Thirty-Second Day

I am sick of myself. Sick of being both subject and object; sick of being the only object onto which my otherwise unsolicited mind can latch; sick of being the only, unchallenged subject allowed to behold everything in its boundless exercise. I want obstacles. I want competition. I want narrow passes in which to squeeze and contort myself. I want bulky, unmoving alien bodies to populate the space. I want to fight, to strain, to jump, to beat. I want to run an obstacle course with a tense, sweating mind; I want my tense, sweating self to push and elbow its place in a crowded world.
I am liquid. The once stubborn, straining arches of my leaping mind have collapsed and resolved into still pools, an immense and silent wetland. In the busy world of the living I journeyed through ever-changing terrain, through mindfields, down crags and caves, up mountain peaks and, occasionally, through rather charming valleys. Now with every feature removed from the landscape, I wade my way through flat expanses, sighing marshes and barren soils. Distances stretch. Hours grow long.
Am I even walking? Sometimes I get the feeling I’m stepping on a treadmill while behind me a cardboard scenery keeps unfolding its repetitive colour-washes with a mechanic whirr.
In the busy world of the living I risked intrusion, annexation and obliteration every minute; hordes of competing subjects stood pushing and howling at my doors. Sometimes the density was suffocating. Letting any in always constituted a major risk. Man, did I live dangerously… In the vacuum of their absent bodies, I spread like an oil stain on my still, watery surface. I am flat, and ever thinning.