You know what they say - "that's the way it goes". You've also heard them tell you that "it goes the other way too". You've been told "the grass is always greener", "don't cry over spilt milk", and "don't count your chickens".
Simple sayings from simpler times.
These days, you know that things go by so fast, are so quickly evolving, that it's all anyone can ever do to keep up. There are those that try, who claim that they can, but they just end up suffering from burnout.
Even Atlas shrugged.
So you do what you've always done, which is watch the world go by and try your best to take care of your little piece of it as best as you can. Even then, the bills pile up until you pay them, the dishes stay dirty until you wash them, and the floor you swept just last week needs to be swept again.
You wonder where all the dust and lint is coming from. You're the only one in this house. Maybe you realize that if things didn't fall apart every so often, there'd be nothing to do. Maybe this is harder to think about than the alternative.
There were times when you felt like you were in control, when you didn't feel so helpless. You understand now that this was just an illusion. Maybe you decide that this feeling is why ancients thought that they were formed in God's image, or that the Sun revolved around the Earth. Control enough of the little world around you and it feels like you are controlling it all.
Still, things are looking up. You feel like you're headed for greener pastures. You think you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. But you can only look up so far before you're looking behind you again, every pasture is ringed with a fence of some sort, and roads that go through one tunnel are bound to go through another sooner or later.
Lately you've been sleeping better. But with regular sleep comes dreams. Strange Kubrickian dreams in which you relive parts of your life but with completely different outcomes from reality.
The most recent was last night, in which you are driving the winding, hilly roads on the way home from the bar and the pavement is covered with a thick sheet of white cracked ice. An oncoming car and an uncontrolled skid and you're tumbling end over end off the side of the road. In your dream, you wake up lying on your back looking up at the cold night sky. A lone paramedic is picking up pieces of your body and laying them out on a stretcher. Your face here, a leg there, an arm over there. He's making an exact but lifeless replica of you with your discarded pieces.
He's talking to you, or maybe to himself, or maybe to your appendages, seemingly unconcerned that you are completely torn apart. You can't understand what he is saying, his voice fades in and out and he moves around.
You try to look around, to assess the damage, maybe you don't feel as banged up as it might seem from the collection of pieces of your own body amassing next to you. You can see both of your arms still attached to your body as you watch the paramedic carry one of your arms to the stretcher. You are confused. You can't feel your legs.
The girl from the parking lot the other night appears over you, impossibly large and blocking out the night. She whispers something that you can't hear, a cloud of steam streaming from her mouth. You start to feel pain in your right knee.
In your dream you fall asleep, and in real life you wake up.
And so begins your day. As you make coffee, you realize that it was a purging dream. As you have your morning cigarette, you understand that you are letting go of parts of yourself that you no longer need, or want, or can afford.
This is comforting. It is relaxing. Life should be simpler, and we do so much to over-complicate it. Maybe you consider doing less. You think about selling eveyrthing you owne except your motorcycle and a few t-shirts and pairs of jeans. You consider leaving town, and never looking back. You don't think about where you would end up, maybe because it simply wouldn't matter.
Later that evening you try to keep yourself awake to avoid going to sleep, afraid of what dreams your subconsicous will present you with again. Maybe you don't want to face what's in there, maybe you'd be better off not knowing.
Eventually, however, you drift off. And everything is dark again.
