Yet, Doppelgänger

Counting down from ten, I heard a voice begin. He quickly dropped to three, or it was this fear numbing my skin and clotting my

head--thought by thought. As the voice counted down, I countined slowly to step forward, hesitant, but I could not find myself to stop moving

until I felt water rush up and hit my toes.

The counting siezed suddenlt. I stripped off the blind-fold, and shook to the cartiledge in my knees, I turned, trembling, to look back.

I found myself alone on a stoney beach. My heart bursted through my chest as tears of a joyous relief hit the stones, and I felt

the aleviating fatigue I've longed for--it uplifted the dark somber that colored my eyes of a forests to a pitche that faded the color

almost completely out of way.

I had been up all night--probably even longer than that, but I will never know.

The only care I had was finding my way home. At least for now, I couldn't pinch a nerve to remember a single thing that happened here.

When I began to walk up the sharp rocks to succumb to the soft sand--so warm and shifty, as the wind caught each speck of the sediment and

blew it overhead--and I fell to my knees in this relieving fatigue, even more now.

I slept beneath the blanket of the sedimentary winds billowing atop the lake's tides that crash overtop the piling stones. And I too crash over

the piling stones as the gruesome winds shove my motionless body over the exact spot.

ONE

Today I felt lackadaisacle, careless--although I remembered what had happened, it did not effect me. Unsuasible to today's occurrences, the

sisceptibility to being alone kicked in.

I grabbed my cover and I layed it overtop of me. The lonely nights can grow crisp and bitter, leaving me shivering, wasit-deep in thought.

These thoughts rattled in my head like stones to glass houses.

Do I know you--

What my thoughts had built was just an image of my own reflection--inside as damn well as out.

I had no recollection of old thoughts that left me the last night to find my own way to the end of my qusi-besmirched path, to the seemingly bottomless

body of water that will approve my heart to begin beating again; my lungs to start pumping with air again; and my flesh to incave the goosebumps

and shade the light color back in the lines of each vein and scar that might have deviated from the surface.

I was of no aquaintance to insanity.--But it built over me.

I could piecetogether a few vague frames to the same picture, but something cintinues to obstruct my mind from doing so. I decided to get up to

my feet. When I did, the tile-like floors had taken like ice, and I found myself beneath my own two feet again. A subtle sigh spilled from my

mouth, and I caught my breath again and stood straight up. I forced myself to do so, no matter the feelings I had or the thoughts otherwise...

As I made it to the heels of my feet, I grew larger than my own self until I felt a violent nudge. Familiar to the nudge I was--frightened of this nudge.

So much dramatic effect to a cause, but I created this feeling--physical, but strangely enough, it seeped deep inside my heart. I did not see,

I actually couldn't even see clearly at all. The lights,--what lights are these--they're on, and the curtains remain shut--completely shut. I never

figures out how to open them. I've lived here for so long, and I never learned.

Privelidged enough to sit down--forcefully--I respected the silence.

What had I to fear anymore? My nightmare was over.

My nightmare was over until I shivered as as bitter whisper blanketed me, bringing back the same white and goosebumps to the surface of my

flesh; the same air escaping from my lungs; and the same rejection of pumping in my heart.

I head fear to regret and I remorse to fear...

Respect to my own silence, and my silence is sometimes golden.

TWO

I never remembered my address. I lost it.

Nobody ever associated with me outside anyways. No man could keep my attention. I lost it;

and they've lost it too.

I just know how to turn faces--rearrange names--but they all know how to stick to a severe option in a desperate measure to build their

own security within sticks and bricks.

Their only problem was they couldn't mix their own cement.

I could build a wall of castles myself, but that would only lead my instincts to blind me more severely.

THREE

Thinking these cruel thoughts are all I can do.

I felt strapped in and insecure of my own whereabouts. My mind could escape, but it played cruel games with me as I lie dormant and

unchained. I suffer until I feel the dark depths of death beginning to drag me underneath my own weight, and as the crackes are closing in and my fingers

are all that crawl above the shattered ground, my mind and my heart begin to flow again, and I find myself alone again--alone, again.

--

That fimiliar force that nudged me to rectify my choice in seating myself had me by my own muscles. My shadow began to shift--it no longer

took place. Instead of a feeling of a human grip, I felt a simple air-like force downward. As I sat, he--or the--took my voice...

No...

He didn't do that.

I didn't know what to think--I couldn't decifer what it--he--

Whatever it is--

I just didn't know what it was doing, or what it did.

FOUR

These lights continued to shine all day.

Protesting the signs of storms aside.

Conjecture was unpromising to anything that happened today. I could tell the saddest story, and turn it right back around to be the cruelest and--

least informal.

I can say I was lackadaisical and my loss of care cost me but buffalo shit on a nickel.--At least it's how I see it.

FIVE

Even though he speaks to me, I don't like his tone--his carelessness.

SIX

Tonight, I dreamt for the first time ever.

I don't know what or how I felt. All is I know is I'm stuck--locked out; no key, and no extra key under the fake rock in the lawn by the front porch.

But I am still myself. I know because I can still feel pain. But, it doesn't hurt..?

I don't understand. This sand I'm in is my final platform, and it's like I'm slowly sinking under. I will see an end.

--

My muscles tweaked at each hint of ice trailing down each limb. I was not scared. I heard fainted speech eachoing in my head--reverberating off

each wall of the innards of my mind; the words drip from the roof, and my eyes become speakers-showering these words in my own expressions.

This was construction of a new story. My expressions, the words; my movements--we share them.

--

My own shadow jerked its jaw and began to breathe--guessing so, as its lungs flooded, and suddenly pouring out. Its breaths were not matched

with mine. I can hear its airflow. It spoke--it greeted itself--himself--myself? Whatever.

And my shadow picked its own hand up to throw out a waving motion toward me. My hand too shook in the air on its own.

SEVEN

A free wind blows through the spaces between my fingers and I find myself still staring up at the shadow of my waving hand upon the wall.

Playing on a short greeting, it says,

Hello.

I hear this voice in my head--a man. My voice trembles in unexplainable and irrational joyous-fear and I respond without hesitating,

Hello- are we aquainted?

He replies

Yes- you could say that.

I've watched y--

I immediately interrupted his echoing voice to beat around the bush a little. I was curious--conspiracies are amusing, but I am no fool,

How do you move me--how do you move, inside me?

I turned to gander at the clock, but found only shadow where it once stood. I didn't even stop to think, I just turned back to hear his voice chime

out as he finished his replies,

...of you.

I smiled at him and looked down at my hands. Out of the corner of my pitiful lazy eyes, a friendly enigma you could say, I saw--no, I watched the

blinds of a window or two open. No, they fell down... I couldn't tell how many or which one that had fell, but no light had shone through.

I stook up, faced the door on the northern wall, and tried to pick up my feet, I heard the drapes of the western wall fall as well.

I felt the same nudge down atop of my shoulders, but even harder this time,

I want you to remain seated, please- Now let your eyes browse; let them study and observe all: the drapes on the floor;

the white walls hidden behind each window hencing the absence of the dust that would have billowed there--all around where the drapes once lie...

You're practically dead.

He did not bother to explain what he meant. I did not bother to explain what I thought.

I responded swiftly,

And what about all of this should my worry be present?

After he exhausted his dragging sigh, he replied,

Does your life revolve around yourself?

What?

I muttered.

I did not understand what he meant, and he didn't bother rationalizing himself either. I moved my lips rapidly, my words failed to jet, following them.

Don't speak- I am here to free your mind. I--

I interrupted again,

But you're just a shadow- you're my shadow!

At last, I spat out noise at all.

Don't be fooled- look around you: the western wall...and the southern wall...

He caught my attention,

They're walls?

There IS a bigger world adjacent to this--there is water, just surrounding this, here.

He protested.

I simply looked around toward the floor.

But I'm home, I'm home.

I was just in "that" world- I am now.

No, you are a simple fool.

I am your company.

I am not here--I exist in the depths of your heart- your head too.

Your head is the "kingdom": in which I derive.

You wil see...

I had nothing to say. Not a word, or thought. He began to sway in the shadow-mixture of my own shadows and the trees that flow with the wind,

standing right in the view of the moon's glistening lunar shine that compliments any dream--nightmares to wet dreams.

You do not speak?

He abruplty broke the golden-gilded silence.

All I did and could do was sit and stare at the walls. I began to drown in thought again, until I looked north and then east did I not think straight,

Knock down the other curtains...

Please.

You want me to remove the drapery?

As I nodded my head follwed his transporting north. His--I mean my shadow disappeared beneath the curtains.

The curtains dropped dead like nails.

White walls again...

I muttered under my breath. I began to talk to myself as if I was alone.

The shadow sunk underneath my feet for a moment until I cathc it drift off to the eastern wall. He tucked the shadow under the curtains.

Wait- I want to burn it.

If I see another white wall, I may succumb to let myself go- if you understand my words?

He replies,

What would bruning it do for you, sir?

It will at least keep my sanity welded deep inside and the extreme white wall will at least be charred black.

Nothing wrong with that, is there?

I drew a match from my pocket-book and struck it on the sulfur paper, but only a spark. I remained still. But before I lit it, I grabbed a bottle of 151 from

the cabinet and bathed the curtain, dripping...it almost looks like its first wash, but the stinging stinch aggrevated my sinuses. As I struck the match,

a few sparks substituted for the aroma to spread quickly. After a few more simple sparks, it lit.

I threw the match overtop the rod in which the drapery held a grip upon.

The color grew brightly in my eyes and mixed in with the foresty green that acted a moat for my cornia and my iris.

The final ashes of the curtains drifted straight to the floor, and their lie my shadow and I alone...still.

EIGHT

I dreamt again today. It was a bit eerie, but did not shake me but a tad bit. I was blind the whole dream--that didn't make it so bad. I remember

that was the whole dream. I don't know why it was eerie, but I dreamt. That's all that matters to me right now.

I thought I was dead. I woke up this morning in a bes unfamiliar to me. Its creaking intruded and invaded my head. I could not see, but I

could feel...barely. A man had spoken, but I paid little to probably no attention at all for I was shaken by the very feeling of my own flesh--

uneven, unreal.

I tried to budge, but nothing happened. I couldn't move. I could barely even shift my fingers. But when I did shift around and play with my fingers

to try and feel or recognize something, I had realized that my skin was totally burnt, roasted. I kept tying to move, trying to examine the rest of

my being, but anything to keep me from moving is the biggest of my problems here. I was arrested by something--I could not move...

I was restrained by something tight, unfitting, and closing in every second--a jacket.

No... maybe I just let insanity build into me this time.