IdeasConsternated
“Why not just write a story like that,” he thought as I could feel myself take shape.
“Yes, so instead of this long narrative about a car trip across Michigan, I'll just write that. What a brilliant idea, I'll write it down in the morning and fill out the details at work. How easy, a story like that will write itself. I'm so glad I'm so smart.”
Michael turned off the light and laid there prone for a few moments before letting me go. His last waking moments were spent so contented that I was sad to see him close his eyes. Of course, though, this meant that my journey had to commence, for I was compelled out of the room, into the ventilation system, which lead on a winding path down and out into the basement. All of this was only a minor step off the path to the outside through a poorly insulated basement window into the cool country night.
Well, it really wasn't the outside. It felt more like I had entered through a one-way entrance into a dimly lit chinese restaurant, with all of the deep red décor on the walls, the faint smell of tea, and an unfamiliar language being shouted by what appeared to be the staff. What seemed strange though, was the acute shifting of things about me I couldn't perceive on a conscious level, it felt as if it were always on the periphery. As it is in a dream, where everything outside direct line of sight is out of focus. The sensation inspired the need to be find my way to a nearby seat or the wish to be filed somewhere along with kindred spirits.
“Spirits? Ve are not spirits,” said something that seemed to be a floating paper dragon, “Ve are ideas.” Now a floating paper bunny, or, more accurately, a collection of streamers drawn together like a phantasm, nothing but swirling air and intense emotion, fluttered in front of me.
“An eight year old just thought this one up,” muttered a sulking paper baby giraffe.
“My ideas are all trash. Elementary school art projects left on shelves, then trashed.”
It had a thick accent that I couldn't place, possibly eastern european, but the tone was infinitely bitter.
“Jou? Jou think you're better than me. I know your kind,” sneered the fanfare squirrel. “I know this, for jou're nothing. Jou are unknowable one. A sleepy dream.”
The conversation sat there for a second. No, seriously, a conversation between a young couple floated right there in the middle, sipping on coffee and making sweet promises. It made no comment on this exchange, though its interest was certainly piqued by the accusing phantom.
“See, I am forgotten prodject of young budding artists. Jou, jou are floating idea. Jou belong with the cloud over there.” the swirling, multi-colored paper mache-looking unicorn indicated with its horn toward a collection of clouds forming a portal into a bright summer day. Collectively, we stared over there and watched as the clouds changed shape and formed a series of shapes and sizes that may or may not have been a panda, battleship, and/or the state of Montana.
What am I? Now the art project's question resonated with me, He never explained me to a friend or fleshed me out on a page. At the moment when I came into existence, all I knew was what was on the very tip of his mind at the time. My world was lost before it even had a chance to be gained. Maybe the giant confetti elephant was right, I am nothing. My idea, what I am, is lost in the background noise of Michael's mind. Listless and shapeless, I would wander endlessly in vain looking for my great idea.
The conversation looked at me and they started to talk about me as if I wasn't there at all. The couple were both in their mid-twenties and fairly average looking, but seemed to know more about the world than I could ever hope to be.
“He shouldn't worry,” said the girl.
“Yeah, he'll think up something new and it will all be better,” replied the boy.
“I hope soon.”
She smiled at him. He smiled back, squeezing her hand.
“Of course, honey.”
They looked serene. The perfect day between a couple. However, if this is truly a respite for forgotten ideas, it was a day spent and gone. The couple now reveled in something new, other than serenity, I suppose. Could they be recovered? We are not just static representations, I suppose, as is consistently proven by my gracious host.
“What am I?” I directed this query to the paper fireworks display in the shape of a kitten.
“I don't know. Maybe jou drunken mirage.” He stared at me, trying to gauge my reaction as if he were examing a child figuring out a jigsaw puzzle.
“No, he was at home. It was a regular night. No. I was made on a sleepless early morning after washing dishes.” However, am I a daydream, I begin to wonder. No different from a school boy thinking up fantasies in math class. As I thought this a football/punk rocker/superman walked by me followed by a stumbling frail boy of twelve wheezing and wiping his glasses clean.
There's more to me than than that. I have great potential for development, conceptually complex and philosophically deep, I was born a dream determined. My creator is a great man and writer. Simply the best-
“I told jou, jou're an idea” said a fluttering kaleidoscopic dolphin/hawk combination, “jou only work as much as jou have been thought. He thought he vas smart, right? Jou think he vas smart, jou see?”
A belief that my being is merely a shallow pool sets in with this new information. I do actually begin to see myself with familiar faces, brethren, we drown together. Like the offspring of a frog, small featureless creatures, while we remain reckless swimmers. Our absence might go unseen, but our persistence as the inheritors of our species is a constant as our genes demand it. How brilliant was that description!
“Jou are soulless creature!”
My concentration once again broken by my constant tormentor, I look up only to find my skeptical protean companion is now a paper rainbow crocodile. I wonder what he means, was I born without a soul? Or was it taken away from me only shortly after? Did He think of me as not worthy enough to be written down, or am I just an unfortunate suffering from early separation anxiety?
While this burned within me, the clouds had turned into planes and began to circle around me in a lazy manner. Their innocence disturbed me deeply. The nature of my fellow misplaced notions were optimistic or were at least born of innocence. I was neurotic mess. This man had birthed me in a frustrated night of boredom and self-loathing, hadn't he? The clouds began to part around me.
“We are not you.”
I looked up at them all, the conversation, the polychromatic shreds of paper, and a fluffy white cloud that appeared to me to be a hippo. The clouds were speaking in concert.
“We are an inspired idea. We exist only when meaning is discerned by onlookers. You are an idea lost at birth. Sudden and brilliant, a charged atmospheric disturbance of the mind, while we are merely atmosphere.”
What happened next seemed as if a previously unnoticed faucet above us had just been turned on flushed the surroundings out as an authoritative voice reverberated around me.
“You are a story about my Grandma's death!”
Sifted through a filter, this world had lost its haze. I began to think in swirls of imagery. My life changed instantaneously. Now on a page, I was given form and shape. I was a poem. I won an award. Years later he came back to edit me and finally submitted a draft to a publication. I began to dissipate as a single subject. What now grew quite obvious were the smaller qualities I lacked, or perhaps the characters that seemed single-faceted and dry. It was glaringly obvious, but now my voice was many. We now called out as many rather than as none. I think back to the clouds, which said they were just atmosphere. As much as he can develop and edit my current self, I will always be an idea. I will always be more of an atmosphere than an absolute.