PERFECT PLACES

Jonathan (9)

The day comes by and rushes to take you away. It is not when the sun is overlooking the landscape on which you place yourself, or the timed schedule of the analog or digital or cellular reminder. The day is not defined externally but is instead felt in the chest and acted upon; and in a sudden brutality you have pushed yourself away from yesterday and the day is in your presence. Your arms twist away from their restraints in a swift motion and you run. Your mind runs and runs and this pace continues until you are biking and sailing and flying into the air above you. Your mind is suddenly a hundred feet above your room and street and town. The day is not anything significant in results, but instead is the surfacing of plot and incidence in your plain of view.

I want to be famous. I'll just put that out there, I don't have to pretend like it's not true. I want to completely indulge in the superficial benefits of being known by everyone. Some days, the idea completely consumes me. The lives of celebrities after a while just become an artificial world that seems so distant and hard to reach. The idea that I could, hypothetically, find myself to be one of those people is so scary and real when I truly think about it for more than five minutes. Becoming recognizable, to everyone, or at least to a large group of people in the right place at the right time, is such an unfathomable idea. What if I was special enough to be among these people? Are they really special at all?

The intoxicating thirst for a taste of fame is something I know other people have felt just as much as I have. Imagine seeing over a hundred thousand likes on your Instagram photo. Holy shit that would be the most mind fucking thing ever. Of course, there are tons of people who experience that every day. Some of them aren't even truly famous. That's the power of the internet. Some people are famous for a ten second video, how fucking ridiculous is that?

It seems like everyone lives in a bubble. Most people, I mean. This bubble contains the actual daily lives of normal people, who are only known by their families, friends and coworkers. But then there are those people who are floating around outside of the big bubble, who have formed their own bubbles to live in, all by themselves. Everyone in the big, mediocre bubble can look up at the sky and see the other small bubbles whenever they want and admire the small bubble people and think about how freeing and rewarding it would be to have their own bubble all to themselves. To have enough energy and uniqueness to lift their own feet into the air and fly hundreds of feet up to squeeze their way through the surface of the big bubble. To steal part of the bubble's surface for themselves and break away. People down on the ground look up at the surface of the massive half-bubble in which they live, all the way to the furthest reaches of the dome, and watch as a person finds a way to craft their own perfect bubble and push through the ceiling of the big bubble into the air above. Then the person enjoys their short time floating over everyone that is looking up at them in awe.

Are these people all that special? Of course they aren't. Right? At least not the ones that are only there for a blip of time. The ones whose bubbles quickly pop like real ones and they fall back down into the big bubble and hit the ground, they can't be even a little special. But what about the ones that have been floating up above for years and years? What about the ones who have always drifted near the big bubble, so much so that the people below recognize them and wave to them everyday? They soon start to think that these sky people are their friends. That they, too, could be sky people. But they're very special, the permanent sky bubble people. Holding onto their own bubble without letting it pop is a hard thing to do, and even those people with their own bubble who seem the least deserving of their free-flying powers have to be given credit for being able to stay up there for so long without popping.

I want to fly. So badly. I want my body to be lifted up into the air and propelled out of my room. I want to break the ceiling with my back. I don't care how much it hurts. I want to fly all the way to Los Angeles, clean myself up, and fly around in the strongest and biggest bubble there ever was for one person. I want to meet everyone else who is protected away from this life of mediocrity. I want to know what it's like. Even if it doesn't end up being all that it seems like it could be, I'm sure it would be one hell of an adventure. I would get such a thrill out of it and my mind might finally be kept busy thinking about something meaningful.