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shiny objects

Tuesday, December 20, 2005


I think I'm Alone Now
or
E) I Can't Answer the Question, Because the Choices Keep Switching Places


So, my gentle readers, it's almost four in the morning. And here I sit in the cluttered living room, picking agitatedly at a bowl of cold brown rice, savoring the psychological unrest I've inflicted upon myself. Halucinating and paranoid, I swat an imaginary insect and spill the rice all over my lap.

I am a victim of finals, gentle readers. Pure and simple. Or rather, a victim of extraordinary sleep deprivation. Take it from me - an unrested mind HAS TO BE the most powerful legal hallucinogen known to mankind. I feel two tics short of schizophrenic.

At this point, studying is pointless. I tried, but I couldn't understand the practice test, because the multiple choice answers kept swapping places on the page. Stepping outside, I noticed that the cars, buildings, and trees looked like cartoonish stage props. It was as if at any moment, a giant maniacal puppet-master might reach into the scene and brush it all away. My own breath startled me - feathered white spirals attacking each other. Had such a vapor poured from my lungs?

Then the paranoia struck. Every shadow seemed to lurch in and out of its proper shape. What retinal impressions my mind could not immediately discern, it rendered into human form. I saw gremlins and gnomes everywhere. Silent figures. Deformed and creeping assailants. Massive tentacled insects. They were out to get me.

Peering at a neighboring building, I thought I saw a window turn into a lizard's eye - nictating membrane, and all - and blink at me. Slowly. In the distance, I heard Placebo's "Taste In Men" playing over and over and over. The more attention I payed the suspected "music," the softer it grew. My periferal vision saw beetles and worms at my feet - the kind that evaporate beneath a solid look.

And even now, I hear something ticking. I have no analogue clocks. I have no timers. Where is it coming from and what does it MEAN?! Is it counting down my life? It's counting down to the day I die. How much is fucking left, huh? HOW MUCH?

I'm seeing spots - little colored specks that zip across my vision when I look from side to side. It's bedtime, yo.


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