Freedom Gained

Two exceedingly unimaginable things happened today, though I’m unsure as to whether or not they were on a different day or the same, but they did occur. My memory isn’t always faulty. But how to start? With a conjunction after a period? Did I already start? Forget that I did. Prosaic and poetical; that is my beginning. Is that a dichotomy? An exercise in remembrance. Please forgive my words, though, if they are clumsy. My mind is still clumsy. An excuse for my inability as an author? Here now, here are my thoughts laid bare, but treat them gently whosoever may read them. What treatise is this? Here, a painting that I have painted, but avert your eyes unless you will say that it is good, a masterpiece even—I ought to put down this gadget and resign myself to the impossibility of my situation, to the ludicrousness of my hope, but I can’t. I can’t remove this gadget from my hand. I can’t imagine what I would do without it. Teach myself to write with my left hand? Blasphemous. Though, I am a walking blasphemy in and of myself—I haven’t started have I? I suppose I already have, and much more than that. Begin again then————I hope that means a long pause… again? Long pause to reestablish mood. Okay?

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The sun, it’s just a white disc. Strange that it doesn’t burn my eyes to stare at. "Should I make a note of that?" I thought to myself. I mean, I have little else to do. I had given up on standing up. All of my attempts at lifting my body had resulted in failure after failure, and out of frustration with my inability, I began trying to think out how I could shuffle-walk about; how I could regain delicate (to me at least) motions in my left hand; how I could even hold the gadget within my hand, especially since my arm’s musculature was clearly compromised; yet I could not lift myself from the ground. These thoughts held sway in my mind for a day or two, but I’m unsure if two days or more or less actually passed or not. I seem to blank out for a moment or more from time to time, and more startling, too frequently I seem to be looking through my past self’s eyes. How horrid it is. I live a distorted reality, forever on the cusp of madness; life and death masquerade as each other and the past is indistinguishable from the now, and the now hides from the future. But why do I bemoan remembering my past? Because in it I am not an actor, but a puppet; because it is long, oh so terribly long; because it is wrought full of sadness, fear, violence, and darkness, a deep, deep darkness. I may have woken from it, but I doubt I will ever be free from its gra—————forgive me. I needed catharsis and there is on this gadget some strange game with colored bubbles that pop when aligned that is unimaginably brain numbing, yet, equally strange as it may seem, is unimaginably exhilarating.

I am, so it seems, full of digressions, but no more. Onward write, though I doubt what I’m—no! A few moments. Yes, only for a few moments I thought about the contradictions of my body’s reality for only a few. I found no answer to my queries. With no answers or no more reason to question, I made note of the sun’s color and size and was again left with nothing to do.

The shuffling of feet approaching reached my ears. "One of those dumb creatures again," I lamented to myself. I just hope it isn’t walking toward the stairs or wall. It’s going to get stuck, and groaning from time to time, stand there and stand there and stand there and keep on standing there. I want my solitude. Dead the world is, but it isn’t empty, at least literally. Ever since I emerged from the forest I awoke within I have unfortunately quite often stumbled across other walking corpses, though none as decayed as I, and unlike me, all seemed to have been chewed upon.  When I learned that they ignored me and posed no threat, I attempted to communicate with them, however, they seemed to fail at understanding all of my efforts. After a series of gestures, grunts, and groans, I even tried to type up messages on my gadget, then holding it out in front of them so that they may read what I wrote. Still no response. I only later realized how vacuous that was, for if I could not read what I type on this gadget, how then could I read a response were one given? Perhaps even, those creatures were like me; they could recognize that what they were seeing were words, but just couldn’t fix meaning to them. What a frustrating dilemma to be in; to know what something is but not what it means. It is strange what I am and am not capable of doing.

I eventually gave up. They are now just a nuisance, an eye sore, an intrusion into my solitude. Yet, it saddens me to see them standing there, shuffling mindlessly about, bumping into each other without noticing. They had to be something before, something more conscious, unlike this thing grumbling about as it lumbers nearer to me. I peered over at it. Hideous. It used to be a man. Was it still though? He had a gaping hole in his chest that exposed his ribs beneath. Blood had stained all over his suit jacket and white shirt beneath. His tie was torn almost in two. A large chunk of cloth and flesh was missing from his left shoulder. I wondered what had attacked him. How had he died; in a violent struggle of desperation moments before his life was rent from him, or unbeknownst to him had it seeped out through that wound on his shoulder? Did it matter? Perhaps less so than its current path.

With every shuffle of a step it inched closer and closer to tripping over me, and I was not keen on gaining a permanent partner in my prison upon the concrete. No, I would not have it. I began to flail my arms about to warn the fool if its impending doom, yet as I should have expected due to my prior experience with such creatures, to no avail. Maybe the dire straits of my future reality would embolden my body with strength it had yet to possess—no—failure. Left with no other option I swallowed my pride, odd as it may seem that a decayed corpse could have any, and I gurgle moaned, gurgle groaned, gurgle gurgled at it to halt. Nothing. The creature was upon me, then in an instant it toppled forward and over me and slammed face first into the ground with a disturbing crack. It lay there motionless with its legs strewn across my chest. Did it die again? I tried to shove its legs off me, but G&*… strange, I swear I didn’t type those characters. Let’s try again, G#)… again? Well, anywho, it was heavy. I couldn’t move its legs off me.

"This is my now, this is my future," I thought. "I suppose that this will be my last entry into this gadget." Wait a moment, I noticed it wasn’t in my hand. What? I began to feel frantic. Aaarghhh… you fool! Didn’t you see me, hear me warn you? Your fault this, you brainless beast you. Look! I’ve dropped my gadget thanks entirely to your stupidity. You… you… erm… my mind seethed with anger until my own stupidity struck me. "I’m yelling at a dead creature in my mind," I thought, and besides, it was just some gadget that had a variety of uses I’m sure, but all of them were limited to its world, nothing “real” or so to speak. Yet, then again, it was my voice, but a voice I couldn’t read, but still a voice and not a grumble groan grunt thing, a voice in a dead world, in a world of lifeless living things though——aghhhh, or however you write a mental scream of frustration, and then, as though it had heard me, the thing gave a groan of its own. It began to shuffle about. "Great," I thought. I preferred it dead again, but just as I was about to fall back into wallowing over my plight, in an impressive feat of bodily control and strength, it lifted itself off the ground and began to lumber slowly away. Flabbergasted, I watched it as it went. A fit of anger began to boil in my head, a stream of stuttered and stammered attempts at words, h… wha… ch… tch… eh… gh… wh… st… how? I turned my head away to avert my sight from it only to find my gadget lying an arm’s reach away. Oh… there you are. I stretched my arm out to grab it, but almost got it, almost… my fingertips had it, almost, I just needed to edge it closer—TCH! My fingers slid off and pushed it a tad farther away. No, I will not accept this. I stretched my arm again, and stretched but… no.

Anger began to swell in me again, but it quickly dissipated and was replaced with a crushing sadness. I tried to bury my sunken face into my hands to cry, but it isn’t really the same when most of the flesh on your hands is gone, and of course no tears came; tears are a privilege reserved for the truly living. I needed an escape from my sorrow. "Where is my catharsis, where is that gadget," I thought, only to be reminded that it was beyond my reach. I closed my eyes in defeat and resigned myself to my ill lot.

The lumbering, shuffling creature had gone and silence greeted my ears. Then the sound of footsteps. Footsteps? Then hands under my arms, a voice (a voice?).

“C’mon, up you go.”

A voice!

“I don’t really know why, but I doubt you’ll try to harm me.”

I was up again, sitting at least. I watched my savior walk over and retrieve my gadget, pausing for a moment before returning back over to me. He knelt down.

“Here’s your phone back. Looks like some friend of yours messaged you.”

"Just a boy," I thought, "how old is he?" Young, yes, but those eyes. We stared at each other. Looking for something, but for what?

“You poor soul,” the boy broke the spell that had fallen upon us, “you are in there, aren’t you? Gah,” a tinge of frustration and regret bled through into his voice, “if only you could talk…” he mulled aloud, “but what am I doing? I’m going to get myself noticed sitting here out in the open.” Detaching himself from me, he stood and glanced about him, then, “here,” he reached out his hand to grab a hold of my only one left, and lifted me to my feet.

“Don’t fall down again, kay? I doubt we’ll ever meet again, but if by providence we do, let’s pray I’m not like that guy who fell on you,” he said to me, “See ya, then.”

He stepped past me, and up the stairs with ease. As he walked away he called over his shoulder,

“Don’t leave your friend Xander hanging.”

He disappeared down the narrow alleyway and was gone, forever.  I looked down at my gadget, a phone as it was properly called. "But I can talk," I thought, but I can’t read the words on this phone.