A Leap of Faith in Time
A-musing
You know, it’s actually good for you if you don’t, it’s hard not to be “someone’s first”. And it just gets harder with each passing breath, and especially with those big deep breaths, you take while tossing in the cold bed of a winter night, to not be able to tell anyone that you are no one’s first. Even if you somehow muster the courage, only enough to mention it in passing trying to suppress it purposefully under the super light tone of a bright conversation which your cerebrum is enjoying whilst protecting that dull cerebellum of yours from exploding, to tell people that you are not someone’s first they will tell you, “Oh Damn! You know what’s the problem with you? You are too good.” and turn around to taste the tea after they have blown your explosion with the last exhalation of cigarette smoke into the same cold air that haunts you at night. You would stand there wondering in your mind, or your heart, I mean I don’t know, it aches so much I find it hard to exactly spot where am I exactly thinking, or wherever do you learn the boundary to be “good” and not be “too good”. I mean my parents, my teachers, and my schoolmates (or should I say friends?) taught me, or let’s put it precisely, ‘practically taught’ me to somewhat differentiate between ‘good’ and ‘bad’. However, in this real-world (perhaps) I find there is grayness, and I mean, a lot. Much more than 8 bits could ever handle. And somewhere along those 256 (or more probably) levels lies the “good” and the “too good” mark. I look through books but there is no mention of such a marker anywhere. Am I to label this on my own and claim it to be my new research?
Thinking so much makes me tired, and the cigarettes have me somewhat dizzy. I sometimes ask myself, which is more powerful — a cigarette or my mom’s lullaby which I haven’t heard in the last 14 years of my life since I was told to “man up” and “embrace the tough world”. Who decided “men” in the “the tough world” didn’t need lullabies to put them to sleep? Whoever did, FUCK YOU! Anyways, since the lullaby didn’t show up for the hearing, I have decided to give the cigarettes a pass., hoping they would put me to sleep. But somehow, it falls short. As a partial judge that I already have become now, I ask tea and Godwin to help the cigg out by putting me to sleep. Okay, we are now set. But, 2 pages into Godwin and I can hear myself shouting to me, “You know Godwin’s words but then we are all Hobbsians, so just shut up, smoke it up, and get into your bed.” I follow. I wash my feet, splash water on my face, wipe all the water off from my skin, pressing the towel as hard as I can, in the hope to find and break those invisible untouchable shackles from my arms, face, and legs. Finding none, I blame myself and throw myself into the bed. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. The one which marks the end of your conscious day, giving it a closure with the heavy blanket I keep folded and tucked away in the rack for the whole day as if I am preserving it for the night…. SHIT! SHIT!! SHIT!!! The lights are fucking still ON! How the hell did I forget again. I am angry. I am warm. I am hot now. Closed eyes are red, not black anymore. I throw the blanket away, stretch myself to the maximum knowing this will be the 745th futile attempt to switch off a light sitting in my bed. Having successfully tried doing so and eventually meeting the disappointment, I give in and walk out slowly. Switch the lights off and get back to the bed. I pull the blanket up, but somehow, it isn’t warm anymore. As if the blanket wants to tell me at this point, it doesn’t want me to be its “first”. But I am in control now. I jump out of the bed and blast my fan on, full speed. I won’t hurry back to bed this time. I wait. I wait, I wait and wait for the fan to come to its full speed, and then walk right under it. The cold air gushes around the exposed skin of mine cracking a whip as tight as it can on every square inch, and with a thud I fall onto the bed, wrapping the blanket around me in full force. The blanket is defeated by the fan, it has to keep me warm. I lay my head and neck gently on the warm arms of the 4 cushions by the head side. I grab the long pillow within my arms and by my upper leg, with the lower leg stretched out to a mile as if all of the day is oozing out through its toe into some To-No-Land hole that has opened up right at the end of my bed. I am happy as fuck, I am gonna sleep now…………………………
Five minutes in. Things never turn out as they should. Do they ever? I realize the bed is cold as hell now. But I won’t budge. I know I am burnt out from the day but I think I can somehow gather the molten wax around me and burn for that last bit to warm my bed. I toss around several times, till the first tear rolls down. I kept it for as long as I could. The hole on the end of my bed is now closed, and the rest should ooze out of my eyes onto the 4 warm cushions by the head side. I let them fall. They are my “first”, for this day, at least. And probably the last, for I am to burn again tomorrow.
The cushions are wet now, the bed colder, the long pillow has sucked all the warmth it could from my chest, my stomach, my groin, my thighs, my legs, and whatever part of the body it touched, it’s all cold now. I turn to the blanket in despair. Grab the last of the wrinkles I can find to straighten them around my body before I slip into the numbness of the night and take a leap of faith in time to be remolded, recasted, rebuilt for the next day’s heat.
