world shifter

I sit in fear. Fear, hope, loathing and expectation. All together. I look at the remains of last night. There’s a swig of Imperial Blue left over in the bottle. An oversight I correct. The morning sun streams in through the window. The curtains are drawn, windows shut but I cannot keep the sun out. Too much to ask for. Too lazy to board the windows. I take what I get. I light up and wait for the fear to go away. Maybe today I’ll go to Manali. I’m calm now. I take a drag, a few drags, the fear vanishes. Replaced by a feeling of inadequacy. Not enough, never enough. I stand and dare to look out the window. The world comes crashing in. The sounds of people, the blaring noise of civilization. I draw the curtains. Take another drag. Tonight I will board the windows. Not ready for this. Not yet. The sun continues to creep in.

The voices will soon be back. Any minute now. A man, a woman, sometimes many, sometimes just the woman. I hate them all. They scare me. The woman with her words of re-assurance. Again and again. Telling me things will be all right. They won’t be. Now or ever. I wish she would stop. I wish this would end.

I can feel the world moving beneath my feet. I have no place here. So scared. I light another. A crutch but it’s all I have. This crutch is my friend and it does not scare me. The world moves. I tremble. I fall. I cannot lift myself up. I see the smoke go up and disappear. I see the shards of glass from where the bottle fell. I crawl further in. I cannot. The world trembles, the world heaves the world rejects me.

Light. Slow but its creeping in. Light. The curtains do nothing. I should have boarded the fucking windows. Light. My world is becoming brighter by the second. The ground beneath me heaves and shudders. I scream. The light invades my world. I scream. The woman in my head is screaming too. An audio collage. A million different voices in my head. The woman. So loud. She shrieks. She moans. The ground beneath me is solid no longer. I slip and slide. My efforts to crawl back in are pathetic in the face of this world shifter. The woman screams again and again and again.

The world pukes me out. I scream.