Category Archives: Creative

The Evasiveness of Sleep

There are nights when no amount of melatonin or calming music or snuggling cats can keep my eyes closed and my brain turned off. On these nights, which I try to avoid, my thoughts loop and the obsessive-compulsive facets of my nature lead me to the edge of anxiety. What-ifs and if-onlys dance through my frontal lobe as I desperately attempt to employ anything, any distraction, to just stop it and go to sleep.

The Search

It was an uncharacteristically warm day in the midst of a harsh Chicago winter. The skies were clear, and the sun was beaming as brightly as it could. Though the relative comfort would certainly give way to the harsh cold of the evening, for the moment Abraham was thrilled. He hoped the warm afternoon would find Zoe in good spirits.

Abraham knew he was getting ahead of himself, but as Zoe approached him outside of Gulliver’s Pizzeria, he thought, “She could be the one.” Certainly, she was very pretty, and that was undoubtedly a factor in his wanting to pursue her. She wore a pansy-purple top coat over a simple black dress. That, along with her slender-but-curvy-in-the-right-places build and pixie cut made her almost an echo of Audrey Hepburn. More than just pretty, she was smart and had a magnetic personality. The moment she walked into his cafe, he saw her potential.

Declarations

I worry a lot. Too much. I worry about the future. I worry about change, about failure, about rejection. I worry about failing past the point of no return. I worry that I will never achieve my goals. I worry that the two big life goals I have set for myself are impossible to achieve. I worry that I am wasting my time and my life on people and things that will never amount to anything.

A Map of the Overworld

My brother and I are very different people. Not in a good/evil way, mind you, but in a much more boring, yin-and-yang sort of way. For example, when he graduated high school, he got a car. When I graduated, I got a computer. He once painted his bathroom orange and blue to celebrate his love of the Chicago Bears. I have spent hours researching which color of Cherry MX switch might best suit my typing style. He probably went on more dates in high school than I have in my entire life. And, like most brothers, I’m sure we spent more time bickering than getting along as kids.

Devotion

My Goddess first came to me when I was a young man. I was twenty-five years old, and an outcast. I dreamt of a horrible world, one even worse than the one I already lived in. It was filled with burnt, decaying buildings, and ravenous children hungering to devour me.  They chased me throughout the festering city, clawing at my flesh whenever I stopped to catch my breath. I was so frightened, and then I saw Her.

Three

Once, there were three of them. It was decades ago, when options for friendships were limited to other children on the block, and it didn’t matter much if you liked the other kids there or not. Their parents would gather on the porch each night, along with their other neighbors, and William, Terry, and Joshua would play tag, or hide-and-seek. Sometimes, when her parents weren’t fighting, Jessica from across the street would join them. The trio of boys called themselves The Three Musketeers, though none of them had read the book, or even seen a film based upon it. Terry had seen the book on his family’s shelves and was in awe of the titular swashbuckling heroes pictured on the cover. Upon presenting it to his friends, the decision to bestow the title upon themselves was unanimous. None of them realized that the Three Musketeers had a fourth companion, though Jessica knew, and secretly considered herself their d’Artagnan.

The boys grew apart, as children are wont to do. There was no particular event or moment where the friendship fell apart; it simply dissolved over time. As the trio got older, they built friendships based on bonds stronger than immediate location. By the time they’d entered high school, they only saw each other in passing and the occasional block party. Their parents convinced them to share a limo to prom their senior year of high school. None of them had achieved a level of popularity that would keep them from consorting with each other, and there was no animosity to make the ride awkward. All of them agreed it was a good night, and none of them had spoken since.