Stream of Unconsciousness

uriel castaneda

Time isn't worth saving. 

                  I don't even have much to begin with, and I won't ever have enough to spend freely. 

Still, I'm apathetic to the weight of worthless minutes. Sand falling into the most likely distributions, itchy, dry, and it keeps piling inside a glass ampule. 

​

My screen is blue, it may masquerade as other colors, but it's really just blue. Efficient, battery saving, and bright. At least, brighter than the room about me. 

                  It's been a "long" day, at least, I assume it was. To be sure about it I'd need at least a couple of  "short" days to compare it to. All I'm sure of is that it's a day longer than I can tolerate. I've probably spent the day doing nothing. Nothing worth remembering, nothing worth writing. Of course, I took breaks from doing Nothing to do less than nothing. Self care is important. 

I need to write. 

                  I always need to write, but I currently need to write about myself. I try to focus on the bright, blue, and blank canvas before me. I'm watching myself drift through those coarse sands. It feels strange to drift along for so long. But I try to ignore it, those aren't words worth writing about. 

I start typing. 

                  Something was uncomfortable staying inside me, and left, I left. I would say I'm "soulless", but aside from being cliche, souls are often portrayed as analogues to feelings. 

                  And baby, I got feelin's. 

                  No, I have no idea what left me, I'm simply ungrounded now. Whatever left took most of my mass with it, I simply don't have the weight needed to stay attached. I'm stuck, less dense than a cloud, but still too heavy to fly. 

The screen is too bright. I can't see myself in it. I dim the screen a bit, trying to make out my reflection in the black glass. My words can't paint a coherent enough picture. 

                  Whatever I lost, I didn't lose it suddenly, I would have noticed a change that quick. It's probably been a slow leak, drop by drop, a gentle exsanguination. When did it start?

                  I wasn't ready for the shut-in. I thought I was, being the little loner kid I am. I didn't notice how much I relied on the eyes of others, a fuel to keep me moving. Sure, it may not have been healthy to run on judgment, but pollution is simply the price of progress. Maybe that would've hurt me later, but stopping suddenly slammed me through the windshield, the seatbelt drawing blood as you barely missed being pancaked by a semi-truck. Silently screaming. 

That was five years ago. 

My throat still hurts. 

         Bloodletting is ancient, older than agriculture, it's even still practiced is some pseudoscientific rites,

I think it would do me good.

I'm not talking about cutting. I'm talking about the joys in feeling a gentle chest pain, in dizziness, the freedom in lightheadedness guiding your light steps. Your skin feels a cool breeze, gently invigorating your senses, your mind. 

Dripping 

down my 

spine. 

My first year in college was defined by that ease. I was waking up at dawn, sleeping at two in the morning. Only on weekdays of course, with plenty of naps. That's called "self-care", and it made sure that I always felt cold. I was hopped up on caffeine, spending my time either in class, in a cafe, or asleep. It was productive. It felt right. I drank my coffee iced, and wore a light sweater. I kept music playing in my ears all day, loud enough to ache every night. keeping myself focused, in the zone.

I felt it pool at my feet, it was refreshing. 

                  Honestly, I'm surprised I didn't collapse earlier. I managed to remain "balanced" between work, school,  and friends. I was happy. 

I was cold. 

                  Right now, I'm warm. 

I'm mired in the muck of comfort. I hoped that the morning's pale light would last into the night, instead I had to draw the shades. They're almost transparent in the harsh tone of noon. 

But every word draws me back into the chill. I keep writing, 

The gentle hum of an air conditioner spins up, fighting the sun's heat on my behalf. It's an even match, the dancing of air pressures in the "balance". I'm light, breezy, the world doesn't feel like the oil-slicked leviathan I know it as. 

                  I wish to stop being, and start Doing. To surrender to the chill, tensing up like a spring, and stop the warm pulsing that refuses to let me move freely. I'm getting jealous of my cats. Their contentment in the warmth and comfort of an errant sun-beam hurts. Sometimes, if I haven't slept, it hurts too much for me to look at. 

                  I feel myself getting angry, they're too close to me. 

                  It scares me a little. 

I return to the blue, my fingers finding their places. Only a moment has passed. 

Coherence is a privilege, "I'm too comfortable" is inexplicable. There's no sympathy to gain from it, the best you can hope for is a laugh. 

Damn, imagine writing that, like really consider the ignorant mind-set you need to form that thought. How stifling it feels to be stuck inside stupidity. It's hilarious. I'm not even being sardonic about it, I do genuinely find it funny, it's enjoyable the way thoughts invert and collapse upon themselves, contradiction and fallacies abounding through the skies, Jungian spheres dancing in impossible orbits around each other. 

It's beautiful. 

I need to write.

But I don't have enough life to write about. All I can manage is "angst", more trite and tired than an industry-planted rock-band. Breaking News: someone's loved one died, a dude in his 20's is uncertain, and it's still hot. 

I keep checking the word count, desperate that a couple thousand words would fall from the sky like manna. But the desert is warm, tiring, and dry. I keep starting, I'm addicted to it, I keep hoping to win a jackpot. I haven't yet. 

                  It's coming up to my shins now, the color is worrisome. It shouldn't be this warm. It's bringing up primordial memories, older than my frontal lobe, younger than my heart. Memories wired into my nervous system, a suffocating comfort, beginningless, endless. I can't remember anything else, there isn't anything else. 

I try not to think about it. I go back to the blue light, it keeps me leashed, attuned, it holds reality within it. The cool glass at my eyes keeps me falling through the sand. The grains are tearing at my skin. 

                  It's a stream of unconsciousness. 

It's flowing out of me, I'm bleeding it through my hands. Rising in the void above me, thinner than the air around me. It's too comfortable to stay composed.

                  One time I broke my arm. It didn't bleed externally, or even hurt that badly. It was just horrible to look at. The skin crashing against its internal shores, forming into jagged mountains and sinking valleys, loose like a blanket covering old toys. Lumpy. 

                  I screamed all the way to the hospital. 

                  Then I needed the intramedullary nails removed. Five of them, placed to help heal the bone. 

Their removal is where the external bleed began. A tear through the careful stitching the surgeons made, a chunk of bone torn out, and a misapplication of painkillers. I screamed, but I don't remember the sound of it. It was silent, only the cracks sounding in my ears. Cracks and currents. The world spun, my lungs seemed to burn. They were asking for oxygen, but that felt less important than screaming. 

It's likely that I'm exaggerating, but the objective truth has long since drowned in overactive nerve signals. Still, I'm not too upset about it. The doctors likely regret the whole ordeal. 

Or at least I hope they did.

                  A locked box, a warm cup of Abuelita chocolate with those shitty little marshmallows in it. Its namesake is smiling at me, I'm young, and it's a gift. The box will stay closed. The imagery feels more important like that. It's comfortable.

I stop thinking about it. 

Only a few minutes have passed, and I'm once again starting on an essay. This essay. 

Well…. not this one, at least, not yet. 

                  Either way, it wasn't a good time to do anything, it was day. The blue light only barely tethering me to the floor. The stream of unconsciousness is just too turbulent to be useful this late. 

White water kayaking has an injury rate of 6 for every 1000 people. That's about the same odds that I have in making sense. It's October Sixth. I have one day. I spent weeks writing down nonsense after sonsense. 

                  Nonsense is contagious, I don't remember my Grandpa's funeral. I remember the trip back, the day he died, and the trip there. I remember his laugh, his warm, weak touch, his deft hands on a guitar. We were all making sense until my mom cried. I started crying, it cried. Warm molecules of water fighting down my face like sweat, lingering in my eyes, drawing rivers on my cheeks. I sat on a shitty wooden chair, and sand cut me as it fell. 

                  I really don’t like chairs.

Seats are pleasant, and give me room to expand, to take up space in my preferred sitting style, the gentle extension of crossed legs. Stifling the jitters that often follow my every move.  In a nice seat, there’s a cushion for me to rest myself upon.

    Chairs are different, chairs aren’t made to rest on. They are meant to be stacked, providing only just enough room to discourage complaints. A comfort meant to restrain you, to be just pleasant enough to dissuade you from leaving them. I have an “ergonomic” office chair in my room. Although it’s really more economical.

I can’t stop thinking.

                  I've turned on the fan now, the room sinks another couple degrees. It's now cold enough to keep me in place. I drink the last of my iced faux-latte, it's really just overly concentrated dark coffee & milk. I also keep a glass of water,  I like the feeling of smooth weight that it has, much better than a stale plastic cup. The glass is full. 

I'm still sweating, I can't keep still, I dance to the music in my ears, and work in pajamas. I don't worry about looks in my room. 

It's an old ritual at this point, I have found that it's the best at keeping me writing. Occasionally my cats complain about the cold. But they just leave for another, warmer spot in the house. 
I try to make them stay. 

Still, I'm fine without them. The cool breeze of satisfaction brings me goosebumps. The musician playing in my ear cries out "Take me Home, Take me Home". But I already have. 

The grainy synthesizer warbles out a waltz, while gentler tones dance to it.

I stop writing eventually, and go to sleep. Dipping into the warmth of fabrics and a job well done. Resting on a pool of blood. 

That draft was shit. 
 

It wasn't worth the happiness.

It's bad, really bad. Nothing like this nonsense. It made too much sense, it was bland, and tired. It was too vulnerable,  yet too removed to show it. It tried too hard to be funny, and couldn't keep its mouth shut long enough to get a point across. A bundle of words fit only to burn. 

I can't bring myself to delete it. 

                  I started writing again. It's not much better. 

                                    It's forcefully fluid, Vapid, and pointless. 

                                                                        Too impersonal

                                                                                          It's cold. 

                  I'm walking across the bookshelves, trying to keep the motion activated lights on. It's too dark to write otherwise. I need to stay in the library, I need to stay with the blue light, but the thoughts in the shadows are too loud for me to concentrate. I spent the last of my dollars on a nice cappuccino, a bottle of sugar, and a little baggie of salt and fat. 

                  Despite the hour, there is someone in the same room, I don't want to see them. I couldn't stand it. My attempts are futile; the lights keep turning off, and there's nowhere else to look. 

They're young, and stuck to a similar laptop, although it seems to be an Apple device. A bottle of something sits on the table next to them. Fuel for their work. They seem nice, determined, and willing to spend an afternoon alone in a school library on a Sunday.

I hope to never see them again 

                  I draw shapes in what used to be sand, it's just red colored mud now. Absorbing, the fluids, and giving me something solid to stand on. It's thirsty, I wish I was that thirsty as well. 

Okay, that’s it. I’m tired of this format. There’s nothing good there, and there never was. A tapped well, discarded trash, plastic and empty. Someone else finished it before me.

A dark bookshelf, motion lights that keep turning off. A table, lit and covered in wires, the warmth of the student keeping the lights on.

But mine keep dimming.

I can’t explain myself; The images I'm receiving are illegible for me, fly in ointment, slow wifi. Datamoshed video of reading, pixels bending from math failing. It’s just silly.

I’m searching for conflict, for tension, a current flowing into an ocean of decent writing.

         A landlocked island, falling sand, a fluctuation of hot and cold water.

A pale blue light shines in the dark, the cold is happy; I’m happy, but comfort keeps calling my name. I would be happier if comfort could simply shut the fuck up. Pointless, pitiful, weak. It’s never helped me much. In fact, it’s hurt me plenty, I would have had much more time to write if it wasn’t for Comfort. It’s not even external, I am well aware that I’m in control here. I’m not only led by my emotions, I’m strangled by them.

There’s just too much. How can anyone even function? Descriptions are lies, you can’t ever finish describing anything. I’m sitting in my room, in a library, in a cafe, in amber, frozen, warm, happy, angry, Loud, quiet, and every other obvious contradiction you can make. Why bother?

Taking a solemn breath, tensing up as I force air into my lungs, collapsing as it exits. The air is heavy, I feel it push against the inside of my skin. It forms a roundness at my core, a hill, a valley, steady in its change. I feel an atmosphere, pushing against me, the pressure gently shifting as I heat up the air around me. A soft whir emanates from the fans on my laptop, keeping it cool. There’s a clock ticking somewhere, the occasional voice, and the whines of cars passing in nearby streets. My heart is beating, maybe a bit too fast, but slowly steadying.

At some point. I realized I wrote too much.