Thoughts

I’m not touching anything, but I can still feel everything. Every nervous termination and every receptor is active and engaged, but I’m floating through the neant. I’m still constrained by something and restrained to an extent, but this container in which I’m trapped has no boundaries, no edges. Still, this infinity is contained and resides somewhere. It is not actually infinity, but what other word could define it? It neither begins, nor ends. It just is and I’m just passing through it. It’s easy to get lost in it because you don’t know where you started. There is nothing to guide you and every bit of it has its own infinite characteristics. I can see, but I’m not sure what. There is light, but there is no source for it. All I have are my thoughts, but these thoughts are just questions. The colors change and shift around me. There’s nothing to do here but be. It goes on forever. There is no destination, but it feels as if this is a trip. It doesn’t lead anywhere but to total assimilation. The more I stay, the less I can separate myself from this endless sea of emptiness and voids. There is no sound, but I can hear my thoughts. I have no control over my direction, but I can move. I float and fly, I cruise through the light.

It is a complete and utter dissociation from the realm we’re all familiar with, a dissociation from the real and the physical. But who is to say this is any less real than what we experience on a day-to-day basis? Just because it’s abstract and vague? Just because there is no one else here besides my consciousness? To me it is as real as anything else, or at least it must be, because otherwise I wouldn’t be real either and my whole existence would be put into question.

I still have memories. I can recall glimpses of previous years, past experiences and moments, but I can’t put them in a timeframe. I know they happened, but I don’t know what preceded or succeeded them. I can only remember the precise events, not the gaps that have been long forgotten; the gaps that had been filled in through the aid of my own imagination. This place in which I find myself now discharges of anything fake or synthetically constructed, accepting just the true reality of events. Free from any form of bias from our own corroded memories the self can be truly examined in this place. But where am I? What’s happening? I ceased to understand anything. I ceased to understand myself.

And the next moment I hit the ground. This can’t be real. I didn’t feel any pain, just an unfamiliar tremor that must’ve come from the momentum of the fall. I don’t really feel my body but I’m aware it’s there. Maybe if I don’t move everything will go back to normal. Time just needs to rewind a few seconds and then we can go back to dancing in the living room of her apartment.

I’m on my back, but I still have air in my lungs and my head seems fine, so I must’ve fell on my side and rolled over.

My eyes move along the block, over the dark balconies, until they reach the sky, an infinite cozy place to keep me comfortable and take me in its arms, so I won’t go fully crazy until someone gets to me. Why couldn’t have I fell on the sky instead of the ground? Maybe because I’m going to hell and my beautiful sky will never cease to be unreachable. I think I will never be able to make it my home. I’m too far away from its clarity.

I hear footsteps and I wonder who’s gonna be first on the scene. As my eyes descend from the sky and back into the atmosphere I notice the light is still on at the balcony where I should’ve been sitting: they were in a hurry as they left. I finally reach the ground level and that’s when I see him. Of course he was first. I think there’s someone else behind him but I don’t care. It’s good that he is here. Something is wrong though. Fear and panic overflow from his body and flood the ground that immobilizes me. I suddenly feel like I’m drowning in his feelings and a weird state takes hold of me. Something really isn’t right. Should I be scared, too? Is it that bad? Is it truly happening? It must be because the stupefied look on his face, the glazed eyes that are about to pop from his face, and his uneasy mouth can’t be a product of my imagination. He looks crazy, or maybe I do.

As he kneels down next to me he asks me stuff, but I only hear muffled distant sounds. I’m lost in the realization of the events that just happened: I was smoking on the window edge, I lost my balance, I fell. I’m not dead which is good, but I’m far from okay. I wonder what the damage is. A stranger says that I broke my arm. I don’t feel it, but it’s plausible. Who even is the stranger?

At least he is holding my hand and keeping me emotionally steady. I wonder what’s gonna happen, but I’m happy he’s by my side. He is the last thing protecting me from the world. If someone were to take him away I would most likely feel as if I’m being skinned alive.

All things considered he’s taking it well, so I’m taking it well.

*

At that point, comfortable on my bed of leaves and drying mud, I thought that the storm was over, but it was just the silence that set the tone for the chaos that followed. The whole night had been a blur, and it became even more blurry after the fall. It felt like one huge dream from which I just couldn’t wake up. I’m usually good at pulling myself from lucid dreams before they get messed up. I’ve got a lot of practice with that. Nightmares and night terrors are my area of expertise, even though they frighten me to death, up to the point where I’d be afraid that my heart would stop. Still, none of my previous dreamland experiences could have prepared me to handle the worst of dreams: reality. The one thing that I’ve always been terrified of happened, the dream from which I have no escape. I have to face it till the very end. Though, the funny part is that after this, I’ve never been afraid again of imaginary products.

After the battle with gravity, and the defeat that followed, after the acceptance and realization of the events, I finally found peace. I wasn’t scared, even though I was floating through the suffocating panic of those around me. The worst had happened. My own fatality, and the realness of death, have been shown to me. Despite my previous endless mingling with the idea of death, despite being previously aware of death, that had been the first time in my life when I truly acknowledged it. So I didn’t panic. I didn’t think of the future. I didn’t think of the past. I was fully present and aware of the eternal now in which we are all trapped. I rejoiced and relaxed in the comfort of darkness. I would lie if I were to say that those 20 minutes have been the best moments of my life, but they sure were the most profound.

*

Life is not guaranteed to us and none of us are untouchable. Some don’t get that, others don’t get second chances, but me, I’ve had plenty of time to understand where I was going wrong; I’ve had plenty of opportunities to stop endangering my life on purpose; I’ve been given 100 chances to quit my bad habits of abusing, and I finally got the message. I stepped out of my body for a bit and took a close look at my life, at who I was and what I was doing, and it scared me. At close range the image is distorted and unclear, stained by bias and denial, driven by unhealthy mindsets and desires that we all set for ourselves, fully aware of the possible damage, but not aware of the reality of the consequences. Every excess is a drug and we are all heavy users. For some it might be cocaine while for others is receiving attention. The point is that, when we desperately want something, when we do it without even taking into account the harm it might cause us, that thing ends up slowly killing the person we are.

*

The hand that was keeping me sane had been brutally taken away from me and chaos erupted all around. They rushed me to the hospital, but, on the way there, confusion got held of me and I started pouring: I was alone. The paramedics tried to comfort me, but nothing could because I began the analyzation process: what happened, what was going to happen, and how I was going to explain it all to my parents. I stepped out of eternity and back into this world. The tears were the only thing that made me feel comfortable because through them all the negative emotions were also delivered out of me. Despite having my eyes open I couldn’t see much. The small inside of the ambulance was filled with white light and the high velocity of the car. I was dazzled by how fast everything was going around me. A mix of fear and anxiety got tangled around my sanity while my rationality and understanding of the situation were slowly slipping away.

The tears were rushing down my face and my neck, some landing on my chest, but most of them in my ears, muffling the sounds around me. I couldn’t hear much anymore so I tried reaching for the two sides of my head to discharge of the water that filled them, but I was stopped by a woman before I could complete this mission. I was blinded, deafened, and drowned by my own product. I couldn’t breathe anymore, but no one seemed to care, no one tried to help me. I was gasping for air through the clogged sinuses, but nothing but fluid got through. Those streams covered my head like a veil and, despite the comfort they initially gave me, now they were just sucking the last bits of life out of me, creating a barrier between me and the rest of the world, between me and tranquility, which I desperately needed at that point. In a nutshell, they were killing me. I had to stop it, I had to calm down, otherwise the lack of oxygen would’ve sent me straight into a deep sleep.

“What are my parents going to say” was the only thing I could utter before the terror-filled question arose: “Can you feel your legs? Can you show me if you can use them?”

As her words settled in my mind, shock overcame me. I hadn’t considered that possibility before because it was, simply, impossible. Despite regularly seeing people in wheelchairs, I didn’t believe in the reality of that. I didn’t believe in the reality of disability due to how far such a reality was from my own. I’ve always been aware of its far-away existence, but never before that night have I ever considered possible a collision with my own world.

“Yes! Yes, I can, I swear!” My voice surprised even me. It wasn’t the muffled, distant voice of a lost child, it was crystal clear, focused, and sprinkled with shades of distress. Of course I could move my legs, I threw them so high I almost hit the woman, who was only trying to help me, over the head. Causing her a concussion wouldn’t have been in my advantage at all, but in such moments rationality can fail even the best of us. The urge to reassure yourself that everything is fine must come from the ancient self-preservation priority so instincts kick in. During stressful, life-threatening moments we tend to shut down mentally, allowing the chemicals of our bodies to take the helm.

As we arrived, blue intermittent light to accompany the beginning of our act, I merely remember flashbacks from the hospital. They rushed me through endless corridors and covered me with a blanket. I couldn’t see anyone because I was forced to lay on my back until they performed the necessary checks. My only comfort were the white, square lights, embedded in the ceiling. They came with me in every room and corridor for moral support. They held my gaze just as if they were holding my whole being. Those lights became my last constant and my only hope: as long as I could see them I knew I was fine.

But then it all went black, a void of infinite darkness surrounded me.

*

As I regain consciousness I feel a heavy weight crushing my body. It’s light outside and there are people chattering close to me. I think it’s morning but I don’t want to open my eyes quite yet. I don’t want to face it, any of it. All I want to do is retreat back to the pit of darkness from which I was just thrown out. That never-ending blackness offered me the comfort of not existing in the mess of a life that I’ve created for myself. I’m not necessarily scared, but I’m not sure if that’s really the case because I don’t have many thoughts at the moment. I don’t feel pain either, even though I just landed on my arm from twenty meters above the ground the previous night. The lack of any kind of feeling is curious but I don’t question it; I must be sedated. I’m weirdly calm despite not being at peace at all. I want to see my mother when I decide to make my awakening known. The only thing that scares me is considering that she’s not going to be there.

There are a lot of people in this room: five beds with five patients, two nurses, and one doctor. The room is fairly big and I’ve got the window bed; there’s not much of a view, just another wing of the hospital, but at least there are pigeons on the window edge. My mom is not here, but this new piece of information doesn’t have the impact I thought it would so I reach for my phone. It’s on the nightstand next to me and it reads 8:00 a.m. I want to go home. I have no idea of what’s going on.

“How are you feeling?” his voice is sweet and calm, it reassures me. He looks young but not too young to be a good doctor.

“Obviously, I’ve been better.” my ever bitchy tone is still here. I’m fine.

It all comes back in bits and pieces now, as I lay in my own bed; I am home, but I am not quite me anymore. Part of me got lost in the darkness, both of that night and of the surgery that followed it. My dark side, I dare to say, got attracted like a magnet to the void in which I fell because, after all, it was a void, too, just that it nested in me, found a cozy place in the depths of my person and called it home, but I guess we all miss our real home after a while and we desperately try to go back to where we came from, to where we belong. The only problem was that my void took me with it and we both went down straight into the direction of the Earth, from which we both came at some point.

Us, people, come from nature. We share our component chemicals with everything around so it’s only rational that we decompose back into them once our bodies hit the ground for good, drained of life. Come to think about it, everything comes from nature, even the less physical of things like our vices or bad habits. We create them, so they are also natural, they live with us and die with us, accompanying us back to where we came from. The only issue is that their due date is earlier than ours and the only way they can go out is through our exit.

I didn’t recognize the harm in time to stop it and it swallowed me whole. The path I took hand in hand with my vices led me straight to the edge of a cliff from which I happily jumped after them. By the time I tried to stop they held me to tight and “I’ll quit tomorrow” became the hymn of the night. The contact with the Earth shook me to life and forced me to open my eyes to the right perspective. It’s true that I’m a bit of a wreck now, but it’s never too late. The fall took my arm’s mobility but it could’ve been much worse and I know it. At least I can still think, write, and walk.

*

Life is weird. It never goes the way you planned and there are always random uncertainties occurring that impede your path, but that’s not an end point. There is no such thing in this world. The sky might feel as falling down on you but that’s just within you, it’s not real. You never give up because of the circumstances, you give up because you decide to stagnate, to stop, to never allow life to bring you down again. Though, that’s the thing, isn’t it? You want to rise, but you are afraid that you might fall during the journey so you just become immobilized in the position in which you find yourself at that moment.

There are tons of situations and circumstances in which you can end up that lead to such a climax. Death, impossible love, tragedies or maybe just fate. These things disappear, appear, are permitted and are not, or no longer permitted. That’s not the end, that’s never the end. An illusion you formed in your head or a habit that you’ve entertained for a long period of time can all be changed through living. This is what brings in the new, the unexpected, the love, the laughter, and the memories. Moving on doesn’t mean erasing, it means taking in and allowing the experience to build you, to add to you, to direct you and create a new path on which you can, and should, walk. A trauma or a “change” if you prefer sugar coating, expands you at the same time as it shatters you; it rebuilds you from your own rearranged parts.

I can’t say I’m not scared, because I am. I am scared of the new scenery that change brought me through a death of the self and my disability; I’m scared of being alone; I’m scared of losing and failing; I’m scared of fucking up because of what happened; I’m scared of my demons. But, that’s no reason to fall, stagnate or quit. That’s a reason to rise up, realize my own importance, and stand as

tall and wise as an oak tree to ensure my own development and the improvement of my surroundings.

I’ve come to believe that calamities don’t demolish you, they teach you how to build stronger infrastructures.

These past few days have been a blurry mess through which I’ve cruised with tremendous difficulty. I feel trapped in my own body, the lack of control over my arm gives me claustrophobic attacks. I can’t sleep properly either due to the post surgery pain that stabs me every time I move an inch. I don’t even want to go out anymore, I can’t carry the crushing weight of my arm. I find comfort just in smoking in bed while watching TV shows since I can’t read properly because I can’t hold the book with only one hand. This activity offers me an escape for a while, but I get bored so I close my laptop and I listen to my thoughts that are loud compared to the silence of my life. These thoughts come dozens at a time and there is a reoccurring theme, always: why have I done what I’ve done for the past two years? Why didn’t I stop when I’ve realized how bad it was, when I saw that it was impacting my school, my relationships, when I lost the only person I’ve ever truly loved? I knew it was wrong, I knew my reservoir of ambition and motivation was as dry as the desert in the summer, and I knew my dreams were slipping away from me because I would exchange them for a few hours of utter nonsense and a following day of depression. Despite all these I continued because the drugs numbed my worries and buried them deep in my mind, out of my reach.