Lost in a contraption

And so another day dawned upon the man who was trapped. Unknown to him, however, was this new dawn. He did not see the light or the sun, the rise of the stars and falling of the moon; he did not see anything but the bare white walls of the bathroom. It was a smooth white paint that begged you to touch it, and he often did. The paint had been slathered on stone blocks which gave the room an unnatural feel. Gabe, the man who was trapped, would run his hands across the rough stone, end to end across the length of the wall as he walked. Sometimes he would press his chest up against it as well, feeling the glossy sheet of white paint slither across his body and his hands at the same time. His fingertips would find the divot where the mortar was painted over and fidget around before careening across it in a horizontal slide. That, unfortunately, only lasted so long. And for the man who was trapped, it lasted much longer.

Gabe, the man who was trapped, earned this moniker some time ago. To be precise it was 212 days. To be dramatic it was an eternity.  He didn't so much develop it, but that was when it became true.  Gabe wandered into a bathroom some time ago and he hasn't been able to wander back out yet. He had a feeling when he was in there. As if he had been trapped, as if the lights were dimming and the sounds were all gone. As if the walls closed him in to the room and out of the world. The door sits closed, stuck but not broken. 

The human mind needs a certain amount of stimulus and Gabe's was getting less than necessary. You begin to wonder about things when you are trapped in a 15-by-6 room for an elongated period. You wonder if you can tell time naturally. Without help from a clock or the sun or an external passage. You cannot. You wonder if your senses become more accustomed to absolute darkness over time. They do not. Gabe spent almost 11 straight days in complete darkness. The lightswitch in the bathroom still worked, and he wanted to figure out if his eyes would ever adjust to a complete absence of light. Time drug on in a pure blackness but it never grew lighter. The typical grey-blue blacks that your eyes see when you get used to the dark never came. So he turned the lights back on but he hated it. Seeing the drab walls and the speckled light brown stalls and the large mirrors and the sinks and hearing nothing and feeling  nothing almost drove him insane in an instant. The man who was trapped fell to the ground after that in a heap, clutching at air as he went, not quite reaching his surroundings enough to support him. Gabe cried for a severe amount of time. But even in this short instance time began to lose meaning. What is time when you have nowhere and you are nowhere. When you are nothing. 

The illusion of time was not lost on Gabe. And as he awoke on this day, day 212, he wanted to take back his lost time, and with it his lost mind. Time and light and mind were tested, and now he desired pain. Gabe, the man who was trapped, jumped up abruptly and punched the mirrors. Not knowing the strength of the glass worked against him, as he had to make several strikes to break it. The satisfaction he received upon seeing the pieces of glass leak into the basin almost invigorated him, but he had the blessing of a blood soaked hand to distract him. Gabe did not stop there, either. It wasn't rage, but fierce determination. He plowed through the stall doors, wrenching them from their hinges with all of his weight and his hands and his fury. He clutched at the toilet lids and shattered them upon walls and ceilings and floors and all manner of obstacle. He ran and jumped high into the air, dropkicking the hand dryer, and knocking the front off of it. A furious display if rebellion continued until he could no longer stand. Not from pain or exhaustion but from fright. Gabe, the man who was trapped, was overcome with a feeling that he would never escape. That he would die here, or worse yet, live here forever. Alone and scared and desperate for the simplest of necessity. This fear took him in his heart and wrought him with tears and cold. He shook maniacally and shivered until he spasmed into a restless sleep. 

When Gabe, the man who was trapped, awoke, he was pleased to see his mess remained. He had a dream that night but he could not remember it. It left him with an ill feeling. He rushed to his feet and washed his face in the sink full of glass to change his mind from this feeling. It was one of those feelings thrust upon you without permission and willing to linger if you don't adjust. He took a small garbage can in the corner and began to beat on the door handle until it snapped off. It left a small hole in the door and he put his hand to it. He gritted his teeth as he felt a warm draft pouring in. He lost all other cares except for the desire to continue. It took him three more days to make significant progress again. His garbage can had been mangled to pulp by then and he had moved on to bits of porcelain. He would fire them from across the room like a baseball pitcher. He got determined again and took a full stall door and battered against the door he came in. Gabe was upset he hadn't tried this earlier. Not just using the door but trying to break out. As he hammered away with the corner of the stall, it broke from the rest of the door, but at the same time he took a solid chunk out of the bathroom entrance door. It was the size of his head and completely unnatural. The door had not shattered or splintered, but imploded inwards from the force, crumbling into itself. He peered through and saw only black and felt only heat. He was not afraid of pure dark, and heat was a welcome change. 

It was like peering into a lake at night, with the moon hidden by a wave of clouds.   He dipped his hand into the hole in the door and it disappeared at the wrist.  Gabe felt his hand heating up and he yanked it back quickly in fear.  He shook his head and reassured himself, then put his hand back through, this time all the way up to the shoulder. He had to press his cheek up against the door to get his arm fully in, and once again he saw nothing and felt warmth.  A deep, hot warm that he had never experienced before.  It did not deter him this time.  He resumed his beatdown on the hapless door.  Taking breaks only to meditate or think or rest his tired body.  He had nothing but time, so he rested often and made slight progress on the door from day to day.

Before he had realized, there was a full, empty whole there.  No longer a door, but a dark barrier.  At this point there was no hesitation, no fear, no weariness or fatigue, no apprehension.  No longer was Gabe controlled by his emotions, but freed from them.  This place set him stricken, and he wanted to emerge, now whole, enlightened and renewed.  He did not know where this desire came from but he embraced it.  He was in an embracing mood.  So he stepped forward and embraced the darkness and the heat and the nothingness.  It was almost as if he had simply shut out the lights again.  Gabe, the man who was trapped, was now caught in a light-less ethereal place.  Senseless and comfortable.  He walked on, or so he hoped.  The motions his body normally did and his reactions were taking place, but he did not feel anything.  His legs would rise and fall, his chest would heave with breath, but he did not feel as if he was moving, or if he was anything at all.  It was hotter than he felt on his his arm from the previous entry, he thought.  And his thoughts were effervescent, suddenly, and held meaning and power.  

Previously alone with his thoughts, Gabe began to dread his existence.  Questions arise and are pushed around and crashed into gray matter and intangible mental structures.  They beat down on psyche until everything is a question and nothing is certain and fear prevails.  Sitting in the cold bathroom and thinking only led him down a single line of thought, rife with possibilities of lingering presence and undying stagnation.  Boredom and loneliness were the enemies of the able.  Able of mind and of body.  To be alone with your mind was to suffer.

But no longer did Gabe feel this way.  He longed for this feeling his whole life, he thought, though he did not know it.  And now this man, Gabe, the man who was trapped, did not feel trapped.  He felt home, if it could be called such.  He decided that it could.  He decided many things in this time, and his mind changed fundamentally.  In the abstract and in the corporeal.  He thought of his old life.  212 days is a long time to be alone in a room, and that time was elongated by the mental exercises Gabe took upon himself.  It seemed so far away.  His life.  And as he thought of it, he smiled.  He thought back to feeling cold air and walking under a tree.  Running across a busy street before traffic arrived.  Involuntarily smiling forced by your surroundings.  He thought of sadness he felt.  Hopelessness and strife.  And he smiled still, stomping on through the dark nothing.  

And this went on for some time.  Gabe was happy here.  With his thoughts and his feelings and his brain.  But, he thought, things eventually end.  As did his life, his prison, as will his escape.  In time, it did end.  Gabe took a step, a legitimate, earnest step, and his eyes flashed open with force.  He did not recognize his surroundings and he could not think or formulate or be asked to do a task, but he was awake and lying on a bed in a room.  There was a window to his left and light was pouring in.  A leak had sprung in the sun and his room was capturing all it could in a glorious saving effort.  He had that feeling when you wake from a dream.  When all you have is emotion from where you once were, and all the thoughts and ideas and the concrete evidence of what your mind has concocted falls away piece by piece.  And you grasp for the ideas you just had but it's already too late.  They fall away so quickly and you strain to get them back but you cannot.  And you know you cannot, but you try anyway.  And here Gabe was, the man who was trapped, alone in a room and happy.  He did not know why, but that was beautiful to him.

Then the door on the right opened and someone walked in.  Gabe did not notice as he was trying to overpower the light blasting in the window and see what was past it.  And when he turned back the person was staring at him, wide-eyed and hand-to-mouth aghast.  Gabe, the man who was trapped, smiled.  The person lowered their hand and smiled back.  Being so pleased with this exchange, he imagined them stuck there like that for an extended time.  Staring back and forth, without words, with light, smiling.  Trapped.  

Something for after right now

I had driven about five miles with this new strange passenger. At least I assumed it was five miles. It was almost certainly less than that. I had come to notice that people are awful at estimating distance, as well as time. A full ten seconds is a long time when you're waiting for it to pass, and the relativity of the situation never fails to alter a person's guesses by a large amount. So in reality, maybe 3 miles had gone by. Maybe less. I couldn't remember when I checked the clock last, even though I just looked at it. I couldn't guess by time. Either way, it felt like a long time. It felt hot and silent, sweating from the mental exercise and my lack of cognitive endurance.

Rain blotted my windshield at such a rate that I had to manually turn on the wipers every half minute. It was just finishing up raining. In the light of my headlights I could see the shining black, slick road. Even in the darkness, the rain does this incredible thing where it brings out the true vibrancy of the colors. The yellow road lines were popping. The metal guardrails and light posts shined and shimmered and glossed, especially glossy. The asphalt was a thick and heavy black, made even more so by the white road sidelines. Other than the two small headlight beams, things were only vacantly illuminated. We passed streetlamps sparingly, driving on back roads.

I say we only because it's easier to refer to. We implies a sort of bond, in my mind, a commonality, a friendship. There was no kinship here, in fact there was nothing at all. An atypical hitchhiking, I had slowed down and offered a ride to a lonely rain wanderer. There are so many myths and tales regarding picking up passersby. I subscribe to none of them. Hesitantly they joined me and I drove on. They didn't offer a destination and I did not ask one. It would have been an awkward conversation overall. I was just out driving because I enjoy driving. Sometimes when you drive you see something that catches your eye or you drive upon a long, winding road and wish you had the time to ease down it at 20 miles an hour and just take it in and forget things. Forget where you're from or what you're doing. Forget about laws and space and travel and just view the simple sights as a tourist or a traveler, or a stranger. So I was out forgetting and they were doing who knows what. They had their hood up over their face but their long hair was hanging down. They didn't look at me. I assumed from stance it was a male but I didn't really know, or care. Me, traveling along at such a slow pace, in the rain, offering rides to the often-accused faux murderers stuck in the elements, probably conjured up some myths in their mind as well.

My car was driving subconsciously at this point. I wasn't entirely focused on the road, yet the turns were sharp and crisp, and my speed was medial and controlled. Habit forced robotics to develop traits like my own, only more quickly learned. My focus wasn't on anything in particular. I saw the dark trees and the sparse houses and the asphalt and the stars and night sky, but not really. I thought about art and life and machine, but not wholly. I was half existing and half automaton. My fingers had begun to tap a rhythm out on the reverse side of the steering wheel as I gripped it. Driving with palms and making percussion with fingers, I once again eased into a pattern my brain had constructed without my input. And this went on for a while. For a very long while.

Looking around, I started to realize again what was occurring and I shook myself wide awake. This point in time seemed like a good time to stop being rude to my guest.

"Where are you going?" I said, courteous enough.

"Wherever." Their voice revealed nothing.

"You don't have somewhere to be?"

"Don't you?"

"I suppose not." I would not let silence rule again.

"You want to get ice cream?"

"It's 2 AM." A revelation. He turned to face me. He was beautiful. He was quizzical.

"There must be a grocery store around here. Do you have a GPS on your phone?"

"I don't have a phone."

"Okay. Just use mine. I'll walk you through it."

 And I did. A little more haphazardly than I would have liked. He was slightly more inept than anticipated and I could not seem to be able to drive properly and think and talk all at once. It worked though. 8 miles away. On I drove.

I pulled into the parking lot and he went in. He offered to buy. I was positive by this point that he had no money but I was proven wrong when he came strolling out of the store with a gallon of neopolitan and 2 metal ladles. I thought it was clever but in retrospect it was just all right. Pretty clever for not knowing how to work a GPS app, though. So he walked out and I climbed out of the car and hopped up on the trunk. I patted the cold metal next to me as if to say "come sit" but eagerly. I didn't want to use words.

We sat there eating ice cream in silence for a while. I started to get full, so between gluttonous bites I would pause to make conversation.

"Where are you headed, anyway?"

"The promised land I guess."

"Thats neat. Where is it?"

"I don't know."

"Me neither. Can I come?"

"Sure."

"Can we drive there?"

"I won't pretend to know all the rules, but I'm inclined to say sure."

"All right. Go grab some sodas and snacks. I'm starving. Maybe a burrito. Whatever man, I trust you!"

He had already begun walking so I had to yell at the end. He came back with faygo and swedish fish.

"That'll do for now, you lunatic," I laughed.

As he approached I put my hand up for a high five and he slapped back. I wasn't sure he would know what I was doing. He seems modern and archaic all in one. As if a prophet accidentally time traveled to the future, but he had been around long enough before he found me that he was accustomed to us.

"You want to listen to music?"

"I want to make music," He countered. He pulled out a pan flute.  I almost absolutely lost it. This guy was a trip, I thought.

"You're a trip," having never uttered that phrase before. "Where do I go?"

"Be quiet, be still. Calm down. Return to your former self. You were doing phenomenally before. What is your name?"

"Lucas. Yours?"

"Vincent."

Rain began to pour down again. I stared out the window in the darkness, seeing less and less of my surroundings, until the only thing I could see was the road, and everything else was absent of light. My vision seemed to fade in my periphery the more I allowed it to. The rain stopped and I lowered my window. I could hear water gurgle over rocks in a river nearby. I could hear the wind push the rocks and leaves and twigs and stems. I could hear plants breathing. I could feel it calling out to me. Calling me back home. I looked over at Vincent. He smiled at me. I drove on. Focused. 

Mornings, evenings, and nights.

Did you ever sit in an empty parking lot and just stare into the Twilight?  I'm doing it right now. Whether the sun is rising or setting, the colors fuse and blend in the most natural and stunning way. It just happens to be sunrise now. In the comfort of my car and the soothe of the radio sounds and the canvas of the sky, my existence begins to paint a picture. Emotions are snared out of the ether, captured from the essence of song, and implanted hard on my brain and in my spirit. My eyes trace lines across skyscapes; imaginary, invisible lines that dissappear faster than they never were, yet leave an impression on my conscious. The confines of my car frame an image from several directions, while imploring me to see everything from a new angle.

During this mental renaissance is when you are most susceptible. More susceptible to all things. You are art incarnate and questions flow through you. It's the only time when I have an answer to each one and none at all and neither prospect disturbs me. I get to be so artificial, while being entirely natural. In my vision out of my front windshield, I see colors mix. Colors that almost don't exist. Blue and yellow and white twist together, forming strands of a color stream that were not there yesterday, 5 weeks ago, last era, or when they were first born. I behold them with esteem and honor and deep reverence, even though I don't know I'm doing it. I can just tell I'm being pomp and kind.

And the music is telling a story into my ears and out of my heart. Emotions that don't have words. Hurt and joy combined, yet not quite. An amalgam of melancholy, triumph, pride, and loneliness bounce through my body where my soul should be. Feeling two emotions at once, or three or four, comes as easy as blinking. The tone changes and so does your mood. It tells you what to feel. It forms a hand and grips your brainstem and now it controls you. You move not voluntarily or with purpose, but out of passion and instinct. The sound fades as the song ends and then the process starts anew. In cycles and circles and spirals.

Some clouds creep across the air like sludge and others dart quickly like a threatened reptile. The wind starts and stops, each act bringing a different miracle with it: simplicity or resistance. Nothing is happening yet you feel as if you could watch it until you slept and dreamt and woke once more and then watch again. And again and again and again.

Then life beckons at you, a child in need of help. Shakes are sent through you, some mental, some physical, both self-inflicted. Somehow you toss the ideas aside and somehow you overcome the beauty and the majesty and the utter pleasantry the scene brings with it and somehow you turn the key and shut it down. The car door opens and you step out. 

To be a witness

I sat at at the end of a long table, in a room bustling with people. They were each so preoccupied with stories and conversations and mounds of words and destinations that I sat ignored. Ignored but not alone. I took in the sights and sounds of my fellow person. A bubble formed around me as I watched them laugh and lean and sip coffee. Truly a fascinating sight was beheld. A spectator sat intent and staring in their midst; invisible, floating eyes in a jungle of energy. I listened to the world around me happen.


Personal information pressed into my ears with gusto, the speakers of which quite aware of my presence but seemingly lacking in care. I became an uncooperative witness. Reality was called into question. Somehow, private and personal information wafted into my brain like an unknown pleasant smell to a jogger's nostrils; without their knowledge or consent, without asking for permission. Information relayed to me unwittingly and openly. So I sat and I absorbed it. Not by choice but by necessity. Truly, I tried to maintain my own privacy. I read pages of books, ate a meal, passed the time with menial smartphone activity. But I could not push out the stimuli of neighboring person's drawl and chatter.


And as it poured in so effortlessly I grew upset. I grew tired. And I grew ever irked. I suppose some would be happy to be this broad daylight superspy, to find out the intricacies of the lives of the fellows around them. To have the insider secrets of their common peers. I loathed it to an extreme that was unjustified. The mundane happenings of these tales pushed me to block out the details in a way I had not imagined. The light had dimmed and my skin and bone began to fade. My body, it's corporeal self at least, faded into transparency, leaving behind only my cold, skeletal fingers and palms. A pair of eyes floated in empty space, stuck fast in an invisible head. I acted on instinct alone from this point forward. And not an instinct I was used to, but a new one thrust upon me by destiny. The dim light and the dull white and the hands and the eyes, all of my body, worked in unison as I commanded. First, flipping over the table, sending it's contents flying. My hands flailed about wildly in their anger, slapping off of each other as I lost control and regained it. They slapped a woman across the face. They banged doors open and shut. They clapped together haphazardly. They rotated as a feather in a gust of wind, without purpose, direction, or flightpath. Everything before me was thrown about in a flurry of open-hand slaps. Hands propelled only by thought and vengeful eyes.


Then I opened my eyes, stood up and walked out. I drove home silently and forgot the entirety of the drive itself. My carpet was never softer than this time I chose to lay on it. Curled up in the fetal position, I tried to sleep and failed. I listened to my breath and my heartbeat and I sunk deeper into the floor. I sunk so deep I entombed myself beneath the hardwood and then down, deeper, beneath dirt and grass. Here I was alone with another pair of eyes and hands that were not my own. We held our hands together, fingers interlocked, and their eyes smiled. Mine smiled, too.