Author: jongraylang

I wake suddenly from a dream and I am lost.  Blearily, I watch a vortex form above me.  What is this place?

A beast screams its strident tone repeatedly.  Its red eyes glare at me.  I smack at the monster until it quiets but its disgruntled presence fills the room.

My body tells me that I am bound.  Am I sandwiched between the petals of a flower?  Or is this luncheon meat that surrounds me?

I realize that these are the sheets that I sleep within.  The vortex is the ceiling fan as it does its lazy dance.  The beast is the clock by my side.  Its angry red eyes the numbers that equal time.

Darkness reigns supreme. Why do you still exist Daylight Savings Time?

I need the coffee so that I can think.

I need to think so that I can work.

I need to work so that I can eat.

I need to eat so that I can sleep.

I need to sleep so that I can wake.

I need to wake so that I can have coffee.

(image courtesy of https://www.goodfreephotos.com)

“I’m a super hero!” the little boy cried out.  “I fight crime in the most dastardly of places against the most evil of foes!”

He took off running toward the far corner store of the little borough.  With a flip of his cape, he burst into the shop, “Mr. Store Man, have you spotted any crime happening?”

The manager of the shop smiled down at the young lad, “Why no, I haven’t.  Did you check the Laundromat?  I hear that’s where they hide out.”

The little boy put his hands on his hips and stuck his chest out, “I was there earlier this morning with my mom.”  He got closer to the store manager and whispered loudly in that way that young kids do, “I was under cover, you see.”  His eyes lit up in shock, “But I mustn’t tell you my secret identity!”

As the older man chuckled, “We appreciate you keeping our neighborhood safe.”

“Of course!” cried the boy.  “It’s what I do.”

The young boy stepped back and looked around the store.  Once he was satisfied that there wasn’t a criminal lurking about, he wiped his arm across his forehead.

“Fighting crime is thirsty work, Mr. Store Man.”

(image courtesy of Ryan McGuire of http://www.gratisography.com/)

There are moments when life is lonely.

Days pass and you have no one to talk to.  Weeks pass and you still have no one to tell of your exploits.  Months pass and still no one comes over to see how you are.

Maybe it’s you.  Maybe you have nothing to offer them.  Maybe they know that you’re just a shell of your former self.  Maybe they know that you’re empty inside.

Sometimes you wish for more but you can only be who and what you are.  It’s on sad days like these that I dream of being someone else.

But I am nothing more than a dumpster behind a long closed factory.

(image courtesy of Ryan McGuire of http://www.gratisography.com/)

There are days when being trapped inside a human skin suit can just get wearing.  See how I did that?  God I kill me sometimes.

Unlike those guys behind me, who really do want to kill me.

Why, you ask?  Do I really have time for questions while I run for my life down a filthy alley?  Well sure, Captain Hindsight.  Why not?

Like I was saying, these skin suits get itchy.  Every now and again, I’ll slip out and stretch in the warm sun.  They must’ve seen me.

I know, I know, the High Overlord says we’ve got to blend in.  We don’t want them to know that were here and these things will help with a smooth take over.  But they’re itchy.

Their insides catch on my scales.  The ribs cut into me when I’m trying to digest a pig.  And don’t get me started on those leg things.  I mean seriously, who needs two of them?

Great.  Now they’re throwing things at me.  Could this day get any worse?  Oh yes, of course it can.  My tail is slipping inside the left leg casing and the ankle is all bunched up down there like a bad sock.

I’d curse them out but I’m already sticking out of the mouth hole of this thing.  I taste the air and realize that I’ve run out of alleys to run down.  I’m stuck in one of those small open plots you find in the city sometimes.

Well, I best shed this skin and slither out of here.  I’m going to catch plenty of hell for the lost flesh bag.  No need to give credence to a conspiracy theory or two.

(image courtesy of Ryan McGuire of http://www.gratisography.com/)

I must not sleep.  Coffee is the awakener.  Coffee fends off the little-death that brings total unconsciousness.

I will face my cup.  I will permit it to pass into me and through me.  And when it has gone past I will turn my mind to watch its path.

Where the coffee has gone, there will no longer be sleep. Only grounds will remain.

(image courtesy of https://www.goodfreephotos.com)

Ever have that sense that you are being watched?  But every time you look around there is no one there?  And that feeling won’t go away, it just grows.

Who would want to watch you and why?  These questions eat at you until the very sense of paranoia consumes you.  It controls your every move, your every decision.  You can’t find any proof for it and yet you can’t escape that feeling.

Everyone you know breaks contact with you because of your actions but it stays with you.  Your home is a shambles as you’ve ripped it apart in search of anything to answer the question.  But that feeling is still there.  You’ve reached your limit.

Just as a warning for you if you get to that point, don’t dig the eye of your own skull to see if it’s a camera.  It hurts like the dickens.