So this is from my prose book: After Happy (working title). It is the first Chime, I am naming them (for narrative reasons). They are like Chapters, but will probably be longer, with various subsections that will be named. I am excited for the change in form and really like experimenting with my own book and my own style. There are other sections from Chime I that I want to lift from, but this is the very beginning of it. I picked it for my favorite quote that I have so far. It has received special mention by my readers. So I am lifting this out first as a piece and will probably add a few more from Chime I.
Chime I
That same day of December the Twenty Third, I arose at my usual hour of noon. This is not to imply that I normally wake at such a time every day. Rather, on holidays, which include my weekends, I arise at the hour appointed by my internal clock, which is to say, I ignore my external clock entirely. On this particular day I relished turning off the clock over and over. It wasn’t until the sun had vainly crept through the drawn curtains, edged around them, over the endless ravine of my floor to my bed and then fallen down, hopelessly, upon my eyelid that I deigned to open my eyes.
I did not sit up right away for that would be admitting defeat in the face of this pitiful onslaught, something which I never do. Therefore, I stayed there lying in bed for no less than a quarter of an hour...waiting.
...
It occurred to me that I was very hungry. So, I waited.
...
As I didn’t hear any sounds from the kitchen, I realized that there was to be no breakfast made for me; I would have to forage for myself. I waited another quarter of an hour.
...
Time eked out its timid existence, pawing at my chest like an old tabby. I was helpless against the insistence as it really was rather pathetic, pushing and pressing and kneading the way that it was; I couldn’t help but eventually sit up in bed and gaze around the room.
Everything was in its proper place, which is to say everywhere. As I said, the curtains were drawn and the light, weak; there was little to see by, but I could discover the outlines of indefininance scattered about the bedroom, if bedroom it was. It was always my custom to fall asleep wherever I was at the hour of midnight. When I was a child, I would often discover myself transported into my bed, However, at the tender age of thirteen and a quarter, I came to the unfortunate realization that adults do not magically (if magic it was) find themselves in their beds. Instead, as is so often the case with lost articles, they find themselves right where they left them, which is such a mundane prospect to hold onto for the remainder of one’s life. Nevertheless, in spite of reason insisting the contrary, hope persists. However, I was transported to my own bed at the old age of twenty eight and three fifths; the significance was lost on me at the time as I doubted one sense, then the other, reasoning that what I experienced couldn’t be and would ascertain the truth in due course (this proved impossible until this later reflection, as you shall see).
There were the corners of the mattress; the edge of my little island. Beyond it lay the hardwood floor, a vasty expanse too cold to consider. I sat at the edge of my bed, which wasn’t much of a ledge, considering jumping on an island of warmth and comfort in a sea of hard wood and uncertain daytime chores. My comforter, which had been stripped of comfort many years ago, hung limply off the edge, created a land bridge to my closet. Our clothes hung like long-since dead men on their ropes of metal and wire, resigned to their fate.
I looked over the ledge at the floor and decided to make the jump today. I stood rapidly... swayed...and fell. My vision blurred, my inner ear worked frantically, bailing water as quick as can be, but all in vain, all in vain, all for naught. I fell face forward into our pile of laundry and lay there for another minute. This, like so much in my life, was nothing new; I chronically fall over in the morning. When I was young, my mother insisted on getting me diagnosed; the doctors diagnosed everything: fainting spells, mild seizures, a heart disease, a brain fissure, a spinal collapse, ennui, but they proscribed nothing. Not for lack of trying. The doctors worked very hard to give me all sorts of things, but the bloody tests came back negative every time. They couldn’t in good conscience (and they barely had a good conscience between the lot of them) prescribe anything without having some idea as to what they were dealing. The only thing they were able to diagnose was the pain that results from falling onto a cold floor every morning upon waking. As a result I received very pleasant, non-habit forming pain relievers. The strength of these painkillers have increased over the years of my life as the scrapes and bruises have since layered one over the other creating a thick and intricate web of callous [sic].
My parents spent a fortune on medical expenses. They wished to diagnose something that had a more reasonable, plausible natural cause. Unfortunately for them, they had me instead and the simple truth of my existence is: I do not like waking up. I loathe it in a visceral, tangible measurable way.
The process goes so:
- I hover at the edge of inaction, knowing that I must arise from my bed whatever the weather, after all, one always has duty and work;
- sitting there, contemplating at the ledge of my bed, I consider a dither while readying for the plunge,
- I crescendo listing like the ship that I am, careening leewards, unheedful of the steering that needs righting
- I collapse.
- The storm that is my body crushes my soul and we discover ourselves on the shore of my laundry pile.
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