Rattle

I'm not sure what this is. I recently went through some stories I had written about a year ago and started to piece them together again. This is the first of those.

           4:14:36 p.m.                               some other time...

   Sitting motionless across from a teal nurses' monotonous, metal desk. Glancing straight ahead without blinking. Without intertia. Without lucidity or life. It's a hustle-bustle kind of day here in the ward but then again, it's always pretty insane here (pun intented). It's a bright day out there or at least it seems so with the window shades open. People fly about like they're all experiencing controled seizures together. They even bang into each other once in a while and that's just good comedy. People cry. Yell. They moan. But they are all always bouncing. However imobile the bouncing may seem, it is happening. 

   All just sitting on the ripples.

   Something changes. The atmosphere maybe? Something is waking. Today feels different somehow. Through it's course, it seems to gradually familiarize, yet, it is as abstract as ever.

 

   now...

 

   So these shimmering chrystals glued themselves to the lids of my eyes like stickers. The radiance was so hypnotic at the time, I thought I'd found God. But God was just a word wasn't he? I had often thought: no matter how mundane these moments, these unexpected quiefs in time, they were forever brilliant and they always reoccured. They just didn't last as long as you wanted them to. Something always managed to steal them away. Sometimes it was a divine but cruel joke and you know what? God was not so funny.

   He presented the world with the gift of a window leading to a garden of unlimited potential but wired us blind to everything but the windows' frame and the glass itself - closed and tinted black by the dirt that clung there. Patiently waiting outside, was our absolute purity. Our salvation. Inside laid our addictions to everything which kept us nailed to the bedposts of the demons beneath the cellar floor. We loved every minute of that torture and asked our tormentors, pleaded in fact, for more and more daily. we just didn't quite see it that way.

   Maybe it wasn't our fault but you know we all took on the same lifetime binges of sweet, unadulterated misinformation. That's what it was all about, right? It was like breathing. Maybe it was an addiction. Maybe I was an addict. I only wished to remember all the rest. I wished for a past to speak of at all. I had lost all those parts and felt the responsibility to get them back...good or bad.

   Out of all this information, most of it tended to put a damper on our average day and throughout our days strung together, anchors on our souls. Some of this was an opportunity to discover important truths. Some of it might have been worthwhile.

   Once upon a time, it was worth noticing how profound our epiphanies could be. The rare glitches when you knew you were awake; when you were completely aware of yourself and remembered everything. You saw it all with an unmatched clarity. A glimpse of the light from outside the window shining just enough to spark your interest. This happened to me too but two minutes later it would be gone without a trace. No memory left, like a bad, surpressed dream.

   It was undeniable. We really were prison junkies and our heroin was trying to understand.

   The shimmering on that f****n' wheelchair was one of these moments.

 

                                   4:16:59 p.m.

 

   Waiting. Waiting so long in a place like this would burn some peoples sanity at the stake. Like that would matter here anyway. Bile-green tiles lying under terrible florescents; what a dismal scene. But I'm dealing. I am perfectly content with my current change of situation. From a Madmax madhouse to this impractical joke of a CNA lookout station. I am dealing...and s**t, how long? No...really. I wonder how long.

   Progression is nice. I'm finally moving closer towards the only thing I want...to GET OUT! God, it seems, I have lost.

   ...No great loss.

   They told me to wait here. They told me I'd be here for a while. I have and they were not f****n' around. Not unlike a DMV in this cold institution, so stark and damp with too much common practice; the lines for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Don't forget the lines for meds. Witch pills I squeeze between my fingers inside a little paper cup while throwing it back like a shot. Crumpling the cup with the drugs still there, I toss it into the garbage. One of the few actions they can get out of me. Gotta love gullible people. With the exception of the first few months, they never checked my mouth 'cause I'm a damn good actor.

                                     

                                      now...           

 

   This wannabe DMV was more like an old one. More like when I was a kid just granted my license. They existed then without all the fancy gagets that came with every shelter from the sky in the later days.

   Afterall, I was in the future. 

   I was rolled down there that day by one of the more tolerable nurse ladies. She was a volumptuous sweetheart but probably needed the bedpan more than me or this wet autistic kid who liked to sit right next  to  me during our courtyard gettaways and rock back to forth. He had the rainman effect; a numbers obsession. Usually repeating numbers over nine digits, like 6,611,389,444 was yesterday. Never anything lower than a billion but everyday it would be different and fluxuate but more or less it was in the six billion area. I know exactly what he was counting. On this day, however, the number was 0. Repeating it for hours on end and who knows why?.. I do. His name was Patrick.

   Her name was gloria - getting back to the nurse. She smiled at me alot. Sometimes I wished I could've given her a smile in return but she was just too pitiful to break my own rules. She loved to make small with me, a labled, 'Semi-catatonic Mute' - this was stated on my charts. Of course, she wasn't really talking to me, she was talking only to herself. A ploy to mask her own sadness. You could smell it on her. I was probably her only aquaintence that didn't completely reject her and I hoped her denial worked for her well.

   None of these people would escape their tragedies and live to tell about it. That was okay for me; I only played the game long enough to get the f**k out of Dodge.

 

                      4:19:03 p.m.         

 

   Soon I'll start my antics and have a great fit if they don't move this nonsense along. If this doesn't pan out this afternoon, I can now easily break out. 

   I try calculating the suspected average time it might take them to reach my number (one more feature like a DMV). They give numbers to us less irregular psychotics when we need things like a transfer, mythical doctors visit, or just an imaginary escape outside to the yard. They hang the numbers around our necks like bad jewelry - those who are, for the most part, unresponsive like me. So far, it seems to be about an eight minute lapse between each patient before they round the corner to enter an unknown twin room.

   I was examined by a panel over a week ago now. A panel consisting of psychologists, hospital administrators, phychiatrists, social workers and one moronic mormon medstudent. What a little prick he was. Apperently, he was here observing technique to finish the last of his over-zealous thesis on the wonderful art of the Mental Health and Initiatives Field. His teachers forgot to mention their dirty little secret of denial - It's all bullshit. He would, without a doubt, soon be working here; praying to his bulletproof underwear for every patients' journey and inevitable eternity in his idea of hell - and doing a s****y job at that. That's enough about him though. Very little interesting subject matter there.

   Frankly, I was in a room full of Grade-A a******s that day. You know who they are. I don't need to name names. It's irrelevant. I was told then what would transpire today.

   Now my number is called. I'm pushed into the twin room - tagged room #665. I am, 'to be kept in my chair.' While I stare down at my filthy, white slippers, one Teal who took a disliking to me on his very first day (he wanted me to say his name over and over - which I recall it being...nope doesn't matter) goes through the next process again. I guess my diagnosis has really gone over this guys' head.

   Dipshit!!...That's the guys' name. See, now I feel better.

   Dipshit reads from a clipboard that I am, 'to begin a series of rehabilitation techniques in this lower ward.' I am, 'to have a mentor and/or coach.' Basically, we're gonna galavant around town three days a week, starting today. This idea is apparently 'intended to encourage a gradual integration back into the productive side of society.' Horray for normalcy. God you f****n' people are boring. Have to contain it but I feel a giggle coming on. We're probably recommended to visit a movie or two, or even the zoo...eh, not so much. I plan on ditching this cat - probably in a ditch - at first chance. Just need an opportunity to rear it's ugly head. This might be it.

  

           now... 

 

   This specific scrubbed-up cocksmoker did make my day in the end. He made some asinine comment about me f****n' all this up, saying, "yu'l be'a seein' me in her' 'fore long, boy..." Thick midwestern accent. "...an' then yu'l be'a talkin' when that ol' shock'tripment starts." An obnoxious hilbilly laugh followed.

   Ha, Ha...if only he'd known.

   He was mouthing all this with the perfect s**t-eating grin for a backwoods shiteater, while strapping me tightly in to my chair. How the f**k did this guy get this job? It's unbelievable! I should've pulled out my infamous violent episode on the duschbag but I planned on seeing him again and doing more than biting an ear off - yeah, that happened a few times. I thought: this guy's an abomination. He is nothing, and it will be fun to come back for him later.

   He kept talking and talking until he was finally distracted by his own idiocy and promptly tripped over his own foot...I didn't even have to try. It was a struggle not to break out in my own backwoods cackle but I won the battle and held it back successfully. On his face was the most hurtfully pained look as he glanced at the open door and out the hall to make sure no one else saw this besides the dumb looney who shared his space and his shameful self. Fortunately for him, no one did, so he shot me a new face - which I think was supposed to be frightening - then dramatically stormed out and slammed the door.

   I smiled freely with joy.

 

                   4:24:24 p.m.

 

   Good S**t.

 

                                  now...   

 

    I figured: this will be easy, 'cause this guy they're gonna pair me with is probably a headcase too, just not as bad as I am. Typical. It was often assumed by the 'professionals' some spiritual connection would take place, benifiting both parties, if they stuck two broken individuals together. Only in the movies man...only in the movies.

   A silent, few minutes went by and I was able to stretch out my neck a little, which was nice. The door glided open and in walked a beautiful, petite brunette with piercing hazel eyes. She smiled and for the first time in a long time this particular facial feature seemed sincere. It was warm and somehow inviting. She was new to me and younger than most of the rest but seemed expertly confident and strong. She said her name was Arie as she loosened my restraints. The sound of her voice delayed throughout my body giving me a high more intense than any I'd ever given myself. From the tips of my toes to the shattered halo above my head. It was the very definition of ecstacy. She was otherworldly in a devilish kind of way and I wanted to be every part of her.

   She wheeled me delicately out of the room and started down the hall. I couldn't help but marvel at her unrelenting youth and vibrance. Was she literally glowing? She had a calm about her, like a secret only shared with herself but everyone else could see it anyway - without knowing what it was.

   We headed to the lounge area where I was to meet my 'Mentor.' I expected her to do what all the rest of the Teals did - talk over me to bring ease to the unconfortable situation for themselves. You know...tell me about the person: what his name was, how old, what he did for a living.  -  She didn't. All she did was hum an old song that I happened to love. But in my head I didn't hear it as a hum. I heard it as it was supposed to be heard only by me. Perfect.

   Tears flew from my eyes but I never made a sound.

   I liked her. Then...I loved her. Even more, I appreciated every millisecond of her presence; an oddity for me.

   In this short time past, I never looked directly up from my slippers. Not at my surroundings, not at myself and not at her. I was very good at using my peripheral vision because of years of practice. But I wanted to see so, so badly it almost drove me to peeling off my face. Even though no direct eye contact took place in those moments, It felt like her image was branding itself across every inch of my flesh. Being carved in. It was uncommon for me to care too much about what I could see but it was unbearable to not look her in the eyes. I guess because I already was. An overwhelming sense that they were staring into mine the entire sacred time.

 

                       4:27:01 p.m.

 

   When the wheelchair stops at the edge of a table my mind had drifted off to a holy place. I feel her gentle grasp sting my shoulder. This makes me shutter like there is no tomorrow. She was giving me her personal goodbye. I can no longer stand it so I tilt my head behind and drown in the imagery of her figure. She lets me - for a moment - then takes my hands in hers and puts them to my temples. She steadys my head with her subtle movements and now I face a man across the table. She leans down and kisses my lips lightly. There are no words for what this does to me. I am frozen. I listen to her footsteps smoothly fade out as she strides back to limbo. I can do nothing to stop her.

 

    now...

 

   I felt his presence imeadiately and his pulse moved through the air to surround me. It wiggled through my skin and seeped into my veins and the effect was so much more than powerful. I felt his influence on my neck as my head remained stationary.

   Deer in the headlights...

   Deer in the headlights.

   I stared, paralized, directly into the eyes hidden behind pitch black aviators. I couldn't actually see them but nonetheless, they were peering into mine and mine into his. Vice Versa rewired. He resided in a chair not unlike mine and wore a great, dirty-blonde Grizzly Adams beard which he groomed with a graceful touch. He was one burly, lumberjack lookin' m**********r sporting not only the massive scruff on his face but a lions mane in a ponytail of the same shade. Faded jeans fit him well and a solid brown flannel with the sleeves rolled up revealed expertly tatooed forearms.

 

                        4:27:48 p.m.

 

   "Hello Dalton." His booming voice presents itself as a whisper.

   I know him.

   "You know who I am and why I am here." This is a statement not a question so I respectively shake my head yes.

   "Are you prepared to leave?" His words hang around like they're visual representations of his thoughts...barely there.

  We stare at each other for an eternity in a very intense absence of sound. Every frequency has been cut, spliced and sucked out of the room. When I look around at other inhbitants I can see their mouths moving up and down in a chewing motion. Their jaws yapping away carelessly but no obvious audio.

   Suddenly it all breaks when a sinister smile simoltaneously spreads across his face and mine.

   The vacume is rattling.

   And that's when I notice the shimmer. Not from his chair but from mine. A reflection of light from the suns' rays, so bright, it consumes me and all of my being. It acts as a trigger. A surge releases me from unseen binds and revives an entity surviving inside that I only suspected existed. The flood has just reached me. I don't see the window anymore.

   I am now on the outside.

 

                        now...

 

   I threw both hands flat on the table as hard as I knew how and expressed myself with a laughter that could boil water alive.

   He joined me.

   I was free and ready to fly.

   We shared a bit of hysterics and when coming down, I mimed that he looked good.

 

                      4:31:00 p.m.

 

   "You can speak." He urges.

   I think about it and decide he's right..."So you've come to collect my soul?" I ask him this in a tranquil tone and surprise myself. It's been a while since I've heard my own larynx work but I feel like we've been holding this single conversation for an entire millenia. We haven't.

   He affirms my question. "You do look good though, different, but good." I mention again; this time aloud.

   "Thank you. I enjoy this body. I think I may take use of it for a bit longer today. Your world has an interesting variety of unusual shape and form. It is a shame I must halt this relms' progress at such an early hour. Please be sure to commit what you will to memory for you will never live it again. Give farewell to your vessel for you will have no further need of it from this moment on." He speaks eloquently; alien form.

   Indeed.

   "Indeed...good riddance. You know, I didn't think you'd be here this soon. I expected my body to be much, much older...like...deathbed style." I pause in a moment of heavy relief. Sheer exuberance. "You do have to answer me this; was she yours?...Arie, I mean."

   "Yes." Smiling again. "You should look upon her twin." He grins a grin of happy death.

   "...Nice. Well then...let's jet!" I say amused and sigh.

   I stand up out of that rusty chair and find my legs still work, so I kick it over. I also take the number necklace they forgot from around my neck and make a mental note to burn it.

   Liberated...Ahh.

   He stands with me and muses, "You will experience universal history tonight my son." Then adds, "I am running on empty. We will make a detour before we venture forth to nurish ourselves with human substance and...how do you say...Mi-ilk-shak-es? Yes. I enjoy them." He enunciates milkshakes like a child. A strange contrast to the rest of his language.

   "...Uh, okay, that's totally fine with me man. Let's just hit the road, I don't wanna miss the show." I agree. I'm anxious but we walk, with no hurry, out past them all watching cautiously. They look scared.

   As well, they should be.

 

now...

 

   So we were off. Not until after the hole-in-the-wall diner and the burning of my label did I notice how everything familiar seemed distant and askew. I considered this a good thing. I was genuinely happy. I couldn't remember anything before the hospital - except him of course but this was a vague, new memory at the time. I was ready to forget my stay there all together.

   Now I see, know and have it all. Not only from this plane of existance but all of its parallels as well. I was looking forward to not thinking much anymore. Not not being sure.

 

                               5:58:16 p.m.

 

   Good f****n' times ahead to watch the end come and go.

 

         now...

 

   We jumped into an old Bonniville that looked brand new. It was dark burgundy with a white leather interior. The top of course was gone. We headed west on the interstate at exactly six 'o clock p.m. We were pointed at the crossroads. Sipping on chocolate milkshakes spiked with Sailor Jerry and listening to Blood On The Tracks, we vanished all in all into the setting of the sun.

 

   I was never material again and that reality ended as it was intended.

   I'm actually not sure how you're reading this right now?

Reviews

[DavidRyan]

Definitely good, man. Strong voice for the narrator. I like the idea. The being trapped and not getting out, the monotony of it all. The waiting. "It was undeniable. We really were prison junkies and our heroin was trying to understand."< That was amazing. I loved how it came at the end of the paragraph too and not stuck in the middle somewhere...I copied it right when I read it so I could paste it here. Definitely brilliant. You did do the ' too many times. And what I mean by that is when you'd put something like, "I was waiting in the hospital. I was suppose to talk to my 'mentor' today". Those single quotations. It definitely works a lot but too many of them and the reader almost gets distracted and starts waiting for the next time it happens -- or at least I did for a bit. Other than that man, simple grammar errors were the only problem. The story as a whole is strong and should definitely be dived into more. I would love to read it in its completely entirety. The metaphor for the whole story was strong and the ending was great. I love ending it in a way that makes people almost have to go back and start over.
Overall, well done.