Files and Reality

I lay flat on my back, enveloped by patterned blue blankets and pillows. Staring directly upwards, I carefully map out every shadow on the grayish white ceiling, every bump on the dark blue walls, every inch of quickly-spun cobwebs where the blue wall meets gray wall above me, and how the shadow is cast at an angle in the corner. I memorize each and every detail above me, and every sensation in my body. I memorize how the sheets rub against my bare legs, memorize the soothing weight of the quilt on my torso, and how the faint air movement leaves a cold spot on my pale skin, where the dip of my eye meets the edge of my face, as a single tear traces my left cheek bone. It leaves the lightest smell of salt hanging in the air, that none but me could detect, and any would soon forget.

Not me, though. I refuse to forget any tiny sensation of here, and now. I mentally file tonight’s memory in the section labeled “truths”, across from the one labeled “lies”. I slide it into the portfolio titled May 24, next to the one labeled May 23. As I shut it, I will peek into May 23, and make sure nothing is out of order. I will check to make sure nothing is out of the ordinary, and search closely for dream signs that never appear. Then I take one last long look at the ceiling, and before I shut my eyes to release my final tear, I wonder how long it will be before I see my ceiling again, and I wonder if I will forget it, like one forgets a dream when they awake.

The last thing I feel before I fall away is a warm, salty water droplet slide down my cheek, and I don’t just feel it’s decent. As it falls, I am whisked away from my body, and my entire consciousness is filled with the sensations of the tiny trickling pool, The smell of it, the taste of it, the shape of it, the sound of it, and it’s very essence, and it’s purpose in the world as it slides away.