Insomnia Inspired Writings

Realization X was inspired by a motion picture and written during the sleepless aftermath caused by the attempt to get my brain around exactly what had transpired. In the interest of not spoiling the work for any subsequent readers, I ask that you refrain for naming the movie in the comments. If you are unsure or are convinced you know, I would be happy to share the answer by email at InsomniacDiary@gmail.com. (I will only entertain an answer if you at least offer your best guess as to the inspiration.)

Realization X

I feel the wet, cold porcelain on my feet as I begin unfastening button after button, from top to bottom. I find my shirt hanging freely as I look in the mirror. It’s a sad irony that brings a young opportune face down to this aged, weathered look uncommon, for a twenty something. Years have been ripped away from my life and family like flesh ripped away from the bone by a large carnivore. I continue the process, with the removal of a button followed by the faint buzz of my zipper lowering towards the floor, letting my pants fall to the floor as did my shirt while stunned by the image before me in the glass. The memory of just a few minutes ago…my pale flesh now ripped from countless hours of nothingness broken up only by a few moments of sun in a rooftop gym on a bench in front of others just like me. Just like me…but not really at all. The pale flesh interrupted only by the decision to mark for life the ideals held only for a short time. The blue ink looks better covered by the flesh of my hand, though only temporary and for my own sake. I reach for the handle and suddenly feel a cold shock giving me an instantaneous chill to the bone. The water rushes across my face and chest, finding its way to the lowest point of the room, as one so easily finds the lowest point of their life, somehow, while searching for higher meaning in everything. It takes a few moments that feel like an eternity for any feeling of warmth to come down upon me, though the chill to the bone does not seem to leave. I run my hand across the thickening hair that finds its way on my scalp a bit too slowly for my new ideals. A memory hits me of running my hand across the bare skin, only interrupted by stubble. As I ponder the two people who had to die for me to reach the elevated state of consciousness that I now proclaim to have, another flashback of my face pressed against tile and burning in my arms as they resided behind me with force, paling in comparison to the burning, splitting pain I felt from behind before my nose met the tile with rapid force, followed immediately by my body collapsing to the bottom most point of the room, as the blood mixes with water finding its way too to the bottom, exiting the room as to cover up what happened. The deceit which led me to this point baffles me, as I consider myself a strong, intelligent human being. What about those others who are weaker than I, stuck to go down for another who rolled over on them to free themselves from the responsibility for their actions? Will the anger in their heart bring them back to this scenario again and again, or will only one time take to change as did I, forever waiting on a repeat performance from the other side, the object of my hate, thanking god for every day that passes with no conflict until finding my way to the outside, only to start all over again, rebuilding a life further destroyed after left in ruins by circumstance, and a gun. Flash to the good feeling of righting the craft, interrupted and blown apart with the explosion of holding your own flesh and blood lying, bleeding on similar tile only because of the hate perpetuated by others like me directed towards the other side. Hate that consumed all once before, as heat and flames consume all within their path, as would water enter fabric strewn out upon its surface, darkening every inch, inch by inch until nothing was left but a seeping black hatred upon the white pride cloth immersed in the truth. I reach for the handle again, unable to complete my task for the contribution to the drain coming from within my soul, trailing down my face and across the pale skin of my body, landing lower than could any single part of me without the adulteration of an ideology such as that which had consumed my mind, body, and soul. No more, as I refuse to believe the lies. I try to pick up the pieces and put them back in place, in hopes of something a little more normal than my past which has left me scarred and questioning the purpose of our very existence, or the existence that we create for ourselves through our actions when they slip out of our hands, or our control. I towel my skin as I pause again briefly to glance at the figure reflecting before me, still covered by blue signs of misguided ideals, though the mind has changed so much to my favor. I feel a different sort of chill as I step from the porcelain briskly, yet blindly towards a new life.

R. Lewis Lightner