Stuck in a dream loop going over the same set of considerations regarding the dedicated subject-object for the evening. Being being of no consequence, save the inability to look away. Or think elsewhere. A microsecond stalks for an eternity. Meditation at dreampoint. Solitary consignment. To slumber in the comfort of a torture chamber.
This will go on for some time. Then the loop is interrupted by the awareness that the alarm will not function. The battery has lost contact. Where the awareness comes from is a mystery. The alarm is outside the dream. Part of its design. One of its limitations. Or not?
((Another puzzle: how the contact points lose one another. Nowhere for the battery to retreat. So snug in its shell. Contacts have nowhere else to rest. But upon themselves. Like the dreamer in the loop. Or. Maybe the smallest space. A gap. An electromagnetic fault.))
Pulled from the loop long enough to consider the failure of an electronic device in meat & metal land. Worse than the imminent malfunction of the alarm clock, something else has not occurred: it has already failed; passed its appointed time. Well now he knows; he has just thought it. Or it has thought him. Occurred to him. Made an appearance inside the loop.
Wait. I am the one caught in this coil. I am the one nightmared by the whim of technology, hence the unrelenting discomfort.
If the clock on the street isn't running when I finally awake, the principle of punctuality will remain shrouded in pre-dawn darkness. Assuming I wake up no later than now. This being a message from the near future out of Circadia: You are late. But it's not too late.
Before I can pedal beyond the reach of my own intersection, I get a feeling comparable to having realized that I've forgotten to put my pants on, and despite recognizing this as the jolt of suddenness common to my early mornings, it always affects me somehow, however vague.
The fleeting eye-contact I receive from those who are waiting for the bus distracts me from that thought: You've just fallen out of inactivity and into the street without the slightest idea where it is you are headed. The distraction is a reminder of something else. Now I forget what the distraction was, the reminder being a new one.
The reminder is of a time when I was young. Several lives ago, across many oceans, past searches and choices to the place of my upbringing.
The occasion - this one of which I am reminded by the distraction from my obliviousness - is waking up on the couch where I had fallen asleep in the early early, early evening. With some kind of query, I blearily prompt my brother Gock. He replies that we should get ready to go. To school.
Dressed & ready, out the door we head. The eerie darkness reminds me what that distraction was that reminded me of this time from long ago: I'd wondered, riding past the bus-stop, at how they watched me, like I should know something. I should know better. It is dark. Is it too dark?
"Must be the eclipse," so goes Gock. It is my first. What am I, eight? Nine?
We cross the street to Bobby Joe and Ronnie's. We'll go to wait for the bus together. As we always do. Standing on their porch waiting for them to join us, their reaction to our presence reminds me of a time in the future, beyond oceans and searches and choices, when I notice the expressions on the faces riding past the bus-stop, which takes me back to the porch with Gock, observing Bobby Joe and Ronnie's features through the screen door.
Confusion. Something amiss. What am I doing wrong? Then goes Bobby Joe, "Ohhh, right. School." responding to Gock's frantic semaphore behind my back, which breaks the porch-light ray, casting a shadow-play through the screen. Gock's illusion is broken.
It is night. The bus won't be coming for another ten hours or more.
Not hard to finally catch on. Bobby Joe lies, but not well. Just like the people at the bus stop who would have me believe that I'm forgetting something more than whatever I's already trying to remember. Were it not for the feeling that I've just quantum sprung from my window - one moment squinting down at the clock below, then instantly rolling along my way, missing the crucial choices that got me here - their distraction would have little effect.
What was the distraction again? Oh, yeah! I shout to the bus stop patrons with all the glee I can muster...
...but I'm already much further down the street.
This will go on for some time. Then the loop is interrupted by the awareness that the alarm will not function. The battery has lost contact. Where the awareness comes from is a mystery. The alarm is outside the dream. Part of its design. One of its limitations. Or not?
((Another puzzle: how the contact points lose one another. Nowhere for the battery to retreat. So snug in its shell. Contacts have nowhere else to rest. But upon themselves. Like the dreamer in the loop. Or. Maybe the smallest space. A gap. An electromagnetic fault.))
Pulled from the loop long enough to consider the failure of an electronic device in meat & metal land. Worse than the imminent malfunction of the alarm clock, something else has not occurred: it has already failed; passed its appointed time. Well now he knows; he has just thought it. Or it has thought him. Occurred to him. Made an appearance inside the loop.
Wait. I am the one caught in this coil. I am the one nightmared by the whim of technology, hence the unrelenting discomfort.
If the clock on the street isn't running when I finally awake, the principle of punctuality will remain shrouded in pre-dawn darkness. Assuming I wake up no later than now. This being a message from the near future out of Circadia: You are late. But it's not too late.
__
Before I can pedal beyond the reach of my own intersection, I get a feeling comparable to having realized that I've forgotten to put my pants on, and despite recognizing this as the jolt of suddenness common to my early mornings, it always affects me somehow, however vague.
The fleeting eye-contact I receive from those who are waiting for the bus distracts me from that thought: You've just fallen out of inactivity and into the street without the slightest idea where it is you are headed. The distraction is a reminder of something else. Now I forget what the distraction was, the reminder being a new one.
The reminder is of a time when I was young. Several lives ago, across many oceans, past searches and choices to the place of my upbringing.
The occasion - this one of which I am reminded by the distraction from my obliviousness - is waking up on the couch where I had fallen asleep in the early early, early evening. With some kind of query, I blearily prompt my brother Gock. He replies that we should get ready to go. To school.
Dressed & ready, out the door we head. The eerie darkness reminds me what that distraction was that reminded me of this time from long ago: I'd wondered, riding past the bus-stop, at how they watched me, like I should know something. I should know better. It is dark. Is it too dark?
"Must be the eclipse," so goes Gock. It is my first. What am I, eight? Nine?
We cross the street to Bobby Joe and Ronnie's. We'll go to wait for the bus together. As we always do. Standing on their porch waiting for them to join us, their reaction to our presence reminds me of a time in the future, beyond oceans and searches and choices, when I notice the expressions on the faces riding past the bus-stop, which takes me back to the porch with Gock, observing Bobby Joe and Ronnie's features through the screen door.
Confusion. Something amiss. What am I doing wrong? Then goes Bobby Joe, "Ohhh, right. School." responding to Gock's frantic semaphore behind my back, which breaks the porch-light ray, casting a shadow-play through the screen. Gock's illusion is broken.
It is night. The bus won't be coming for another ten hours or more.
Not hard to finally catch on. Bobby Joe lies, but not well. Just like the people at the bus stop who would have me believe that I'm forgetting something more than whatever I's already trying to remember. Were it not for the feeling that I've just quantum sprung from my window - one moment squinting down at the clock below, then instantly rolling along my way, missing the crucial choices that got me here - their distraction would have little effect.
What was the distraction again? Oh, yeah! I shout to the bus stop patrons with all the glee I can muster...
„Euer Bus kommt erst in zehn Stünden. Zumindest!"
["Your bus won't be coming for another ten hours. At least!"]
...but I'm already much further down the street.
__
