cypher beginning R

(Beginning with R)



I can't remember what prompted me to change my way of thinking, of life itself. This isn't the first major transition I've gone through; a dream changed my life at about the same time last year. A dream, though at the time it seemed far more than a dream, and even know when thoughts of it enter my mind, the details come back with such sublime intensity that I often fight with my conscious to accept that it was truly a dream.

Perhaps it's just this time of year. Maybe they were right when they said that this age is a time of emotional transition. Maybe it's just the weight of the years pressing harder upon me, pleading with me to change something for the better before it's far too late. Any or all of these explanations have merit, in their own way, but none seem to ring that little mental bell that tells you everything is perfect. I'm still searching for the answer to my questions, but more importantly, I am searching for the questions.

I recently found a question and an answer, and they, by some miracle, match. I found a question in the questions of others, the question they ask constantly when your life reaches that point where you've got a choice, as I'm told (as if there are no other moments in all of one's lifetime when a choice must be made). What do you want to do when you grow up? I recognize this question, elsewhere, everywhere at once? I've complained often about it, but I've learned recently to accept it gracefully and answer, sincerely and with a slight delay to show honesty and confidence, "Teach." I want to teach, and to learn, and I want to reach out and touch flames of minds where the thoughts have no name. Yes. I want to go to school and learn how to do everything, and then I want to learn something specific. I have a very good idea of what this specific subject should be, but I wish to keep that particular detail under the covers for now, lest someone discover it and attempt to change my mind.

I have patience. I do not have time. I must create time, in the most fantastical sense, through manipulation of space and light, through personal acceleration, through schedule organization and all of the advice given to me on late night informercials. I will do what it takes to get a single goal accomplished, be it waking up every morning at five o'clock, humid pseudo-darkness wrapping me in its envelope of future decay, or walking twenty miles in the middle of the night to reach my destination by noon.

How has my attitude changed recently, then? I ask myself this at the same time that I know the answer, in a vaguely insecure way. I used to -- as far back as used to may refer to, give it a month or more -- I used to be accepting of my situation, and to modify my wants and needs based on those of others, so that I would not offend or obstruct anybody in their own pursuit of happiness. I did this for so long that it became habit to say someting so mundane as, "No, I can walk, but thanks for the offer," even when I needed to be five miles away in six minutes. I can not do this any longer. This must be that snap that I've heard and read about, that moment of instant clarity in which you realize that the world shall never again step on you on its way to the next day, that you must seize the day and embrace the cliches of self-righteousness. Refuse to conform, fight the system, survival of the fittest. Survive.

Pretend that nothing is wrong, and you shall quickly be overcome by shortcomings, forgotten by elephants, imagined briefly to be wearing nothing but a cardboard sign, standing on the side of the road and dancing to the music of the stars, mental frailty intensified to ethereal standards, do the dew and mind the gap. Quote those you fear, avoid loved ones, protect your eyes at all costs. "Abolish the past." It took longer than I expected to find me finding me.



----



"I'm sorry."

"For?"

"For being whatever it is I appear to be to you. What do I seem like?"

"Scared?"

"I was thinking aloof, shy, but scared works. I'm sorry for being scared."

"Why are you scared?"

"I wish I knew. Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Do you know? Why I'm scared?"

"No. There's nothing to be scared of, especially me."

"Especially you."

"Right."

"But I'm still scared, even now, even as we speak, this first and likely last."

"Why last?"

"I have no doubt that I will say something profoundly stupid and this entire conversation will become a memory of hate."

"No. I like it. Nobody talks to me like this."

"Neither should I."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm scared."

"What are you scared of?"

"You. Mistake. Rejection, I suppose, but there's nothing to be rejected, no offer or request."

"You're scared of knowing."

"Of knowing."

"Of knowing me. Of really, truly knowing me."

"Yes."

"That's good."

"I'm scared to know, really know, anybody. But I do. Know."

"We all do, somebody, somehow. Maybe no more than one, but somebody."

"Few realize it though."

"I do. You do."

"We do."

"I am scared, too."

"Of the same?"

"Of the same, or more, or less."

"Such is right."

"So if we're both scared, does the fright negate itself if we know each other as we know ourselves?"

"Do we know ourselves?"

"No. Can we?"

"I'm not sure. It's daunting."

"Yes. But we try. We will try. Or I will, and I hope you will. And when you succeed, as I hope you and I both will on our own, I hope, again, that you will know me."

"I want to say the same, but I'm scared."

"Still scared."

"Yes."

"That's good, though."

"Yes?"

"If you weren't scared of knowing me or you, I would be more scared of it than I am, because what are you?"

"I am accepting."

"Accepting of both good and bad?"

"I want to think so. I don't think, though, that I've tested it."

"Tested accepting both?"

"Yes."

"Then begin, as shall I, tonight, here, now, and if and when you or I succeed, come to me, let me know."

"Deal."

"Thank you."

"And you. Thank you."

"For now, be content, as I am, with seeing and feeling and smelling and hearing you or me, or both, or whatever it is you see and feel and smell and hear."

"As we are."

"As we are."


----

Moving too slowly, you arrive late, anger in each overly heavy footstep. Everybody stares at you. You let your face fall slack into a mask of apathy, but you feel it brightening; you feel the blood through the too-tight veins on your neck as it spreads to your ears. You shove your hands in your pockets, head bent, eyes averted. You shuffle a step to the left, two forward, drop to the uncushioned seat. You feel the wood through your black pants (a colour you chose without thinking; you don't really care, it just seems better this way).

You hear somebody shouting, impossibly broken English rolling past somebody's unskilled tongue. You wish you could smile about it, but there are people here, some watching. You sigh, shoulders rising and falling with the action.

It is cold, and you wish somebody would turn off the rotary fan behind you. You have nothing but a snug-fitting t-shirt on your torso, white -- some generic brand devoid of imagery. You do your best to repress a sudden shiver. Some movement might have been visible, so you shift your weight around on the inexpensive chair to cover your involuntary motions.

You try to think of something to keep yourself occupied, but your mind insists on bringing itself back to emptiness, staring at the floor between your outstretched legs. You try to ask yourself what you're thinking about, but you can't even get that out. You wonder, briefly, how you can think about how you can't think but you can't think about anything specific. Frustrated, you slouch further down in your seat.

Something brushes your shoulder softly; you refuse to look to see what it is.

"31," calls a sexless voice, and you rise from your seat without thinking. Startled at your body's automatic reaction, you try to think of where you're supposed to go. You walk toward a door, solid off-white paint covering all but the silvery bar of metal stretched horizontally across the door. You push the bar as your body reaches the door, and soft orange light beams through the edges of the slowly opening door.

You hear the same heavily accented voice shouting again, and this time you smile. You push harder and the door swings open. A bell rings, and you look across the dimly lit street. Nobody, nothing, empty and lifeless. You step beyond the door and let it swing closed. The ringing rises in volume. You walk down the street, aimless. A dog barks in the distance. The rapidly darkening sky is filling with specks of illumination. Your knee bangs into a telephone pole. Where did that come from? you ask yourself. You stumble for a second, and your leg bursts. The sky is really something amazing tonight, even through the myriad encroaching hazes.

Still, it might have been worth it.