I spent over an hour battling my alarm clock this morning. The constant fatigue of five hour nights of sleep over the last few years are starting to take a strong grip on me perhaps. After forcing myself out of bed, I debated the virtues of going to work today or staying home.
Weak arguments on both sides caused me to sit staring into space for several minutes. If I stay, perhaps I can sleep in until 7:30 or so. Get some more rest. Keep these goddamn migraines away. But then the kids will wake, and like the rising of a full moon in a 50s werewolf movie, chaos would ensue. If I went to work, I was likely to fall asleep somewhere in the hour long commute. But I wouldn't burn any more of my PTO days, of which I am running low this year.
As I pondered this situation, sitting on the side of the bed, I sort of went into a daze. What does this all mean? If I stay home, would I really get any rest? Not likely. If I fell asleep on the way to work, would the accident be fatal? Probably not, with any luck I'd be knocked unconscious and hauled off in an ambulance. Maybe wake up in a few days with a concussion. But well rested nonetheless.
Hm....what to do...what to do.
Suddenly I realized I had wasted ten minutes so far and figured what the hell, off to work I go. I'm a gambler at heart. I like taking chances.
Strong urges of suicide and waves of paranoia chased me on my voyage across town. I was convinced the police or perhaps the FBI were following me. Watching my every move. Listening in on my brain waves in an unmarked van perhaps, or maybe a remote flying drone hovering overhead. Any police officer in his right mind who knew my mental state would pull me over in an instant and lock me in jail, for no reason whatsoever. The thoughts and images flashing through my head were certainly grounds enough. Where was the posse coming to lock me away, or dispense justice on the spot via a firing squad?
What had I done wrong? Why the paranoia, doubt, suicidal thoughts? I don't know really. Perhaps part of an acid flashback was in play. The stress my family exerts upon me is of no help either. My mind is something like a pressure cooker, sitting for days on a setting any sane person would never use, left forgotten to bake until the slightest tremor would cause the whole damn thing to explode, sending ceramic shards and hunks of plastic in all directions. A culinary ticking bomb with no real target. Instant mayhem in disguise.
I had a mental break down last night. It was an ugly thing. A total loss of mental discipline. I'm unsure what brought it on. It only lasted a little while, yet it was one of those time/space experiences that seems to last forever when you're in its grasp. Like the two seconds before a car wreck you see coming but can't avoid, your mind so fired on adrenaline that if you were watching close enough, you could see all the matter around you slowly decaying according to its individual half-life. The physical aspects of it were quick and precise. I'm still trying to cope with the synaptic short circuits that were left behind however. Permanent cerebral flotsam of a sort.
I'd been slowly working up to it all day. By dinner time it felt as if my spine was going to quiver out of my body. A strange sensation, as if I was picking up psychic vibrations from someone with a definitive dislike for me. But who? Could be anyone really.
After dinner, with the kids asleep, my mind was finally left to its own devices. Nothing external to nudge it along, no simple expectations to fulfill. And that’s when it hit. My mind had had enough, damnit! Fuck all this, it seemed to say. No thoughts processed through my mind for some time. A total synaptic traffic jam was in swing. All lights were green, wrecks at every intersection. The kind of total traffic fuckup that leaves city planners awake at night. I finally came to my senses some time later. My face and shirt wet with tears (or drool, one can never really tell).
I was so exhausted that I desperately wanted rest. But my mind was buzzing with this strange agitation. I couldn't think straight. What had just happened to me? Am I falling apart? Have things gotten too strange? How did this happen? These were all clearly questions that had to be addressed, but first I needed to unwind. Calmn down, relax. I took two xanax and made a large glass of vodka with some coke mixed in for color. Pounded it down, alcoholic iced-tea of a sorts.
I had had a call from a private investigator earlier that day. A confused kind of call. Someone looking for my fathers motorcycle. A Harley-Davidson, as I understand it. I had seen the bike a few times. Smallish, pretty, all chrome and polish and silver paint. I've no idea where it is. Or my father for that matter. He traveled off for parts unknown over a year ago.
The vodka and xanax were starting to mellow things out, put life into perspective. I should write it all out. Inflict this madness on the outside world. Clear the mental air, so to speak.
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