Time is a Rave Dancer, I am a Sleep Walker
One of those days...
I slept in again today.
The alarm went off and I woke up and turned it off. I grabbed my watch and laid down for an extra ten minutes of sleep.
Ten minutes later, the hour hand on the watch face had skipped ahead a number.
“Shit.” I jumped out of bed and threw off my clothes.
“Shit shit shit shit.” I ran into the bathroom to grab my bathing suit, but the image in the mirror stopped me.
“Jesus, I can’t do this anymore.” The bathroom floor was cold. It hit my naked butt hard.
The phone rang.
“Kathleen, are you coming into work today?” It was Ali the lifeguard. “Your old ladies are wondering where you are. They’re running out of water aerobics to do.”
“Ali, by the time I get there, class’ll be over. It’s pointless. Just tell them… I don’t know what to tell them. This is the second time in three classes I’ve done this. I’m out of excuses.”
“I’ll just tell them you’re sick. Don’t worry about it. I’ll deal with them.” The line clicked.
“Shit.”
My head fell onto my naked knee, and I just let it sit there.
I had wanted to bike there early. I had wanted to post something in the university center on my way out. I wanted to swim a mile before class. But the hour hand skipped ahead a number and it all fell hard onto the bathroom floor, my ass not far behind.
I can’t ever seem to grab hold of the clock hands. The little screw holding them is a rave dancer, flailing her arms about in drugged ecstasy. She’s uncontrollable. She’s a college student after all, living in a bubble behind a plastic pane. The rest of the world just flashes by, revolving around unnoticed.
We college kids like to think that. That this is the best time of our lives, that the world is watching and waiting for us. Our world is self-involved, self-indulgent. If we’re not raising money for some save-the-world Spring Break service trip that’s bound to be a “life-changing experience,” we’re writing stories (or talking or thinking) about our new, never before seen insights. But we can’t save the world in nine days, and there’s nothing we can put into verse that hasn’t been put out there before. Fuck philanthropy. Fuck duty. It’s just masturbation. We do it for ourselves. All the rest of the world wants is for us to show up to work on time so they can get a workout in.
Jesus, my old ladies. My wonderful water-walking old ladies. I’m letting them down. And they teach me so much. They remind me that there’s a whole lot of life after May 11. It’s not the giant cliff into nothingness that it feels like. When all you do is sit around and think about yourself all day, it’s hard to imagine actually doing things, like working and functioning in society. But they don’t have to imagine. They know. They work and function every day.
I try to work and function. I do. I have a job off campus, unlike most of my friends, and I work with non-students, unlike most of my friends. But it’s failing. That damn dancer keeps jumping around, and the hour hand is never where I want it to be. It’s failing. I’m failing.
One last try.
I stand up. I straighten my legs vertically and the bathroom floor sinks further below my head. I can’t push the floor below me; it only looks lower because I’ve straightened my legs vertically. It’s all the same, just a different vantage point. I’m not changing anything.
The rave dancer is bobbing about in her plastic bubble, making the world spin, and I’m stuck out here. I can only straighten my legs and arms. If I straighten my arms enough, perhaps I can intercept her flailing limbs. She barely grazes my hand. Her sleeve slips between my fingers as she dances by. Gone again.
The floor gets harder every time.