Words of White Lightning

Monday, 16 March 2020– 5:18 a.m

To say the inability to sleep that has come down on me occurred naturally would not be completely honest— outside agents certainly had a hand in these repetitive long, slumber-less nights. There are two beasts, as best I can explain, which keep me awake. The healthier more lumbering of the two is the COVID-19 quarantine. The irony of this being the healthier of reasons does not go unnoticed by my weary conscious... When the government essentially shut the country down, what little of my schedule survived is now totally free floating. No regular due dates, no allotted times or scheduled events to be present and sober for and keep me honest. And so with rigid structure went regular sleep; and now I find myself laying down to rest in the gray hours of dawn, and rising a mere hour before sunset. Then there is the speed habit I’ve shied around mentioning— a sleek and elusive beast, reminiscent of a starved and diseased wild cat on the scent. And it is my scent that it is on, probably because I hung myself out there looking for such trouble. Perhaps it is best for those who find this to read records written by someone who has been zapped by the White Lightning.

17 March 2020- 2:13

Christ, I’ve only slept an hour since the last entry... where is this going? Where was I going? Ah yes, yes... the White Lightning in those little orange capsules. Vibrations start in the spine and head out for distant fingertips— buzz buzz buzz, go and write about whatever needs written. Madness of the mind, fear of the unknown. Reality has split into a thousand untold fragments, shattered and blown out into the cosmic winds. Where is the rhyme, where is the reason in the face of all this shapeless insanity? Uneasiness and bad vibrations... I need to walk.

19 March 2020 —4:12 a.m

Two days come and gone just like that— where have I been? Forty-six hours came and went in one long blur. Was it earlier this evening, or the previous one when the neighbors house burnt down? Have I really not slept since Tuesday? The walk I took... there was rain, and blue curls of smoke out into an endless night. Then there was the woods, and all the empty gray fields. Whose were they— where had I gone, and why? This quarantine has me in a crazed lag waiting around for the hammer to fall. Doom is looming, but what shape or form it may take I cannot tell. Fragments, rambling tangents and unending consciousness. Stir that white lighting into coffee cups— dozens of coffee cups, black jitter juice. Stay awake, see it all. The orange man says economy will open by Easter— serious doubts on this. The disease is everywhere and nowhere, people dropping like flies so it seems. How will it end?

20 March 2020– 3:32 a.m

Lovecraft, hundreds of pages of Lovecraft. How real is his untold world of cosmic horrors? Has it been Cthulhu all these years throwing hazy notions of fear upon me? So many slimy, stony steps down into the recesses of hell to descend. No sleep in days I don’t think... I’m taking on the complexion of Dracula, my eyes aren’t my own anymore. The horror, the horror... too much Joseph Conrad as well. Am I losing myself, or discovering? There must be an reason! An end, something more than Death! How did I end up like this? Was it that bastard Thompson, or too much of life itself? The throes, the gray areas... more speed, more! I’m falling!

21? March 2020 — 1:23 a.m

No sleep, no time. Paranoia, terribly gripping paranoia and fear— a cop drove by the house an hour ago. Bad lightning storms, the house is shaking. Must focus on reading or suffer a lost mind... “I can hear music, sweeeeet, sweet music...” the Beach Boys are playing someplace... where?

22 March 2020— 8:03 a.m

Came too walking in a slight drizzle this morning— just returned. No recollection of where I’ve been or when I left home, or why. Just walk, walk, walk. Odd notes in my pocket... dooming thoughts on todays world and life in this goddamn backwater town. These mundane faces! These dull, unaware, ignorant faces... don’t they know?! Of course not you fool... you don’t even know! Jesus jumping Christ I’m going mad... ride this wave though, feel it and ride it out into a violently churning surf on the shores of the unknown. Live, LIVE!

23 March 2020 —10:00 a.m

Crashing like a plane with one wing, going down in a quiet haze of gunfire and flames. I’ve been staring blankly it seems out into the corner of the yard from my bedroom window. The morning is clear and crisp, what few commuters still can are on their way out. There’s a dog in the corner of the yard— a big blueish black beast with floppy ears and an innocently ignorant face. It’s ours, and I don‘t know why I’m writing about him in here except for the fact that it seems as though he knows I’m watching him from my window. Or maybe he’s watching me... but what does it matter? The 16th feels like untold eons ago, like the entirety of my life has passed in one week. I’ve no clue how many hours I’ve slept since then. Less than twelve, probably. Go out for a drive in the countryside, park under some tree and take a long nap.

25 March 2020 — noon

The speed binge is over. Ran out yesterday I think it was— perhaps the day before. Hopefully the recorded time between now and the (16th?) has given whomever may find this a sort of glance into the white hot bolt. So little rest, so many thoughts to put down. Everything and nothing makes sense in the throes of a binge, it makes both a King and a gutter rat out of a man all at once. There is every sort of rhyme and no reason, then every sort of reason and no rhyme. Productivity goes up at the price of sleep becoming a bitter enemy... Sleep my dear unknown readers of the endless future— sleep is not something to run from. All this said and done though... when the white lightning comes your way, take it for a ride at least once... see where you go.