A glimpse of my future ... or, why leaving your door open isn't always terrible ...
I'm overcome by a sincere and honest urge to use the bathroom. I throw that out there not for any particular reason (i.e. it's to set the scene) but because it sets the scene (I'm not sure why I interupted myself, but you know -- it's not really that bad -- but the train of thought continues).
Coffee is flowing in my veins. Caffine is the drive. It keeps me awake. I've had a rough weekend. No wife. Too much barbecue. A handful of mescaline. A case of beer. (OK, I lied about mescaline, but my desire to at least feel like Hunter S. Thompson overtakes my urge to always be up front and honest.) When the alarm went off this morning (thanks Jason) I found the courage to do this yet again (i.e. wake up), keeping alive my string of days with less than 6 hours of sleep. To some, this isn't bad. But, I've had a busy week. You know, that whole barbecue thing. I'm sweating hickory out here.
So, yeah, the alarm. It was sounding and I was trying to figure out when my next fix was going to come (caffine, not mescaline, I've already established that I exaggerated that claim). The taxi sign was on and the travel arrangements were made ... I realized that I had no control.
Anyway, this story has the potential to ramble on and be quite insignificant (i.e. there really is no point and the basic outline for the story has really be fleshed out enough). Blah, blah, blah.
Two hours later, I'm stretched out in my chair in nothing but a pair of boxers (please, don't stop reading, I strike that visual image, I take it back -- I'm wearing pants and a wool sweater, is that better?) and am falling slowly into a state of catatonic shock. Sugar shock from the venti mocha from the devil Starbucks, perhaps. The Road Warrior ("walk away ... just walk away" which is an altogether different column that I plan on writing soon) is playing in the background. I've zoned out, like I said already if you werent' paying attention, and am dreaming of unicorns/filth/milfs/oscar the grouch when the door starts to jiggle. I can hear the handle working it's way. I groggily let out a "Huh" that sorta sounds like the bellow of a wounded llama (what a strange freaking metaphor huh?). No answer. I let it go. Maintenece guy. I hear the door shut. I slip back into my coma.
About a minute passes and I feel this presence. Like what some people say they feel when the find Jesus. I found this feeling quite profound. I saw into my future and, well, I opened my eyes quite quickly.
And there, in front of me, was a young child. I'm dreaming, I though to myself. No way this toddler in diapers is here. This is my spirit quest. My vision. My guide. (Wayne got Jim Morrison ... I get a 2-year-old -- you're right, life's not fair.)
"I want my Mommy," this vision says. Having watched my fill of low-grade porn the other day on television, combined with the caffine and the mescaline (curses!), I'm fairly certain that's what he said. (He very clearly could've said "Gummy bears are yummy." His thumb was in his mouth and he wasn't speaking too clearly, so it could've been anything: "You smell funny"/"I like Bunnies" you get the point.)
OK, so, I've established points of reference. Move on.
"I want my Mommy," again, this is what he says.
By now, I've realized that this boy is a sign from God. "END YOUR WICKED WAYS," God is saying through this dark-skinnned child. "Stop playing PlayStation all day and lusting after women. This is your future." A child in diapers, not happy to see me, needing, wanting and absolutely desperate to find his mother. Not the father. Not his provider and protector. I've failed. Already. And I haven't even done anything yet.
Again, he says, "I want my Mommy." He reaches out his hand and tugs at my toes. I open the other eye. And, like a car crash that jars you out of a pretty nice drive in the country, I can't shake this nagging suspicion that this isn't a dream.
This little boy is actually tugging at my toe, thumb in his mouth, clad in a diaper. (Some stunning parallels are present: We are dressed similarly -- i.e. the boxers thing ... wait, don't think about that; We both are alone -- him with no mommy, me without my wife; Niether of us can really comprehend our surroundings -- I went to sleep before I was ready to wake up and he seems to have awoken in a room he can't remember. Just, you know, observing those 12 hours later.) He's real. I'm real. We're all real people. Both of us.
(Now, I'm not going to exaggerate that I'm some kind of hero. The boy accidentally wanders into my room -- it could've been any room. I just want to get this out of the way now, so you don't carry false pretenses when I launch into the climax of this story.)
He starts to cry. And the sobs are coming out with the thumb in his mouth. It sounds like someone trying to inhale soup while spitting it out. I snap out of my chair and stand up. Predictably, he runs away. (I mean, to this child, I'm probably the largest thing he's ever seen.) He runs to the door while I try to climb into a pair of shorts. Fiddling with the door, he turns around, wide-eyed and terrified. I shoot him the same exact look (I'm just, you know, not crying and sucking my thumb -- OK, so I am. It's a nervous habit ... I don't want to get into it ...). He opens the door and whoosh, the crying stops. The running away from me part doesn't.
Now, I've got so much caffine in me and I'm sweating meat from this weekend still, so it appears, metaphysically, like I'm chasing my alter ego. A scared, frail and lonely child not really quite sure what he's doing or which door he needs to open to get back into his world of comfort. (The parallels to my current situtation, again, scare the crap out of me.)
He runs from door to door, jiggling and crying. Jiggling and crying. I'm trying to keep him calm, while trying to keep my pants on. I finally get him into a hallway and get down on my knees. He comes running to me ... then past me. I'm in no mood to chase, but I feel that it's my duty to make sure this child gets reunited with his mom. And he's headed straight for a wall and isn't really looking. I lunge just barely miss him ... so I don't sound like a jerk, I was trying to stop him from hitting the wall. He stops dead and the saga ends with me lying on the ground and his mother walking out the elevator.
She looks at me, holding a tiny pair of pants in her hands. Her eyes narrow.
"Looking for someone?" I ask her.
Suddenly, he remembers where he lives. He heads right for the door, jiggles and cries, and lets himself in.
The mother stares at me. A man, who she doesn't know, with his pants half on, laying on the floor of an apartment complex after apparently chasing after her son -- who is crying and running in the opposite direction.
"He walked into my apartment," I tell her, while getting back to my feet.
"That'll happen," she says.
Again ... the similarities to my current position astound me.
"That'll happen."
Coffee is flowing in my veins. Caffine is the drive. It keeps me awake. I've had a rough weekend. No wife. Too much barbecue. A handful of mescaline. A case of beer. (OK, I lied about mescaline, but my desire to at least feel like Hunter S. Thompson overtakes my urge to always be up front and honest.) When the alarm went off this morning (thanks Jason) I found the courage to do this yet again (i.e. wake up), keeping alive my string of days with less than 6 hours of sleep. To some, this isn't bad. But, I've had a busy week. You know, that whole barbecue thing. I'm sweating hickory out here.
So, yeah, the alarm. It was sounding and I was trying to figure out when my next fix was going to come (caffine, not mescaline, I've already established that I exaggerated that claim). The taxi sign was on and the travel arrangements were made ... I realized that I had no control.
Anyway, this story has the potential to ramble on and be quite insignificant (i.e. there really is no point and the basic outline for the story has really be fleshed out enough). Blah, blah, blah.
Two hours later, I'm stretched out in my chair in nothing but a pair of boxers (please, don't stop reading, I strike that visual image, I take it back -- I'm wearing pants and a wool sweater, is that better?) and am falling slowly into a state of catatonic shock. Sugar shock from the venti mocha from the devil Starbucks, perhaps. The Road Warrior ("walk away ... just walk away" which is an altogether different column that I plan on writing soon) is playing in the background. I've zoned out, like I said already if you werent' paying attention, and am dreaming of unicorns/filth/milfs/oscar the grouch when the door starts to jiggle. I can hear the handle working it's way. I groggily let out a "Huh" that sorta sounds like the bellow of a wounded llama (what a strange freaking metaphor huh?). No answer. I let it go. Maintenece guy. I hear the door shut. I slip back into my coma.
About a minute passes and I feel this presence. Like what some people say they feel when the find Jesus. I found this feeling quite profound. I saw into my future and, well, I opened my eyes quite quickly.
And there, in front of me, was a young child. I'm dreaming, I though to myself. No way this toddler in diapers is here. This is my spirit quest. My vision. My guide. (Wayne got Jim Morrison ... I get a 2-year-old -- you're right, life's not fair.)
"I want my Mommy," this vision says. Having watched my fill of low-grade porn the other day on television, combined with the caffine and the mescaline (curses!), I'm fairly certain that's what he said. (He very clearly could've said "Gummy bears are yummy." His thumb was in his mouth and he wasn't speaking too clearly, so it could've been anything: "You smell funny"/"I like Bunnies" you get the point.)
OK, so, I've established points of reference. Move on.
"I want my Mommy," again, this is what he says.
By now, I've realized that this boy is a sign from God. "END YOUR WICKED WAYS," God is saying through this dark-skinnned child. "Stop playing PlayStation all day and lusting after women. This is your future." A child in diapers, not happy to see me, needing, wanting and absolutely desperate to find his mother. Not the father. Not his provider and protector. I've failed. Already. And I haven't even done anything yet.
Again, he says, "I want my Mommy." He reaches out his hand and tugs at my toes. I open the other eye. And, like a car crash that jars you out of a pretty nice drive in the country, I can't shake this nagging suspicion that this isn't a dream.
This little boy is actually tugging at my toe, thumb in his mouth, clad in a diaper. (Some stunning parallels are present: We are dressed similarly -- i.e. the boxers thing ... wait, don't think about that; We both are alone -- him with no mommy, me without my wife; Niether of us can really comprehend our surroundings -- I went to sleep before I was ready to wake up and he seems to have awoken in a room he can't remember. Just, you know, observing those 12 hours later.) He's real. I'm real. We're all real people. Both of us.
(Now, I'm not going to exaggerate that I'm some kind of hero. The boy accidentally wanders into my room -- it could've been any room. I just want to get this out of the way now, so you don't carry false pretenses when I launch into the climax of this story.)
He starts to cry. And the sobs are coming out with the thumb in his mouth. It sounds like someone trying to inhale soup while spitting it out. I snap out of my chair and stand up. Predictably, he runs away. (I mean, to this child, I'm probably the largest thing he's ever seen.) He runs to the door while I try to climb into a pair of shorts. Fiddling with the door, he turns around, wide-eyed and terrified. I shoot him the same exact look (I'm just, you know, not crying and sucking my thumb -- OK, so I am. It's a nervous habit ... I don't want to get into it ...). He opens the door and whoosh, the crying stops. The running away from me part doesn't.
Now, I've got so much caffine in me and I'm sweating meat from this weekend still, so it appears, metaphysically, like I'm chasing my alter ego. A scared, frail and lonely child not really quite sure what he's doing or which door he needs to open to get back into his world of comfort. (The parallels to my current situtation, again, scare the crap out of me.)
He runs from door to door, jiggling and crying. Jiggling and crying. I'm trying to keep him calm, while trying to keep my pants on. I finally get him into a hallway and get down on my knees. He comes running to me ... then past me. I'm in no mood to chase, but I feel that it's my duty to make sure this child gets reunited with his mom. And he's headed straight for a wall and isn't really looking. I lunge just barely miss him ... so I don't sound like a jerk, I was trying to stop him from hitting the wall. He stops dead and the saga ends with me lying on the ground and his mother walking out the elevator.
She looks at me, holding a tiny pair of pants in her hands. Her eyes narrow.
"Looking for someone?" I ask her.
Suddenly, he remembers where he lives. He heads right for the door, jiggles and cries, and lets himself in.
The mother stares at me. A man, who she doesn't know, with his pants half on, laying on the floor of an apartment complex after apparently chasing after her son -- who is crying and running in the opposite direction.
"He walked into my apartment," I tell her, while getting back to my feet.
"That'll happen," she says.
Again ... the similarities to my current position astound me.
"That'll happen."
posted by dr gooch at 5.10.04
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home