Post by nrt on Feb 28, 2014 6:11:39 GMT -8
Visions of time
and consciousness
NRT
Have you ever wondered where the time goes?
You know, when you just sit down to send a couple of emails before dinner and then realise, at bed time, you haven’t had any dinner.
Where did that time go?
Then there are those jobs, you know the ones; raking leaves or ironing bedding, the jobs that you’ll do ‘later,’ some indeterminate moment that seems to have an ability to move off into the future at least as fast as time passes the other way.
It’s only when you are forced to live each second that you have any notion of exactly how long a minute is. How unbearably tedious time can be when you only have it to concentrate on, between the merciful death of dreamless sleep and the hurtful broken promises of dreams…
Why me?
What did I do that made me bad enough to have to put up with this?
My head is now a hollow space I can walk around in. I used to fill the bandages... didn’t I?
Why am I asking you? You don’t know! You weren’t here then, back then, when I could feel something.
I was bound, pushed down, weighted and strapped and bound with white bandages. Every part of me, head, hands, tight, trapped – Oh Jesus the pain! I was raked with pain…
Well let me tell you; I would kill you in a second to feel that pain now. To hear the concerned voices; to feel them struggling to save me as I slipped away or jolted back into agonised consciousness as they peeled my… they peeled…
I was a soldier and now I am just a hollow space that I can walk around in, inside the bandages, in the dark. Feeling nothing; touching no one; counting down the seconds of my living death to the ticking of a clock.
I guess it’s a clock. Sometimes it sounds like a whole orchestra of syncopated timepieces, or develops additional layers of tonal complexity, but mostly it’s just a dull, hollow, flat sound, which repeats and repeats, daring me to stop listening.
Are you the clock?
Now I’m really losing it! If you were the clock, you wouldn’t tell me would you?
How could you?
No. No, you aren’t anything. You are even less than me, if that is possible, because at least I know I’m real, I can hear the clock… I bet you can’t.
Is it light outside? I don’t know if my eyes are open or closed, even though I am awake.
It was an IED of course.
I knew that before I hit the ground; before I smelt the…
Before they put out the flames and told me not leave them; to stay calm, that I would be fine, even though they didn’t believe that themselves.
Then they whisked me away, the guys; they got me out quick… most of me.
But I didn’t die.
When they treated my burns I wished I had, oh sweet Jesus, I wished I had the strength to jump from the bed and slit my throat, anything, shoot me, strangle me, anything, leave the fucking stuff welded to my skin!!!
Now, what seems like weeks later, that all seems like paradise; it was light, it was real, there was sound. Yes, I know there is sound now, but, you know what I mean, now it’s just that bastard clock, then; there were doctors and nurses talking, comforting, apologising…
They don’t know I’m awake!
That’s it. They think I’m in a drug induced coma…
Tell them, go on, you, you go and tell them that I’m not out; I’m awake and running around in here, under these bandages.
Please, tell them, go now, before I go mad. I need company; I must move and feel again. I must get up off of this bed. You, go now, tell them that. If they don’t believe you, tell them… tell them I can hear that clock. Only hurry back, because when you’re gone, I’ll be left with only the ticking and I don’t think I can take much more of that.
Light…
Was it light?
When they dressed my burns…
I remember the temperature change, a breeze on my skin and the sounds, but they all add up to a bright scene. Operating theatres and treatment rooms, they're always bright, aren’t they.
I can see the scene…
I can see it, but I can’t remember seeing it. And, sometimes, I can see me in the scene, so I know; that can’t be something I’ve actually seen, so, I try to delete that vision…
Vision…
Have I actually seen anything since the flash, or have I just seen visions?
I didn’t hear the bang, but I can hear the clock.
I did see the flash, but…
I always raked the leaves, eventually, though I don’t think I ever ironed any bedding. And, I wouldn’t have spent so much time at the PC… if I’d known then what I know now about time.
Am I the shell or the thing running around inside it? I guess it’s yes to both and I need to be re-joined with myself…
Whatever it was I did to deserve this; I am sorry, truly sorry. Help me and I’ll never wish to play soldiers again, help me, please, I’ll be good, I promise
- right after I’ve smashed that fucking clock.
and consciousness
NRT
Have you ever wondered where the time goes?
You know, when you just sit down to send a couple of emails before dinner and then realise, at bed time, you haven’t had any dinner.
Where did that time go?
Then there are those jobs, you know the ones; raking leaves or ironing bedding, the jobs that you’ll do ‘later,’ some indeterminate moment that seems to have an ability to move off into the future at least as fast as time passes the other way.
It’s only when you are forced to live each second that you have any notion of exactly how long a minute is. How unbearably tedious time can be when you only have it to concentrate on, between the merciful death of dreamless sleep and the hurtful broken promises of dreams…
Why me?
What did I do that made me bad enough to have to put up with this?
My head is now a hollow space I can walk around in. I used to fill the bandages... didn’t I?
Why am I asking you? You don’t know! You weren’t here then, back then, when I could feel something.
I was bound, pushed down, weighted and strapped and bound with white bandages. Every part of me, head, hands, tight, trapped – Oh Jesus the pain! I was raked with pain…
Well let me tell you; I would kill you in a second to feel that pain now. To hear the concerned voices; to feel them struggling to save me as I slipped away or jolted back into agonised consciousness as they peeled my… they peeled…
I was a soldier and now I am just a hollow space that I can walk around in, inside the bandages, in the dark. Feeling nothing; touching no one; counting down the seconds of my living death to the ticking of a clock.
I guess it’s a clock. Sometimes it sounds like a whole orchestra of syncopated timepieces, or develops additional layers of tonal complexity, but mostly it’s just a dull, hollow, flat sound, which repeats and repeats, daring me to stop listening.
Are you the clock?
Now I’m really losing it! If you were the clock, you wouldn’t tell me would you?
How could you?
No. No, you aren’t anything. You are even less than me, if that is possible, because at least I know I’m real, I can hear the clock… I bet you can’t.
Is it light outside? I don’t know if my eyes are open or closed, even though I am awake.
It was an IED of course.
I knew that before I hit the ground; before I smelt the…
Before they put out the flames and told me not leave them; to stay calm, that I would be fine, even though they didn’t believe that themselves.
Then they whisked me away, the guys; they got me out quick… most of me.
But I didn’t die.
When they treated my burns I wished I had, oh sweet Jesus, I wished I had the strength to jump from the bed and slit my throat, anything, shoot me, strangle me, anything, leave the fucking stuff welded to my skin!!!
Now, what seems like weeks later, that all seems like paradise; it was light, it was real, there was sound. Yes, I know there is sound now, but, you know what I mean, now it’s just that bastard clock, then; there were doctors and nurses talking, comforting, apologising…
They don’t know I’m awake!
That’s it. They think I’m in a drug induced coma…
Tell them, go on, you, you go and tell them that I’m not out; I’m awake and running around in here, under these bandages.
Please, tell them, go now, before I go mad. I need company; I must move and feel again. I must get up off of this bed. You, go now, tell them that. If they don’t believe you, tell them… tell them I can hear that clock. Only hurry back, because when you’re gone, I’ll be left with only the ticking and I don’t think I can take much more of that.
Light…
Was it light?
When they dressed my burns…
I remember the temperature change, a breeze on my skin and the sounds, but they all add up to a bright scene. Operating theatres and treatment rooms, they're always bright, aren’t they.
I can see the scene…
I can see it, but I can’t remember seeing it. And, sometimes, I can see me in the scene, so I know; that can’t be something I’ve actually seen, so, I try to delete that vision…
Vision…
Have I actually seen anything since the flash, or have I just seen visions?
I didn’t hear the bang, but I can hear the clock.
I did see the flash, but…
I always raked the leaves, eventually, though I don’t think I ever ironed any bedding. And, I wouldn’t have spent so much time at the PC… if I’d known then what I know now about time.
Am I the shell or the thing running around inside it? I guess it’s yes to both and I need to be re-joined with myself…
Whatever it was I did to deserve this; I am sorry, truly sorry. Help me and I’ll never wish to play soldiers again, help me, please, I’ll be good, I promise
- right after I’ve smashed that fucking clock.
