I wrote this when I was 17 so go easy on me as far as grammatical errors and such. I wasn't writing it for any purpose other than I picked up a pen one afternoon and started writing. A few people have read it and asked if I was the person in the piece. To preempt that, the answer is no. The persons in this writing are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons or events is unintentional.

Fear not! For life has only begun. A lifetime of dreams, goals, ambitions, loves (both lost and those still to be found), desires, wants, emotions, and so much more still await. Still waiting to be found, fulfilled, enjoyed, crushed, deflated, lost by each of us in today’s society. We are influenced by those around us (yes, even by the guy in the back of the room who is known by no one. By the same guy who gets average grades, lives a mediocre life with friends who have accomplished the same things. By the guy who rides an old beat up bicycle to his destinations like work, the doctor’s office, or even to pay bills.), industry, and the general society. Drink Coke. Do the Dew. Did somebody say McDonald’s? No matter where we go, we can’t avoid it. Pollution. Technology. Subdivisions. Automobiles. New Age everything. We must follow the stereotype of the average to middle class American. If not, we become lacking in culture, aesthetic refinement. We’re philistines. To be accepted by other people, we must be just like them. We must agree with what they say. We must share their beliefs. Is there an

Intelligence Quotient prerequisite to being alive? To living life to its fullest? Being happy? How are our boundaries decided? Are we predestined with them? Can we set them ourselves? Can they be adjusted? Can we do it or do we have to hope that they are adjusted to our needs individually?

And what about love? Is there one true love for each of us? It sounds to me that until we find that idealized significant other, that we wander aimlessly looking for him or her. I know that’s not right, but it almost makes sense. Doesn’t it? I’m not saying that our lives, relationships, existence, or whatever mean nothing until we find that perfect person. Is it even possible for there to be a “perfect” partner? We all have idiosyncrasies that people either adjust to or they don’t. Does adjustment constitute perfection? People eventually look over other peoples’ quirks and accept them. But does that make them perfect for each other? What happens if we never find that one person who has everything we could want? What happens if we are lucky enough to find them in our first relationship? Could that be called luck? It almost sounds like a bad thing. If it is the case that we find them first thing, then we have no experience to base a relationship on. On the other hand, why would we want to base something off something that didn’t work in the first place? Maybe there was something about relationship #1 that doesn’t work in relationship #2. But maybe it was the detrimental thing that caused relationship #1 to fail that would cause relationship #2 to work. But if we never find that perfect person, we’ll never know. No one wants to spend eternity alone, but there are some people who are destined to be that way. Forever, perhaps? We certainly hope not. Maybe they’re happy that way. Is it possible to be alone all one’s life and remain content, let alone happy?

So this is where the mind overloads and crashes. The system is down, but I feel better. You wake up several hours later with a splitting headache. You can’t focus your eyes and you’re shaking violently. You’re cold and scared. You’re confused because you don’t know where you are and you don’t remember where you are or how you got there. You’re in a room with white walls and no windows, except for the one in the small one in the door, but even it is made of safety glass. Did I say “even”? I guess I forgot to tell you that the walls are close together in this room, and even better, they’re padded.

You try to sit up by putting your hands on the floor to help you keep your balance, but you can’t move them. You look down and you see that you’re wearing a canvas jacket, but worse, the arms are buckled together behind you. You panic. Your heart begins to race. This makes your head hurt even worse.

Your head begins to throb, then pound.

You begin to struggle to free yourself from the straight jacket, but to no avail. After what seems like an eternity of struggle, you begin to tire. Your shoulders hurt from the thrashing. You realize you still haven’t made any advancement towards being free. You’re still lying on the floor. You lie there, thinking. You don’t know what you’re thinking because your mind is still racing. Your thoughts are going through your head too fast to really contemplate any of them. You can’t focus your mind on anything…

Until… No! it’s not fair. The inside of your ear begins to tingle. Okay, you think, if I don’t think about it, it will quit. But there’s nothing to think about. You remember what happened last time you started. Well, you see where you ended up.

But what does it matter? You’re already here. Could they put you in a worse place? (If you could only scratch your ear.) No, probably not. There couldn’t be a worse place than this.

You notice the walls start to close in on you . The room slowly becomes smaller. Smaller still. Your ear is unforgettable. The more you try to focus on something else, the more your subconscious mind keeps going back to it. It’s just a subtle reminder that you’re locked up, tied up and… being watched?

Yes! You look at that little window in the door in time to see a man in a white lab coat observing you. Observing you as though you were a parasite under a microscope. He sees you looking at him. He looks down as though he’s writing something on a clipboard.

That infernal itching! You wish you could just reach up and scratch it. Scratch it until it quit itching, or until it bled. Whichever comes first. Your eyes begin to burn due to the beads of sweat that burst out due to anxiety. Are the walls going to quit moving in? Are they going to crush you? Are they even moving? Maybe it’s just a hallucination. Kind of like a bad acid trip.

Your shaking has become uncontrollable, not that you’ve had any control up to this point. Your mind is racing so much faster than you ever thought possible.

Your chest hitches a painful breath and you begin to hyperventilate. Before too long, you can’t breathe. The white walls begin to darken. Your eyelids begin drooping. And before long, You’re surrounded in utter darkness.

For the first time in too long it seems, you are calm, relaxed. Finally, the itching is a long distance away. It’s unnoticeable.

You notice something even further in the distance, though. A small light, only as big around as a ball point of a pen. It moves back and forth, slowly, hypnotically, rhythmically.

So very, very slowly it begins to come closer. But time has no relevance to you wherever you are. By the way, where are you? Have you given that any thought? Have you tried standing up yet? Are you still bound by that jacket? Can you hear anything? Have you tried listening for anything? Can you speak? Maybe you should try. Go on, give it a whirl. Say something. Anything. It doesn’t matter. There’s no one else here. Or is there? You’ll never know until you look around.

You try to say something, but no sound comes out. You clear your throat and try again. No luck. Looking around you, you notice there’s nothing to see. You’re surrounded in blackness.

Slowly, slowly that little light comes closer, growing progressively larger. You feel around, trying to find some way to stand up. You see that there’s no physical you. Your mind is the only part of you in this place of utter isolation. You’re stuck, stranded, going nowhere. And still, that light keeps coming closer. You can’t meet it in the middle. You can’t run in fear from it. You must just wait for your destiny to come to you. You still can’t control what’s happening to you.

Now you feel something. But what is it? It’s your ear again. Its itching is becoming maddening quickly. But you have no ear. You have no physical self. How does this work?

The light has come closer still and has become progressively brighter all along. The light brings intense heat. You begin noticing these things all at once and begin to lose the remaining part of your sanity. Your eyes burn severely again. You can’t handle much more of this. When will you wake up from this nightmare?

The itching begins to subside some and in its place, you hear a steady beeping sound. It stays in tempo with throbbing of your head. You realize that one of your eyes are open.

The blinding light makes you want to close it, but something stops you. Something holds your right eye open. Now your left. The light changes accordingly. Again you want to close your eye. Then whatever it is holding your eye open moves away from you. The light is gone. But now you want to know where you are. Your eyes snap open. You look around.

You moan (audibly this time) as you look around and see a familiar sight. The white walls., the door with the only window. You must have blacked out. Maybe it was a doctor who shone that bright light in your eyes. Maybe it was all your imagination. Maybe there is a reason you’ve been put here.

You begin to recount all the things you can remember. All of it is so vague. You don’t remember what you were thinking about before you blacked out. Or did you really black out? Did you maybe imagine that, too?

You don’t know anything any more. Your eyes begin to sting again, but not from sweat this time. The tears pour out and again you lose time and forget reality and none of it matters because neither of them have any influence on you, you mind, your thoughts, anything.

So, you’ve cried. Has that really accomplished anything? Now your nose is running and you can’t even wipe it with the back of your sleeve because they’re tied behind you.

And this life for so many. Can you relate? Does this make sense to you? Do you maybe wish it did? Don’t you really wish it didn’t?

David “Dafyd” Burgess 11/10/98