Falling Up

It was Monday, another dawn, and a sliver of light pierced a small gap in the curtains directly into my eyes. I wasn't sure if I was awake, or if I had slept, but it interrupted a rather mundane dream where Alan had reprimanded me for taking too many napkins. If I was awake this might have just been a thought. It was time to go to work, I guessed.

Bathroom, turn on all the spotlights, bright lights temporarily blind the vision and the brain now has visual data. A secondary black out. I can see my face in the mirror again. What does a mirror do in the dark? - I wonder. It's good the light is on so I can see the light switch and turn the light off. Otherwise I would have been standing in a dark room staring into a black mirror. The mirror shows me myself as I never can with my eyes. Other people can see all of me. They are all looking at me like I was a mirror, reflecting the image back at them. Am I the mirror? If I am the mirror, then the person in the dark room is you. But you will never know if you can't see the light switch.

I looked in the mirror and thought these atoms, of these eyes, reflected back through light, were once a part of the Universe far far away, and now I remember the words, “To be or not to be? That is the question”. As I stared in the mirror I wondered Would I like to stay here? And What have I done? The very particles that make up you and me, arranged and bonded in various ways, changed through time, and it was me. I am a human scroll, the DNA helix, evolved naturally but corrupted by thoughts. I am a filter in time between good thoughts and bad thoughts, and which will win. I thought about this and then stopped. It was just me versus my mind until I can cancel out thoughts with mindless talking.

I know I needed to go somewhere so it was obvious to go outside. This might have been a significant point in my life or at least just a bus stop. 'You Are Here' it said. I thought about this and decided that I didn't want to be there. I need to go to work. It was a nice day so I decided I would walk, and started on the most direct series of streets and turns that were configured in my mind.

As I reached a bridge, I decided to veer off the main route. In the back of my head I knew that the diversion was in the general direction of where I was going, and so I feel defeated in my attempt at randomness. If I were really to be random, I'd change direction at undefined varying time internals and would probably converge to walking in a perfect circle.

In any case, I committed to going as far as I could off my usual route. It led me down a side street where I was bemused by a sign that read 'Zone Ends'. At the risk of exiting the zone, I continued and found myself at the foot of a steep bank on a dead-end street. Climbing the bank there was a small clearing and a rabbit hopped across the open green and down The Hole. I carried on walking through the green and into the bushes on the other side. Suddenly I was beside a major carriage-way. Cars and buses rushed past and I only had the thin edging of the bushes to walk along the road. There was no path or signs. As a pedestrian, I was not meant to walk there.

Eventually, I ended on the upper side of a bridge. Crossing this bridge from above, on a precarious feeling beam of steel, I was able to drop down the bank on the opposite side. I was now under the bridge where I had started.

After a while I happened upon a glass building that reflected light back at me just like my bathroom mirror. I could see myself again, walking towards myself as I approached the door. This is where I work, I remembered. As I went to push the door it opened automatically. That's new I thought. Everything was familiar, most buildings are generally the same. Corridors off which doors lead into rooms, stairs and lifts to other floors, simple and ubiquitous.

I decided to go through the doors just across the main lobby and found myself in a room with circular tables surrounded by chairs. I had a particular distaste for circular tables. This would take too much time to explain, even my thought had slowed to the infrared spectrum when I contemplated the notion. The other main feature of the room was a counter, glass facades with salad, a preparatory area behind, and a moustached man with a green apron. I focused on the pin badge and it read 'Alan'. This must be Alan from my dream, or thought, which of these it was still evaded me.

“Hello Sir” he prompted me, waiting for a return to the greeting.

“Good morning” I said, thinking this was quite a generous reply.

It was the morning so that means I should have something that could be accepted as a breakfast. “Could I have a bacon roll?” I asked before thinking. Now that I had time to think the idea of eating another animal made me feel sick. I'm not going back now, it's ok, I don't have to eat it. I can just complete the transaction and take it up to my work station. Now I need to cover that I'm not going to eat it so I go to take some napkins. At this point I caught Alan's eye and we exchanged a knowing glance as I reached for the napkins and withdrew just one. A pre-emptive strike before the psychological mind dance we do over how many napkins I take. This would be the most significant part of my day and knowing this I imagined I was the rabbit.