A Convenient Lie

Patrick shook his head violently, and the pain that ensued jolted him back to reality.  He had to concentrate.  He was obviously suffering from some psychological disorder.  Depression, maybe; delusions of destruction.
Here’s to blaming yourself.
He decided that he could not be alone right now.  As he placed his hand into his pocket, he saw that his whole arm was shaking.  Trembling in fear, because some primal instinctive part of him knew what was to come.  Just as cows predicted thunderstorms, Patrick’s organ systems were predicting the future.  The question was: what exactly would tremble like so?  Would it be the human species altogether?
“What’s up, Pat?” came a voice from his phone.
Patrick realized that he had dialed Charlie Backin’s number, and this sudden lapse in memory also caused a shiver of fear to run through his body.  Shrugging it off, he tried to desert his paranoid thoughts and focus on the conversation.
“Yeah, hey, Charlie, my television broke, so–“
“So you wanna watch T.V. at my place?”
“Well, yes, if that’s all right with you.”
“Anytime.  Come over whenever you want.”
Patrick nodded, even though of course Charlie couldn’t see that.  He hung up, put his phone back in his pocket, and was now faced with another decision.  Should he ride his bike or drive the car?  Surprising even himself, he decided to ride his bike.
The next day, and for several months after that, he would look back at this mo-ment, and it would be the time when his life began.  He would think of it as reality, eve-rything else structured against it.  This was his birth moment, because everything that happened after it happened because of it.  And then he would think about time in general.  He would think about the butterfly effect, and he would wonder whether this moment really was that important.  And then he would understand, with complete clarity, what it meant to be human, to search always for fleeting answers, grasping at fallen memories, attempting to recover from the deep, unbased sense of regret that constantly permeates every second of survival.  Patrick didn’t know any of this at the time.  All he knew was that he was planning on getting more exercise.
He grabbed his helmet, scooped up his bike lock, and then he was off.  His apart-ment opened up to a series of outdoor stairs, and he was on the third floor.  His bike lay just inside the door, and he rolled it out, preparing for the arduous process of carrying it down to the ground level.
It’s a pity there’s no elevator.
That was a laughable thought, really.  He lived in the Mission District of San Francisco, in one of the cheapest apartments in the area.  Looking out from his door, he surveyed the city ahead of him.  Something inside of him told him to wait, to just watch.  Just as he had felt his whole life, he wanted time to slow down.  Food prices, oil prices, living prices, they were all rising rapidly.  There was no way to halt their steady progres-sion.  The more worried everyone became, the worse the situation became, it seemed.
Even before this, though, he had felt life moving too fast.  It was strange; those early years of carelessness, of happiness, they were gone forever.  He could barely re-member those picture moments.  Lying in the grass, held tight in his mother’s arms, safe and wonderful, the sun shining down upon his open face.  Held high above his father’s head, strong arms bearing him up towards the sky, letting him taste the clouds on his tongue.  Wide, toothy smiles.  The camera flashes, and the moment is secured in history.  And then the years went by, and he could actually feel them slipping.  He was fourteen, entering highschool.  He was seventeen, graduating.  Even this seemed unreal in his mind.  It was merely a blurry image of hats adorning those beautiful faces he had known for so long and yet such a short time.
He could remember the tears, because they were coming again now.
And then there was college, shooting by as he studied conscientiously every night, making up for those youthful nights of high school spent drinking and procrastinating.
And here he was, grasping his blue bicycle tightly, as if it might slip away at any moment, just like his life.  He clung to the seat with one hand, the other almost molded to the handlebars.  He stood there for a while, maybe ten minutes or so.  And then time took over again.  An invisible clock, ticking always in his mind, urged him to continue on this evolutionary path of progress, of development.  An unspoken, unwritten hierarchy of ac-tions, commanding his every move.
Halfway down the stairs, he slipped on a particularly shoddy step.  The edge was worn down, and so his foot missed it completely.  The bike flew out of his hands for a few frightening seconds, and then he caught it once more.  He was thrown off balance, and he toppled forward.  Righting himself after a few seconds, he dusted himself off, checking for any injuries.  Nothing hurt.  Nothing was bleeding.
But the terror still pounded deep in his heart.  Why had the fear been so great when he lost control of the bike?  If it had fallen, the worst thing to happen would have been a small crack in some section of the vehicle.  And yet he risked his own safety to catch it.  Shaking his head at his own foolishness and stupidity, he continued walking, taking extra caution to stare at the steps carefully.
If you watch your feet, you’ll never see where you’re going.
Where had he heard that?  Perhaps his mother had said it years ago.  It was a meaningless quote anyway.  His mother had been full of idealistic hopes, none of which had come true.  All her “life lessons” had only drove him into poverty.
Here’s to following your dreams.

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