March 14, 2006

• 

  
  

   

  
  

   

  
  

  I’ve noticed that for this past year my ears have become much more sensitive to sound.  As I try to read, write, think in general, there will always be some sound distracting me. A thought emerges hesitantly in my mind, like a deer about to cross the street.  It cautiously looks one way, it looks another, and as far as the thing can tell the coast is all clear.  So it makes a run for it, it dashes, and I can sometimes catch a glimpse, see an instant of the thought that was attempting to cross my mind.  But most times?  Most times that doesn’t happen at all.  Most times these giant snow-plowing trucks of distracting sound come and smash them into the pavement.  Grind them into the rough roads until all that’s left is some mutated, bloody puddle of what could have potentially been the greatest thought I’d ever thunk.  Thunk.  That’s what happens when the sounds come.  I don’t think; I throw my thoughts out there and they crumble, they plummet, they thunk.  Could be’s, would have beens, oh…too bad’s. I think I might finally understand the meaning of lif- *phone rings*.  So I guess that’s why my parents got divor-*dog barks*.  Maybe all I really need is to be- “DARYL CLEAN YOUR GODDAMN ROOM.”  In all honesty, if I had a baby for every thought I tried to have this year; nearly 99% of them all would have been sickly miscarriages.

  
  

   

  
  

  It is a battle between the real world and the one inside my head.  Snowplowsatandeermurder is telling me to go! Live my life!  Get those damn thoughts out of the way because all they do is make the tires sticky, block the windshield, leave a nasty spot on the highway. Don’t think, be assertive!  Don’t ponder, drive!  That’s what those sounds are screaming to me when they run over the remains of my wilting imagination, that’s the point they are, quite literally, trying to get through my clouded head.  I don’t have a choice as to whether I want to listen to them or not.  It’s sound; it filters into my ears no matter how tightly my hands are pressing over them, it seeps into the cracks and stealthily vibrates behind my eyes, disrupting the silence, the peace, those hopeless deer attempting to cross the street. 

  
  

   

  
  

  Some people drive.  There are some people that simply enjoy being reminded of the physical place in which they physically exist in.  But, for the most part, not me. Every time the real world pitches in any way, all I feel is like I’ve just been woken from a dream, like I’m being shaken out of bed by some obnoxious alarm clock, constantly reminding me that I’m too lazy, too spacey, too ponderous to fully enjoy or even, simply, live my life.

  
  

   

  
  

  And as I sit here, typing, distracted, I pretend not to notice my mom talking on the phone, my step dad clanging away with the dishes, my sister chasing the dog.  I pretend that the roads are safe to cross and for once, that it is okay to explore what’s going on outside of them.  That’s all I really can do without having to go through the whole tedious process of changing my entire being.  “You’re useless, Daryl.”  “You’re so ridiculously spacey, Daryl.”  “Wake up, Daryl.”  And you know what?  I am awake.  I’m just taking a different route.  An unprecedented route that could, potentially, lead me to becoming blood and guts in the middle of that mainstream road.  I am ridiculously, shamefully, unbelievably spacey.  Yes, truly, I am.  Snap your fingers in my face, clap your hands next to my ears, pinch me.  You will find me lost in thought, hopefully, lost in the woods on either side of the road.  That is the only route I know and I’m not just going to snap out of it for the sake of appearing normal and sane to everyone else.  I am a lazy, apathetic, dreaming, writer.  And let me make something quite clear.  That, my dear friends, does not make me useless.  It makes me walk into walls that I’m nearly positive weren’t there five seconds before.  It causes me to barrage you with ‘what?’s’ up until you may consider slashing at me with a chainsaw.  It completely confirms the fact that I never, ever do my homework.  I probably won’t be the CEO of some major company.  Chances are I’m not going to be your boss someday.  Call me ‘space cadet’ as I stare at a blank wall.  ‘Shy’ when I don’t strike up a conversation.  ‘Introverted’.  ‘Weird’.  ‘Dead Inside’. Whatever suits your fancy.  It’s really alright.  I haven’t been run over yet.

  • 5:44 pm
  • 6 Comments