Repetition

Maybe things have been getting foggy lately. Maybe a little. Maybe just a tiny bit hazy.
You know the feeling. I'm sure. The days run into each other. The nights are halfway through before you even notice they've begun. Old wounds disappear suddenly. Sullenly? Reluctantly? Maybe but I miss those old scrapes and bruises just as much as they miss me. They might have hurt, but at least they reminded me all of this was real.
I don't even remember getting hurt at this point. Sure, one might even say "this is getting rediculous" but why? It should be obvious. Maybe somebody is sad, maybe somebody want some sympathy, maybe that's it. Maybe somebody wants some reassurance.
This is getting rediculous.
I don't even remember being hurt.
But all the same, I find reassurance in the pain. I heard something similar once. Two men, friends, were being tortured. The days bled together like the friends bled together like my days run together like sick, sick horses. One man complains to the other about the pain, no doubt seeking solace in the other's predicted concurrence. Unfortunately, the man is let down.
Replies the second man, "find solace in the pain. It means you're still alive."
Or something like that.
Luckily for my imagination, my memory of the incident, true or untrue, stretches no further. The wonderful little hole in my little (enormous) imaginary torture chamber allows me to postulate: what if man one did not want to be "still alive?" What if the pain only served as a reminder there is more pain to come?
It is an interesting circumstance indeed.
Let us assume that our beligerently pain-hating Man One has/had a family. Would he not want to go back to them? Wouldn't anyone entertain the though of going back to the wife and kids, for the most part unharmed, but with the most amazing story to tell?
The only answer, of course, is that our sad Man One gave up all hope.
That would make the pain a most difficult thing to endure.
Not because it would be painful. Oh, sure, it would be, at first. But the human body acclimates to any temperature over time, the temperature in this case being a high degree of pain. No, our Man One would hate the pain for another reason.
Repetition.
Repetition.
Repetition.
Repetition.
Repetition.
Anything gets boring if you do it all day, every day.
Pain pain pain pain pain pain pain.
Day after day after day after day.
Except our poor Man didn't even have days. He didn't have nights, either. He didn't have windows. He didn't even have a regular sleeping schedule.
Starting to catch what I mean?
Maybe Man One was right to complain. Maybe the pain isn't worth weathering. Maybe Man Two should stop and think before he opens his self-righteous trap.
This is all theory of course. Man Two was probably right. Man One probably even listened to him. The poor guy must've gotten home safe, with just a few more splinters between his fingernails and a hell of a story. What do I know? I'm just a rat.
Not even one of the mice. Just, a rat.
It's scary how things have managed to stick to one storyline in the past few days. One thing's just led to another. Day and day and day and day.
It's scary how things have bled together.
Maybe things have been getting just a little foggy lately.
Even worse, maybe things have been getting clearer.