Fever Dreams, Pathetic Schemes, Things Going Bump in the Night.
So I don't know what bug I managed to contract a few weeks ago, but if I could culture it and breed out some of the more unpleasant side effects, I bet I could sell it to all those folks in the tie-dye shirts that I see wandering around.
I think (I hope) that my fever broke about half an hour ago, but I've been pretty much bed ridden since four thirty this afternoon.
It's amazing what just ten short hours of delirium can do to a person. I feel the need to write it all down before I go back to sleep, but I can't seem to get my fingers to work fast enough. Sort of like that first moment of waking, when the wonderful terrible dreams of the previous night are still almost real. Or that occasional lucid moment that comes unbidden and strips the paint off the world, leaving it crisp and pristine for eyes unclouded by the effluvia of human emotion. Like that fleeting moment of self realization that follows situations of extreme happiness, or extreme terror. The warped and dissolute clarity that, in generations past, was sought in the hermit cabins and sweat lodges, in long days and nights of starvation, thirst, flagellation, or in the heart of one or another of the numerous "holy" plants.
Finally I understand, it all makes sense. The uncertainty and anxiety and happiness and hopelessness. The truth of my life and of all life, of my personal failings and the failings of us all. Of the immutable insignificance of even the most grandiose acts, the sum absurdity of our species. All the mixed joy and sorrow, the sweat and toil, the relentless grinding of a world caught between gears, not knowing weather to surge forward or fall back, hinging either on divine intervention or the best intentions of fools and criminals.
Against this backdrop my pathetic lack of ability appears as a painting on crushed velvet in dripping subjective idealism. George Berkeley crooks a bony finger in my direction, laughing at me from the cold halls of Christ Church Cathedral, and I realize for the first time what I have always known.
My neighbor slams the door, the thermostat clicks over just enough to release a jet of natural gas below the pilot light of my heater.
The gas ignites with a reverberating thump which shakes the crystalline silence.
The moment has passed.
The clarity is gone.
I'm left where I started, shivering and sweating under the blankets, wondering what's real.
Fuck it, I need to get some sleep.
Good Night.
I think (I hope) that my fever broke about half an hour ago, but I've been pretty much bed ridden since four thirty this afternoon.
It's amazing what just ten short hours of delirium can do to a person. I feel the need to write it all down before I go back to sleep, but I can't seem to get my fingers to work fast enough. Sort of like that first moment of waking, when the wonderful terrible dreams of the previous night are still almost real. Or that occasional lucid moment that comes unbidden and strips the paint off the world, leaving it crisp and pristine for eyes unclouded by the effluvia of human emotion. Like that fleeting moment of self realization that follows situations of extreme happiness, or extreme terror. The warped and dissolute clarity that, in generations past, was sought in the hermit cabins and sweat lodges, in long days and nights of starvation, thirst, flagellation, or in the heart of one or another of the numerous "holy" plants.
Finally I understand, it all makes sense. The uncertainty and anxiety and happiness and hopelessness. The truth of my life and of all life, of my personal failings and the failings of us all. Of the immutable insignificance of even the most grandiose acts, the sum absurdity of our species. All the mixed joy and sorrow, the sweat and toil, the relentless grinding of a world caught between gears, not knowing weather to surge forward or fall back, hinging either on divine intervention or the best intentions of fools and criminals.
Against this backdrop my pathetic lack of ability appears as a painting on crushed velvet in dripping subjective idealism. George Berkeley crooks a bony finger in my direction, laughing at me from the cold halls of Christ Church Cathedral, and I realize for the first time what I have always known.
My neighbor slams the door, the thermostat clicks over just enough to release a jet of natural gas below the pilot light of my heater.
The gas ignites with a reverberating thump which shakes the crystalline silence.
The moment has passed.
The clarity is gone.
I'm left where I started, shivering and sweating under the blankets, wondering what's real.
Fuck it, I need to get some sleep.
Good Night.
posted by Murph | 3:09 AM
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