A Time of Madness
One of One
I never realized how much time controlled what I did until the clock on my wall stopped ticking. It was sudden. The continuous ticking of the minute hand documenting the passing seconds as I sat on my bed was a regular noise. It was always there, and it was comforting in those moments of silence between laying my head down and leaving consciousness, as well as the moments between opening my eyes and getting out of bed after God knows how long.
I counted the seconds with each tick of the clock as some sort of ritual. The clock was always there to tell me when to go to bed, when to get out, when to go to school, when to eat, when to see my friends...
The day it stopped ticking was a wake up call for me, more than that clock could ever be. The clock hanging on my wall became lifeless, and as I stared at it and thought, I realized perhaps the whole time it was alive, I was not. Life should not be revolved around time. There is no right time to do something. If you have to do something, you have to do it. There's no saying "Maybe at five" or "Maybe I should have done this earlier".
Why is it then when someone's clock stops working, they scramble around to find batteries as soon as possible? Everyone's always so caught up in the daily routine of life. You wake up at maybe seven or eight (six if you're crazy), you go to school or work by nine, you eat lunch at noon, you leave your education at three or your workplace at five. Then you eat dinner at maybe six or seven and go to bed around ten. Something I've always wondered is how people find the time to do what they want when they follow the same routine every day.
My life didn't change drastically when my clock died and I stopped paying attention to time. I still went to school on time because, let's face it, there are some things that absolutely need to start at a certain time that you need to be there for. But I ate when I felt like it. I slept when I felt like it. I saw my friends when I felt like it.
Maybe that's when it all went downhill.
Eating when I felt like it led to eating less. Sleeping when I felt like it led to sleeping more. Seeing my friends when I felt like it led to not seeing them at all. Hours are spent in my bed under the blankets, my curtains closed in the middle of the day. The comforting sound of the clock was not around in the silence anymore, and an odd sense of emptiness began to spread throughout my body.
All I had in the aching silence and darkness of my top floor apartment bedroom was the lifeless clock on the wall. I would not get out of bed. I was afraid of the reality waiting for me outside of my safe haven. I would be forced to face the time of day, and I knew I would have to do something.
I lost myself in the long period of time that I was not aware of. How long had I been laying there, staring at the dead clock in the agonizing silence of my loneliness? Couldn't have been only a few hours because of the few sunrises I had managed to catch a glimpse of in the short moments I was awake.
Reality is a nightmare. Everything is dictated by time and the 'right' moment to do something. It's only a nightmare if you lose it and lock yourself away from it. It's frightening. Seeing all the people going along with the motions, walking down the street and living their life. I wish I could be like them. Unknowing to everything that could be wrong with a person, happy with their routine.
My life is a nightmare to those living in reality. Everyone is afraid of everything they don't understand. You can't understand something you've never experienced. People who experience what I have never go back to reality. How can you? It's like returning to an empty life after an epiphany that has made it into so much more. Except this epiphany ruins you. It tears you away from reality and you believe that you don't want to be apart of it anymore.
Time dies and you lose track of it. You refuse to go along with the charade of the world, with their routines and days and times. You stay inside, and you lose your life. You turn to sleep to maybe be able to go somewhere else, anywhere but the real world you're afraid of because of it's ability to control you. You become addicted to sleep. People don't understand, and they get scared.
How could you understand? Even if they try explaining it to, you don't get it. No one ever gets it. No one understands anything they have never experienced first hand.
Returning to reality is hard. The most difficult thing anyone who's lost it will ever do. You forget the routine, and you have to get back into it. And you hate it. You hate it with all you have, and all you want is to go back to your bedroom and back to your own reality you've invented in your dreams. But you can't. People miss you, and you have responsibilities. You need to do things in your routine that lead to a new one, making more of yourself.
Then there's the dilemma. You must do these things you don't want to, to make yourself better. But once it happens, it's just another routine. Then what do you do afterwards?
I counted the seconds with each tick of the clock as some sort of ritual. The clock was always there to tell me when to go to bed, when to get out, when to go to school, when to eat, when to see my friends...
The day it stopped ticking was a wake up call for me, more than that clock could ever be. The clock hanging on my wall became lifeless, and as I stared at it and thought, I realized perhaps the whole time it was alive, I was not. Life should not be revolved around time. There is no right time to do something. If you have to do something, you have to do it. There's no saying "Maybe at five" or "Maybe I should have done this earlier".
Why is it then when someone's clock stops working, they scramble around to find batteries as soon as possible? Everyone's always so caught up in the daily routine of life. You wake up at maybe seven or eight (six if you're crazy), you go to school or work by nine, you eat lunch at noon, you leave your education at three or your workplace at five. Then you eat dinner at maybe six or seven and go to bed around ten. Something I've always wondered is how people find the time to do what they want when they follow the same routine every day.
My life didn't change drastically when my clock died and I stopped paying attention to time. I still went to school on time because, let's face it, there are some things that absolutely need to start at a certain time that you need to be there for. But I ate when I felt like it. I slept when I felt like it. I saw my friends when I felt like it.
Maybe that's when it all went downhill.
Eating when I felt like it led to eating less. Sleeping when I felt like it led to sleeping more. Seeing my friends when I felt like it led to not seeing them at all. Hours are spent in my bed under the blankets, my curtains closed in the middle of the day. The comforting sound of the clock was not around in the silence anymore, and an odd sense of emptiness began to spread throughout my body.
All I had in the aching silence and darkness of my top floor apartment bedroom was the lifeless clock on the wall. I would not get out of bed. I was afraid of the reality waiting for me outside of my safe haven. I would be forced to face the time of day, and I knew I would have to do something.
I lost myself in the long period of time that I was not aware of. How long had I been laying there, staring at the dead clock in the agonizing silence of my loneliness? Couldn't have been only a few hours because of the few sunrises I had managed to catch a glimpse of in the short moments I was awake.
Reality is a nightmare. Everything is dictated by time and the 'right' moment to do something. It's only a nightmare if you lose it and lock yourself away from it. It's frightening. Seeing all the people going along with the motions, walking down the street and living their life. I wish I could be like them. Unknowing to everything that could be wrong with a person, happy with their routine.
My life is a nightmare to those living in reality. Everyone is afraid of everything they don't understand. You can't understand something you've never experienced. People who experience what I have never go back to reality. How can you? It's like returning to an empty life after an epiphany that has made it into so much more. Except this epiphany ruins you. It tears you away from reality and you believe that you don't want to be apart of it anymore.
Time dies and you lose track of it. You refuse to go along with the charade of the world, with their routines and days and times. You stay inside, and you lose your life. You turn to sleep to maybe be able to go somewhere else, anywhere but the real world you're afraid of because of it's ability to control you. You become addicted to sleep. People don't understand, and they get scared.
How could you understand? Even if they try explaining it to, you don't get it. No one ever gets it. No one understands anything they have never experienced first hand.
Returning to reality is hard. The most difficult thing anyone who's lost it will ever do. You forget the routine, and you have to get back into it. And you hate it. You hate it with all you have, and all you want is to go back to your bedroom and back to your own reality you've invented in your dreams. But you can't. People miss you, and you have responsibilities. You need to do things in your routine that lead to a new one, making more of yourself.
Then there's the dilemma. You must do these things you don't want to, to make yourself better. But once it happens, it's just another routine. Then what do you do afterwards?