Invisible

I am sitting in a cold room on a floor that is made up of faded wood panels reaching desperately from one wall to the other. I am alone. The room is silent except for the distant dripping of a broken sink pipe in another room. At this point, I can’t even guess the time. My arms are placed at my sides and my legs are out in front of me. My head is back and my fingers are almost motionless. And although I remain still, my mind is racing. I cannot escape the thought that I have not progressed an inch in my whole life. Instead, I am constantly haunted by a pathetic lack of meaning and motivation. I’ve been treading water.

Have I trapped myself in this state of fabrication and imitation? I find myself pondering an new idea that is endangering my whole sense of reality. I’m beginning to see things differently. I am outside looking in. I force myself to contemplate my own observations and values and it’s all coming down to whether I should put my faith in my own thoughts and actions, or should my faith lie with society. I have learned to desire power. I’ve been taught to feel this way and how to politely achieve such luxury in a socially acceptable manner. I’ve wanted to be the one that dictates what is right and what is wrong. Until now, it seemed instinctive to follow the example of the generations before mine. It seems as if we are all cattle.

I’ve seen the working class slave over a computer while knowingly surrounded by the bare walls of their work place. They are taunted by deadlines and their superiors and are constantly being teased by their generic, ticking clocks that stare at them from across the room. The thought of living this way makes me sick. The truly important things have been pushed into the back corner. The love. The laughs. The music. They are an obstacle. Our knowledge of the corporate world and tax sheets is far more crucial to our survival. We are all being dictated by society rather than our own passions and drive.

I run my fingers over the ridges between the floor boards. I can no longer hear the leaking sink pipe. I have truly become invisible. The silence is broken by a faint tapping from above me after what seems to be hours. The taps begin far between and then the tapping then grows faster, as if I were tapping my fingers on top of a hollow surface.

The smell of rain creeps through the windows and fills the house. My living room lights up for just a single moment and is followed by a distant but intimidating rumble. I listen to the hard wood floors creak beneath my feet as I approach the window. I pull up the blinds and I reach to close them when I notice something strange. I Look past the rain drops that are collecting outside the window and past my front lawn and out onto the paved street; there are no cars out tonight and no one is walking their dog or taking a jog.

The night is still.

I continue listening to the sound of the rain hitting the shingles on the roof and I listen to the wind as if it were whispering to me. It is mesmerizing.

The rainstorm is daring me to go outside and meet it. The lightening flashes again and lights up the homes and the streets for one brief moment. I take a deep breath and then listen to the thunder as it shakes the pictures that hang from the walls of my home. I have never felt so alone, and being alone has never felt so necessary. It is a strange sense of enlightenment. I open my front door and walk out onto the driveway. The rain feels cold on my arms and goose bumps crawl down my spine. I take off my shoes and socks and walk bare foot across the wet, cold cement. I walk in the puddles and on the grass just wandering about, all alone in the world. The lightning strikes somewhere and all the lights in my house turn off as my house shakes again. I smile and imagine what it would be part of the rain. The places you would see and the glorious life you would lead as a rain drop. I would be a snow flake gently floating down onto barren land in the Antarctic or to be part of a violent tidal wave that crashes onto the coastline just to return back to the vast sea.

After a while, the rain slows and the lightening ceases. It will not be long till the rain stops all together. The cars return to the streets and the people begin to take their nightly walks together, making sure to walk around the puddles.

I retrace my steps back inside. I wish that this experience would never end. Instead I must force myself to take a shower and try and think about things that I need to get done tomorrow. I walk into my bed, set my alarm, turn on ESPN and go to bed.