Breathe [06-21-07]

Breathe in. Breathe out.

I concentrate on it. A simple exercise, pulling oxygen into the lungs, pushing carbon dioxide out. There's a rhythm to it. I lose myself in it.

It's so much simpler this way. Sitting here, in this broken down office chair, the strength gone from my limbs, just breathing. It's like a little heaven. A little moment of nirvana, all on its own. The blood on my hands is starting to dry. It's okay. Most of it isn't mine. Some of it is. Maybe I should get it checked, go to a doctor. But no, now's not the time to think about that. Just focus. Relax.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

I feel a little like a ragdoll. Somebody's plaything. If they wanted to, someone could string me up like a marionnette and dance me about. I wouldn't care. I don't mean that negatively. I don't mean I would be bitter about it, but make no action against it. Most people mean that when they say they don't care. When they say that, it really just means they do care, but they're too frustrated with how helpless they are to change it, so they try to brush it off. But me, right now, I'm at peace. There's a lot of violence in the world. There's a lot of bad things, and a lot of bad people. There are a lot of people who would love to use me and throw me away. I'm okay with that. If they wanted to, they could come into this little abandoned cubicle, throw me over a shoulder and take me away to do what they pleased. I wouldn't mind too much, because I'm breathing and the pattern is soothing. As long as I could keep breathing I think everything would be okay.

I try to think about what just happened. There's a wrench dangling from my left hand, the jaws percariously balanced on the office floor. It makes a dent between the loops in the carpet. I think there's still blood on it. I'm tempted to check, but I stop myself, gently reprimanding myself from action. I did all that already. Now's the time to relax.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

The world turns surreal. The room is dark, but I can see everything. The tiles on the ceiling with the carefully punctured holes are occasionally interrupted by a sprinkler. They make interesting shapes together. Suspended from the ceiling are wide bands of lights, the long fluorescent lightbulbs cold and quiet behind their foggy glass covers. Some of the tiles have waterstains on them. Some of them are missing, and I can see into the next floor's underside, the water and electrical pipes barely catching the dim light. There are three walls around me. They're not very tall, maybe reaching five or six feet. The rest of the office is empty. Most of the other cubicles have been taken down. I try to remember what sequence of events got me here.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Breathe in. Breathe in. I twitch a smirk. Funny little change of pace, but now my lungs are too full. Long breath out. Let it all out. The pattern's been interrupted, and I try my best to regulate it again, make it as good as the first pattern, maybe better.

Something rises in my mind, someone with questions for my Buddha's peace. My body operates peacefully. My heart beats, and the patterns overlap. It seems discordant at first, but eventually I understand the rhythm. I relax.

Did they deserve it?

The faint sound of sirens catches my ear, even beyond the deafening silence. Here comes the consequence. I'm surprised it took this long for it to hit. Usually punishment is more punctual, right on the tail of crime. I search though the archives of my mind, what I had seen of the world. Perhaps it was not so for others. Quite often it was not so for them. But always it was so for me.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Nice and easy. It felt right. My body thanks me for it. I oblige it kindly. See, we get along alright. Mostly.

Is it time already?

It seems random to wonder that, but I don't question it. I don't question the natural order of things, or the way my mind jumps from thing to thing. I learn it's okay sometimes to let my mind wander. But sometimes it's not okay, and my mind wanders into the darker alleys of my psyche. Sometimes I spend days and nights struggling to pull it out of the grips of my demons.

This, though. We were in the light for this. Nothing can be blamed on those creatures of darkness.

I think to myself that I'm sounding crazy. This is crazy talk. It's okay. I breathe, in and out.

In and out.

It's alright. It's okay. They're almost here. The universe will be settled soon. Good, evil, everything in moderation, that is how it works.

Then the questioner in my mind asks something I'm not sure I know the answer to. It stops the pattern of my breath for a moment. That terrible, uncertain moment, that skip in the rhythm that my body tries to find again, tries to recover from.

Do I regret it?

In and out. In and out. In and out, out, out.

Breathe in.

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Pnelma's Pen