Orphan Objects

That night she slept with the windows open. Cool, damp air spreading out into the room. She dreamt of watching a city from a cliff outside the limits, taking notes, and waiting for messages by radio; observing the structural decay of the skyscrapers, the creeping ivy. Waiting for the earth to take over again.

A tattoo of a mushroom cloud ringed with a banner reading “Born to Fry”

An alarm still going off in a warehouse full of dead henchmen.

     There’s a certain bleakness in the paths I beat on a daily basis. A commanded repetition to my actions to the point where they no longer feel premeditated or organic, but regimented, etched into the folds of my brain by tiny chemical hammers and chisels, knee-jerk reacting all the way up that hill to work. I’ll make a point by mentioning the anxiety dreams caused by such a wholly unwanted possession of body and mind. In these dreams I repeat the same actions, retread the same patch of ground for what seems like hours on end, walk never ending hallways and staircases, running in place on a treadmill, forever going nowhere, tired muscles raging against the routes of work, worn well into my bones like ancient cart paths, a jumping wind-up toy on its side, spastically kicking out, hoping to right itself.

    Day to day activity, naturally, inherits a seemingly endless amount of possibilities, yet, from the moment we wake to the end of that day, we remain ignorant, or at the very least, unaware of the potential millions of side streets and reverse alleyways we pass from bed to desk and back again, not just in the physical sense of these “off the beaten paths” but in the emotional and spiritual sense as well. Our days may seemed number and planned, despite what your schedule may tell you, buckling under the great pressure of a man made lake of time just behind the binary concrete of your smartphone screen and, honestly, it’s probably better off that way. Total awareness might lead to minor lapses in judgement or a playful batting of conversations into various directions purely for want of following the rabbit, if not (and this is the big if)  the total and horrific collapse of all reasoning abilities, dissociation from time itself and a general babbling like a street person to the nearest light post, ultimately resigning oneself to reactionary and nervous decision making until you’re waking up just before your alarm clock goes off and you lie on your back, not seeing the ceiling, but a endless array of threads like a loom coming out of you, grabbed and pinched at the point where your body lay. Every string, a brand new reality, a differently answered question, right instead of left (left instead of right) or a night on the town, waking up in another bed, not this one, and somehow having the exact same experience. Your focal point is inescapable. Millions of alternate universes spiralling out of your mouth as you expound some menial detail about your day’s going. Change a word here or there and the reaction shifts. Inflect the sentence towards the end, posit it as a question, and the conversation veers into a different realm and maybe you never get to tell the person across the table how you really feel about last night or the whole thing shifts and drops, the engine giving out, and you walk away burnt out and unsatisfied. Opposites are just as easily imagined.

     Milliseconds fall out of the sky in storms, burying you in lagging drifts, finding you on the sidewalk, shaking out your coat, crossing the street and if that fucking kid wouldn’t have taken so goddamn long to bring the check you would have been out of there sooner and you wouldn’t be stuck hovering behind this crowd of people staring at a body under a cab. You easily peak over the other heads, wanting, but not wanting, to catch a glimpse of the speed bump formerly known as a person and it’s you under that cab, time dilated faced in a twist, straight out of Serling’s playbook. Cue the music, roll credits.

     There we all are, groping along, the breadth of humanity reduced to a great blind machine, engine filled with the ceaseless grinding of gears, our hands just in front feeling for the rocks that might trip us up, incapable of seeing past the pebbles before they touch our hands. A blind man, wandering the desert, face to the sky, following the warmth. Only the endless, persistent now.

     My idea of the future, of its continued existence outside of myself, is based solely on my belief in other people’s belief of a continued existence outside of myself. More and more, alarmingly, I’m awake at night, a garble of tape reels stretched out around me, but there’s no focal point. No hand of the self pinches down those threads. I act not as filter, but as filler. Background information projected to a wall on which the tape wheels whine, and time just marches on. Not a funeral procession and not a parade. A squandering of inches and feet, of reels of home movies and love letters, car crashes and nurseries. The last pictures fade, we stand up, brush away the crumbs and dust and exit the theatre, returning to our graves, friends and enemies alike. An infinite loop. Lovers walk the way of other lovers, worn out paths from beds to kitchens and back again. Our hands ache at dull machines, heads dream of weekends and vacations, what we promise the next generation but will never give them, and they’ll pass it on to the next like heart disease or preferences in women. And if I live long enough, I’ll see myself shovelling snow away from my parents headstones, but I can’t see into the future. Not like others can.

She’s got this pattern down: rotating which set of cars she gets on. Front or back, depending on the day. I can’t tell if she skips the weekend or it carries through.
 
We have a clever game of eye shifts and peaking over the edges of paperbacks. She steps on the train after me and we start. I sulk in the back of the last car, face in a book when lo, she sets down floral prints and a “Brookline Booksmith” tote in the seat next to mine. My heart races and I try not to breath too loud or she might figure out that I’m next to her. Then the train breaks / lights go off / the driver flirts with the ignition / we exchange confused smiles.

I crack a Steve Albini joke and now I’ve got to start this whole thing over again.

     It was about a week after I had settled into my new job that I started to notice something was off. At first, I blamed it on my new schedule, restless nights, changes in eating habits, but after a month of days dragging endlessly and sleepless nights, I began to examine all aspects of my life, mind, and body hoping for any kind of indicator that might lead me to correcting my current state of generalized discomfort and awkward displacement.

     After an exhaustive cataloging of my life, which included a failed attempt at an exercise routine, I took the advice of a friend and began recording my dreams. Not that I believed dreams to hold any sort of prophetic power, but rather that I might find some subconscious clue that would point me in the direction of my waking anxieties. During this time I started to notice patterns in the scheduling of my dreams. On nights of odd numbered dates I would dream of water; bodies of water great and small: lakes, a leaky faucet dripping into infinity, the sea. On even numbered dates I dreamt of physical transformations or bodily mutilations: losing my legs, growing wings, shape shifting. The patterns continued for a month then abruptly stopped. I instantly felt better. Maybe the simple act of recording the dreams allowed my anxieties to find their release.
   

     Two months passed with little effect. My energy was high and I was happy. I began drinking water more frequently than I could remember, urinating less, a fact that should have troubled me more than it did. Occasionally, those troubling dream patterns would emerge again, but eventually I put my journal away entirely. I was all right. My social life started to return. I frequented the beach with friends. I never swam, but would lay in the surf, letting the waves wash over me. I found the whole act to be very cathartic and quickly made it part of my daily ritual. I stopped changing my clothes beforehand, leaving directly from work to the beach, would wade in up to my waist, letting the surf pull at my body. I felt whole, as if the ocean had woken a dormant part of my psyche.
   

     It was around this time (about a month and a half after the dreams had stopped) that I began to drink water incessantly. I would carry several full bottles around in my bag where ever I went, filling them whenever I got the chance; spending more time at the beach. I felt at ease in the water, so much so that I once had fallen asleep there only to be startled awake by a small group of teens who regularly used a near by spot to smoke pot and drink. After, I decided to limit my beach trips, eventually stopping all together.
   

     The dreams returned shortly, almost ominously, after I stopped making the trips. I tired to put it out of mind. As before, I wrote them down upon waking. The same patterns were present, only far more pronounced that the previous times, very vivid. Every night it seemed, I’d watch as my body was torn limb from limb by disastrous machines, hunted and ripped apart by packs of wild animals, or swallowed whole by unseen creatures from the deepest ocean trenches. I slept with the lights on, afraid of what I might encounter when I closed my eyes.
   

     One day, on a desperate whim, I returned to the beach. I sat, fully clothed, in the surf for several hours. I didn’t feel cold or tired. I felt better. I began to fear leaving this place for some unknown reason, perhaps worried that what drove me to return would continue to haunt me after such a pleasant release here. I ended up returning to my apartment at 4:00 AM, only to change clothes and return to work.
   

     It wasn’t long before this routine of beach visits began taking its toll on my waking life. Work was the first casualty. I would waste countless hours staring blankly at the office clock, each tick an eternity between here and my watery sanctuary, the only place where peace was possible. I started missing days at work, instead heading directly to the beach. On several occasions I fell asleep there, only to be rudely woken by a patrolling police officer, mistaking my disheveled appearance for that of a homeless man. My future became very clear to me during those hours by the surf. I clung to my dreams of the sea.
   

     I remember sitting at my desk, staring at the clock on my computer, five minutes of three. The day had been slow with me doing next to nothing except drink all five bottles of water that I carried on me. I felt faint, short of breath, like somebody’s hands were at my neck squeezing. It had come and gone in waves all day. Stifling a coughing fit, I slackened my tie and unbuttoned my collar. Cold air stung at my exposed neck. I closed my eyes and focused on breathing. It didn’t help, I started wheezing. Concerned at the sounds she was hearing from my cubical, my co-worker stuck her head over the barrier. “Are you all ri-,” her words choked off by a sharp gasp. “What happened to your neck?” My hands instinctively found my neck, expecting to find wet blood where the cold air burned. No dampness, only three long slits on each side of my neck, about an inch or so in length. I must have looked incredibly startled, my co-worker disappeared behind the barrier.

     I ran, not to the bathroom, but out. Out of the office, out of the building to my car. Out of the parking lot, out of the city, toward the beach.

     To be completely honest, I had been waiting for this day since the dreams returned. I knew how this had to end, I just never envisioned myself living through it. The vision stops at some point, not because it ends but that’s as far as you’re allowed to see.

     I just parked the car by the high tide wall, emptied my pockets into the passenger seat. Phone, wallet, keys. Anyone watching would assume that I’m unpacking for a swim. I’ll leave the car, vault over the wall, and began a slow walk to the sea, undressing as I go, a trail of clothing my bread crumbs in case I’m wrong. I’ll walk into the sea naked. The instant the water is over my head; a sick feeling of sinister purpose. If it weren’t for my recently acquired attributes, I might drown.

            I put on my sunglasses and slip into a passing crowd. If I’m good, I’m not noticed. This morning, I’m good. I’ve gotten particularly adept at hiding the zipper on my suit. It’s right behind my tie. I found the trick to be in solid colors; they draw the eye away from seams. The group pulls me like an impatient child. My day begins.

           The discovery of my ability to electrify objects by touch happened quite by accident. I had awoken that morning from a dream in which I was chained to a large rock on the floor of a very deep, very dark ocean. I survived by setting fire to the large amounts of sea sponges which populated my prison rock. I caught fish by their light. Upon waking, I went about my morning routine, which I had done for several years, ignoring what I initially thought was a static shock when I grasped the doorknob leading outwards from my room. It was only when I entered the bathroom that I noticed something strange. Entering the room, the lights which were previously off had suddenly and unexpectedly turned on. I looked toward the switch on the wall but couldn’t remember which was the on or off position. My apartment had strange electrical wiring. When I reached out to turn the faucet, I witnessed a small bolt of light jump from my hand to the knob causing it to turn. Water poured from the faucet, splashing into the sink. I turned it off. My heart was racing. What was happening?