Tuesday, December 21, 2010

The Creature

Close your eyes, now peer deep, deep into the darkness. Do you see it? For some you , you see the creature right away staring right back at you. The second you close your eyes the creature is there, waiting for you, preying on you. You turn and it pounces, and then you're gone. It devours many of you quickly, but from me, it flees. I invite you to join me on my nightly expedition I take in search of this elusive creature. I lie down and close my eyes. Black. Nothing. Emptiness... What was that? Did you see it? Oh such a quick glimpse of that escaping monster, but it was just a glimpse. Now, there is no more nothingness, there is solid ground underfoot. The hunt begins. This is no ordinary hunt, no firearms or weapons of any kind, only bait. For that bait, I offer myself. Yes I desire to draw the creature in by using myself as the lure. Oddly enough the goal of this expedition is to be eaten. However strange that may sound, it is the truth, for you see, this creature in which I hunt is called 'Sleep'. Most nights I seem to repulse the creature. I must wait until it is so hungry that is has no choice but to survive on my measly bones. Unfortunately, the creature does not like the flavor of me. Sometimes I cover myself in Ambien or Melatonin which entices this beast's hunger so that it would feast upon me quickly. The pills are like seasonings it can hardly resist. Lets start the hunt shall we? No seasonings tonight so we must be sneaky in order to capture the creature. The search always begins in the same place. It seems to be a kind of a cave with echoing walls. At all times these walls are bouncing off thoughts and ideas being dreamed up. If we are not careful we may get stuck in here for hours. Its too loud in here so the creature hides from this place. I'll teach you a secret to get out. All the really good thoughts or ideas cannot stay in the cave, they must break out to the storage area. All you have to do is wait for a good one and grab on. There's one now, grab it! The flight through the cave was not so bad, was it? Weird place we're in now though huh? All those good thoughts and ideas have to come here to be sorted. Its kind of like a filing shelf in a mail room. Rows and rows and columns and columns of cubby boxes. Each thought and idea get neatly sorted in theses cubbies for quick reference or decision making. There are different sections for different topics or things or people. The cave is quite chaotic, but here, here is organized. But still no creature to be found... Lets check up, yes up, look up. This is one of my favorite things here. Look at all the cogs, wheels, sprockets, cranks all of different sizes. Some massive, some miniscule. All intertwined and complex each affecting one another. The closest I can come to explaining this is like the inner workings of a clock, so many sprockets turning dials that all read a different aspect of time yet all speaking of the same time. One sprocket affects the year, another the month, another the day, another the hour, another the minute, another the second. All saying different things yet all saying the same thing. All these gears in here though are moving too fast, they need to be slowed down. Turn that dial over there for me would you? Its over on that control board. Thank you. Ah, now things are starting to slow down. The creature will be easier to find. I have a feeling where it might be tonight. Lets go over to the database archive. Another strange room huh? A room of just filing cabinet after filing cabinet. Open one up... Ha! That one is from my 11th birthday party. Me and three friends went ice skating. Oh look, there's Matt, there's Chad, and even Kris, I almost forgot about him! As you might have guessed these files are full of my memories. Each file contains a different memory, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Many times when I visit this room I open a random file and relive a near forgotten experience. When I'm lucky the creature will sneak up on me while I'm searching through the files. It's in here somewhere I know it... over to the left do you see it? Slowly, look slowly. Don't let it know you see it. Act normal. OK, it looks like we might have finished the hunt. Wait here while I nonchalantly stroll over there. Maybe, just maybe, It'll be hungry enough.
As I neared the creature I was swallowed in a single bite. Sweet, Blissful sleep overcame me, but it was an adventure to get there. I appreciated you accompanying me on my quest for the creature. And I do hope that you are much more appetizing to the beast than I am.