Internal Conflict Blog Fest

This isn't from any novel I've written. It's a stand alone piece. Be sure to check out the other entries. The links are in my side bar! :)

Noon resembles an ice cube in a glass of hot water. I slip in and out of it in what could philosophically be seconds. Nothing happens that is essentially important to me. I exist. What happens in the middle of the day, takes place everyday. Over and over … and over again. Certainly people must realize the damage routine can have on one’s psyche? Routine is a monotonous exhaustion. Routine demolishes the desire to differ. Routine is humiliating to the soul. Routine kills passion. It’s a disease. It’s Routinitus. And I’ve given up looking for a cure.

So I focus my attention elsewhere. Morning and Night. During the few short moments that I lie in bed before I open my eyes in the morning, I’m able to soak up the silence – its precious freedom – I’m the only one who subsists in this cocoon of linen soft on my body, from my toes to my chin—defending the intricacies of the flesh and spirit within—lying in a field of cotton, protected from the sun, the wind, the sea. There’s no time to think, just to feel – to feel the surrounding nothingness, tattoo peace into my skin. A few short moments of pleasant loneliness that spares me from sin.

As I lie in bed before I sleep at night I introduce myself to the dreams which await me; to the dreams I can never recall when I awake; to the dreams which take me so far away from reality that clicking my heals together will never return me home. I push my weightless body far into obscurity that I’m afraid to question where I am. But the fear isn’t the fear we experience on earth. It is a silent, hidden fear. It is a fear that summons elucidation. I’m able to relish it and believe that fate will take me to where I belong. Divine fate is believable in my dreams. I don’t need to make choices—they are already made, and the trust in those choices is axiomatic.

Although, no matter how hard you try to hold onto a pleasant moment, time races by in slow motion, it’s a fact of life – we cannot outrun it. No gold medal for the athlete who races against time. The short time periods within the long time periods travel slowly, but the long time periods travel fast. Therefore, the short time periods do actually travel fast, but we are tricked by illusions of life—living the moment. I once told my mother, ‘Learn to live the moment’. It was advice towards her endeavor for happiness. She once reiterated it to me, as though wise in her old age, forgetting that it was me she’d heard it from.

It doesn’t seem so long ago, I became a mother, as long as I avoid the mirror. I can still feel my legs in those stirrups—the sweaty doctor sucking the entire universe through my spasming black hole—muscles being pulled from my spine, from my thighs to my pelvis. What began as an insignificant seed violently pushed itself like a fist through tearing fabric. The only thought preventing me from slipping into unconsciousness was that, for this little miracle of life, there was light, not darkness, at the beginning of this long road. But how long do the lights stay on nowadays, before they burn out like an expiring fuse?

If time could stand still in reality like it does in my dreams, I would have stopped it right after my daughter was born. The intense happiness I felt, the moment I held her in my arms, was more thrilling than I imagine it would be if injected directly into my veins. I was high on life—on my daughter’s life—on our life—on our future.

The moments after my daughter’s birth were euphoric. The pool of blood I was sitting in may as well have been a shallow pale green rock pool in a remote lagoon. I didn’t feel an inkling of discomfort or disgust for what would normally make me squirm. She looked me in the eyes and I didn’t have to say a word. I understood. She understood. We had become one.

But as time passes, large memories become small; small memories become embellished; things we used to feel strongly about no longer inspire a passing thought. Children learn to live without their mothers; and mothers try to learn to live without their children. Then you are left alone. So alone that indignity haunts you for finding pleasure in the way bed linen feels on your skin—from toe to chin. You seek similar pleasures in curious places. In places that aren’t considered ‘normal’, until all you have to look forward to, is bed time; for those moments of pleasant loneliness, from here on in.

Don’t miss out on my contest! Critiques up for grabs!