That did not just happen. Don’t think about it. Okay… cool it. Deep breaths, that’s right: in, two, three, out, two, three. Yeah, cool as hell. Might as well light a smoke.

Yellow lines in the black swing to the right. Shit! Concentrate man, need to concentrate! Keep your eyes on the road you bastard. Squint in the rearview, dark back there; nope, she’s not up. Damn it man, keep your shit together! CONCENTRATE…ON…the ROAD; lighting a fucking cigarette shouldn’t take that much attention.

Open the window just a crack, keep the noise down. Wind wines through loud as hell, can’t help it; freakin’ demon screaming in. And, man, she is STILL out! Dead to the world I guess.

Fuck that guy looked familiar. And that car… Don’t think about that now, useless, it’ll fuck with your head and you don’t need that now. Overall it went smooth. Could have been smoother but, shit, oh well.

Just feel that cool night air press lightly against you, on your hands, through your fingers; long, smooth drags on the cig. Relax, look at the road, feel it, get hypnotized by it…

The next act will come up regardless, deal with it when it comes.

…

“You need to pull over.”

Jesus Christ she scared the shit out of me! What now? I swing it right, onto the gravel. She hurriedly fumbles with the handle, stumbles out, bends over. Retching noises. Damn it.

She leans into the car, hand on the seat holding herself up. Her mouth is slack open, miserable eyes. She forces a grin at me, lips still parted, before pulling herself in the car. She pauses, takes a breath, eyes barely open, then leans out to pull the door in and slowly lies back down. One soft moan. I can’t tell if her eyes are open or not. Hell of a day… for both of us. Back to it; but first, some music… something Jazzy.

I am not driven by a passion to be known by the world but by a passion to know it.

The class was running on, unbearable to keep any real sense of consciousness. Just taking notes to try to remember what the hell he was saying. He was just reading what was relevant to the slides. Mind was traversing to other things, things more important at least in my opinion. The question transfixed in my head was how he could stay focused on such a lecture when there were students whose heads were clearly nodding up and down fighting sleep no matter how much caffeine they were pumping into their veins. An I.V. of speed couldn’t have kept them awake. How could he think that his lecture was interesting enough to put any effort into was an utter mystery. He just kept droning on about god knows what without any pause, not one elevated note in his voice, supposedly important information and yet no stress of importance. The class is supposedly vital to the understanding of what I am supposed to be doing in my career and yet he couldn’t seem to care less. Just rambling on, no care in the world for what he was delivering. Suddenly his wife, a sweet young little thing, came into the room carrying a small medical case. He rolled up his sleeves and tied a rubber tube on his upper arm. She kissed him softly on the lips, seated him, and then began to cook up a dose on her little jerry-rigged butane stove, it consisted of a Bunsen burner and a spoon (she used a pink little oven mit to keep from getting burned). She filled the injection and he stared at the class with a knowing look. “Hell, if you think I am enjoying this shit any more than you are, you must be out of your fucking minds.” She kissed him as she pressed in the syringe. She withdrew the syringe and then slapped his face and kneed his groin; a warm smile beaming from her as she looked into his eyes. He gave off a grunt before giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. She dragged him up from the chair by his tie, tenderly bit his nose, and then exited the room with her case as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened; a serious, one might say professional, look on her face. He got right back to lecturing in the same damn droning voice as before, at least now there was some sort of excuse, it made sense. No need for an excuse for lousy teaching any longer, just relying on the drug pumping through his system to expel the shit to the nodding masses. No one seemed to care that the rubber hose was still tied around his arm. “Good luck you bastards, you have no idea what you are getting yourselves into nor does it matter in the slightest.”

I was thinking about writing something pertaining to the senses concerning the concert I was going to attend on Friday. The thought of doing so was crossing my mind as I was traveling aimlessly around campus past Siegel Hall when I heard the croak of a bird as I was walking past a tree into the sunlight, incredibly bright as it shown in my eyes. The sun was directly in front of me, not a cloud in the sky, blinding such that my eyes were drawn more to the ground. I knew at once that it was a crow, I had seen them pretty often around campus lately, and I was compelled to turn around and look for it. I looked into the trees and didn’t see it at first. I soon found it in one of the higher branches. It was still getting itself situated as it appeared huge for some reason, larger than most crows though I don’t think it was a raven. Once it stilled itself in a position, it began to shrink, pulling its head closer into its shoulders (in so doing losing some of its graceful fluid shape, no longer looking like something that should be spending time in the air) and bringing its wings in tight, all supposedly to keep itself warm. I decided to let my senses more fully take hold of me. It was one of the coldest days so far this winter, but it was crisper than the previous day with much less wind so that it didn’t directly sink in attacking the bones, which usually goes after my legs, feet, and hands first. I was breathing easily, taking draws on my clove cigarette I was enjoying, the dry warm aroma of which was strong on my palate but all the more pleasant as it flowed out my nostrils. A constant potpourri, a source of stimulation, in an air seemingly devoid of, or at least numbing, any tastes or smells. I am not a frequent smoker, when I do smoke it is for the pleasure of it and not for any physical need, such that I did feel a bit lightheaded from it. My feelings of touch seemed arbitrary, a feeling of cold or warmth in some places and a general heaviness from what I was wearing and what I was carrying. It seems to me the more one covers up the skin, as the layers increase, the less one cares about what they perceive outside of this. When one draws trees in the winter, one typically depicts them as black, lifeless things. In contrast to the black bird, the tree was filled with colors. The most obvious was not the shades of brown of the bark, but the green growth staining it, covering the majority of it. In small blotches, there were gatherings of what appeared to be long reddish spikes which didn’t look like they ever intended to be new branches. Behind this all, the sky was a shade of blue bordering the same shade as the work document on the computer I am currently using (Microsoft blue?). I became very much aware of the droning mechanical noise coming at me in blasts, apparently coming from Crown Hall, but muffled by the flaps of the faux fur hat I was wearing, a noise I generally prefer not to focus too much on. And yet, the occasional noise from this bird, when it infrequently decided it wanted to have its voice heard, seemed to ring clearly for me. I decided suddenly for no clear reason to walk in the same direction from which I had come; and once past the tree, or right underneath it, I wasn’t sure, I decided to look around to see if I could spot the bird from this new angle. Now with the sun directly behind the branches, all I could see now of the trees was black, the search for the bird fruitless without any contrast and my eyes fairly hurting from the brightness that struck them. I then decided to get inside and write this.

Rob: What a gorgeous day, eh?

Bob: Certainly is, Rob, certainly is.

Rob: So, well, uh… what have you been up to, over the weekend and all?

Bob: Oh, not much really, nothing of significance at least. Working the job and all that. How about you?

Rob: Well, you know, I have my weekends off…

Bob: Right.

Rob: …and I did what I’ve usually been doing. You know, call people up, try to get out there, searching for some of that good old almighty experience.

Bob: Experience eh? Yeah, aren’t we all. Have to climb up that ladder to feel like you’ve accomplished something. Yep, certainly know the feeling.

Rob: Yes sir.

Bob: So, Rob, what kind of experience are you looking for, I mean something like a little extra work on the side, a new job? Wasn’t so sure there were many people hiring, you know, with the market being what it is. Difficult all around and all.

Rob: (Lively and a bit irritated) Naw, Bob, I’m not talking about anything concerning work. I told you, I’m off weekends, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend even my days off worrying about my job or whatever might be good for the career.

Bob: Work’s that bad huh?

Rob: No, it’s really not that bad at all. Just like to get my mind on other things. The issue is really what to wrap my mind around. There’s a lot out there you know.

Bob: Experience huh? I don’t know, when I get a day off, I usually spend most of the day lounging around relaxing, maybe I’ll have a couple drinks. It’s nice just to take it easy. Pretty freakin’ great experience if you ask me.

Rob: It just seems so routine.

Bob: Routine huh? Well, whatever your opinion is, I try to enjoy the little things in life, have to take what small pleasures are thrown your way. I love to talk in clichés; don’t you?

Rob: Yeah, I get the idea. I’ve done the same, don’t get me wrong. But, I don’t know, I’ve seemed to have lost the taste for it. An overwhelming feeling of stagnation has taken hold and I search frantically for ways to get rid of it.

Bob: Doesn’t sound like your days off are too relaxing. So, what? Are you only happy when you’re working, are you one of those workaholic types? I know I take all the hours I can get, but I really can’t wait to get back to the house at the end of the day.

Rob: No, that’s not it. I get the same restless feeling while I’m working. I just can’t do anything about it then because, well, I’m working. Now it’s not like I don’t like my job, I guess I find the work pretty interesting and I can actually be pretty good at it.

Bob: Ah, I see it. You need the new and exciting.

Rob: Well, yeah, actually.

Bob: Alright, why then?

Rob: Why what?

Bob: Why is it that you need something new and exciting to enjoy yourself? Not content at all with what you have, eh?

Rob: Jeeze, I don’t know. Really I’m happy with what I have, everything I need to get by seems to be taking care of itself; I’m at least at a point where I don’t have to worry how I’m going to get by day-to-day. It just seems that every time I see you and the rest of the guys lately, all you do is reminisce, think about what we used to do rather than what we could do. Seems like a life lived in the past rather than in the present.

Bob: Hell, its not like we ignore the present. We accept the present. Its just that the past was a good time, it’s no use ignoring that either. And, well, we work all the time now and…

Rob: Work? That’s a lousy excuse. Please, when we were in school, we only had two days off a week, Saturdays and Sundays, and I only saw you guys maybe once or twice a week, on Friday and Saturday nights. And don’t say we saw each other in class, I never had class with you or any of the rest of ya.

Bob: Well…

Rob: I probably see you guys the same amount of time now, if not more, than back then. And yet it seems that our drive towards doing new things is gone.

Bob: Rob, you have no idea what you are talking about. We didn’t have a drive towards doing new things back then; we simply just did new things. We do less new things now because, well, finding new things to do is more difficult now.

Rob: So what if it’s difficult? I want to get as much out of this life as I can, and that means experiencing as many things as I can. Besides, there are so many important things in life. How can a person be expected to focus on any one, or even a couple of them, and just ignore the rest? It’s unreasonable. Instead, it kinda feels like I’m unable to concentrate on any.

Bob: Doesn’t sound like a mindset where you can get anything done. You need some sort of focus to have any drive towards some sort of success, whatever that is. (pause) Actually I have no idea what that means. (pause) Yep, better just skip it.

Rob: Well, somehow, I do get things done but its almost as if I’m working on a survival level or out of some sort of duty. However, the entirety of my mind is usually not there. Or, if I ever am focusing on one thing, it seems like it is never voluntary. It is also always something abstract and the thing just overwhelms me. Hell, I used to think I was desensitized but now a thought or an emotion can manifest and take over me to the point where functioning is difficult, breathing actually becoming a task. (pause) You know I’ve liked horror movies, right?

Bob: Well that’s a strange shift in subject. Yeah, I know all too well you do. You’ve dragged me to enough of them against my will. If I didn’t notice, there’d have to be something wrong with me, maybe as daft as you’re sounding now.

Rob: Hey, come on now. I’m trying to be honest here.

Bob: Yeah yeah, I know. It just sounds like you’re hurting yourself thinking like that. Hell, it sounds like you’re on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Rob: Its not like I can help it.

Bob: And why not? Its your head.

Rob: Just because its mine doesn’t mean I have complete control of it. I do have a strong leash on it but sometimes it gets going so strong that it is hard to restrain. (pantomimes pulling on a leash) And besides, why would I want to?

Bob: Alright, anyway, you were saying something about horror movies, lets try to talk about that.

Rob: Ah hell, that’s right, I did bring that up didn’t I. (pause) Oh right, its just that I was talking about how some of them are just overwhelming to me now.

Bob: Well good. They are supposed to frighten you when you watch them. That’s pretty much why people go see them, though I don’t really get it, have always seen getting scared as something negative. You know… to be avoided.

Rob: But that’s the thing, I don’t get scared by them. Instead, whenever someone gets hurt or killed, I get all emotional and, sometimes, even start to tear up. Who the hell weeps during a horror movie?

Bob: Evidently you. I’ll be sure to carry some tissue next time just in case.

Rob You are a real bastard, you know that?

Bob: Alright, I’m sorry. I suppose if my dear friend cries during scary movies I should be worried. (laughs) Don’t really want to be caught in a theater with a kid sobbing into my shoulder after all. Yep, thanks for the heads up.

Rob: Hey, I don’t really see how this is funny.

Bob: Well that’s because you’re not looking at it from where I’m standing.

Rob: But you’re sitting.

Bob: Huh… Well now who’s trying to be funny?

Rob: Alright, but I really am trying to be serious here.

Bob: Yes, yes. I know, I know. But what do you think triggered all of this? This can’t have been going on for too long now.

Rob: (Subdued) I think you have an idea.

Bob: Oh, that person again, huh?

Rob: Yes her. She still haunts my dreams at night and I keep on thinking I see her when I’m out.

Bob: It’s obsession; you do know that right?

Rob: Well, whatever it is, I can’t seem to make it stop… not so sure I want it to either.

Bob: Come on now, you hardly knew her. Was she really so gorgeous that it warrants all this useless preoccupation?

Rob: Actually, it’s kind of strange, but I don’t really have a clear picture in my head of what she looked like. She’s become more of a blur, or an idea.

Bob: (disbelievingly) Right, you don’t remember what she looks like and you see her everywhere.

Rob: Alright, well, it’s not that I actually see her. It’s that I see little things in people, actually both men and women, that bring her to mind and the first question that constantly pops up in my head is if it’s her. It’s like a constant fear and yearning.

Bob: Sounds pretty unhealthy to me. Should probably get a professional on the case.

Rob: I think I’m in a better state than I was though. Before, I felt like there was an aching void in me and had resolved to take a passive role in life since it seemed to lack any purpose, just tried to observe what was around me. Now I feel the void is filled, it just hurts quite a bit, (short pause) hell, a lot, but that very pain is an active force that makes life worth living, the idea that anything can induce such (looks for the right words; shaking fist gesture) extreme feeling.

Bob: It’s a shame that feeling is so painful.

Rob: Well, it’s so painful because the cause of it was so (looks for the right word again) fantastic. You know I used to watch large amounts of some of the most heart wrenching or violent films I could get my hands on.

Bob: Movies again, huh? Sure, and you always seemed pretty proud of it for some reason.

Rob: Yeah, I know. I guess I thought that because those movies had such little effect on me, I felt like I was in some way emotionally strong. If I felt any emotions during a movie at all, it was rare, and I judged the movie to be somewhat of a success just because of that. Now some movies can be so powerful to me, even ones I’ve seen already, I find it difficult to watch them. A hint to love lost or gained can send me doubled over in tears or pacing around in anger. My emotions seem to be amplified insurmountably from their previous state.

Bob: Insurmountably huh? Nice word. Well, that’s very nice. Really, I’m happy for you. If you’re happy, I’m happy, though it doesn’t really sound like you’re very happy. Perhaps content is a better word; but that doesn’t really fit you either does it? Really, I don’t know what to call you… perhaps deranged; always were though. But what do you say we move on? I’m finished with my coffee.

Rob: Well, alright, what should we do now?

Bob: I don’t know, what do people do around 6 o’clock on a Tuesday?

Rob: Hmm, I really don’t know. Well, there definitely are people out there and they must be doing something.

Bob: Unless they’re doing nothing.

Rob: True, but let’s not affiliate with them, at least lets try not to.

Bob: Have to think.

(long pause)

Rob: How about a drink?

Bob: A drink, huh?

Rob: Well yeah, its after 6 o’clock. Doesn’t that mean it’s OK to go get drinks?

Bob: You know, I think you’re right. Alright, sounds good. Where?

Rob: Good question. Have any ideas?

Bob: Not really.

(Pause)

Rob: I think I’ve got it. Never really been there in the daytime, but it’s close by.

Bob: Alright, sounds like a plan.

Rob: OK, let’s be off then.

Both get up and exit to the right.

Since it had stopped raining, we were let outside for recess. The field was restricted for the older kids to play sports on so we were usually restricted to either the “big toy,” what we called our playset on the wood chips next to the field, or on the black top by the fence outside our classroom. But my best friend and me couldn’t resist.

The bigger kids had abandoned the field because of all the water and mud; it was just out there being unused, unenjoyed. We intermingled with all of the other kids, we thought we were so sly, and eventually dashed for the far end of the field where we thought the teachers couldn’t see us.

I wish I can remember what we did out there but the memory is distorted and faded. I remember the two of us running back and forth across the field, splashing water up with every step and pounce. I remember my pants being soaked through and, having fallen down a couple times, having large parts of my uniform soaked with brown water with splotches of mud. We had so much fun out there that we just ignored the bell when it called us in.

It seemed like forever before someone came out to yell at us to get inside. It was this large lady with shoulder-length curly brown hair with an angry demeanor that everyone was afraid of, and boy did she look upset. But, somehow, we didn’t really care. We ran as fast as we could across the field in her general direction, but did sudden stops so that we would skid across the wet ground without falling down. The sky seemed so bright. I could swear I skidded across the surface of the water.

I can’t move. I feel pressure as I try to get up on my chest, arms, legs, and waist. I tilt my head up to look around, choking as I try to steady my breath. I can’t see myself but I can see the outline of this slab I’m on. There is a dull light coming from underneath it, as if from some candle, and yet the light doesn’t seem to hit any walls or a ceiling, only infinite darkness around me.

I am having an extremely difficult time keeping my head up, it keeps on falling backwards on its own out of exhaustion from the effort of keeping it up. Damn this throbbing!

How the hell did I get here and why? Can’t seem to remember anything. Can’t think! Can’t concentrate with this horrible freakin’ thumping reverberating through my skull.

At my feet in the distance, a door shoots open, hitting the wall with the loud noise of heavy metal-on-metal without any bounce-back or vibration. This sound is the first thing I’ve heard other than the incessant beating. In the distance behind the door, there is a light; I can tell because it is hitting the doorway but I can’t see the source. It is wavering colors of orange and red.

Something is walking towards me on all fours. It appears to be a dog as the light better hits it, but, for God’s sake, it doesn’t seem to have any skin or ears. It is glistening wet, but I don’t think anything is dripping off of it; it’s as if it is covered with a flexible glaze. Its exterior, which seemed to be shiny and black in the doorway, has taken on shades of dark red as more light from the source underneath me hits it. And, my God, I don’t think dogs can, but this thing is smiling at me, the muscles at the corners of its jaws pulled upwards. With each step it takes, the thing winces, the muscles around its right eye and its mouth doing small spasms, but the smile doesn’t leave its face.

It jumps up on my table, collapsing for a bit after it lands apparently from the pain of the action. I thrash around in my restraints but exhaustion takes hold and I can only lay there trying to keep my head up to see this thing. It clambers back to its feet. Damn this unholy, unbearable throbbing!

It stumbles up to my face and turns its head sideways. It takes my lower lip in its jaws, its bloodshot eye looking straight into mine. After it has gotten a few of its teeth through, it withdraws. I don’t feel any pain from my lip but I can’t breathe from my mouth as it keeps filling with blood, can’t cough it out fast enough to take a breath without taking some of it in with it. I can feel the warmth from the blood on my cheeks as it is flowing in little streams from the corners of my mouth.

I can hardly see the thing in the darkness as it is positioned on top of me, I can feel the pressure of it sitting at my upper thighs. I can only see it as it moves, the light under the table shining momentarily on parts of it as it positions itself over me. Holy Hell, this incessant fucking pounding!

My vision shudders. I can feel its hands (but dogs don’t have hands!) running down from my collar bone to the bottom of my abdomen. I feel that one of its hands has something cold in it. I feel warmth spreading from where the hand traced. It swipes its utensil two more times across me, from armpit-to-armpit and across my waist. The warmth changes to cold as it grips at the center of me and pulls the flesh from me, folding and piling it slowly to the sides of me, can’t really see it happening as much as hear it.

Can hardly see now or concentrate on anything. As it moves its hands inside of me, I can feel cold air coming in. It brings its head in close, I can feel its hot breath hitting me. I can hear it gnawing and lapping at me. I hear it growling as it struggles with something, shaking its head back and forth. It finally rips its head away. In a bit of light, I see something dripping in its jaws.

The throbbing has stopped.

Construction, have to walk around. My fifth year here and I’ve never gone around. Turn around the corner and what do I see? Steps going down. Into a garden, amongst the stark architecture.

Definitely an intention of order, plants certainly segregated and not a weed in sight. An attempt to simulate the clean geometrical shapes of the building they have come to live by. And yet overgrowth could not be prevented, plants bending into each other and over the path. Long green grass, fuchsia flowers, and green flowers that grow in bursts at the end of long stems.

Oh those green flowers. They seem to be striving with all their might to be yellow or even white, yet only a pale green. Some have tried so hard they have withered to a dull brown. A struggle for color, not content to be simply flowers and all that their very existence entails.

It smells beautiful.