m crying. It’s not like I’m sad.

B: Sometimes our bodies are trying to tell us something.

A: I don’t like what my body is telling me. Maybe I am sad. Maybe I miss being out there. Am I nuts? I have everything going for me. I don’t know why I’m so concerned. I’m working from home and being safe. It’s not like I’m dying.

B: You’re alive.

A. What do you mean?

B: You’re not dead.

A: Yeah, I’m not. I guess I just feel like I am sometimes. Or that I’m dying. I am putting in so much effort, but it’s like I can’t catch up. It’s like my battery is out. I’m not sure the point of it all.

B: You’re not sure what’s meaningful.

A: Of course I do. My family. My friends. My partner. My career. Those are all super meaningful.

B: To whom?

A: What do you mean? To whom? To me of course. Right?

A: Sometimes we get confused with what we love vs. what we find meaningul vs. what we like…

B: I guess I’m not sure.

A: You don’t have to be, but these days, it is just harder to deal with.

Sounds blare.

He reaches over and presses on the snooze button. His phone rings after a few moments.

Snooze again.

Cymbals of capitalism signal the final hit.

He scrolls through his phone and wonders if his loved ones are awake, sharing in the not-so-ambivalent joy of disconnected connection and extroverted introversion. He checks to see if anyone messaged him and massaged his passion for compassion.

Meaning lays in bed next to him and embraces his personal compass.

It points to a universe where human beings have high subjective well-being and where voids are just black holes rather than shallow souls and drained hearts.

The atmosphere shifts to the hardwood floor. His barefoot self hears the creak as he turns on his desktop, and the blinds move to reveal the light of consciousness.

He traverses towards the stove in his half-awakened self and replaces some of the air in the kettle with another life-sustaining compound.

Mostly full of water, somewhat filled with air, and strategically cradled by the fire, the kettle works with specially-made leaves to create the perfect brew. The morning haze leaves for his nighttime self and waits for his dreams to walk inside.

Changes in space and time have normalized for the past few weeks, and the start of the day puts him in front of a mirror. He sees many faces of growth. He remembers the pain of the lifetimes before and reminds himself to appreciate.

He balances the left and the right for his skin and acknowledges how the moment reflects the galaxies that have yet to form and the space debris that splits him in two.

To some, he goes through the world as a shooting star or even as part of a beautiful meteor shower.

To others, he is an invader, something to eradicate, and a symbol of fear.

Tables, set. Chairs, sat. Hot pot, shared.

Family, missed. Friends, seen. Fortune, desired.

Different forms of oppression exist because they are systematically promoted (even if unintentionally), and if systematic and intentional actions happen, those forms of oppression can be addressed on multiple levels.

REMEMBER this:

It's just another day, and maybe you think life is testing you. You're not sure of the right answers, but you feel like you've definitely been circling the wrong ones. Other spheres of influence make your own brain feel lost. Your losses stick to you like they always do. You hold onto those as well until the flash hits your nerves.

It's bright, and you start to see how you've repeated the same things over and over. Painful moments followed more painful moments.

You reflect on your agony until you redefine life's silence as your own displays of resilience. You monitor what's around you, and use your voice. You echo your post-traumatic growth and hear the instruments of light. You see the shimmering peace. You taste pieces of rebirth with a touch of fellowship. You smell victory and take a snapshot of hope.

The world is here for you.

Pick up your chopsticks. Position them properly on your fingers. Reach into your bowl. Pick up the noodles. Dip the noodles into your soup. Move them towards your your mouth. Chew, swallow, and notice your burdened shoulders. Inhale. Bring those shoulders all the way up for a few seconds. Let go while you breathe out.

Colors everywhere hang onto the light. Slices of imagination pie get topped with dollops of reality.

Look into the horizon and search for answers. Shadows cover you and outline your burdened shoulders.

Wait for what will supposedly come. The floor touch your feet and ground your worrier pose.

Squares and other polygons change in this miasma of a city. Stillness escapes as you lower your noticing abilities.

Ah yes, it is that time of the day where you think about your slices of life. One piece is for your career; another is for love. This one is for family and so on.

Then you realize you cut the slices too unevenly. Since the pieces were stuck to the wrong slices, you decide to put them all together.

Fuck, you’re crying and crying and crying. You brought work home. The gym stayed with the auto-payments too, but you never went to fitness. Instead, you stayed with the one who texted you at 1am.

You think it’s all going the right way until you meet the boo. Ice cream is your real friend.

But really, you also made a decision. You know whom you want to see as constant and what kind of stuff you want to bring home.

You know, you know?