Sometimes, I wish I could move on.
Move on, from this place and from this time. I wish I could think of tomorrow and then, perhaps, think of tomorrow, simultaneously. I wish I could ponder something in reach and potentially reach out for it. I wish I could, in the sense that I may.
If that were true, I would apply it to my relationship with this man. At the moment, what stretches between us is grey. A sort of grey happening, a grey matter, if you will, shifting and changing between us. How do we walk around each other? How would we treat each other? Who are we, when we are in the same room? There are little fingers slipping and shading in that overcast mass, pushing us gently apart, patiently, timorously. I let them do their job, and I will do mine. So I sit, nestled amid the couch, facing the wall, and I try to think. But grey matter does not solely shroud the air; it finds its way into my own grey matter, the children that I cherish. They sit there in my skull as patiently as I sit and face the bone-like hue of the wall (even its texture is the same; upon my fingers, at least. My tongue, I have not yet experimented upon the wall). And they are cloaked in grey matter, the same grey matter that is a heavy overcoat to me, increasing in density whenever he walks into the room.
Was it a mistake to adopt him as a flatmate? Did I err in placing another soul at intermittent parts in my life (termed casually)? Fortunately, I do not see him as often as I would dislike. He is a private captain, and I am an exclusive recluse, and the dust gathers along the line that neither of us cross.
"Would you like something to eat?" he asks.
"No, thank you," I reply.
At least, in theory. He is sitting, rigid and upright, in an armchair reserved for lounging. I sit, reserved, upon a lounge, steepled fingers beneath my chin. Indeed, what would occur if he offered me sustenance? Never mind. I will endure.
"Would you like something to eat?" he asks.
I do not require food, nor water, nor company. Those fickle things others adore - but it slows them down, oh, it slows them down further in whatever gargantuan pace they may endure upon; but that would not do within this grey matter of mine. Despite any shroud that may blind my way, I shall hit all the checkpoints through process of elimination anyway, and defeat the most clear-eyed pupil. Take this man, for instance, seated merely across the room, only a rugged carpet separating us. A moment ago, his feeble concentration was snagged (upon the surface, as meagre bait attracts starved salmon or rocks, particularly rocks without the liberty of mouths) by the bland black-and-white of both colour and content palleted within his newspaper - but now it rests upon me, and - oh, dear. I have been too slow.
"No, thank you," I reply.
I had rehearsed, fortunately. Although theatre is most decidedly a bloody sport; so many slaughtered lines, as fishing lines slaughter rocks who bleed. No sic, I am afraid. You have taken me in all wrong. You poor seamstress, you; you poor tailor, being so rash, as I tell a tale under much stress. Indeed, I am stressed. This anxiety…
If there was a place to go, I would go there. I would go there immediately, and I would go there, perhaps, now. Is there a place for me? That thought is so oft thought of, yet so private, my stomach clenches as I whisper. For, yes, I do whisper. I whisper with stomach clenched and my hands would be, too, if I could move them. Unfortunately, I cannot, I cannot reach out. I wish I could. I wish I could ponder something, see someplace, and potentially reach out for it. I wish I could reach out for places and reach them; I wish I could reach, oh, I wish I could REACH! WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME? HOW COULD THIS OCCUR? Has my life (life? Is this a life?) left and screamed and ruined and shouted and what else is there for me, what else can there be, I can't do a simple thing like get off this couch and do something, anything, why is everyone moving? How can everyone move and work and go to work and do work and oh, I wish I could work, I wish I could reach out and work without this grey MATTER SHROUDING MY BRAIN, SHROUDING BETWEEN US, please, I had a thought and it's gone, I had a thought, I wish I could reach out and grab it I wish I could reach out reach please reach PLEASE but I can't see anything, this grey, I can only see grey, I can only see grey, and it's all grey, and I want to work without my stomach clenching, I want to work without everything burning, I want to work without this grey overcoat freezing in heated density and descending down on me like a shackled straitjacket, all I can see is grey, and grey, and -
Grey. His face is grey. I can see it properly, despite all this grey shroud gathered around us, swelling between us as if pressing against a line of glass from both sides, a window, and I can see him. He is grey.
"Are you okay?"
I am uncertain if I appreciate grey, now.
"Sherlock! You okay?"
Something has changed.
"No, thank you," I reply. "I do not require sustenance."
This man… this man - I wish he would let me alone. I thought I prided myself on the organisation of my mind, the lubricated passage of my thoughts, dashing nigh and fly from one network to another, but I see that it has come apart now. Untended, untrimmed. Untethered. Perhaps it was never organised in the first place; it may have only been one great illusion, one great expectation, and could one ever live with a mirage like that? I certainly could not. I would not intend to. But this - for the moment, it is all speculation. And where I spectacle spectacular speculation, I find folly. The categorisation of my brain may be an illusion, but I will rely upon it for the time being. I shall lay the facts upon the table and leave the roulette for later. I lay my aces down on the surface of the water, and hope they do not sink.
"Sherlock! What are those on your fingers?"
The cards will be stained, most certainly. You cannot place your aces on a fluid and expect it to come away untarnished. But if only it were not! Fluid thoughts, departing before they arrive, swimming densely, sparsely, with no organisation in sight or mind. I need to pluck a thought from the air, not from the sea. Without organisation - my thoughts would be lost in each other; I would be nothing. I would not be able to live with myself. I would decide not to, in tribute to the illusion of rational thought.
"Are those stains?"
How do you identify a drop in the ocean? Without organisation, I would have to sift through each thought to find the one I yearn for, mourn for. Without organisation, I can no longer dazzle with lightning-fast efficiency; I can no longer machinate abductions that take tenths of seconds. I live in that time frame. I flit between those pockets of time, balancing on those branches, plucking thoughts from the air and winging my way back. But now I have to sift through the ocean with hands. It slips through my fingers. I am wading in cold sweat; a waterfall of ache streams from my brain stem down my spine. Oh, why can I not feel the rush of air against my face - the rush of epiphany on my person? No, rather I must collate thought for thought, with each second that passes an increased pounding in my ears, the rising tide, the pressure of time in which I am not welcome.
"Sherlock! I know you can hear me. Tell me! Quick!"
Quick. I need to be quick. It cuts me to the quick. I cannot sift for a specific thought through the ocean in my brain. I do not possess that kind of endurance. I have spent so long within this dashing pace of thought, with these wings that flit from time pocket to pocket at the speed of light, that I cannot keep up this gargantuan pace. This pace that others adopt, are content with, cannot move beyond. I need to move on. But am I like everyone else? Oh, that cuts me to the quick. I need to be quick. Quick.
"Quick, Sherlock! What's wrong with you? Just tell me what they are!"
"Nicotine… stains," I rasp out, finally. I can feel the water stains soaking the aces; it weighs them down; they sink. The beauty of my organisation, my spectacular mind - it was all just fluid beneath the surface. An illusion. A reflection. I can see myself in it. Can I live with it?
"Smoking?" His voice is soaked with something solid.
I let out a small sigh. It travels across my lower lip in a small, hesitant breath. Slipping away like smoke. Like shadow. The insides of my eyelids slowly come into focus - shadow. Dark. All at once, I realise that I am somewhere. The air presses against my cheek, thick and stuffy. Some acrid weave is laced through it, but so lightly now that the darkness almost negates it. The dimness of my surroundings can be felt, like cushioning, velvet against my heartbroken mind, whispering that breakdowns are okay and inescapable. There is cushioning beneath the icy ache of my spine; leather beneath my fingertips, cracks spiralling from post to post. He summoned me from inside my mind, but I am prey to the familiar notion that I am visiting a playacting place, and itch to return to the real world.
"Yes… smoking," I reply dryly, and not solely on account of a parched larynx. "I wish to… think."
"You can't smoke," he shoots back.
"No." This is true. There was too much fluid in my brain to successfully light it. The smoke remained external, smoky, shadowy, darkness pressing in. But the flame never reached inside; no spark within. It would be extinguished by the sea.
"Sherlock…" His voice falters, a little.
I open my eyes. They slide open with ease, with dazzling ease after all that work and hardship, trying to sift an ocean with two palms. He is nowhere. There is only that fog. That grey fog, swamping my surroundings. How can I identify anything, locate anything, in this? How can I sift through it, slipping through my fingers? How can I organise anything in this?
"Where are you?" I whisper.
"Right here. Right in front of you." His voice is quieter, too.
I pause. Is he worth telling this to? Around me, the fog seems to grow denser, darker; its palms presses against my cheeks with more force. Soon, it may hurt.
"I cannot see you," I breathed. The whisper travels across my lower lip and delves a pocket of air from the fog immediate to my mouth. With a hunger washed of emotion, I snatch a glimpse of unkempt carpet, and a vicarious, squat shoe.
"Try opening your eyes."
This time, it is much more difficult. The departure of organisation, of efficacy, of all I hold most dear to mind, swathes me from strength. My eyelids are leaden with all the hardship and weight and… work that I was suddenly evolving to abhor. How could I not deplore it, when my sluggish subconscious works to associate its tremulous efforts with the trembling heartache from finding all I know awash in fluid and fog? The link between these aching efforts, and the stained memory of what I have lost, seeks to unhinge me. How can I ever face work again, when I am shaken at the thought of opening my eyes? I cannot work. I cannot think of what I have lost. I cannot.
My eyes are open.
He is there.