2 Minutes. Go!

There is no sound from the old wooden shed, but there is a presence. You can feel it. It is sticky and unsettling. When the wind blows, the feeling changes, but it always comes back. It makes you feel frantic, but it is merely the cost of being in the back woods. Momma had always said to stay away, and maybe she had a reason.

There were so many things in the woods and the town that the people didn't like to talk about. It was a conspicuous absence since stories were the way they entertained each other. The lack of ghost stories just made the ghosts stronger, but not strong enough to keep you away. 

Maybe they were sirens. There was an almost gravitational pull when you got close enough to the shed. Sometimes, you tried to test your toughness by creeping as close as possible. Other times, the discomfort was too strong. 

On the day you disappeared, no one thought to look by the shed. Not for days. Everyone knew not to go down there, and most people couldn't be dragged there by oxen. They looked everywhere else first, and when they finally thought to check by the shed, bones and scraps of He-Man t-shirt were all they found. 

No one would ever tell the story. It hurt them, but they never spoke of you again.

2 Minutes. Go!

Small birds can sit on tiny branches. They are almost weightless. Soft, light feathers over hollow bones. There is a magic to it. They can be fierce, honoring their dinosaur forefathers, but they can also be kin to dust motes. They can float and hang in the air; they can use the wind to their advantage. 

The ravens outside my apartment can't sit on tiny branches. They are not light on their feet. No dust motes, the ravens. They are big and loud and they can be hell to deal with if you piss them off. Never look sideways at a magpie, a raven, a crow. They know things you will never know. 

I can't sit on small branches, and I don't have the dark magic that the ravens wield. We humans are heavy creatures, clumsy. Even the most astounding of us can't compete with most animals. We are neither strong nor fast nor blessed with razor teeth. 

We are smart, and that is enough. Even the dumbest of us can compete with most animals. Maybe not the ravens, though. 

Our brains are special. They give us the ability to destroy ourselves and take everything else with us.

2 Minutes! Go!

It was always like this, and it will always be like this. Until there is nothing anymore. Which may be any day now. I don't care that much. I'm barely invested. I'm keeping my options open. Maybe global warming will be a blast. Maybe it won't. Gonna be interesting, for sure. 

Nothing changes; people are people. We used to be people hunting and gathering. Then, we were farmers and hunters. Now, we are cogs. Same deal. Just trying to not die. There are a lot of ways to do it. Keep doing it, otherwise you have nothing to worry about anymore. 

Don't let the whole thing get you down. That's the main thing. You just need to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Keep on cogging. Keep your nose to the grindstone. Someday, they'll let you trade in your life savings for a slightly less painful death. 

If that ain't motivation, I don't know what is. 

Nothing ever changes. Tell that to the icebergs. Tell that to the poor penguins. They're just doing their thing, too. We all are. Stumbling onward, ever forward. 

2 Minutes. Go!

I wasn't forged in a crucible. I'm not made of iron, and I wasn't wrought from some kind of heroic mold. I am self-guided and maybe even autonomous. I am irrelevant. Tiny. Just like you. And it is so beautiful. It is wonderful to be so small that you can hide in secret places. You can almost disappear. It is almost like being magical. Almost. 

I'm a momentary collection of some kind of existence expressing itself through puppetry...I am a bag of blood and bones and veins and shit. I wasn't called upon to take on any kind of heroic quest. There was no call to arms. The world is fine with letting me quietly sit in the back. 

I'm not an optimist. I'm not one of those people who makes other people happy with their existence. I think I try to be a realist, but I'm not always reasonable, and, really, I don't like labels. I'm not sitting on the shelf of some grocery store for you to gawk at. 

I am engaged with being engaged. I like shiny things. I like to hear birds sing.

I was not sculpted in marble. I am not an archetype. I am not a salesman, and I have no savvy hype. I am so small, I am disappearing as you read this. One more stiff breeze, and I'll be gone. 

I am not some kind of art installation for you to stare at. I am not a performance. I am guiding my flesh suit as best I can. I can almost pretend that I'm like you. I'm usually so good at pretending. 

I am a beautiful nothing. That's all. 

A speck.

       .

2 Minutes. Go!

There are places you can find where their is no noise. No light. These dark spaces allow you to catch your breath. Imagine the sensory stimulus you are constantly bombarded with...it's a miracle that any of our brains work at all. Mine works hard, so sometimes I have to find that dark, quiet place. 

Sometimes I can find the place fishing. It was easy to find it at the bottom of a bottle. Fishing doesn't make you wake up sad and paranoid and anxious. So, I stick to fishing, but it doesn't work as well as whiskey. 

Fishing doesn't have the same power, but it doesn't leave me broken.

It sometimes seems like life is a test. Are you able to find the dark places you need? If not, you will be a failure. And no one likes a failure. 

Sleep is nice if you can't remember your dreams. Sometimes, I get that break. Sometimes, I don't. 

At the end of the day, we are only the safety we feel. We are the subconscious cocoon we create for ourselves. If you don't have one, make one. Try to avoid whiskey. It pays dividends you don't want. 

Trust me.

2 Minutes. Go!

The sounds from the wall are becoming more frequent. More intense. It is a scraping sound. A desperate sound. You thought it was the drugs, but now the drugs are gone, and the noise is not. This is unsettling. This is awful. This is par for the course.

Maybe it's animals. That's what you tell yourself, but you know that you deserve something more than animals in the walls. You deserve to be haunted, tortured; you are begging for it. 

You turn the lights on. Turn them off. Hope that it will make the noise stop, but, if anything, it just gets louder. More insistent. You start attributing emotions to the sound. The sound is getting angry. 

The police will find a scene they can't begin to explain. The cops will call the station and say, "no, not just dead....torn apart! The whole place is covered in blood." The younger cops feel frightened. They shake and it rattles the guns and batons and tasers they wear. There is nothing worse than a cowardly cop.

They will eventually give up. The house will be torn down. 

There are walls everywhere, though. This is just a temporary lull. 

Can you hear it?

2 Minutes. Go!

You can smile through the pain, but the smile is only on the outside. Inside, you are anything but smiling. You are scared. They were right. You are living your life of quiet desperation. It's not something to be ashamed of. It is all too common. 

When you're small, they shame you for crying. They shame you for showing too much emotion. Too happy is almost as bad as too sad. They set these expectations and give you fucked up ways to look at yourself. 

As you age, they talk about authenticity, but they don't mean it. They don't want to know your sorrows...they just want to see that smile. How are you? Me? I'm fine. Short and sweet. No one has to think too much about it. No empathy required.

The thing they don't tell you is that you are giving up a lot in living for other people. You are taking shots you shouldn't take. You're the one that feels bad. That makes you right. 

I don't know, honestly. I'm just a bag of bones and shit like you. Sometimes, I feel superior, but most of the time I try not to feel at all.