Chalk outlines of the subconscious mind.
About twice a year, I have a recurring nightmare. The details change, but the format is the same–people I care about die violently and vividly and when I wake up, I’m deeply upset and worried that I didn’t make any of it up.
Two nights ago, I dreamed that the five of us down here in Atlanta had stopped a group of fat blond rednecks from harassing a frightened Latina maid. Later, John decided to follow one of the offending rednecks into a shady part of town, with the rest of us in the Ford Freestar. Some minutes after we arrived at the home of aforementioned redneck, we were attacked by a horde of gunmen. They shot and killed Dean and Sharon in about ten seconds, and killed John as he drove off, leaving Dina to get into the driver’s seat and save me and herself. And we screamed and cried and we cursed John for driving into that situation.
I don’t know why I have this nightmare, nor why it was the one nightmare of the many I’m sure I’ve had that stays with me. It would seem that this is my greatest fear, the idea of my friends and loved ones being torn from my life by insane and unfair circumstances. Part of it is the fear of my own personal grief, part of it is the fear of seeing the grief of others involved.
I think I’d like for this entry to contain a lot of insight about my inner psyche; perhaps to more deeply explore things like the undeniable fact that I stayed away from medical science in large part because I never wanted to be in a position to have somebody’s life in my hands.
But that’s not really going to happen. It’s 3 AM in Atlanta, there’s a gorgeous thunderstorm outside, and I ate too much meat this evening. This is me writing because I’m awake. Because deeper in my subconscious, beneath the terror of illusory murders, beneath the faltering confidence of my creative spark, there is the knowledge that sometimes one must do what they are. That sometimes, in spite of common sense, one must turn off Adult Swim, throw off the covers, ignore the twisting barbecue pain in the gut, sit down at the computer and place words in sentences that they have never seen before. That one can avoid judging the quality of such craft and simply perform it.
I am writing because it is a natural state that I too often pretend is a external force. I am writing because in different circumstances I might not stop, might barrel forth with the momentum of vengeful avalanche, might spin mercilessly down the spiral of myself and attempt to translate it into English. I am writing the entry in my journal because the reflex to type is staging a jailbreak in the tips of my fingers. The rain on the window sounding like the bubble wrap games of borderline sociopaths. The lamp judgmental. The curiosity of repeated phone calls and frequent absences speeding around the room on classic rollerskates snapping its fingers in time to bone music. In excelsis deus ex machina. I am a being of wrong numbers and blood, a personality quirk in orbit around the sun. I am asleep at the wheel of fortune. A hundred overdue library books stacked in the shape of incomplete animals, like literary topiary, like the ideas hurtling into clear pieces of bulletproof glass at speeds exceeding unanswered prayer.
You should sleep. You should sleep so you may awaken.
Right-O.
Creative Control 