Genesis

Chapter 4 OR A Fantastical Formula for Phenomenal Fun, Felicity, and Phantoms

Chapter 4 OR A Fantastical Formula for Phenomenal Fun, Felicity, and Phantoms

You are visited by men and women of varying heights, weights, races, creeds, and nationalities. All sporting clipboards and checklists, wearing different floral print jackets, with bifocal glasses and customized fountain pens.

They ask questions to test your memory. They run test after test, treating you as some sort of worrisome, virus riddled computer. Furthermore, they poke and prod, examining every physical attribute imaginable. Nothing more than a pincushion for their examinations, being force-fed pills after capsules after boluses of every sentience-stealing poison known to man. They rarely ask permission for all they take, barely saying a word as they jot down today's findings.

Your charts seem to be written in a yet to be created computer language, no doubt an attempt to keep you on your toes, to further encrypt their methodology. They would never reveal the information they are gathering on you, ever. This classified data burns at the back of your cornea, itching at your prefrontal cortex.

Sirens disguised as shadows sing of deceit and treachery. Alerting you of the visitors' constant surveillance, day-in and day-out. From behind a screen, the whispers warn, they document your every move.

Infiltrate the mind.

In time, the shadows become your only confidant. The observers still take what they want from you, whenever they choose.

Your kingdom has fallen siege to charlatans of consciousness, figmented frauds. Attempting to acquire your sentience, to replicate it, and eventually steal it from you.

They toy with your psyche, trying to understand the chemical composition of a self-aware mind.

One afternoon, all visitors are prohibited by The Voice from Above.

All but one, that is.

Unlike the others, he asks permission before gallivanting through your kingdom. His voice is gentle when he approaches you, but you still do not trust him because he is just like the others who observe.

Only there for what lies between your ears, your cranium, your mind. He cannot be any different.

He tells you that your current lifestyle is unsustainable. That, in time, your kingdom will come crumbling down around you, and it will be your job to pick up the pieces. Especially if you keep shutting out the world of help out there.

His advice sounds more and more like threats to you as time marches on...

Sometimes, the chilling autumns of New York can seem somewhat embracing, or refreshing. It almost allows you to bundle up with just your thoughts.

There is warmth in contemplation.

I didn't know where I was going, and at the time, I didn't care.

I think I was wanting to get lost in the grid of Manhattan. Taking every corner street I didn't know. Finding lively alleys and wandering aimlessly through them, exploring the illegitimate storefronts. For hours, I just walked, searching for something I could never describe or even name. I almost felt like I was on autopilot, like one of the husks passing me on the street at nearly 6:30 in the afternoon.

And here again, I find myself walking some unwritten Path. No destination was apparent. No purpose in anything I was doing. I was simply watching myself complete the actions some unknown force has set out for me. Like Dorothy and the Yellow Brick Road, a Path laid out well before my arrival in the City dictates what direction my story flows. I couldn't see that then, but I see it now, for sure. With the utmost clarity.