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translucence
Jan. 31st, 2005 08:26 pm"Ghosts are not admitted."
I'm supposed to be writing a prompt on this? What? My brain isn't even comprehending it right now. My brain is in complete turmoil. Not necessarily with anything bad, but ... I haven't written for days. There's been so much chaos. The granary retreat and the 4th graders--Chase, Amanda, Tyler, Kaesha, and ... sigh, I don't even remember her name. I'm just so ... tired.
Today was the first day of the semester. It was okay. Wish I wasn't alone in study hall, history or psych. But I'll survive, right? I'm just grateful I still have Elyse and Amiee in my classes, and Bruce in lunch. And Keli in Brit Lit. Phew ... I am so tired. I haven't been this tired in ... a really long time. I feel all squeezed out. Like a charcoal drawing with most of the details missing.
Maybe it was my dream.
I was at school. Jewelry class. And we were all huddling on the floor hiding our heads. Because a man with a gun was in the class ... and I just prayed he wouldn't single me out, but I knew he would. He did. He told me to stand.
I did. He was far from me--I don't know who he was. A stranger. Yet he wasn't masked, wasn't trying to disguise himself. I mostly just saw the gun, leveled at my head. And he spoke.
"Do you believe in God?"
I stared at the gun; black and shiny, it filled my vision. But then suddenly it went fuzzy. I raised my head and looked into the man's face, but it was far away. I couldn't distinguish it. I knew what he would do. If I said no, he would spare me. If I said no, he would move on. Pick someone else. And I would live--I would go to college. Have children. No one would have to cry.
But I said, quietly, without hesitation: "Yes."
I didn't hear the gun. I didn't feel the bullet enter me. But I did feel--not in my head, but in my side, my left side: level with my ribs. There was a hot, blinding pain in one spot. And then it rapidly spread all through me--the numbness. My entire left side went numb, yet I could feel a kind of detached warmth. Dripping. Probably blood, but I couldn't see it. It felt as though I was melting, falling apart.
And I fell to the ground. As I did I stared upward and I could see my own mouth saying the words: "This is a dream."
My eyes jerked open. I lay on my stomach and tried to breathe and stared at my clock out of unfocused eyes. 4:59 AM. My entire left side was numb; and yet I still felt a strange warmth, a liquid feeling, as though I were bleeding ... honestly, I thought I was dead.
After a couple seconds I realized where I was, but I didn't feel any fear. I just rolled onto my back, closed my eyes and relived the dream. And I smiled, drowsily, glad I had said "yes" ... and I fell asleep again.
I've had dreams like this all my life. Sometimes I wonder whether I was really ever meant to live very long. Sometimes I just feel like... like I have something to teach people. But that in order to do it I have to give a lot of myself. Maybe even my life.
Yet a strange part of me wants that to happen. A strange part of me feels like ... like I won't be filling all my potential if I don't--give up everything for something I believe in. I feel like I'll be a coward if I don't sacrifice everything I have. Maybe I'm just crazy, but it feels like ... that's my mission. Which makes little sense in the modern world. You don't exactly have people jumping in front of a friend and taking an arrow and dying a heroic death anymore. But I still ... I don't know. The normal part of me, I guess, doesn't understand the part of me that's ...
It's like there's two mes. There's the normal silly funny stupid teenager who can't wait to discover more about life and people. Then there's another side--a less real side; something very few can see. Something transparent and powerful, something almost ... it sounds so egocentric, but something almost from a higher plane of existence. Something that realizes this life is short. That there's so much more than this world that matters. That there are ... forces beyond our control. That there are things we may never be able to understand.
I'm so different from most other people ... and yet I blend right in ...
Guess I'm just a paradox. But aren't all people?
FebNoWriMo starts in 3 1/2 hours. I'm excited. I want to stay up and write, but I can't--I just can't. Whetstone decided to assign an essay test first hour tomorrow, and I can't afford to be as exhausted as I am today.
I wonder why being cold and tired are the norm for me. Do I just have less energy and inner warmth than the rest of humanity? Am I just a weary shadow?
I'm supposed to be writing a prompt on this? What? My brain isn't even comprehending it right now. My brain is in complete turmoil. Not necessarily with anything bad, but ... I haven't written for days. There's been so much chaos. The granary retreat and the 4th graders--Chase, Amanda, Tyler, Kaesha, and ... sigh, I don't even remember her name. I'm just so ... tired.
Today was the first day of the semester. It was okay. Wish I wasn't alone in study hall, history or psych. But I'll survive, right? I'm just grateful I still have Elyse and Amiee in my classes, and Bruce in lunch. And Keli in Brit Lit. Phew ... I am so tired. I haven't been this tired in ... a really long time. I feel all squeezed out. Like a charcoal drawing with most of the details missing.
Maybe it was my dream.
I was at school. Jewelry class. And we were all huddling on the floor hiding our heads. Because a man with a gun was in the class ... and I just prayed he wouldn't single me out, but I knew he would. He did. He told me to stand.
I did. He was far from me--I don't know who he was. A stranger. Yet he wasn't masked, wasn't trying to disguise himself. I mostly just saw the gun, leveled at my head. And he spoke.
"Do you believe in God?"
I stared at the gun; black and shiny, it filled my vision. But then suddenly it went fuzzy. I raised my head and looked into the man's face, but it was far away. I couldn't distinguish it. I knew what he would do. If I said no, he would spare me. If I said no, he would move on. Pick someone else. And I would live--I would go to college. Have children. No one would have to cry.
But I said, quietly, without hesitation: "Yes."
I didn't hear the gun. I didn't feel the bullet enter me. But I did feel--not in my head, but in my side, my left side: level with my ribs. There was a hot, blinding pain in one spot. And then it rapidly spread all through me--the numbness. My entire left side went numb, yet I could feel a kind of detached warmth. Dripping. Probably blood, but I couldn't see it. It felt as though I was melting, falling apart.
And I fell to the ground. As I did I stared upward and I could see my own mouth saying the words: "This is a dream."
My eyes jerked open. I lay on my stomach and tried to breathe and stared at my clock out of unfocused eyes. 4:59 AM. My entire left side was numb; and yet I still felt a strange warmth, a liquid feeling, as though I were bleeding ... honestly, I thought I was dead.
After a couple seconds I realized where I was, but I didn't feel any fear. I just rolled onto my back, closed my eyes and relived the dream. And I smiled, drowsily, glad I had said "yes" ... and I fell asleep again.
I've had dreams like this all my life. Sometimes I wonder whether I was really ever meant to live very long. Sometimes I just feel like... like I have something to teach people. But that in order to do it I have to give a lot of myself. Maybe even my life.
Yet a strange part of me wants that to happen. A strange part of me feels like ... like I won't be filling all my potential if I don't--give up everything for something I believe in. I feel like I'll be a coward if I don't sacrifice everything I have. Maybe I'm just crazy, but it feels like ... that's my mission. Which makes little sense in the modern world. You don't exactly have people jumping in front of a friend and taking an arrow and dying a heroic death anymore. But I still ... I don't know. The normal part of me, I guess, doesn't understand the part of me that's ...
It's like there's two mes. There's the normal silly funny stupid teenager who can't wait to discover more about life and people. Then there's another side--a less real side; something very few can see. Something transparent and powerful, something almost ... it sounds so egocentric, but something almost from a higher plane of existence. Something that realizes this life is short. That there's so much more than this world that matters. That there are ... forces beyond our control. That there are things we may never be able to understand.
I'm so different from most other people ... and yet I blend right in ...
Guess I'm just a paradox. But aren't all people?
FebNoWriMo starts in 3 1/2 hours. I'm excited. I want to stay up and write, but I can't--I just can't. Whetstone decided to assign an essay test first hour tomorrow, and I can't afford to be as exhausted as I am today.
I wonder why being cold and tired are the norm for me. Do I just have less energy and inner warmth than the rest of humanity? Am I just a weary shadow?
