I think a good goal for my life is to have a nightmare-free existence. They generally don't occur every night, of course, but often enough to be distressing. Take tonight, for instance. I'm running out of time on my books, and I'm rather behind. Band camp starts Wednesday, so now is crunch time. Of course, it just so happens Mr. Agee isn't the most enthralling of authors. It's my personal belief that you have priorities in literature. The first is entertainment, which could also be joined with escape. If the book's not entertaining, no one will read it and those who do won't like it. The second is a clear message. There are times to play games. If you want to write for the English intellectual who enjoys solving your puzzle, go ahead. But try to at least make the puzzles readable. When symbolism becomes so very boring that you can't stand it, it's time to stop. Three is style/form/pink marmosets or what have you that make it genuinely different and memorable. James Agee has a very disturbing lack of pink marmosets.
Anyway, I'm reading A Death in the Family and I get to the part in italics. You know, the section that branches off at the end of the first two parts that seems to have nothing to do with the storyline. It's almost made to put you to sleep. It talks about stories and events, but it's clearly meant to convey a message I frankly don't care to exert the effort to pick up. So I try to cram it down my mental throat until I can take no more. So I rest my head against the pillow, I turn off the light, just because I can't take another word. I just can't do it. I need to, but the darkness is so nice. So... peaceful. And I drift off...
But it's a quasi-sleep. I know I can't actually go all the way, I've promises to keep and miles to go before I can stop this foolish charade. So I'm adrift in a sea of emotional stress. I once fell asleep thinking of a math problem. It tormented me. I kept struggling to wake up because I was so wracked with stress. My mind is churning, trying to work a problem that I can only get halfway through. 19+23= I don't know! I can't summon the resolve to figure it out. But there it is again: 19+23. My mind is trying to solve three or four of these at once. I can't do it. So the stress manifests itself in sadness. In a half-waking nightmare where all my normal fears are magnified but aren't easily reasoned away. There's no plot to this dream, just waves. 19+23=... Every moment I'm hit by sadness. It laps against my consciousness, pulling a bit in every time. It recedes, but soon comes back with more force. Another wave, I'm falling deeper. 19+23. My heart is drowning in a reasonless, pure sorrow. The kind I'm only capable of in dreams. My soul mourning my inability to feel something so pure in my gray-tainted reality that was raped by Nihilism. That word. Both of them, actually. I despise both. They're ugly words. 19+23. I'm afraid to use them. But I have to, because in retrospect that's what it seems has happened. Nothing matters. Nothing at all. Until you've experienced Nothing, you don't know what it's like. It's depressing. Still I'm only actually sad in dreams. 19+23. A lingering, pure, but nonetheless poignantly painful emotion. I have no reason to be sad. But I have no reason in dreams.
My sister and mother get home, and I wake up. I realize what happened, I look at the time. Work calls again. The sadness lingers, but it's gradually drying by the sharp, radiant illumination of my now alert mind. I can block it out now. The stress that created the sadness in lieu of blissful peace is now merely a weight. Or perhaps it's a buoy, bouncing up and down constantly reminding me that I'm off course. It shows I care. Just not enough. Enough to be tormented, but not enough to pluck it out of the water. I'll follow my course eventually. Now I have detours to take. But the buoy always blocks my vision. Oh what fun it is to ride in a clueless teenage day.
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