In Dreams
8:00 AM
There are the fragments of sentence beginnings one after another, but they're all scratched out.
Odd, because it's written in pencil...
9:43 AM
So I'm supposed to keep a journal of my thoughts. Honestly I don't know what to write. The doctors said just to write whatever comes to mind, and the first thing that comes to mind is that I don't know why I'm doing this.
They say it will help, but I'm skeptical. They tell me in their calm voices that I need to get it all out of my system and I won't feel so bad about it anymore. I guess it's working, I don't feel bad anymore. I feel like a fool for writing this. I'm forced to wonder if their plan is to help releive the pain by replacing it with embarrassment. I guess that's modern medicine. If you can't cure a problem, just pretend it's not there.
They say I need to get it out, to let someone know how I feel, but I can't. I've spent countless hours in therapists' offices trying to form the words needed to explain what I've seen. In the end, I just become a bundle of jitters. Almost all ability to speak is lost, replaced stuttering and jittering. They say if I can't talk to a person about it, that maybe I can write about it, and let them read it.
The problem with writing about it is that I can't do it either. Every time I put pencil to paper my hand shakes uncontrollably. It's just that(scratched out) Every time I(scratched out) I still see(scratched out)
6:00 PM
I'll be going back to work tomorrow. I'm hoping that working will keep my mind off of things. It gets hard being alone. My family and friends all look at me with pity when they see me so obviously distraught. It's like what happened has made me an invalid. I can't take it anymore. I need to do something productive, so that's what I'll do.
I think I'll go to bed now. I haven't been able to sleep since the incident. Every time I close my eyes...
My friend Jerry got me some sleeping pills. I hope they work. I look forward to a good nights sleep and work tomorrow.
2:18 AM
I still can't sleep. All the pills did was make everything fuzzy. I want to sleep, I really do. I can't recall having ever been this tired before.
Everything's becoming blurry, as if reality itself was losing its reception. I fade in and out of a dreamlike haze of focus. Perception seems to twist around me as I approach a dream like state. All of my senses are being assaulted by phantasms conjured by a lack of sleep.
I'm starting to hear things, like distant fuzzy voices. As time passes, they grow louder. It's almost like being in a room full of people having conversations. Like I'm at a party. One voice is a soft whisper in my ear, and I can almost its breath on the side of my face. Others are right next to me, while others still are behind me. When I try to concentrate on any of them, they stop, and the silence of the room that is left is startling. The last word I hear is always the loudest, always the most pronounced, yet still unintelligable. It's almost like a shout in the room that makes everyone grow quiet.
The room's appearance twists about and changes constantly. For a moment or two I'm somwhere else. In a car, at work, walking down the street, or any other number of mundane places. It's like a dream, only I'm not asleep. I close my eyes for a few moments and the world comes back into focus again, and I'm sitting in my room again. If I keep them closed for more than a few seconds, I see her again.
I see her smiling at me as the schoolbus drives through the intersection. It's a little after noontime, and the snow is coming down pretty hard. I'm driving back to work from lunch, and she's probably getting out early because of the snow. We make eye contact, and she waves.
Then there's a loud crash, and the schoolbus rolls over and skids to a stop right in front of my car.
The next thing I see is her eyes again, empty and lifeless, through the window of the overturned school bus. I can hear the screams of the other children on the bus, as they flail about inside. I can see her mouth, partially open, as if in an attempt to join her schoolmates in their shock. No matter how hard she tried, the only thing that would come out was a small trickle of blood.
I desperatley want to look away from her, but I can't. When I try to turn away, I can feel her cold gaze piercing through my back. It feels so much worse than looking her straight in the eyes. Time doesn't move. I stare at her forever. I can feel everything inside cry for this poor girl. It was such a pointless waste of life.
After forever passes, I open my eyes, and the world spins back out of focus again. I look at the clock to see what time it is. It should almost be time for work. It's not. It's 2:30. At least I'm "getting it out of my system." The doctors would be proud.
6:30 AM
The pills effects have worn off. I still feel tired, but whatever chemical that was supposed to put me to sleep is now gone from my system. A fresh pot of coffee helps the world to regain some of its focus.
Even though I didn't sleep, I'm still going in to work. I do feel a bit better about what happened after writing about it. I'm not going to risk another day at home alone in my apartment, or even worse, with people who "care."
12:00 PM (scrawled on a memo pad)
Lunchtime. Every person I talk to tells me I look like hell, and that I should go home. I can't say I disagree, but I'd be doing the same thing at home that I'm doing here, so I might as well stay and get paid for it.
Like last night, I keep drifiting in and out of semi conciousness. It's different this time. I'm still here, sitting at my desk, sorting through orders for shipments. I don't feel any different. There aren't any visions or voices, but there are thoughts. Different thoughts, as if somehow unnatural. They seem perfectly natural at the time though, and then I snap back to reality, and the thought is gone. What's left of it makes little or no sense.
I know it seems hard to understand what I'm saying, so picture it this way. The thought is something like this: You're sitting in your cubicle, thinking where you and your friend Harry should go for lunch. You know Pizza is out of the question, because it gives him heartburn. You decide on chinese, because you know he likes it, and you haven't had it in awhile. You then think it might be a good idea to ask him if that's what he'd like, when it hits you like a ton of bricks. You don't have a friend named Harry. You don't even like chinese. On top of that, you packed lunch, so there would be no need to go out. Within thirty seconds of the realization that you were debating eating lunch with someone who doesn't exist, the entire train of thought has dissipated completley, and you don't even know what it was that you were thinking about. You only know that it couldn't possibly happen.
It's almost like a waking dream, except for the fact that while it was happening, I was alert and fully functional. The shipping orders I was working on are all correct and complete, and there are enough of them done to show that I hadn't zoned out while I was working.
4:30
Home from work. I was on the couch trying to get some much needed sleep when I saw her again. My eyes were open this time. She was just standing there, in between the television and the coffee table, smiling at me. Fear gripped me and tore apart my insides as if I had swallowed a blender. By the time I had realized what was going on, she was gone. I sat shaking on the couch for about twenty minutes.
I keep seeing her out of the corner of my eyes.
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