FanStory.com - I Was Just Thinkingby michaelcahill
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thoughts
I Was Just Thinking by michaelcahill













I must say that startling was an understatement. I immediately considered hospitalization. I'm talking about put me in a straitjacket and cart my carcass to the looney-bin type hospitalization. The thoughts were clear and even somewhat recognizable as possibly being my own. There was no question they were emanating from within my own head. I wasn't hearing voices. I wasn't about to blindly do the bidding of some over powering irresistible force.
 
Slowly I began to calm down. I was somewhat on guard naturally. Hell, I already was intelligent and complicated. Now, I was simply more so. I had no difficulty understanding the new ideas and concepts flooding my mind. None of them was beyond what I might have dreamed up inside the brain that I awoke with this morning.
 
I'm documenting these events as they occur. My reasons are twofold. Number one, I am a writer so I am writing about this. Number two, I don't know what this is or if I'll survive or even if I'll remember it when it leaves, if it does.
 
If this is of interest, we will discover it together. If it is something else? Well, maybe this will help reveal that.
 
I see a paper airplane thrust from the window of an inner cities housing project. There is no wind chill factor. However, it is nonetheless a worthy effort with a number of loop de loops and surprising flight patterns. I seem to have a newfound understanding of aerodynamics. However, that knowledge is of no more importance to me than it has ever been.
 
As it lands nose first I have a strong feeling of sympathy for its crinkled expression. I have a strong urge to pick it up and repair it. But, it is only a mental image I realize. I perform the task anyway forcing the image of me doing so on my unwilling imagination. I sense a tension in my thoughts as though I should simply let whatever is happening happen unimpeded. I acknowledge, but do not give in.
 
I haven't given my full trust. Deep down, blind trust is not something to which I subscribe. I trust easily, yet betrayal never surprises me. It is somewhat cynical I suppose. However, it has advanced me this far unscarred. Frankly as long as you don't betray me, I wish everyone well.
 
I am very suspicious of shadows. Now they surround me. I realize that one of them must be mine, but I know damn well that none of them is. I see the source of the dance that engulfs me. At the end of the alley, a group of people is loosely gathered around a small fire warming what is left of them. I focus for the moment on them I admit freely that I wish to be distracted from the unrhythmic pantomime engulfing me.
 
As I focus to the end of the alley, I realize I'm simply catching my breath. Is it a breeze brushing by me or is it them? If I am real, where is my shadow? Suddenly I realize that I am inside my shadow. For a moment, I feel foolish that it never once in my life occurred to me to accompany it. I reach up, touch the top of a five-story building, and laugh as my idiot body only manages to scratch its head.
 
I look to my fellow dancers and to my horror; I discover that I am alone. All around me, magnificent feats of impossible cleverness and imagination are performed by mindless puppets controlled unknowingly by cold bodys seeking nothing but a little warmth.
 
"Hey, look at this you idiots! Look at what is possible!"
 
But, shadows don't have voices. The thoughts remain mute inside my grey figure. A sense of danger envelops me as I rush to the aid of my mindless body.
 
"Run! Run!" and it does.
 
My shadow now mindless again runs along the side of the row of buildings summersaulting in and out of windows diving from ledge to ledge unnoticed, but never again unacknowledged.
 
By now, I have grown tired of standing motionless in one spot so I think I venture outside. As I open the door, I am moderately surprised to discover that the entire world consists of little white dots passing randomly before my gaze. I have a compulsion to capture one telepathically as though I actually have that ability. I'll be damned, I am affecting the dots. But, I can't seem to halt their movement, only alter their speed a little. Oh well, definitely something to practice.
 
I slowly open my clenched eyelids, initially only releasing some of the tension, then finally and slowly opening my eyes. I am relieved by the sight of the three quarter moon that winks a greeting to its favorite son.
 
Satisfied that I am not alone, I close my eyes allowing me to see once again undistracted by the dim reflected light of a million lying stars. It's her I see on the stretcher. She is peaceful, yes, but not without a small amount of tension.
 
"She's a goner," yells some blood drenched paramedic.
 
But, she is only sleeping. You see. She's sleeping on the stretcher gently rocked by the rhythm of the ambulance wheels on a road in disrepair.
 
"Bye, bye. Bye, bye. Bye, Bye."
 
Okay, love. I'll see you later, after you've rested, of course.
 
I feel your rush to judgment blow by me like a very angry updraft searching for a funnel to rise in. But, I'm without legs to aid it. You all fade shamefully into your own visions of feet unattached. I walk away laughing as you curse my cleverness.
 
What am I to do now that I have left you all behind? Do I retrace my steps and re-find you? I am not lonely. Do I join my love in her little charade? Or, should I stop dreaming for you and let you dream for yourself?
 
Well, I have a plane to catch so you will have to find your own questions.



 

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Author Notes
I read this to my wife and she said, "You're crazy". That made me very happy.

     

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