Wanting more shared experiences, though only those that would be as rich as those he had when alone, cognizant of the fact that his inferiority complex was making him overcompensate, thinking now that maybe he was borderline schizotypal, though leaning towards the leaner side of it, at least not yet believing in magical thinking and ESP or putting all of his faith unwillingly into a fortune cookie, though he did find himself staring at the winning lottery numbers from time to time and daydreaming about the numbers coming to him in an epiphanic flash, and also sometimes when sitting or standing close to an attractive girl he sometimes felt himself concentrating all of his energy, you could almost call it praying really hard, to try to make the girl somehow “pick up on” these vibrations emanating from him, and turn and smile at him and start talking, which would lead, in his head, to a long imaginary conversation in which he said all of the right things, as did she, and by the time she was gone, having got off the bus or left the café she had been sitting in, he would have already imagined their whole prefabricated life together, maybe even all the way to both of their deaths, depending on who had died first, as sometimes it was he who bit the big one before she did and this of course would preclude any further imaginings, and he would probably go on staring at a lamppost or a sign in a shop window or a crunchy, brittle, curled up leaf on the sidewalk or whatever tiny, insignificant thing he could concentrate on to make the world seem smaller and more manageable until something else came along for him to prevaricate along with, but for now his subconscious yearnings had not reached a level where they could sway his conscious thoughts to be willing participants in this charade, this “dream world” he found that he was carefully crafting with his thoughts when he was unoccupied with the actual physical world, and this in turn would lead his “normal-everyday-mundane” thoughts around delirious corners, speeding off to those blissful realms where tit was not for tat and here was never there and wormholes seemed like ice cream cones compared to the psychedelic landscapes over which these visions propelled themselves like mice shot out of block-long slingshots into an ocean of marmalade and meringue.
His thoughts were becoming odd. Strange things occurred to him constantly. As he drove by houses he found himself staring at their lawns. He saw the grass and his mind became replete with all the living organisms on the planet. This was not something that he could express to other people. He became very quiet at these times, or he talked a lot, wildly and in disconnected fragments, about some other thing, anything else, and whatever it was, it was always dull and vapid, and it felt dead and sour on his tongue. What was in his mind seemed incomprehensible, inexpressible, stupid. He couldn’t even explain it to himself. Being alone was becoming more and more what he wanted. Nervousness roiled around in his gut with an unsteady churning, a plopping, a slow ache and whine that made him wince and grab at his side. The sound of his phone ringing made his heart jump and beat wildly, and his face would flush over and over again, embarrassed of something that he couldn’t explain, always feeling ashamed of something, though what it was seemed unimportant, or too difficult to try contemplating. Going outside, even just to cross the street, seemed like some kind of otherworldly miracle, and he would find himself wandering around in his apartment, knocking on the walls as if wanting somebody to answer, to let him out, whatever that would mean. Something was building up inside of him. Some type of indistinct rage, an uncanny sensation that made him feel like a water balloon slowly being filled at the tap. If bursting were an option, he’d take it. There must be limits, even to this. There must be an end. He was becoming bitter and angry and other people were drifting further and further outside of the equations of his life. Doing the cultural cringe was taking up more and more of his time.
He finds himself feeling constricted, hemmed in, fettered and tied down to things he can’t name. But the thought of future days, days when he imagines himself free, gives him an incredible feeling of hope. Those days are easy for him to imagine. Those days never actually come. Time is always pushing down on him, holding him prisoner, never letting him just relax and enjoy things.
Cantaloupe soup. An obelisk.
Chester comes home and is upset at himself for being there. It isn’t a very comfortable situation. Not for Chester. He doesn’t want to have to be around himself, not all the time at least. There’s nothing to be done about it. Grin and bear it. Until the eagle grins. Chester is never alone. Nothing matters. Nobody cares about him. He cannot escape. Look. There he is. Right, there…He is laughing.
Good God.
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