Tokay Gecko
10-12-2009, 05:10 AM
This is my first post, so be nice :)
And so, I present to you, the product of a mind with too much time on its hands...
Darkness was falling outside as I sat upon my chair in the quiet warmth of my home. The last rays of the red sun crept along the wall until it came upon a mirror and cast a blinding beam of light into my eyes. Suddenly awakened from a daydream, I realized that I was not in my home, but rather in a public bathroom.
The bathroom was eerily quiet. I looked around and saw that I was sitting upon a toilet inside a stall with dark green walls; my pants around my ankles. The door swung lightly in the warm breeze created from the perpetually blowing hand-drier off to the right of the room. I sat for a few minutes, listening to the hypnotic music of the creaking hinges and humming drier. Suddenly, the top hinge of the door failed and sent the flimsy green plank crashing against the opposite side of the stall, blocking my exit from the excretory chamber. It was then that I noticed the door was scarred from ages of abuse. The poor piece of wood had endured hundreds of crude carvers, marker artists, and what must have been some bathroom patrons with particularly poor aim.
As my eyes slowly worked over the menagerie of phone numbers, gang tags, and racial babble, I came upon a sharpie-forged face staring back at me. The face sat directly in the center of the door, with tiny squinting eyes and a big grin that revealed an abnormally toothy maw. Something was different about this face; the marker strokes stood out clearly from the rest of the chaos. They weren’t covered by the barbaric slashes of other contributors. The eyes were closed in an expression of glee. If the face had been given the gift of speech, a mocking laughter would have filled the abandoned room.
At first, the face appeared threatening, as if its closed eyes could still peer into the depths of my being; sifting through the library of memories and plucking out the most suppressed, dark thoughts and then vomiting them back into the open in a storm of vivid nightmares. I continued to stare blankly at the face, waiting for it to tell its story; to reveal its own history to its perplexed, toilet-bound companion. This face had many secrets to tell, I could feel it clearly.
The threatening vibe began to fade from the face as it finally began to introduce itself to me. No words were spoken in those moments, yet I could decipher every invisible piece of energy being emitted from the cackling creature. Suddenly a thought crept into the periphery of my mind. I only saw it for but a brief moment, and then it vanished back into the shadowy corner from which it ventured so boldly from. Though the exact message of the thought was lost, I was left with a lingering feeling that made me slightly uneasy. I felt as though the face on the door was the embodiment of an entity of great power; something unknown to the world, yet something that has seen us through from the time of our most distant, single-celled ancestors, exploring through the uncharted wastes of the infantile planet Earth.
My vision blurred for a moment, and my neck fell limp as a wave of darkness fleetingly overtook me. Staring down at my bare lap, my eyes lazily slid over to my hand, where I found a dark object clenched loosely in my fingers. I held the object up to my face and discovered it was a black sharpie; the cap nowhere to be seen. I looked quickly from the sharpie, up to the face upon the door, and then back to the sharpie. The reclusive thought peeked, once again, through the shadows, hesitating for a moment, and then jumping full-force into the daylight. My eyes once again found the grinning face. I could hear it talking silently, but this time, the voice was not coming from the face, but from the thought standing in the warm light. I had been the one that etched the sage upon the door of that dark green bathroom.
Initially, I didn’t want to believe it, but as a moment or two wore upon my mind, I came to accept my role in the creation of this ethereal being. This power that I felt in the face -- was it mine now?
The thought, who had been minding its time, quietly basking in the light, unexpectedly morphed into a creature. Its structure was primordial in nature -- something that the eyes of the world had not viewed for quite some time. This being was foreign to me, but I somehow felt attached to it -- a part of it. I reached toward the creature. I desperately wanted to find out its story. I hoped it would share its secrets with me just as the face had. Almost within my grasp, I took one final stride and reached out as far as my feeble arm could reach, but the creature had evaporated into a fine, dark mist just as my hand penetrated the unreal fabric of the being.
There I was, staring down the length of my arm, with my hand open wide, grasping the suddenly stagnant air. Inches from my hand the face stood staring at me. The same connection I had felt with the creature of my mind was now present within the face on the door. The face was that of my own; maybe not in physical appearance, but undeniably so in soul. The face was an embodiment of myself; created by my own hand; cast upon the wall like an ancient rune containing a lost spell. This power I felt, it was my own. Only I had the power to create that visage, and with it I momentarily parted with a piece of my spirit -- a primal spirit. I could see the spirit oozing from the black abyss of lines which composed the face. Something about it disgusted me, but then I realized it was still a part of me, and I must have it back. I felt lost with that primal spirit slathered upon the door; I was no longer human.
My outreached hand finally found the face. The gentle touch of my fingers upon the massive grin caused the oozing spirit to quiver, and within a moment, it had rushed forward and back into my body. Instantly, I felt, again, the sense of disgust; the unwillingness to accept the primal spirit back into my mortal body.
During the struggling between the intake of my lost self and the rejection emitting from my contemporary shell, the primordial creature appeared once again through the mist from which he had previously disappeared. This time, he extended his hand toward me, and guided my primal soul back into my body without so much as a shiver from my physical self. Then he was gone. I withdrew my hand and sat upon the toilet.
An immeasurable plot of time passed there, where I thought of nothing and yet everything was realized. All was quiet as it had once been. The silent voices had ceased; the creature of my mind had retreated, satisfied, back to the shadows of my soul. At the end of this period of reflection, it became apparent to me that the hand-drier had finally stopped spewing forth its perpetual storm, and the air had become heavy and still. I stood up from the toilet, pulled up my pants, and pushed aside the hanging door. I was greeted with an image of myself standing in the mirror. There was something different about the image, but I was suddenly overcome with exhaustion and put it out of my mind. I looked out the small window into the darkness of night, which told me it was time to find my way home. I slowly walked to the sink, splashed a couple handfuls of water upon my face, and headed for the door. I paused for a moment as I passed by the hand-drier. I gave it a heavy stare, kicked it once, and listened contentedly as it purred back to life, sending warm air back into the room of dark green stalls. I began my final journey to the bathroom door.
The face on the wall suddenly came to mind again. It somehow felt hollow and unimportant. I didn’t feel the need to look back at that stall with the hanging door -- at the wise face upon the wooden plank. It had become a part of the door now, nothing more -- destined to spend the rest of its life with the community of the etchings of others. I pushed the bathroom door open and, with a faint grin on my face, exited the room.
And so, I present to you, the product of a mind with too much time on its hands...
Darkness was falling outside as I sat upon my chair in the quiet warmth of my home. The last rays of the red sun crept along the wall until it came upon a mirror and cast a blinding beam of light into my eyes. Suddenly awakened from a daydream, I realized that I was not in my home, but rather in a public bathroom.
The bathroom was eerily quiet. I looked around and saw that I was sitting upon a toilet inside a stall with dark green walls; my pants around my ankles. The door swung lightly in the warm breeze created from the perpetually blowing hand-drier off to the right of the room. I sat for a few minutes, listening to the hypnotic music of the creaking hinges and humming drier. Suddenly, the top hinge of the door failed and sent the flimsy green plank crashing against the opposite side of the stall, blocking my exit from the excretory chamber. It was then that I noticed the door was scarred from ages of abuse. The poor piece of wood had endured hundreds of crude carvers, marker artists, and what must have been some bathroom patrons with particularly poor aim.
As my eyes slowly worked over the menagerie of phone numbers, gang tags, and racial babble, I came upon a sharpie-forged face staring back at me. The face sat directly in the center of the door, with tiny squinting eyes and a big grin that revealed an abnormally toothy maw. Something was different about this face; the marker strokes stood out clearly from the rest of the chaos. They weren’t covered by the barbaric slashes of other contributors. The eyes were closed in an expression of glee. If the face had been given the gift of speech, a mocking laughter would have filled the abandoned room.
At first, the face appeared threatening, as if its closed eyes could still peer into the depths of my being; sifting through the library of memories and plucking out the most suppressed, dark thoughts and then vomiting them back into the open in a storm of vivid nightmares. I continued to stare blankly at the face, waiting for it to tell its story; to reveal its own history to its perplexed, toilet-bound companion. This face had many secrets to tell, I could feel it clearly.
The threatening vibe began to fade from the face as it finally began to introduce itself to me. No words were spoken in those moments, yet I could decipher every invisible piece of energy being emitted from the cackling creature. Suddenly a thought crept into the periphery of my mind. I only saw it for but a brief moment, and then it vanished back into the shadowy corner from which it ventured so boldly from. Though the exact message of the thought was lost, I was left with a lingering feeling that made me slightly uneasy. I felt as though the face on the door was the embodiment of an entity of great power; something unknown to the world, yet something that has seen us through from the time of our most distant, single-celled ancestors, exploring through the uncharted wastes of the infantile planet Earth.
My vision blurred for a moment, and my neck fell limp as a wave of darkness fleetingly overtook me. Staring down at my bare lap, my eyes lazily slid over to my hand, where I found a dark object clenched loosely in my fingers. I held the object up to my face and discovered it was a black sharpie; the cap nowhere to be seen. I looked quickly from the sharpie, up to the face upon the door, and then back to the sharpie. The reclusive thought peeked, once again, through the shadows, hesitating for a moment, and then jumping full-force into the daylight. My eyes once again found the grinning face. I could hear it talking silently, but this time, the voice was not coming from the face, but from the thought standing in the warm light. I had been the one that etched the sage upon the door of that dark green bathroom.
Initially, I didn’t want to believe it, but as a moment or two wore upon my mind, I came to accept my role in the creation of this ethereal being. This power that I felt in the face -- was it mine now?
The thought, who had been minding its time, quietly basking in the light, unexpectedly morphed into a creature. Its structure was primordial in nature -- something that the eyes of the world had not viewed for quite some time. This being was foreign to me, but I somehow felt attached to it -- a part of it. I reached toward the creature. I desperately wanted to find out its story. I hoped it would share its secrets with me just as the face had. Almost within my grasp, I took one final stride and reached out as far as my feeble arm could reach, but the creature had evaporated into a fine, dark mist just as my hand penetrated the unreal fabric of the being.
There I was, staring down the length of my arm, with my hand open wide, grasping the suddenly stagnant air. Inches from my hand the face stood staring at me. The same connection I had felt with the creature of my mind was now present within the face on the door. The face was that of my own; maybe not in physical appearance, but undeniably so in soul. The face was an embodiment of myself; created by my own hand; cast upon the wall like an ancient rune containing a lost spell. This power I felt, it was my own. Only I had the power to create that visage, and with it I momentarily parted with a piece of my spirit -- a primal spirit. I could see the spirit oozing from the black abyss of lines which composed the face. Something about it disgusted me, but then I realized it was still a part of me, and I must have it back. I felt lost with that primal spirit slathered upon the door; I was no longer human.
My outreached hand finally found the face. The gentle touch of my fingers upon the massive grin caused the oozing spirit to quiver, and within a moment, it had rushed forward and back into my body. Instantly, I felt, again, the sense of disgust; the unwillingness to accept the primal spirit back into my mortal body.
During the struggling between the intake of my lost self and the rejection emitting from my contemporary shell, the primordial creature appeared once again through the mist from which he had previously disappeared. This time, he extended his hand toward me, and guided my primal soul back into my body without so much as a shiver from my physical self. Then he was gone. I withdrew my hand and sat upon the toilet.
An immeasurable plot of time passed there, where I thought of nothing and yet everything was realized. All was quiet as it had once been. The silent voices had ceased; the creature of my mind had retreated, satisfied, back to the shadows of my soul. At the end of this period of reflection, it became apparent to me that the hand-drier had finally stopped spewing forth its perpetual storm, and the air had become heavy and still. I stood up from the toilet, pulled up my pants, and pushed aside the hanging door. I was greeted with an image of myself standing in the mirror. There was something different about the image, but I was suddenly overcome with exhaustion and put it out of my mind. I looked out the small window into the darkness of night, which told me it was time to find my way home. I slowly walked to the sink, splashed a couple handfuls of water upon my face, and headed for the door. I paused for a moment as I passed by the hand-drier. I gave it a heavy stare, kicked it once, and listened contentedly as it purred back to life, sending warm air back into the room of dark green stalls. I began my final journey to the bathroom door.
The face on the wall suddenly came to mind again. It somehow felt hollow and unimportant. I didn’t feel the need to look back at that stall with the hanging door -- at the wise face upon the wooden plank. It had become a part of the door now, nothing more -- destined to spend the rest of its life with the community of the etchings of others. I pushed the bathroom door open and, with a faint grin on my face, exited the room.