Thoughts From the Winter

I can never get into any story that involves a cop. It’s four in the morning. I’m watching “Hellraiser [5]: Inferno” on the Sci-Fi Channel. Why this series ever got past the original is beyond me, but that’s not the point. So, like I said, I’m sitting here on the couch and I haven’t slept in two days. I can’t get into this movie even though I know that in twenty minutes some guy with needles in his head and face is going to start killing people. It’s because the story is about a cop, and like I said, I can’t get into cop stories.

It’s always been this way as far back as I can remember. It’s not like I’m some sort of needless rebel. I’m actually one of the more law-abiding youth of my generation. I know several family friends who are police officers. I like them too. No, if I hated the police I would probably like seeing them fail, I think that is the case in the movie but I’m not sure, I can’t pay attention. Come to think of it though I’ve always been that way about a lot of things.

I’ve got another weird one for you. I cannot make myself, no matter how hard I try, watch movies with Whoppie Goldberg in any sort of role. Now this might not seem odd to you, a lot of people don’t watch moves with actors that they don’t like. I like her, I think that her comedy routines are hilarious; I can even listen to her and pretend that it’s radio. I just cannot look at her. It’s her eyebrows. She has none. It’s like she has these two ridges of off colored flesh where they should be. Look real close next time you see her in theatres and you’ll get what I’m saying.

The movie just went crazy, pulling my attention back to it. There are these two alien things making out and another off to the side peeling off his face. Hey, it’s pinhead! “ ‘I don’t understand!’ ‘Ah, the eternal refrain of humanity.’ ” Why is it that all sequels wax so philosophical? Not that this was anywhere near as bad as the third installment of the “Matrix” series. The movie is ending and I am very confused, but that’s normal for me and these types of movies, you know, cop movies.

If I remember the series right it’s about a box that sends you to Hell. That would explain the face peeling and all of the corpses and hooks. Still though, what’s with the horny demons? I don’t think I’ll ever understand that one.

It vaguely reminds me of a book I read once about Hell. I don’t remember anything about it though, but still, it does remind me of it.
The channel went off for the night, no more science fiction until seven. It’s three hours of infomercials.

I had to change the channel; the infomercials were killing me. “You get used to a world that is ordinary.” I feel like this late night anime is speaking to me. Or maybe it’s just a delirium-induced state of philosophical pontification, and at four in the morning it is always pontificating.

I’m not used to it though. Everyone else around me is though. I hate this world, and not in some sort of over indulged suburban way either. I mean yeah, I tried the whole suicide thing, and failed three times, but I swear I’m not one of these textbook brats. I have a good life, I admit to that. I just don’t feel like I fit the life I have. It is so ordinary, bland almost, a conventional upbringing for an unconventional soul. And again, not to sound melodramatic, but I feel chained down. I feel like I have been bound to a life that was never meant to be mine. It’s almost as if my soul were spit out of the loom at the improper time and I was woven into an incorrect existence. And this feeling, this thing inside of me gnawing away, telling me that none of this is right, I will never get used to that.

I need to run from this. I can feel the gnawing. I can feel this banal existence eating away at me until all that will be left of me is a big ball of ennui.

I’m drawn to the television again. It was loud for a moment. Someone cried out in agony. Some sort of projection of self, at least that’s what it looked like to me, came out of this guy’s head. “We crossed the bridge as usual, and before we knew it the seasons had changed.” I caught that line from the television. How much beauty can be put into a single sentence? How much pastoral grace can be contained within a handful of words. That sentence is where I need to go. I don’t know what that means at all, but I know that what I said was right.

I need to find that bridge where I can get lost in the bliss of passage. I have sought that blissfulness through death, and failed. I will try again soon. Perhaps the next time I will find the place I am looking for. I am convinced that it does not exist anywhere on this earth at this time. Or could it be just that this place is hidden? Perhaps there exists a place where there are others like me. A place where other “remnants of something that has passed” carry on must exist somewhere. I want to run away. I want to go and search out these people, or even this person.

If I could find a friend, a true friend who understood what it is like to belong somewhere else at all times, I could be happy for the rest of my days.

Old people who live alone make me so sad. Old people who have no one but themselves, forsaken by family and society alike, I have an odd sort of kinship with them. People will say that I am making light of their woes. I know better than to do that. I know what it is like to feel as though you are the only one who is real. I know what it is like to be around people all the time and still be isolated, as if your true self is forever sealed in some foreign sepulcher.

But why muse on this at all, I can already feel my conviction fading to cowardice and weariness, when I awake I will have to face the curse of life with only embers in my breast. Or perhaps tomorrow will be different. Perhaps I will wake up, put on my shoes and go, just pick up and leave in search of that which will fill the gaping chasms of my soul.

So with hope in my breast, goodnight.