This one is a little hard to understand. I'm experimenting here... trying something new for me. please if you've time, hit me with some feedback, criticism, LOVE or hate.AWAKENING'SI feel cold. I'm sweating, I should not feel cold. The room is hot, people are fanning themselves, I've got sweat on my brow, but I feel cold. That's crazy, I'm crazy, and that's why I'm here.It started with the first snow. That's when I started losing control of my thoughts. Little things at first, small and innocuous, I paid them no mind at the time. In fact I may not even know when it really started, because maybe I never have noticed them until that first snow.I had just come back home from my first vacation, a trip to Mexico for the Festival of the Dead, and had arrived at the airport. There was no one there to meet me, no surprise, as no one had known that I had left. I wanted to call my house and check my messages while I waited for a cab. When I went to dial my own number I began dialing another. Just some random number that had nothing to do with me. When I tried again, it happened again, and again. At the time I just chalked it up to fatigue.I feel cold wind in my face, irritating my eyes.That makes no sense. There is no wind blowing in here. This is an office building with climate control. The heat is turned up to at least ninety...I broke the knob off at ninety-eight.No I did not! I've never even been here before. I just came in and sat down, I didn't touch anything!I'm afraid to call maintenance. I don't want to get into trouble.No I did not do it! But I can see it in my mind. I remember turning the dial. It broke off in my hand. But I just got here.Reluctantly I look up. The receptionist desk sits in an alcove. Behind the lady receptionist on the wall I can see the thermostat. The knob is missing. Oh God.Hot in here. This is insufferable.My nose is numb from the freezing wind.I place my hand to my face and feel my hot skin. It's a little oily from sweat.Boy do I look troubled.I imagine how I must look sitting here to the others in the room. Head in my hands now, leaning over so they can only see the top of my baseball cap,Some black college.Howard University. I'm wearing a long thick trench coat that keeps me warm outside in the cold. It's been a particularly cold winter and I bought the trench when I saw it hanging in a store window. Only... I don't think I really wanted it. The thought and the desire to have it was much like the cold wind I'm feeling on my face now. I never even liked trench coats before but then I had to have it. Even now I think I don't like it, but I still where it. Crazy.I must be hot in this coat.I am, but I have to keep the cold wind off of me somehow. Sweat droplets slide down my chest and I can feel my body heat pouring up out of the neck of my shirt onto my neck and under my ears. It's crazy hot in here, why don't they open a window.Why don't they turn the heat down?Because I think I broke it.I wish the windows on this floor could be opened like the ones upstairs.Oh God. My thoughts are getting more and more inconsistent. That's why I'm here right? But it's always worse when I go out or at night in my apartment building. I've got to move.Man do I look troubled. Maybe it's drugs.I don't do drugs! Maybe I need drugs, to control my thoughts. I can't stop thinking crazy thoughts. No, not really crazy thoughts; I've haven't thought about hurting anyone... yet. That's why I'm here though; to stop this before it gets any worse.It's too much pressure. I don't want to feel anymore.A wave of pain rolls over my mind. Cold wind blows across my face and I can feel it on my chest now.I could just... fly away.That thought felt like a lie. Weird. Never felt like that before. I can't just fly away. But then again, I never touched that thermostat.God what's my problem? Too bad, I'm kind of cute for a black guy.What is taking so long? I need to get help now! Is this what it's like to lose your mind? Thoughts running amok whenever I'm around people. I don't even know if this doctor can help me. Maybe he'll just give me a prescription for prozac, everybody gets prozac.Someone's coming.I stand up suddenly and look around. There is no one coming into the waiting room. There are three other people in the room now, but no one new came in. I was certain someone was coming. So certain I could almost see themOh shit! What's my problem. Hope I don't start no crazy shit. Picked the wrong day to come up here.I imagine how I must look to the others in the room now. Standing up suddenly, looking about in a paranoid fashion, I startled the others. They were trying not to look at me now. I don't blame them.So I just sit back down and place my head back in my hands. I don't even notice that it's been hot for a few moments when once again there is a startling blast of cold air in my face. Even with my hands covering it.Good just sit back down boy, don't cause no trouble.I hope I'm okay. Maybe someone I knew died.What? No one died! Man it's getting worse. Take a deep breath. Control it... Control it. Just a little while longer and I can get this shrink to give me a script to get me back in line. I can't live like this any longer and if it's going to take drugs to do it then so be it.Just fly away.My ankles ache and now my hands are going numb. A shiver runs across my shoulders.Drugs. I've got to be on drugs. Look at me I've got the shakes. And how can I be wearing that coat? Must be a hundred degrees in here. Drugs. Probably that crack. Kill my wife for sending me hear in the middle of the day with crack heads like me.I'm not married. It's getting worse by the minute now. I could almost see my wife's face with that thought. No one sent me here. I sought this place out. This is where...My brother went here.No I don't have a brother. Now I could almost see his face."Dammit." I mutter under my breath.Oh shit. There I go. Soon I'll be pulling a gun out and killing everyone in this room. Next time Sharon can get her own papers.Sharon, a soft faced woman, about forty years old, blond hair and blue eyes not aging too well.Someone must have died. I feel sorry for me. I wonder if I'm a student here like me. Probably not. I'm a little older and I've never seen me before.My image is inconsistent with other images of students here at the university. I'm not a student here though. College for me was a long time ago in another city. The strange thoughts are gaining not just in frequency but in sharpness as well. I could see the image of myself as it was matched against the back drop of this collage. I was trying to see... if I myself had seen... me on this campus before. It was such a clear thought, so distinct. And there was Sharon, whom I've never met but I knew she needed me to get something for her. What is going on with my sanity? I've never even heard of something like this.[Afraid to get in trouble. It's my first day.(Crazy crack head.*I look really lost.(God it's hot in here!Damn! The heat is unbearable. I stand and hurriedly pull off my trench coat. The sweat on my now exposed forearms starts to cool.(Thought I was going to pull a gun.*Hey. I'm wearing a shirt like this/that.What? There was a strong image of my shirt, black, long sleeves rolled up, turtle neck. Then a mirror image, but the sleeves were rolled down, hands and face not my own. A woman, white, here. I look up then and scan the room. I've seen that girl before and not just in crazy thoughts.Sitting on the other side of the room she was. She looks down and away as I look at her.*Oh God I/he saw me/me looking at him.Nervousness overwhelms me. The woman is looking away from me now her head down and staring at her hands. As I look at her the cold winds cease and I can feel the heat of the room more clearly. I'm filled suddenly with nervous energy and I can't figure out what to do with my hands or what to look at.But I just look at her. She's obviously nervous, like I'm suddenly feeling... looking at her hands.Nervous and suddenly sweaty. *Why is he/I still looking at me/me?A blurry image... me, head still turned in my direction. My direction.I look at her, she fiddles a little.*Why am I / is he still looking at me / me? Just look back at me/him then.I feel my lungs fill as I take a deep breath and she looks back up... at me. Our eyes meet and I see her...The cold wind rushes back into my face, across my chest. If I just fly away... No! Focus! I'm onto something. Look at her eyes.She meets my stare with resolve.*I/she won't let him/me intimidate her/me.Oh God. That... that wasn't my thought.*If he/I wants a staring match, I/me will give him/me one.It's her thought. Her thoughts!*I/she/I am not looking away.I could feel what she was thinking. Am I going crazy? Or is this real?(Looks like I am / he is about to start some trouble with that girl.I turn my head then, looking right at the man sitting across from me.(Oh shit. I am / he is looking at me/me now.I can see a quick flutter of images now, my gaunt face fluttering away to the magazine the man is reading. I am hearing... no feeling his thoughts as well. He's nervous now as well as irritated about the heat and the wait for the psychologist. The papers he had to get don't seem so important anymore. Sharon... she is his wife.They are not my thoughts. I did not break the thermostat, someone else did. The receptionist? She's looking at me also. Wanting the Doctor to hurry up, deal with me and get me out of here. It's easier now to interpret her thoughts now.Sweat dribbles down over my brow, MY brow. I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand.[I'm going to lose this job over that damn thermostat.Her thoughts were just as easily apparent to me. They all were, all at once. It was like listening to a group of people talk at once. No… more like ‘Feeling’ what everyone else was feeling at once.*Looks a little better now.(Crack fit appears to be over for now.[Just call maintenance and say it was like that.<...fly away...The cold wind is back. I shiver at the sudden drop in my body temperature.*Oh oh.(Oh oh.[Probably was already broken.Very cold now. Like I'm standing outside in the snow. My ankles ache… No, not MY ankles.Overwhelming stabs of melancholy… I can't go on.Feels like my whole world is a small tight box getting tighter… Got to get out… I can't go on.(So beautiful.Philadelphia skyline. Familiar, but I wasn't really seeing it. Cold hard wind… Face numb… Hands numb… My ankles ache horribly....and I could get out of this box....and I could rise up out of this gloom. Hard concrete slides across my finger tips. I can see the American Commerce Building sign in the distance.(Crack head is starting to lose it again.*He looks so confused.[What is taking the Doctor so long? Get this nut out of here.Not my thoughts! I must keep telling myself that. THEY ARE NOT MY THOUGHTS. Then whose are they?The door to the Doctor's office is closed. He's a psychologist so maybe the reason he's taking so long is because he's having a serious problem with a patient… a patient standing out on his ledge, ankles aching as he tries to negotiate the small ledge.I'm struck by a bad case of vertigo and I almost fall over. Someone is going to kill themselves. The office.I take a step toward the door and then hesitate. I think I'm waiting... waiting for it to end.(What's he up to?[Hurry up Doctor!*Maybe I should say something.Maybe I've been drawn in by his despair, but part of me wants him to jump. Part of me wants to...The office door is locked.[Oh shit! Sir you can't go in there!"Sir you can't go in there! The Doctor will call for you..." I hear and feel her voice behind me. I feel her think the words just before she says them. I must focus on that ONE voice."Open this door!" I shout and in my mind, with everyone's attention focused on me, I hear my own voice in stereo.Startled. Two distinct impressions of my sudden pounding on the door from inside and out.There isn't enough time. I slam my shoulder into the door. Once, twice and the frame cracks, three times and it flies open.Shock. Fear. TERROR!Wow… So that's what it feels like to be a rich white guy and see me coming at you. Yikes.But there's no one here. No window open and no thoughts in their minds as to anyone on a ledge. Maybe I am crazy. Maybe I'm just making this all up in my head to explain my losing control of thoughts. Oh God.I look again to the window but it definitely is not open."Is there some problem?" $He's looking for drugs! The Doctor said and thought. Images in his mind about the phone... then his hand and whether they were in my line of sight.The window to his office was on the same side of the building as the window in the waiting area. In the distance I could see the American Commerce sign. Maybe I saw it in the window in the waiting room. I could still be crazy, but... I'm still cold.I can't feel my feet anymore, my fingers hurt when I try and bend them. My throat is raw from the dry cold air and I keep coughing.$Don't do anything to set him off. He could have a gun."Shut up!" I scream at him, but he can't help it. He is terrified now and his fear is starting to eclipse the man on the ledge. I place man hands over my ears and shut my eyes as if that could help. Standing here like this I look classically insane to him.A window sill scrapes along my back and I stop and lean against it. No! He stops and leans against it. I, me, I look out the window again and still I see no one.$While his eyes are closed..."Don't do it!" I say with a sudden ferocity that he jumps. He was going for something in his desk. I can see the gun in his thoughts as he plays the memory of it in his mind.Focus. Where is he? I can see his thoughts, feel them, smell them, hear them, taste them, just sense them. They are pouring out of him... no, he is screaming them out at me... no just out, out at the world.$Won't get another opportunity!"I swear to God..." I warn him again and spare him a quick glare.Focus. I'm on a ledge. I'm against a window. What window? It's on this building. The American Commerce sign is staring at me both through his eyes and through that window but... not exactly the same. It's at a higher angle from this office than it is from the ledge. It's...Whoa! Gust of wind pushes at me and nearly pulls me off the ledge. Why am I hanging on? Just let myself fall... I want the wind to pull me off anyway. I want an excuse.Focus. HE wants the excuse. Where is he? Higher in the building certainly and on this side of the building.$Just do it!"Don't!" dammit I've got to get out of here but I feel so close. It's as if he had been in this room.(Call the cops! Why won't she call the cops? She's got the phone!*Someone should do something! I wonder what he’s doing in there.No not this room. One like it upstairs.Focus! He climbed out the window. They are different upstairs. They can open.But he couldn't jump from the window. No... he could not jump from that window. The American Commerce sign was on this side of the building, so did he go right or left?[Oh God I can't remember how to dial out.(My cell.$The gun now!Left! The window he left was on his right so he went left. The building is the same except for some huge vent that would have stopped his fall under that window. So he shuffled left.Vertigo again. He's starting to push off the building.(9-1-1!*The cops are gonna come get him. SadnessThe window he was at now must be above the one in the waiting room. I dash back out and slam into the receptionist's desk in my hurry.[Don't hurt me!$Get the gun!*He looks frightened(Did he see me on the phone? Fear.Their thoughts rush through my head as I run past them to the window.[That window won't open.(Good. Just kill yourself boy.*Oh no. Don't hurt yourself. "Don't..." fear/hesitation.$Bullets. Just use the speed loader.The window won't open. I can't find the edge. The receptionist doesn't know either. If I could just scream at him not to...<...awayI feel my foot fall on empty air and I begin to fall. No! Focus! I am not falling. One chance.$Loaded!I run back across the room and grab my chair.Focus! The chair is heavy but not too heavy. Pick it up, pick it up! I run with it over my head back to the window.$Careful. Maybe he left. Hey! That’s a four hundred dollar chair!Hard. Hit it hard!The chair shatters the window but is too wide to fall out. I let it fall to the floor.I can see the shattered window coming up fast. Oh God man, just reach out!I jump halfway out the window with my arm outstretched.*Don't!$My security deposit![Blame him for the thermostat.< A hand?His hand hit my forearm and slides down to my hand where...$What was that?(Good Lord! Was that...*He caught someone.He damn near pulls me out of the window. My thighs come up against the window frame hard. Glass crunches and scrapes across my torso. Can't let go! He's so heavy! His weight pulls my feet off the floor and they swing up kicking the chair across the room.(He'll fall!*Oh no! HESITATION.<...so sorry...My body pitches forward out of the window. I can feel the panic and horror from everyone in the room and the man outside. Or is it my own fear?My heels slam into the window frame with a rattling jolt. I'm laying across the window ledge by my thighs now and sliding further out. The backs of my boots shuttled down the window frame until my knees hit the edge of the sill.*Should I?(Maybe I should...$Somebody should...[Going to die.I scream for help but the rushing winter wind takes my voice. Their indecision fills the room behind me like a thick fog. Oh God, somebody...!!HELP!!It is much like a bolt of electricity. I don't think that any of them are aware that it is not my voice that they just heard. It doesn't matter though; all I care about is the result.I feel them rush forward, toward me, with my urgency, my fear. Their hands claw desperately at my legs until they get good holds and begin to pull me in.Looking back to the jumper I feel his turmoil before I see it on his face. He had second thoughts on the way down, and now he was having second thoughts on his way back up. What was so terrible? What ever it was he wasn't thinking about it right now. There was a... a note, he didn't want anyone to read the note.Glass scrapes my arms as we are both pulled inside and fall in heaps on the floor. My heart is racing along with everyone else's our adrenalin being driven by outside forces. Mine by the fear and excitement I feel from them, theirs by the thoughts I am still reflecting at them. I close my eye and then quiet my thoughts as well. As seconds pass I can see everyone calming down a bit.It still seems unreal. I'm actually sitting here reading their minds, no not really I guess. It's more like feeling their thoughts, their emotions, their every sensation. Funny, but all of a sudden these people seem more real to me than anyone I've ever met. And there are more real people coming in now from the hall. Their concerned for the Doctor,*...His office...* security has been called,*...saw that crazy looking black guy...* heard the noise,*...sounds like a fight...*As people enter the office they see me on the ground with the man who tried to kill himself,*...crack head...*their judgments are like assaults on me. They accuse me in their minds wishing to do so out loud. Wanting to be here to see security drag me out,*...hit him a little...*Too many thoughts and I fear I will go insane. Glass crunches under my feet as I rise to my feet.*...Uh oh...* FEAR(How did he know?)*...Somebody stop him...* "Hold it buddy!"(They think he...) "He didn't do anything!" I feel her concern for me. She thinks we have some kind of connection because we stared at each other for a moment. (...what are you thinking...)*...then what did he do...**...where is security...**...say he broke it...*There are too many thoughts again, and they are starting to blend together. I have to get out of here before they threaten my sanity like they did before.Another wave of fear rushes over me as I move and grab my coat and bag.*...going to pay...**...a hero...**...how did he know...*I brush past some people at the door and I know their fear for a second.*...don't look at him...**...don't leave...*[...RECKONING...] and I pause in the hallway. That thought was faint but amazingly clear. But there is no further thought like that. Everyone in the hall is looking at me, but none with the conviction or purpose to match the strange thought I just picked up.*...maybe if we all grab him...**...should hold him until security...**...if he's armed...*It's getting bad so I turn quickly and walk down the hall toward the elevators. There are thoughts ascending that are easy to recognize as security guard so I side step to the stairwell. Getting out of here won't be that hard. Dealing with what I am will be the hard part.This is the dawn.
Comments