Blog: Little Dragons

Mine was making my bed. It wasn’t anything impossible. My arms still worked. It was more my mind, my tongue, that stopped moving when my mind had something to say. Stress was the primer, silence the aftermath. My eyes blurred and I made a choice: surrender and fail to speak, or scream internally, want to cry, and fail to speak.

To onlookers, I’m guessing I just looked through them. My clear blue eyes, clouded, lost. Then I wouldn’t talk for around twenty minutes. More, less? I never had a stopwatch nearby, when going catatonic. Mel said it was twenty-ish minutes to an hour. She’d lose me for chunks, every day, for well over a year.

She still calls it “The year you were gone.” She follows that, sometimes, with “more like year and a half.” We got me a dog, for her. It was kind, soft, good-natured. A cuddly husky, lazy. A rare thing, we called it a miracle. It died of cancer, too. Both my parents, the same, before it. My brother took a bullet train, minus the train. All between 2016 and 2020. Then, that big thing happened. Lots of people died. Lots of us made it, confused, happy to breathe air like we used to. Some still choose the masks.

I still cringe, helpless to go back in time. Can’t save anyone, do anything. Wife says I’ve always wanted to save people, play hero. Even when I couldn’t go to work, leave our home without shaking. I didn’t cry from 2016 to… what was it, 2021? Lots of folks I knew died, some weren’t close but some were neighbors. Pals. I couldn’t save a lot, a little. Nobody. Not even myself.

So I made my bed.

To say I didn’t want to, after my first few weeks on Seroquel, would be understating it. For two weeks, maybe more, I was asleep while awake. Preferred to be alone a lot, hence the dog. Got stressed by shadows, too much noise and too much quiet. Thoughts of the dead would surface, hover inside me. Not hurt me, per se, but exist when they would have been better left behind. I’d feel haunted for a day, a week.

Forty, or so, from my shifting count. People, then not. Memories. Names.

I had dreams again, once I got comfortable on the medication. Somewhat comfy, anyway. Returning to dreaming was joyful, they were just different. Some, more beautiful. One, priceless. Closure beyond… beyond. Others brought chills. Them, silent, still in party scenes. In shadow but only a little. Eyes not moving, mouths closed. Frozen, amid the party’s life. Fear didn’t caress me, as much as inform. I looked at them, not away. No disrespect shown, no horror either. At least, I guess? Ask my wife, or the dog, if I screamed in my sleep. Seroquel, remember?

There’s a funny bit by Kat Williams about Seroquel. In that same special, another bit about being in prison and terrified. Praying “there’s been a miscommunication, Jesus… my cup runneth over, Lord, and I’m not even thirsty.” Trouble and pain seem measured out rarely, in the moment. Looking back though (if you survive, I imagine) you see what all you’ve learned, used from that pain. All pain.

I recall learning the motions, putting the pillow back up top, slapping it a few times. Pulling the fuzzy plush over in relative smoothness, my custom “Goosebumps” blanket Mel made for me. Tugging the corners a bit. Admiring the flowing blue stretched out over my side of the bed. Remembering the legends someone (my grandpa, maybe?) told me about having to make the bed so tight that you could bounce a quarter off it. I never went that far, that hardcore.

Someone else could game-ify it, going harder.

Staring at the smooth blue, I’d hope to come back to myself. Be the man she married. Maybe better, maybe less “out there, dreaming” and more “being with her.” Less on the road, even when home.

I’ve been home a long time, leaving very rarely. Maybe it’s time to… well, someday.

I was never good at productive habits. Not exercise or therapy. Stopping watching porn, eating too much sugar. I smile, here: sounds like hell to stop smoking, that’s why I never started. Eating crap is a past-time of mine, and I’m working at it. I’m writing a war journal on porn, the nicest one anyone will. Possibly, helpful. Still trying to save people. Hope to keep on with it.

On YouTube, X, and Substack. Trying to spread… whatever I’ve become. Am becoming.

Am creating.