The whole thing
feels like a film. Like if you were watching it on a huge flat TV
screen or through the eyes of someone else. The white vehicle
speeding up next to you, the loud arrhythmic siren muting any other
noise in the street, the light of it reflecting on every surface on
the walls: blue, red, blue again. You feel some kind of unwholesome
curiosity as you see it get through your neighbourhood and let your
mind erratically rumble through other corners of your mind when it
gets out of sight.
Then, when you
approach the house just to see the ambulance parked right in front of
it, its back doors wide open, the dream starts. And you will later
remember thinking of it as a dream because it was even more ethereal
than before, a little weird voice inside your head screaming it
couldn't be true all the time. You will also have the impression that
you didn't walk but float because your brain was so busy registering
new information that the sound of your steps or the feel of your feet
on the ground won't be recorded in your memory.
Then you prayed to
gods you didn't know you could think existed. To all. To no one in
particular. You pray to yourself it's not your floor, not your door,
not your flat. And again you fly, upstairs this time, and you know
that whatever the end of the fantasy is, no matter if your life is
being fucked up right now or not, you will feel a very real pain in
your stomach when the pressure leaves you. And you may vomit, and you
may cry, and you may need to hold onto something because you are
about to faint.
And it gets worse
because your door is open. And you can hear noises and the paramedics
shout although you cannot understand their words. Everything is
spinning and some weird darkness enters your body through the corners
of your eyes. But you cannot let the world go and you shake it out of
your head. You have to stay firm and stand.
You will survive
now. It's not difficult given the chaos and the confusion. But you
realise tomorrow things will somehow calm down and fall into their
places. The day after, if not. And at some point people will expect
you to perform normal activities such as answering the phone or even
breathing and to leave the pain behind. Your suffering and its
reasons won't be mentioned on the newspapers and the subway and
trains will keep on running. Nothing will have changed for the rest
while nothing will be the same for you again and you will hate random
men and women and kids in the street for their ability to smile.
It cannot be you. It
was never you before. You should be one of the others, on the side
where the grass is greener and the sun always shines and birds sing
like a perfectly harmonious choir. That has always been your role in
the theatre of life. You master your lines, you make the right
comments and, like you had been rehearsing for it, you pat people on
their backs when it's expected. That's why you prayed it wasn't you.
Because that is fair. Because drama is what happens at least one door
away.
