Brain Rot

Thursday, October 6, 2005

I’ve never really liked sleeping.

Sure, it might feel good, but the idea that I’m essentially being forced into extricating eight hours from my day never sat well with me. A third of your life spent staying still and unproductive – ridiculous.

Thus, I try to stay awake as much as possible. The sole reason I’m writing this in the first place is to help keep my mind active during my break from work. If I can come up with an equally effective means to stave off sleep, I’ll likely cease my journaling.

I’m currently on my third day without sleep. The sun is coming up now.

Back to work.

Friday, October 7, 2005

Unfortunately, I fell asleep shortly after finishing my last entry.

I briefly considered turning to certain substances to keep me awake, but no, my work wouldn’t be done nearly as efficiently if I used any mind-altering substances. On the bright side, I’m careful enough to set several alarms on each of my devices so that they go off at set times throughout the day, so I only slept for six hours – not that bad. I suppose that during my break this time, I’ll just keep writing. If I don’t stop writing, then I hopefully won’t be tempted to sleep.

I might as well use this time to describe my apartment. It could be a good exercise. Then again, there isn’t that much to write about. My normal apartment needed to be fumigated a few weeks back, so I had to move out to an unused room in the rear of the building, a dark little thing separated from the rest of the tenants. For me, it was perfect – more plug-ins and the only window was blocked off by foliage from the overgrown forest against the back of the complex. After reaching an agreement with my landlord, I moved into this smaller, more hidden room, and that is where I am today. The endless sea of wires on the floor are a bit annoying, but the light they provide for my computer screens restrains my melatonin production beautifully.

I suppose that’s all I have to say for now. The sun is coming up.

Back to work.

Saturday, October 8, 2005

It has come to my attention that I have yet to describe the exact nature of my work in my entries. Allow me to ameliorate that – I am working on a novel. It will be my first novel, but I also intend for it to be my magnum opus. It will be a story of true people living in a true world, all of it built on the foundation of only the rawest, most visceral of human emotions, or perhaps, in more blunt terms, it’s about the events surrounding the mysteries taking place in a local cavern system, though from there, it expands exponentially exceedingly speedily. Revealing any more than that would be counterproductive. After all, this is my break. I’m currently only shy of fifteen-thousand words into it, but believe me when I say that each word has been carefully, painstakingly chosen after serious thought and deliberation.

I don’t like the sound of pipes in this room. I had barely noticed it when I first arrived, but now, it has become an incessant distraction. I can hear them especially well today, since it seems the wind outside is completely still. Strange. If I can’t block it out, I’ll probably have to keep headphones on all the time to keep from going mad.

Ah, the wind has started blowing again.

Back to work.

Sunday, October 9, 2005

[The words, “I need sleep,” were hastily written across the top of the page, but then they were scribbled out.]

I heard something last night.

It was against my window, some heavy thing suddenly slamming against it. It was too loud to just be a branch, so if I were to guess, it was probably just some animal or rodent. After all, my window does only reach ground level. I’m basically living in a basement.

The strangest thing, though, is how I didn’t even care. I’m keeping my knife close by now for protection, but back when I initially heard the noise, I just ignored it, even though I probably should have been startled at the very least. I was getting a lot of words down, though. It was like I was in a sublime flow of writing, and I wouldn’t let anything rip me away from that. I suppose I should be pleased with my dedication.

A final thing. I’ve been less than open about the reason I dislike sleep. I’m, of course, referring to the real reason, and not some nebulous excuse like, “I don’t like wasting time.” It’s silly not to reveal everything. It’s not like anyone aside from myself is going to read this. Anyways, to best explain my attitude toward rest, I need to relate the dream that sparked this revelation.

It was about six months ago, and at the behest of an old friend, I’d taken some mind-altering substances. What should have been a night of hallucinations and regret instead led to one of fear and inevitable dread. Through the visions I had during that long night that seemed to last for weeks, I heard a voice telling me to stop wasting time. I asked what it meant by that, and it replied that my consciousness is dying. After our drawn-out back and forth, the voice informed me that every time a person falls asleep, they die, and they don’t wake up. I asked the voice what the hell it meant, to just speak clearly. It laughed at my anger, but then, it did something impossible.

It showed me the physical manifestation of consciousness.

Around the room of stoners and losers, there were bright essences centered around their brains, spreading out in thin strands throughout their bodies. My old friend was different. On the couch, he was teetering on the edge of sleep, and his light was almost extinguished. I could see it dwindling. I could feel it. It was then that I noticed the people already passed out on the floor had no light, including me.

I asked the voice where my consciousness was. It told me it was already dead, perished as soon as I fell asleep. Right then, the “me” talking to the voice was my brain’s recompiling of stored memories to create an almost perfect copy of myself, but at the end of the day, the “me” that had taken the drugs was dead.

I wondered when I would die, and the voice informed me that it would happen the next time I slept. But that begs the question: Am I really the me who will die, or am I the one from the future just believing I lived this?

I came out of my haze shaking with the knowledge I’d gained. I tried to ignore it for some time, doing anything just to forget the horror I’d learned, but no matter what, nothing changed. You can’t just unlearn the truth after it is so distinctly ingrained within your fragile gray matter.

This is why I cannot sleep. This is why I cannot stop working unless absolutely necessary. I don’t want to be one of the consciousnesses that dies before completing my masterpiece. Every time I fade out of consciousness, I gamble with my life. I can’t bear the thought of dying now. If that happens, I’ll have died without doing anything meaningful. I won’t allow that.

This went on for far longer than planned. The sun is already up. I’ll try to do this less often. There is more to be done, much more.

Back to work.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

My phone rang today.

Obviously, I didn’t pick it up. I reached perfect flow today – twenty-thousand words. It was a sublime experience, like long-dormant synapses within my brain were brought to life.

I started the morning with this pounding headache that kept up its intensity for the first half of the day. I only got a measly two-thousand words in during that time. I took my headphones off to rub my scalp, but as soon as I did, I heard the phone. At first, I didn’t even recognize it. How many days has it been since someone actually called me? I got the phone and turned it off completely, not even bothering to read who the caller was. And just like that, the pounding stopped. Everything I wrote from that point on was perfect. For the first time since I sequestered myself from the world, I felt free. I was in control of everything. But still, I cannot sleep yet.

There is work to be done.

October, either the fourteenth or fifteenth, 2005

I can feel the end creeping up on me.

There was a merciless storm last night, one so bad it caused a power outage. I hadn’t saved since the pounding stopped. All that work, gone. I spent the following days working nonstop at recreating it, rewriting again and again. I think I might have fallen asleep once, but just for an hour or two. Still, that is unacceptable. Even now, I look at the final rewrite I made and look at it with disgust. Compared to what I had before it is garbage. I can’t let this stand. I can hear the banging outside my window again.

Back to work.

October

I shouldn’t be writing this. Maybe looking away from the screen, just for a little bit, will help clear my mind and save time in the long run. One thing I forgot to mention was how the blackout reset the date and time on my computer. I don’t know how many days I’ve been down here.

I found some duct tape to cover the window up. Sometimes, enough sun pokes through the leaves to disturb me. It also muffles some of the banging. I can still hear my phone ringing, but I’m not exactly sure where it is anymore. It’s so annoying. I just want the ringing to stop. It’s starting to make me forget where my story is going. I need this story done fast, but I also need it done well.

Back to work.

[The date for this entry is incomprehensible. There is also a notable decline in penmanship when compared to the previous entries.]

I can’t read anymore. My eyes are too blurry. I’m just touch-typing and hoping for the best, at this point. My left arm has lost all feeling, so I’m stuck using only one hand to write. On the better side of things, my head has stopped hurting, and I can’t remember the last time I went to sleep.

These developments came about when I heard someone speaking. It was right behind me in my very own room. I heard it, but like everything else, I tried my best to ignore it, refusing to turn my chair around. However, it was very persistent.

It congratulated me, applauding my efforts to making the most out of life. It felt good, finally hearing that. Apparently, it’d been with me the entire time. I just hadn’t noticed. I could feel its presence walk up to my chair. I could feel its breath. It didn’t feel too hot or too cold, but a void of matter.

After a few minutes, it whispered, “Wait, this is all you’ve been working on?”

For the first time in days, I stopped typing. I asked him why he said that. He told me to reread what I had so far, so I did. And you know what?

It was terrible. Never before had I seen such trite, unoriginal dross in my life. The fact that those words had been my own ideas made me physically ill. I shook, knowing that there was no way I’d be able to show this to anyone. I deleted the document without a second thought. My scream left my mouth as a pitifully hoarse wheeze.

“That’s a shame,” it said. “You’re the next one to go.”

I could feel an overwhelming drowsiness take hold of me. I could feel it – my death. It was my time to leave. I wanted to refuse, to fight back, but my body had atrophied to the point where any sort of resistance was impossible.

“There’s a way, you know,” it said. “You don’t have to fall asleep again.”

In my dying breath, I begged it to tell me what to do.

It simply told me, “You need to change your adaptor.”

Of course! It was so obvious. I couldn’t believe I’d never thought of it before. My left arm was already starting to go numb. Jamming my knife into the muscles was easy. I’ll spare most of the unsavory details, but getting that hunk of meat off me was strangely liberating.

“Now, put the new plug in.”

I reached back to the computer wires and unplugged them one by one. The computer screen went dark. Next, I shoved them into the stub of my arm. The light came back on.

It commended my dedication to the arts, but immediately after, I felt its presence steadily wane into nothing. Once more, I was alone. Now, writing this with one hand, I only have one thought on my mind.

I should get back to work.