Learning to Be Human - The Fall
Here is the opening chapter in the book I’m currently working on (almost done!!---ish). A little background on the book:
Learning to Be Human is a semi-autobiographical tale that follows Jacklynn Pendleton, a twenty-three-year-old college student, after a psychotic episode induced by a marijuana overdose. Jacklynn, who prefers to be called Jack, lives with two female roommates—one who she is impartial to and the other who is her partner in crime. She studies Kinesiology at San Jose State University and writes fictional novels as a hobby. As she travels down the rocky path of self-discovery, Jack finds advice paralleling her struggles from unlikely resources: class lectures, strangers, and recreational drugs.
Learning to Be Human shows the uncensored inside world of a seemingly normal and healthy functioning girl. This fragmented and unstructured story mirrors her damaged consciousness and perspective on the world. Each short chapter dives deep into her epiphanies about what it means to be human and her overall grappling with self-awareness and death.
“A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn;
it can be stabbed to death by a quip
and worried to death by a frown on the right man’s brow.”
--Ovid
From one unknown to the next:
“Let’s stop pretending that we’re okay. That we’re okay with not knowing. Not knowing our origin, our identities, or our destination. Let’s stop pretending that we understand everything—who we are and what we’re doing. Let’s be real. This is weird. I know nothing about what I am, who I am, where I came from, why I’m here, or where I’m going, and neither do you. Let’s stop pretending we know so we can share what we’re experiencing with each other, because we’re all experiencing it together. I’m scared, curious, hopeful, and ignorant. I have no idea what I am doing, but I enjoy doing it. I enjoy learning to be human.”
The Fall
My lips pressed against the cool glass rim of the knee-high bong Stephanie purchased last week. With the biggest inhale I could muster, I drew in the heated molecules of THC and let them infiltrate and singe the supple tissues of my lungs. I coughed. As I looked at the swirls of smoke seeping and sprawling across my room, filling it with a thick haze, I thought, maybe, maybe I took too much. That and the fact that I hadn’t stopped coughing. I scampered to the kitchen and heaved over the sink in fear of vomiting out my lungs. When I had finished, when I was finally done, I wheezed myself back to my bedroom, pulled out a vinyl and set the needle down. I sprawled across my bed and felt the wave of marijuana drift over me. Ahh, my good friend THC, my reliable and comforting friend who trickled into my body and saturated my mind. As the seconds ticked away, thoughts swirled around in my head like whimsical lightning bugs dancing in a forest. A deep urge to fixate on them grew within me. A feeling similar to the urge a child gets in a candy shop. A child who wants to consume everything in the shop and cry with glee as colorful jewels of sugar spilled from her mouth. The urge grew while small treasures of knowledge skipped merrily by. I wondered how many I could catch. I reached out and plucked a lightning bug from the swarm and studied it, pulling the wings off one by one. Then I grabbed another and another with an obsessive reach. Handfuls and handfuls of lightning bugs, little treasures of knowledge—sugared jewels—began to expand my awareness until the sheer number became overwhelming. And just like that—like that—with the snap of a figurative finger, the drifting wave turned into a rushing tsunami. And I thought, maybe, maybe I took too much. The once whimsical lightning bugs turned into creepy, crawling cockroaches—harmful thoughts that created an unwanted energy inside of me. Embrace it, a friend once told me. Embrace it. My attention turned to the music filling the room. Strawberry Fields Forever. My breath rose and fell in a rhythmic fashion until the surrounding environment dissipated. Inhale. Exhale. Rise. Fall. Up. Down. The infinite blackness behind my eyes spread until the whispering mysteries of the body and mind crept hesitantly out of hiding.
Whispering mystery one: Is she gone?
Whispering mystery two: I think so.
Whispering mystery one: But she never leaves. How can we be sure?
Whispering mystery two: It’s safe. She must be sleeping. Come out, let’s play.
Familiar secrets always present and just outside of awareness began to prance around inside my mind. Secrets held by the subconscious, the dark side of the moon. With the subtle fear of being exposed, I integrated with a stream of THC molecules swimming towards the neuronal receptors inside my brain. Neuronal channels rushed open and molecules flooded in. Neurotransmitters were released to the next neuron in the chain of consciousness—all working to communicate something. To pass the word along. To share a thought. With an ignorant awareness and an unrelenting interest, I concentrated on the internal workings of my brain and wondered what thought it was trying to communicate. Digging deeper into the recesses of my subconscious like a teenager squeezing the life out of an already popped zit, I finally realized what it was trying to convey to itself—to me.
That someone was watching. That I was watching. I had been caught.
Whispering Mystery one: Alert! She sees us! Alert! Initiate shut down mode!
Whispering mystery two: But we can’t! She’s still awake. It’ll damage her permanently!
Whispering mystery one: We have no choice. This is a restricted area. How could she have gotten in? Shut it down!
Confusion flooded across my mind like desert sand being swept away into a windstorm. With an uncomfortable force of recognition, the thoughts in my head blared like one hundred static radios on max volume. An abrupt jolt sent me into a panic. A bucket of water spilling over the blaring radios. Fingers of electricity sparked and short-circuited something inside of me and I knew, what once was a smooth working machine was now a shattered remainder of the self. I was not in control anymore. My thoughts were secondary to my existence and were incapable of forming. The once quiet functioning of my mind previously hidden by the unsettling chaos of my thoughts, now blared into my awareness, taking up every ounce of attentional focus I had. Fragments of my timeline sped by in a non-linear form. Out of structure sentences. Out of structure memories. Sounds from my past stabbed into my mind. A telephone ringing. The sound of a throat swallowing. A car door slamming. All familiar, all repeating. Blinking. Screaming. Yelling. Without knowing why or how, I began to slip away. And just before I blacked out, just before my life changed forever, I thought, maybe, maybe I took too much.
A stream of ethereal light poured from the creature’s hand and crawled through the air to surround me in a tunnel of genuine brilliance. My feet lifted off the ground with an ease only felt in dreams. Suspended on my back, the light began to pulsate with smooth movements, almost as if it were breathing, as if it were alive. Time ceased to exist.
“How do you feel?” Asked the creature with echoing snarls.
I opened my eyes to blackness—like a night without the moon and stars in a house without fire or electricity.
“I feel…rejuvenated.”
“Good. Do you wish to continue?”
Here, in this eternal moment there was an understanding that I was not aware of at the time, but it came naturally. An understanding that everything spoken was from the core of truth.
“I do.”
“If you accept this gift your perspective of life will never be the same. Do you still wish to continue?”
“I do.”
A muffled scoffing sound escaped from the creature’s draping black veil, a veil that was not seen, but felt.
“Do you understand that there is no difference?”
“Between what?”
“Between life and death.”
“There is no difference?”
“There is no difference.”
“But what will they think?”
“Who?” The creature asked with perplexity in his voice.
“The others.”
Without answering the creature put his sprawling fingers on my stomach and pushed. Down, down, down I went with no ground to stop me. Falling forever. But that was okay, because the light inside of me was warm. The light inside of me was warm. No, the light inside of me was hot—tremendously hot, like an ember growing into a flame. A flame growing into flames. Growing and growing, building with an energy eager to consume everything and nothing. An energy eager to combust. And I stood there, where there was is not known, and how I was able to stand is irrelevant, but I stood. And watched as the universe around me obliterated into nothing. And that nothing formed a single thought. The single thought that started it all.
**Feedback and healthy critiscm wanted ;)