Anthology Complex (5 page)

So if you are sitting there starving with no food to eat and no water to
drink, will your brain eventually stop sending those messages because it has no
energy to do so? If that's the case, you will stop feeling hungry, and then you
will just die.

I'm watching this child bury his brother, and from around the corner I
see an old man walking towards me. When he gets to me, he asks for water. Water
for him and his family. I take off my backpack and I look inside, bottles of
water. Bottles of water and and loaves of bread. I look at the dead child in
the sand grave, and I hand the man the contents of my backpack.

After, I take another look at the child in the sand grave. A closer
look, and I realize that some of the sand is turning red, turning into blood. I
assume they killed the child for a good reason, maybe he was dying from a
disease with the help of malnutrition. They did the wrong thing for the right
reason.

When a homicide is committed, a crime scene is set, but there is no
crime scene set on a battlefield. All you can do is step over the body and go
on. So that's what I did. I gave the family all of my food and water and I
walked on. I continued to walk, searching for a peaceful place.

Eventually I got to a city, but it was so loud. People were talking so
loudly, sometimes yelling at each other. It was too loud. Their voices were
ringing. Their voices were barking. Eventually I was so annoyed by it that I
woke up, and that's when I realized that people were arguing outside.

I go to the window and I see four people, Lynne, Claire, Mary and some
man standing next to Mary. And then I see a man sitting in a tow truck in the
distance. Mary is yelling at the top of her lungs at Lynne, and Lynne is
yelling back. I hated to see Lynne get yelled at, but I hated to see her yell
at someone even more. She was such a calm person. Such a nice person.

At first I decided to not get involved, to just watch from up here, but
then the man standing next to Mary started to yell at Lynne. I grab a post-it
note and a pen and I jot down the words "the sand grave" on it so I
can remember the dream I just had, and then I go down there and I ask what the
problem is. Mary turns to me and tells me that Claire parked in her parking
space. I guess she was over for dinner again. Where's that stupid dog. Why
would people cut each other's throats over a parking space.

It becomes obvious that Mary is so angry not because of the parking
space, but because something has been bothering her. Maybe a relative died. Or
maybe she is beginning to realize that being at the top of your class doesn't
mean as much as she thinks it does. That you could still end up being a
failure, and maybe even have a side of insanity along with it. Now she's taking
her anger out on Lynne.

Lynne, she has no problem with moving the car but Mary is being so
hysterical that Lynne feels she is being disrespected, and what was a small
fixable problem now becomes unsolvable. Claire doesn't really have much to say,
and the tow truck driver is just waiting for Lynne to move so he can tow the
car if Claire doesn't move it.

Now this guy who is with Mary, I think she called him Paul, starts to
yell at Lynne again, saying Mary needs her space and asks her to stop being an
idiot. So much yelling.

While the yelling goes on, I'm staring at my empty parking spot. I don't
have a car. I tell Lynne that her sister could park her car in my parking
space, and the expression on all four of their faces become exactly the same,
as if they are upset that they won't be able to argue anymore. Claire not as
much, but she has a degree of it. So Claire gets in her car and parks in my
spot, the tow truck driver leaves, and Mary parks her car in her own spot.

I walk with Lynne and Claire into the building and I tell Claire that I
don't have a car, so when she comes to visit she can just park in my spot.
Claire, the quiet unspoken one, she thanks me in a low voice. Her sister thanks
me as well.

I have never seen Lynne like that, but then again I haven't known her
for that long. It's like she became a different person altogether. Certain
genes in our bodies can switch on and off. Some people are more prone to
diabetes and other conditions or diseases than others because of a specific
gene they may have. This gene may be in the off position, but certain
circumstances can cause it to be turned on and your diabetes will be in full
effect.

Sometimes I wonder if there is a gene for murder. A gene for hatred or
anger. A gene for happiness or contentment. Maybe a gene even for love. And
when a person murders another person, it was because their murder gene was on.
When a person is in love with another person, it's because their love gene is
on. When Lynne became a completely different person, I wonder if it was because
her anger gene was switched on and she was prone to anger.

On a grander scale, I wonder if every person in the world works this
way. Do we do these things to each other, good or bad, because we are
genetically programmed to do so? We are designed to react to a certain action?
Someone starts yelling at you, and maybe your anger gene will turn on, or maybe
your fear gene will turn on. In some cases, because people are so ridiculous,
maybe your murder gene will turn on, simply because this person yelled at you.
Now you have this murder disease. This human species at work.

When I was younger, I loved God, right now, I don't really care for God,
and I'm sure when I am older, I will despise God.

Composition 1, Part 2

Chapter 11:

REALITY FROM FICTION

Years ago on a cold Saturday night, I had this dream. I was driving down
this highway, no one else was on this long stretch of road. To the left and
right of me were city buildings showing off their city's lights. For a while,
I'm looking for something in the car while I'm driving. I check under the
passenger's seat, I check the glove box, I check under the driver's seat and I
check the seats behind me, but I can't find what I'm looking for.

Eventually I stop looking and I keep my eyes on the long stretch of
road. Every once in a while I look out my window to look at the buildings and
their lights. Full city, empty road. After so long, it becomes day and I find
myself now driving down a road in the countryside, still no cars around me.

Soon after I feel the urge to use the bathroom, but there is nothing
around. I pull over and I try to figure out what I'm going to do. There are no
trees around, just fields of grass. What if someone drives by and sees me
squatting down?

I figure I haven't seen anyone on the road so what are the chances
someone will actually drive by and see me. Then I figure even better, and
decide to just use my car as a tree, if someone does drive by they'll just see
a parked car. Hopefully a cop doesn't come by. Before I go to do the deed, I
look at the book on my dashboard, it's titled "Psychosis." I debate
whether I should take it with me to read. I decide instead of reading I should
just go without it and take the time to think.

Contrary to popular belief, most people don't take books or newspapers
with them to the bathroom to read while they use the bathroom. People probably
just sit there and think about things. Things they need to do, things they've
done. The things that are going on in their life.

Sometimes I like to think people are more aware than they get credit
for. A lot of the people I've talked to, sometimes I think they are just
completely ignorant of everything, completely unaware of things that are
happening in the world, but I know that in my mind they are not as ignorant of
anything as I think they are.

People don't talk nearly as much as they think, and I believe spending
time to think is the gateway to awareness. Because people think more than they
talk, I have to believe that they are aware of what goes on, and at the end of
it all, as stupid as I think this person may be, I know in my mind that this
person isn't as ignorant as I may think they are. The people who you have
deemed as unintelligent, maybe they aren't as unintelligent as you think.

Time goes by and nothing comes out. Eventually I feel as if I don't
really have to use the bathroom, so I get back in my car and I continue to
drive down this stretch of road. After a while, I see traffic lights in the
distance. At least I think I do. The closer I get, the more like traffic lights
they look. And then I finally pass under it, and all of the lights are red. All
three.

I start to wonder where I am. Then I start to think about my mother and
how she was able to tolerate my father for as long as she did, and my mind
freezes. I've been through this before, except it wasn't a dream, it was in
real life. I was on the way to my father's funeral. I remember I had to drive from
one part of the state to the other, and the entire time I was looking for a
photograph of my mother to place in his coffin. Three nights before, I found
the photograph and I put it somewhere in my car, but I couldn't remember where.
I never found it.

So now I am aware I am dreaming because this has happened before. Lucid
dreaming. I stop the car and get out of it. Before I can put two feet on the
street it's night again and I'm in the city once more, standing in the middle
of a highway. I look up and there is a billboard. On the billboard there is a
photograph of a woman I used to know named Maria, and it says she is missing.
The billboard asks me if I have seen her. Then I wake up.

Maria is a woman who I was once in love with. Or I should say I thought
I was in love with. It wasn't until she left that I realized that a person like
me wasn't designed to love. I could be friendly, helpful, kind, but loving
someone was just something my brain never fully developed.

When it comes to love, there are some pieces of rock that are out there
moving, searching for love, and then there are some rocks out there that are
stationary, sitting there still just waiting for love to find them. Then there
are rocks that stay stationary, but at the same time are in a way moving
because they are rotating on their axis.

These rocks are not searching for love and they are not waiting for it,
they are propelling any form of love that comes its way in the other direction.
Sending it back where it came from.

For a while, Maria tolerated my insanity. Once upon a time I wasn't as
organized as I was when it came to writing down my dreams. Sometimes I would
just try to remember them in my head, or sometimes I would just write them on a
random page in a random notebook.

The problem was when I tried to put some dreams in a logically
chronological order, I had nothing to reference to. I could never find the
dream I was looking for. My room would become messy because I would turn the
room upside down searching for that dream I wrote down so long ago.

Or sometimes my head would hurt trying to remember every detail of that
dream I had. It got really bad when I would mix up my dreams for real life
memories or real life memories for dreams. I couldn't separate reality from
fiction. The time came when Maria could no longer tolerate what I had become,
and she left. I can't say she left for that particular reason, there were times
when I knew in my heart that I didn't have any feelings for her, and I knew she
could tell, and I think that is the real reason why she left.