One Morning

One morning, I woke up and was lost. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t know

where I was. In fact, I knew all to well.

My name is Christian. My life isn’t so unordinary; in fact it isn’t really worth

documenting. I suppose it is the struggle of everyman, and that is a nameless and

faceless struggle that begins in the mirror every morning. Worthy of a mini-series?

Probably not. But what is television but glamorized real-life? And who wants to

watch reality on television anyway? I think that is an interesting fascination in this

fine nation of ours, the obsession with the mirror. But it is nothing but a fun-house

mirror, a warped and skewed perception of what life is. A reflection and a backwards

notion. “Reality television” is a favorite of mine. It reminds me of the land of mirror

that I find myself lost in.

However I am getting a head of myself. Like I said before, my name is Christian. I

am 21 years old, going on what seems to be 50. Like most 21 year olds, I am old

enough to drink. And I also just graduated from college, so consequently I

am “without employment” as they say. The two are a dangerous combination let me

assure you, old enough to drink, yet not responsible enough to hold a job. Or

maybe not lucky enough.


In college I was a philosophy major, with a fine arts minor. I was fascinated by

Plato and Socrates, to live the good life was all that I had wanted in my life. I think it

is because of that and the philosopher in me that I find drama in the everyday

struggles of everyman. The good life is an idea that has haunted me constantly, and

it has driven me mad to some extent. So I woke up one morning and I was lost,

despite the fact that I was lying in the same bed that I had been for the last 21

years. I knew exactly where I was.

Death has been something that has always been a fascination with me, and to

some extent I believe the whole world is dying. It is death by a mirror, life is viewed

with an arrogant immorality, yet death is a pervasive the clamoring evening news

during dinner hour, the persistent din and noise. So I wanted to kill myself. Because

I am dead already.

This is the fantasy of my death, in my life I think it is my most passionate

longing, to die. It is what I have always wanted; it is the inner, deep dark secrets

and desires. For some it is sex, and for some it is love. For some it is passion, and

for some it is death. The four are related; some call me mad for this. Madness?

What is it but a passionate death?

I got up out of bed, and I looked around. A simple bedroom, lined with the

mementos that were once mine, but as time went on, they because less and less

mine and more of a disillusioned stranger, the funny-house mirror image of myself.


Pictures, posters, books. Yearbooks. My pictures, my yearbooks, my memories.

Things that were vivid reality once, now yellowing and faded around the edges. Why

is that? Why are the pictures yellow, yet the memories so real? What is real then,

what exactly is life? Is it nothing but “spots of time” as Wordsworth would say? I

touched them, but the dust came off on my fingers. My friends, the people I loved.

Pictures now, and I have no idea just how this happened. As I look toward the

widow, I see nothing but a mirror, and I look into those eyes that are mine. Are they

mine though? I love sappy quotes, there is one, “the eyes are the widow into the

soul”. I look closer, at myself, at this figure in the window, and I try to see the soul.

What soul, what stranger am I gazing at in this mirror?

A tall lanky dark haired figure stares back at me. Whose piercing blue eyes

stare back at me? A madman? Am I a modern Hamlet, no, Hamlet was not mad.

Am I mad? Or is the entire world mad? Madness, emptiness. Those are the eyes

that stare back at me; I am the prisoner that pierces through the tower. Noisy din,

my madness, my death.

I opened the door and I went downstairs. There was nothing there. Not that I

expected anything to be there anyway. Who needs nourishment like food? Over four

years of fasting better known as higher education, I have learned to do without.

More than food, more than you as my cherished reader knows. Where am I going,

where is rambling narrative headed, I am sure you are asking yourself. Well in all

honesty, beats me. Welcome to my world. I suppose the major theme in this is the

uncertainty, I am no Jack Kerouac. Most narratives have some sort of a point, a

theme if you well. Thus far there isn’t even any interesting irony. This is a pretty

damn awful narrative I suppose then, no New York Times Best-selling list for me.

But I can tell you the ending- I die. Okay, you can stop reading now.

One of my favorite musicians is Billy Joel, I am not sure if you are familiar with the

Piano Man, but he fits right into any skin that you want. I think that is why I like him

so much, a damn musical Madonna. Down with good ole’ Captain Jack one

moment, and crusin’ on a fishing boat another. I love it. “If you’re 21 and still you’re

mother makes you’re bed…and that’s too long….” People think that I am manic,

and maybe I am. Am I a pornographic freak? “Your sisters gone out, she’s one a

date. And you just sit at home and masturbate…” No, I don’t think the word

pornographic quite fits…unless porno means being different, and getting a tattoo. I

think that was the most pornographic thing that I ever did in college. Short of

suicide. I’ll get there in a minute. “Just a little push and you’ll be smiling…Captain

Jack could make you die tonight….”

Those were my thoughts as I reached for the knife. I wasn’t drunk or high, and I

am perfectly calm. What is a life anyway? A chance to shine, those were my naïve

thoughts. And I am shining, my own dark little star. The black star, that’s always

what it has been the black star, the black sheep. A person doesn’t do such things,

a person doesn’t do such things. What else is a person supposed to do, what is life

but a chance to die? I woke up and I was lost.

I reached for the knife- I couldn’t do it. A pornographic existence- what is that,

exactly? The captain and the booze, the haze and the confusion. To wake up,

everyday- to wake and do the same thing. Over and over again, that drives one to a

pornographic existence. A drink, a fling- dulled senses. The pornographic existence,

the madness- is one of dulled senses, a sharp realization that this is all there is.

So why not draw the knife? Why not finish the bloody mess? I don’t know- but we

all end up dead anyway.