Tuesday

Tuesday

When I woke up this morning, I could feel the sun piercing through my body as if I were to it but a TV dinner, roasting in its radioactive womb. I could feel my skin getting tighter and browner. I tilted my already sweating head backwards, further into my pillow, sensing my insides turning into a creamy, molten center. My body would not have been cooking so quickly were it not for the remnants of dreams experienced in my sleepy brain last nite. The secret ramblings of my unconscious mind had manifested themselves into a coating, covering my body. I was a chocolate bunny, hollow on the inside with a tendency to melt. In my mind I was still trekking over barren arctic tundra, climbing Mount Everest, marking the summit with a flag made of shag carpet. I felt the sudden urge to get out of my bed and shake these odd and impossible feelings off as a rebellious dog would do after lazily exiting a public swimming pool. I would have done just that had it not been for the overwhelming fear of knocking something off of my dresser or bedside table. All objects around me seemed blurry and indistinct due to the sun’s unusually intrusive brilliance. Instead of getting up and facing the morning, however, I decided to go back to bed and dream a little more. As an entrée I was not yet ready to ingest and as a human being I was yet to be fulfilled to the extent that was promised to me upon entry into this world. I simply closed my eyes and let the sun pass over my house until it didn’t hurt any longer…
When I awoke for the final time, about three hours later, well into the mid-afternoon, I had become aware that the sun had chosen to relieve itself on the roof of my house rather than through the panes of my bedroom window. That summer soldier was heating my house a couple of degrees, thus giving me incentive to peeling myself off my floor, opening the misshapen wooden door which separates my room from the rest of my very hot house and actually maneuvering the hallways and staircases of my modern, lonely existence.
My parents, whom I called “Mother” and “Stan”, are out of town for the weekend at a casino in the next state over. One would think that I would take advantage of the situation, me being the young, strapping nineteen-year-old boy that I am, making plans and calling people, organizing a large event in which people will do many “crazy” things that I’m sure I will remember until I’m twenty-five, at which point I will stop thinking about them and get on with my life. No, sadly I am going to stay home today and roast in contemporary convenience. For today (and maybe tomorrow) I will give myself completely to media saturation. How else is a product of the modern age going to spend his lazy Tuesday afternoon? Outside? No, my day for going outside will be exactly two weeks from next Friday. I plan to go down to the local river with just a blanket and some bread. I plan to let the mindless babbling of the river soothe my overactive thoughts. I plan to let the struggle of the fish inspire me to give up this life of passivity that I not only live but let live for me. Perhaps if I actually achieve the day I have been planning for years, where my soul will be better compared to a placid lake rather than a boiling pot of water on the proverbial stove top of life, I will lead more days like that, replacing my television set with nature and my remote control with a walking stick. But right now, I’m still planning.
For now, however, for today the outside world has but one name: static. The real world for the next eight and half hours is falsified, synthetic, easier to handle. On Channel 8 I see a pack of huskies racing across the ice, moving faster with every whip of their master. On Channel 22 I see a cartoon of a monkey climbing a mountain on the southern face of Mars, shooting stars flying around him, never touching him as he screams and claps in jubilation. And when my eight and half hours are up, I’ll look up to the antenna on my roof, wide-eyed and ask “please Sir, can I have some more?” like that kid Oliver did in that movie I can’t recall the name of. And when I get no answer I’ll simply slump back down in my slump and utter “God, it’s hot in here.”