Outside the window the world was a muted grey. Rain fell soft and constant over the town, across roofs and windshields, trees and pavement. Evening was settling and in my apartment the air was thick. Humid. The windows were open at both ends of the house and fans were on to circulate it, but it just settled in. Things had a way of becoming trapped up here.
I was sitting on a radiator next to a window, watching the occassional sheet of rain wash over the grass across the street, and feeling the breeze on my skin. Daydreaming and hiding all the same.
The Third Person point of view hadn't left. I was still mostly in the passenger seat. It had been a number of weeks at that point. At first it had been torture. Agonizing and seemingly endless. Deep and clawing pains in my chest, stomach, and head. I would find myself hunched over the kitchen table trying to catch my breath. Fistfulls of painkillers to shut it up. What an awful design flaw. The physical pain of emotional turmoil.
I could feel small droplets of water on my hands and face. I closed my eyes and listened to the wind in the trees. The rain on the street. The calm.
I had seen it all for what it truly was. Who I truly was. Who we all were. I had understood all that was happening, how it all affected itself, over and over. How we moved and struggled through it. How we fell victim to it and how we never even saw it. We all moved on tracks, with scripts, in roles and oblivious. I saw how small it all was. How massive it seemed. I saw the effects of every word I had said. Every action. I saw them carry from one person, to the next, to the next. I saw myself through your eyes. I saw all of us from above. I had seen it all for what it truly was, and it was agonizing.
The weight of it. I found myself envious of God. His non-intervention made a hell of a lot of sense now. He was able to be away from it. I had seen it, but I was trapped in it. Screaming at the fourth wall. Smashing my forehead against the glass. Begging God to let me out.
So I tried again, and failed. Again. I couldn't even escape my cowardice even though I could see it plain as day. I could see it and I could see how foolish and small it was, and still, I couldn't escape it. I couldn't escape any of this, hunched over the toilet with my fingers down my throat, begging God.
There hadn't been any cars on the road in some time and the sky was darkening. The deep evening blue overlayed the houses and trees, the homes and love inside them. I sat in the window and wished.
I don't know what initially triggered the Third Person problem. I was a teenager the first time it happened. I was high in some girl's apartment, sitting at the window one night, watching neighborhood kids play in the street. I had nothing to do with the situation but I remember feeling an intense wave of guilt and shame. At the time I described it as "extended reality", and tried to explain it to people around me, but I could never quite get it right. It happened the next couple of times I smoked weed and I gave it up. It didn't happen for a long time after that. It didn't happen until a year ago. I was on the highway, driving, and suddenly I was above it all. Watching patterns and roles and seeing the paths and scripts and characters. I wasn't driving, I was just looking out through the eyes while something else drove. I stayed like that for a few days. It terrified me and left me in a bad way for a month or so after. Then, it didn't happen again until now. A few weeks ago. The day before I failed again.
Maybe it's a symptom of the Alzheimers that runs in my family. Maybe it's some effect of depression in general, or PTSD. Hell, maybe it's simply some innate gnosis. Whatever it is, it's a curse, and I genuinely hope that you never see. It's all meaningless afterward.
I had to work in the morning. I left the window, went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth, washed my face. Made tea. Took magnesium and choline. I was too cowardly to know the truth and do anything about it. So I kept the routine going. What else was there to do?
I drank half a bottle of Zzzquil, turned off the light, and tried to sleep.
It will all end someday.
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