cerebral backseat thoughts
trying to drive me off the road,
possibly to discover new terrain,
though also possibly to just see me crash and burn,
left maimed in the middle of nowhere
with strange fauna nipping at my exposed ankles
so i can’t walk down the hill
and find help in the open meadow
i don’t think it’s creepy that i sometimes
look out the blinds to see what my neighbors are up to,
but then again, i’m biased,
i would think,
but it’s not like i’m trying to catch my neighbors doing something bad,
but rather it’s because i have crippling anxiety and can hardly go outside,
much less think about going outside,
and sometimes i get this idea in my head,
this silly little idea,
that i want to be social,
you know,
with people within my general proximity,
but lawd, gawd, sward, no, no, no,
i could never,
i would never,
actually go outside and introduce myself
The feeling like I just swallowed raw all-purpose flour while a plus-size dominatrix sits on my chest keeps coming back.
I can’t decide if I like it or not.
Bloodshot eyes, searing toothpick-to-the-brain headache, a stench somewhere in the allium genus family of vegetables permeating my pores, clothes, and general demeanor. My Fitbit says my heart rate is 140 bpm. I approach the last counter I’ll ever see.
Another desperate human being sits behind it, though they appear to be seven feet higher than me (but it’s realistically probably only about a foot or so higher).
I shouldn’t be here. Probably a good name for my memoir, if I had the energy to write one of those. Maybe an autobiography some grad student could pick up as a pet project. But no one would read it. I certainly wouldn’t.
I can’t hear a thing; too much noise floating around.
Everything inside of me is screaming for me to stop, turn back, do something else. I don’t listen to that voice. I only listen to voices that destroy.
I tell the figure behind the counter, the figure that holds my future between its calloused, permanently grimy fingers, what I want, why I’m here. I sound more uncertain than I wanted to.
I feign confidence.
I want to puke.
Pupils dilate, endorphins kick in, a warm simmer bathes over, and I feel this lightness settle in my bones, like the weight lifted and I can continue.
I yell for everyone to remain calm, but it’s more of an internal suggestion. I don’t know if I should be doing this, but I do.
A loud bang reverberates against the plaster walls. The whole building seems to shake with the vibration of an unstoppable force that is beyond my control at this point.
Nothing will go as planned, but what no one realizes, including myself, is that was my plan all along….Or at least that’s what I’ll tell myself as I lie motionless on the ground with blaring blue neon flashes marking my final moments.
Fred Aiken Writing 