Transcendence

I have a hard time falling asleep.

That’s what I always say when people ask me why I look so tired, and they nod and smile and toss empty sympathies and useless suggestions I’ve already heard a hundred times before.

They think of great minds who slept four hours a night and of themselves cranking up the overtime in those crunch months, think they understand and so they are appeased. 

That’s why I say it like that, this half-lie. Because I have a hard time falling asleep and I don’t think I’ve slept in four days and I really don’t feel like getting into it with this week’s curious bystander.

Your mind does strange things when you’ve been awake this long. A lot of movies and books talk about reduced inhibitions, impaired judgment, audiovisual hallucinations but they don’t talk about the meat of it. 

About movement at the corner of your eye that you can never quite catch. You mind finding patterns, twisting and pulsing where there are none. Psychosis, euphoria and exhaustion mixing to make you feel like you alone have broken through the veil and found a world no one else knows exists.

I say four days ago but I am not certain. Not certain when was the last time I truly slept, that I am even awake right now. My dreams become as lurid and disjointed as the waking world and I am not certain I have ever truly been awake, ever truly asleep. Not certain there is any real difference. Reality is fluid and so are my thoughts and I am drowning.

I am sitting at a cafe. It’s late at night, late enough that the only place open was this dingy 24/7 with its tired old waitress and its crappy coffee. I come here sometimes, when I can’t bear staring at the ceiling anymore.

A single cup of coffee sits before me. The table bends and twists beneath it, the air vibrates as though bent by its heat, pulsing with an energy that hurts my eyes. I blink. The patterns are gone, leaving only cold coffee and a sticky plastic table.

I call the waitress to get a new cup. 

Patterns.

She is covered in patterns.

Twisting into themselves, without corners, without edges, without center they sit heavy on her shoulders. They are angry and hungry and patient and as I stare I can hear somewhere in my mind the ticking of a clock

I blink. The patterns are gone. 

Fear releases its grip on my chest and I sigh. 

“There you go, Sugar” The waitress says as she pours me a fresh cup “On me” “Thank you” I say hoarsely. I can’t remember the last time I spoke. The last person I spoke to.

I sip my coffee. My tolerance is far too high for its caffeine to have any real kick, but it is hot and bitter and burnt and alive and for a second I feel awake for what feels like the first time. 

It is with a sudden and intense terror that I realize I can still hear the ticking.

I am almost too afraid to look at the waitress. The patterns are back. And the patterns say now.

Movement I can’t quite catch at the corner of my eye. A misstep, balance lost, a fall. Patterns pulsing and twisting, the counter’s corner at exactly the wrong place. Crack. Thud. Breaking glass.

The waitress lies in a pool of blood and coffee on the dirty cafe’s floor. I stare for too long before realizing I am the only one there to help. 

I call the ambulance. I tell them to hurry. I am crying but no tears flow down my cheeks. Blank eyes stare sightlessly at the ceiling fans. The patterns are gone.

I didn’t even know her name. I barely make it outside before I throw up.

I hear sirens approaching but the thought of talking to another person makes me throw up again. Wiping my lips, I run down into the city’s streets.

Even this late at night the streets are not truly empty. People mill through them, some with purpose, some without. Late workers and insomniacs and drunks and the homeless, and they are all covered in the same twisting, pulsing patterns that hurt my eyes.

A drunken song fills the air. Loud and grating, the slurring words still cannot drown the quiet ticking of the clock. The patterns do not say now, but they say soon. And always, slowly, inevitably, sooner.

Everywhere I look I see the twisted, ugly shapes. I scream, but no one seems to hear. I’m not sure the sound ever breached my lips.

Your mind does strange things when you've been awake this long. This special cocktail of insanities blends, reacts to make you feel as though you’ve broken some barrier. As though you have seen what others never will. As though you have transcended.

My legs burn as I race up the stairs. I struggle to unlock the door with shaking hands.

I slam it open, not bothering to close it as I rush into the bathroom. 

You see movement just at the corner of your eye that you can never quite catch. Hear your name, whispered on the wind, just faint enough for you to hear. You do not recognize the face in the mirror

What is the difference between transcendence and insanity? Between dreams and reality? Between truth and sensation? 

And in which one am I?

I look in the mirror and I am covered in patterns. Urgent, and welcoming, as large and malevolent as I have ever seen.

I blink. The patterns remain. I close my eyes, rub them until they sting, the patterns remain. And they say now.

I start screaming and just for a second, from the corner of my eyes I see a fac-