You can hear the bell ringing, but you don't understand the significance. Eyes smeared, you try to find some kind of purchase, something to make you feel present - like you really exist. Like there is reason to the madness you try to corral inside your skull.
It wasn't always like this.
If you reach far enough back, you can remember another existence entirely - lush trees, verdant fields, pastoral expanses that did not try to trick the eye. These places existed. You know this, but knowing doesn't always guarantee understanding.
You don't understand, do you?
Convince yourself that these shadow memories will suffice. Warm hand on a cold, winter cheek. Stretching into consciousness with no agenda to yoke you to the moment. Try to slip back into that amniotic yesterday. The tension will, at the very least, make you feel something.
It's hard, listening for those bells. Waiting for the other shoe to drop and understanding that it never really will. No love for the searchers; they just keep searching. Meanwhile, you circle around the thing and pretend like you could grab it if you really wanted to.
This had all been an exercise. Nothing was solved here today. You are not any more prepared than you were before. So, cast your net and pull it in. See what you've caught and wonder about what slipped through - back to blackness, opaque wandering. It's what you do to fill the time, and the time must be filled. Otherwise, it will crush you.
Hear the bell toll.