It was a normal night with my family until I noticed that water started feeling a bit gloopy and dense, like if it was gel. I thought it was weird, so I decided to try another bottle, but it was the same. My family started noticing how I was acting weird because while they were talking about one subject, I swear on God I was hearing them talking about something else, and what I heard didn’t make much sense either. I was feeling in a disassociating, dream-like stance. So bad that with each growing second it worsened.
My family said that I was never getting a job because of my disability. And I started to wander on my own to search for water as I was so thirsty. But I decided to search for a psychologist. My mind was oscillating between reality and dream. As in the middle of my world, I found myself already entering a building. I know I wasn’t there before, but now I am here. As if waking up from a dream, your body realizes and switches quickly to the new world.
In this building or hospital, I was waiting for the appointment. My family already knew about my disorder. They were critical about me, but at the same time they carried me to go there. The building had its lights turned off, like half the rooms were dimly lit, as if a store nearing its closing. So I had to go to the psychiatrist’s office to get him and explain how my reality was warping, how I was hearing things that didn’t exist, and how time melted my scenes into other places.
But the office was so hard to find. I entered a door and it led to outside. I entered the main door to the building but it led to an outside place—like a festival. Running cars and dust with happy people dancing and cheering. As I realized my reality was getting more and more unstable, I phased out and came back… in a chair outside the hospital building.
My clothes were untied but not undressed. I walked the stone path and found the door to the building. I saw no one. I found the elevator and decided to climb it to the top floor. In it, the people were actually working, running busy from place to place. And my only goal was to get to him and explain how I was losing myself.
I burst into the door and found it empty. An empty office with documents on the desk. One had a written note: “SINCE YOU WERE LATE TO THE APPOINTMENT I HAD TO GO TO A QUICK ERRAND I WILL BE BACK SOON.” And alongside the documents, some other papers had information about me. But they looked like blueprints and high-definition prints of ideas of my mind, my likings and dislikes. The map of my internal brain was known and structured in a mathematical way.
I tried waiting. I tried waiting in the office. Until the paintings turned into sky and my floor turned into dust. I was again in that outdoor festival. I was launching sandbags into holes in order to entertain myself. No. I can’t leave. Not again, not anymore.
As I switched myself, I found that there was a man in the office. He was calmly reading the papers with a slight expression of confusion. “Are you the psychologist?” I asked. “Me? Uhm, no. I’m a chemist,” he replied. And as I was trying to get a response from him, I realized he was not what I needed. I needed that psychologist, with however little time or sanity I had left.
But the man asked me why this girl was so referenced. In the documents, this chick — a friend and sometimes crush — was mentioned, and for some reason it made sense to search for her. To bring her here to explain better to the psychologist. Even though I am not really sure if the man really suggested that. Or if the man is even real. I can’t be certain that I’m alone in that office.
Because as I turned, I was again in another place: her school. But it wasn’t her school, it was mine. My kindergarten school. And I had to search for her here in this crowd of kids running around the place. I needed to go to the church. A church? In a middle school? And so I moved to see a big forming line of kids. Oh, I’m not waiting for that. I’m not stepping into the line. I broke through and started searching the faces of each child. She must be here, but where?
But as I approached the end of the school, my reality began to melt and fade. I wanted to reach her, but I was losing time. I focused as much as I could. Without waking up — I couldn’t wake up here now. I needed the psychologist. But as I fought to hold reality, I shifted.
I couldn’t. My body wasn’t tired enough anymore. The sunlight hit, reflected through my windows. I had to abandon the search. And wake.