A Typical Heliocentric Orbital-Rotation Phase in My Brief And Uneventful Tenure

The Dreamer laboriously trudged through dream-reality, knee-deep in sand made out of crushed and dried banana peels. It didn’t matter how he knew the sand was actually some kind of horrible banana-flavored ramen soup base, he just did. As with most little bits of information in dreams; this knowledge was as well catalogued and readily accessible within his infinitely complex folds of grey matter as his name.

Slowly the world started melting away; the sand was gone, leaving not so much as a smear on my pant legs. The desert landscape behind the banana dunes flattened collapsed and compounded and the high risen noon sun set in an instant as if someone had switched its relevant toggle, giving way to darkness. Swirling colors and shapes ran past the black velvet backdrop like when the sun hits an oil slick in a puddle, and a distant noise became evident, growing louder with every second.

It was the radio upstairs. The Dreamer had become the Observer. I took in the sounds of the world around me and noticed for the first time that a small mammal had come to rest at his feet. I flipped the corner of his coverings over and swung my legs out quickly over the side. I could hear foot falls upstairs, and didn’t like being woken up by the Providers and Conservators. It gave me a sense of triumph to wake fully before they would have to bother themselves to come downstairs; I had the feeling that I had escaped a fate worse than under-sleeping: imposed will. Waking up on my terms meant I had made the conscious decision to do so, not someone else making my decision for me.

I wheeled around the corner, after crossing the room and flicking on the florescent light to scare my mammal out of the basement. I went up the stairs and crossed left and left again, quickly dodging their view. Practicing my subterfuge in a house that creaked with every step was rarely an easy thing, except when the monotone voice of a public radio announcer masked his steps. They were both in the kitchen on the other side, and neither had apparently noticed me, my objective was complete. With any luck they would wonder where I was and go down to investigate, only to realize I was no more and had already gone upstairs.

I bathed, dressed and went to school. There was still some time before I would have to shed my morning skin and become the Learner. The Antagonist was there already, hastily working through some math that would be due in a matter of hours, and the two of them crossed the frozen tundra of central Indiana to procure their personal opiate; no day without caffeine is worth living. The Antagonist had his new cause for the day, trying to convince me that animals had no souls. I contended that most humans don’t have souls. The Antagonist mumbled an agreement and we drank our Coke in silence the rest of the way back to school.

Classes went on; I became the Learner, and slipped in and out of the Abhorrer. My weak grip on reality and my emotions slipped occasionally, my hate flowing through my veins in a fluid surge of poisonous misanthropic endorphins. I adapt to my accepted reality, once again giving up on hopes of changing it, deciding I’d be better off just changing myself. Getting angry is tiring, and my constant struggle against anger is even more so. I think I’ll give it up. A wiser man than me recently identified our shared problem: it’s not the people I hate, but rather the fact that I can’t just spew meaning in an intangible ectoplasmic wave, forcing people to acknowledge and realize what it is I’m trying to communicate. Language isn’t good enough.

I was through, waiting impatiently to pass the time before my parents arrive to take me to the world of the Dreamer once again. The Antagonist, the Hopeful, the Machinist and I travel to the nearby market for the fourth time that day. The Machinist rarely has time anymore, and the Antagonist was getting tiring to listen to sometimes; I wasn’t so much getting tired of my friends, but the world they lived in. Sometimes it’s hard to relate to other people’s views on the world, and occasionally I have to explain to them the difference between being pragmatic and pessimistic. Well, maybe not in this day and age.

I get home; driven by my brother because the elders of our suburban tribe are still laboring away at their places of business. My mother sits atop the highest floor of an ivory and green tower of education located amid a field of emerald foliage now sheathed in ice. My father practically bonded his brainstem to the machines in his wind-tunnel of a laboratory; writing and analyzing endless lines of code, writing programs to gather and review data from weather machines in Oceania. They’ll be back eventually.