Introspective Isolation

I scratch at the back of my hand, but I don’t feel it from either direction. I know I’m moving my hands but I can’t feel that, likewise, I can see my nails leave criss crossed trails across the dry skin but I’m only watching. I turn my head towards the voice in the next room and shake my head. This apartment has been empty for years, and I dismiss the murmurs. I wondered what day and time it was, but only in passing. It doesn’t matter, nor change anything. Monday, Winter, April, Weekends, they melt together like my watercolors, the memories layering and mixing until I could only pick up a general color, and if I tilted my head just right and squinted, I could see new memories I knew I hadn’t lived, but I had the pieces to puzzle them together if I wanted. A knock at the door? It was probably sleep again, but I was too busy to answer. I had to get to the bottom of this latest enigma. Where did the footprints come from if I am the only one in this place? They were too large to be mine, but they tasted like mine. Nova barked in the next room and I grumbled. “No barking. We don’t bark. Keep quiet.” She barked again, and I lunge up out of the chair, stumbling when I bounce off the door jam into the front room. I rub my shoulder and the brother to the pain stabs into my eyes. The sun screamed in through the grimy windows, hazy halos flaring in my vision. I raise a hand to block the vicious rays and peer around the room. A dusty dog bed is by the cold dead fireplace, a tattered collar sleeps peacefully among the gray film of passed time; A macabre trophy of fond memories in another life. Proof I could live in the land of monotonous normalcy once I was done with my abstract travels. I stood over the bed and held out a hand, contemplating touching the memories literally and metaphorically, but decided against it.

My feet dragged against the scuffed hardwood, the rough raw scraping echoed in my ears. It sounded like the back of my hand when I scratched it. I tried itching it, but the sensation slipped through my awareness without sticking for even a solitary second. I stood in front of the window and leaned forward, carefully placing my forehead against the existing grimy circle, staring down into the street below. All those lives moving, frantically scrabbling and scraping for a place in a world that didn’t care. Would I die if I pull the window open and leapt? How long would it take? Would I live long enough to regret it? Would I regret it? What if I ran and jumped through the glass, falling to the sidewalk in a shower of shards, until I too shattered with the pane and the pain in a rain against the land of crystalline sand? That wouldn’t do, I wasn’t done with this yet. I turned and began to patrol the apartment, pacing a familiar pattern around and around and around and around and around and around and the window was there every time I passed. It was so flimsy, this translucent glass. How easily I could pass through it and leave behind my past. There was a chance it would be slow, and it would have to be fast. Perhaps I know that I don’t truly want this to end, but I don’t know how to end what I want to end without taking me with it. Do I want to end all of me or some of me?

Pacing.

Pacing.

Heart racing.

Pacing.

Pacing.

Window facing.

Pacing.

Pacing.

Pacing.

Stop.

Stand and think, argue with me. I make a compelling case, but I make valid counterpoints. Why? Why? Why? The footprints are back, but the criss cross the walls. I try to escape my thoughts, but they crowd me with visions of falls. Fractured memories like the glass reflected back at me. Canoeing in the creek. Hot summers and tall grass. Grasshoppers in the snow. Teatime and recess, driving through the night. Why can’t I remember their face? Is it their voice I hear? Am I hearing what I want? Am I hearing what I fear?

Pacing.

Pacing.

Stumble and scrape my knees. Palms are raw and worn from crawling, but the thoughts press in around me. Push me down. Push me down. A cool breeze whispers assurances, a promise of release. I reel back from the sill and fall to my back. Push hard with my heels and scrape along the floor. I can’t and will not, I feel for the knob of the door. It is slick with sweat and I seek desperate purchase. The door bursts outwards into splinters, air whistles as I fall.

I fall.

I fall.

Darkness takes it all.

I fall.

I fall.

Then there is no sensation at all.