I walked in through the mist, waving the vapors away from my face. I stumbled about in the cloudy nothingness.
“Hello,” I shouted, “I think I need some directions. Hello?”
My question echoed through the nothing. A pickle-ball court appeared through the evaporating fog.
“Pickle-ball? I’ve never even played pickle-ball. They’re using a real pickle it seems,” I said as I watched two faceless players swing cheese doodle rackets at a pickle, which bounced back and forth over a gooey looking net.
“Ick,” I said, “Looks like snot,” I said.
I kept my eye on the pickle-ball court and I continued to move through this strange void. It was eerie and scary, but all too familiar. I called out again for some help or some direction. Another scene coalesced through the wispy vapor.
I happened on myself, at an 8th grade party. It was in someone’s basement, or a basement of some sort. I was trying to be cool. I watched myself try and step around one of the pretty girls in my class while she was sitting on a bar stool. She swiveled on the bar-stool just as I was stepping behind her and she kneed me right in the crotch. I watched my young self cringe as her knee made the connection to my nethers. I saw our collective 8th grade embarrassment sweep over both of us. Her shock at kneeing me and my shock at having been kneed and then the flush of blood to our faces.
“What the hell is this,” I asked, feeling the same sort of embarrassment the 8th grade version of myself was feeling. That poor little me. Coolness was just too far out of reach but I couldn’t admit it yet.
“Hello,” I shouted again up through the ether, “What the hell is going on?”
I felt a sharp slap on my shoulder and I spun around. There I was,
staring back at myself.
“What the hell! You scared me,” I said.
“Yeah. Well, sorry,” I said back to myself.
“Where the hell am I,” I asked.
I rolled my eyes at myself and sarcastically exhaled. I spread my arms out in front of me as if I was presenting some sort of exhibit.
“You get it yet,” I asked myself.
I looked around in the mist again and saw more scenes of my life playing themselves out. The embarrassing ones, the childish ones, the sexual misunderstandings, the regrets accumulated over my years.
“I’m lost in thought, aren’t I,” I asked.
“There you go dumbass. You figured it out,” I said back to myself.
I shook my head in understanding and put my hands on my hips.
“God damn it,” I said. I put my head down and looked at my shoes. Which were rapidly changing because I kept thinking about buying some new dress shoes for work. But I hadn’t been able to decide on what kind I wanted.
“God damn it,” I said again,” How long have I been in here?”
The other me looked at his wrist. He wasn’t wearing a watch. Because I don’t wear a watch.
“I think it’s been a solid twenty minutes of you standing in the shower, just staring off into nothing,” I said back.
“Son of a b…,” I said.
“Yeah, you’re getting pretty pruned,” I said, “You should probably get going.”
I looked around the vastness of my own mind.
“Do you remember what I came in here for,” I asked.
“I think you were wondering why you can’t seem to meet a nice woman and fall in love and all that junk. But frankly, you’re like always thinking about that so we kind of ignore it,” I said back to myself.
“Well that’s a fine howdoyoudo,” I said.
“Yeah, well, it’s your head so… yeah,” I said back to myself.
I shook my head at myself and took a deep breath.
I turned the shower off and grabbed my bath towel. I started drying off
and mumbled, “God damn it”.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Photo Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/68702422@N02/33277397084
No comments:
Post a Comment