2014 Brooklyn Non-Fiction Prize Finalist
Things Blur
By
Laura Farell
My mind had become
one with New York, always moving with a frenetic energy. Things weren’t
connecting like they used to- a myriad of dislocated thoughts, grandiose ideas
and re-imagined memories sprouted in my brain like weeds and I couldn’t tend to
this garden. I lost sight of the flowers. I desperately hoped to
remember stillness. But even stillness felt like a motion. I fantasized about
silence but couldn’t hear it. Perhaps death is how we find stillness, silence.
Maybe it’s sleep. Well, not for me. I’d been waking up in fear, not
knowing where I was or how I got there. This sensation reminds me of what I
would imagine it feels like to be born or what it might feel like to be in a
grave. It was like every place and it was like no place.
It is Saturday
Night and I am certain that I am going to die soon. Death is a thickness in the
air; never had I experienced a feeling so ghostly. My brain moves with the
city; Manhattan is a dictator, after all. So I enter the underground to travel
back to Brooklyn, seeking quiet. My body moving away from this other borough,
with the false hope it might change the speed of my thoughts, reduce the fear
that lies heavy in my chest. What I am really trying to run from are certain
memories, which attack my mind. It’s a violence I can no longer take. There had
been enough violence. So I thrust the trauma into a deeper crevice of my mind,
but I fear it may be creeping into my muscles, making me jittery. It’s creeping
into my eyes creating a hyper awareness and constant need to look over my
shoulder. On the subway everyone is looking at me. They can tell something
isn’t quite right. When traveling between 1st Avenue and Bedford Avenue I lose
my balance and tumble down on the crowded subway car. A man helps me up and
asks if I am okay but I am not certain how to answer.
It hadn’t always
been this way. It being existence. This way being perplexing. It had once been
clearer or perhaps I lacked awareness. Perhaps I did not yet recognize that
existence was nonsensical. Additionally, my particular traumas of being a body
caused me a new type of bewilderment- a blurriness.
When I exit
the subway I walk down Grand Street, where I live in Williamsburg, to meet my
boyfriend at The Drink hoping to do just that, hoping that this act will dull
the noise. I want to consciously check out, find a dark corner. He is at the
end of the bar drinking a beer with a shot of whiskey beside him. Before
greeting him I take the shot, then sit down beside him and order another round.
The night continues in this direction. We travel from bar to bar in the streets
of Williamsburg but the drinking does not bring the faintness of thoughts I had
hoped that it would. We arrive at a bar called, Night of Joy but it is far from
what I experience. The bar is loud and crowded. My boyfriend’s co-workers and
boss are there and he tells me to “act normal,” not like the strange self I
have become and can’t hide. I dance frantically hoping to tire my mind
and body but when this doesn’t work I exit the bar and call my brother. I cry
into the phone slurring my words and my brother tells me I should go home. I am
a ball on the sidewalk outside the bar when my boyfriend walks drunkenly
towards me. He asks where I’ve been and I tell him I was doing my best to be
“normal.” He sits beside me on the sidewalk and says, “Let’s go home.”
The night air is
still warm even though it is October. I move down the street slowly, feeling
exhausted. He, looks at me with concerned blue eyes and asks me what is wrong.
I begin to cry, everything feels overly stimulating on the streets of Brooklyn,
the lights of the cars, the signs on stores, drunk people moving about the
streets. I can’t focus my attention or think clearly. We arrive back to
my apartment but I can’t get the key to go into the hole, my hands are shaking.
He helps me open the door and once we are inside the apartment I move quickly
to my room. I lie on my bed but I can’t find stillness, in my mind or
body. I am trembling as he rubs my back, telling me to breathe. He eventually
falls asleep, once I have stopped crying. But I cannot. The movements of my
body become out of control as I seize in my bed. I am concerned that the motion
may wake my boyfriend, but he snores softly beside me, grinding his teeth. I
don’t feel safe in my own body as I continue to convulse. Eventually around 5am
I fall asleep while listening to the sound of chirping of birds outside.
After laying awake
for a long time I decided to buy some groceries to cook breakfast for my
boyfriend to make up for my strange behavior the previous evening. He
accompanies me on the excursion. We head down Graham Street towards the local
market. While crossing the street a biker nearly hits me but I quickly dart
back to the curb. My heart races as I turn to my boyfriend who holds my hand as
we cross the street.
The grocery store
provides another kind of anxiety. Cans of food ordered neatly on the shelves
makes the lack of order in my own life feel more present. I quickly head to the
refrigerated aisle and pick up eggs. I attempt to open the container to make
certain that none are cracked and in doing so I drop them all. The eggs shatter
on the floor yellow yolk running by my feet. My boyfriend laughs, “Something is
seriously wrong with you.”
I bend down
feeling guilty as an attendant of the mart approaches with a mop. I grab another
dozen without checking for cracks, apologize profusely for the mess I’ve
created and checkout.
On the way home I
move quickly and as I cross the street where the near fatal almost bike
incident occurred when something brushes my face. I scream and then turn to see
that what has brushed my face was a monarch butterfly flying peacefully by.
“You are a crazy little monster,” my boyfriend scoffs.
The day progresses
as does my anxiety. Night time comes and drinks were had and people became
tired and drifted towards their beds. My boyfriend and I moved towards mine as
well and to I fall asleep. But something strange happens while I am asleep. I
wake up somewhere that is not my bed.
I wake up on the
roof, body trembling and exhausted, body so close to the edge. This is the
first time my sleepwalking had been really bad, I’d done it in the past but it
was usually more like waking up trying to run the bath, or doing the dishes, or
eating a whole bag of apples. This was bad. This was an edge of a building
several floors up from my comfortable bed. I call my boyfriend who is still in
my bed, a million times. He doesn’t answer. I call my brother once, he answers.
He helps me get down, close the roof door, find my way back to the ground floor
where I live. I collapse on the couch.
My boyfriend finds
me on the couch the next morning and asks if everything is alright. I feel
okay, surprisingly. I feel rested. So I just nod. He heads off to work and I
decide to leave the house as well.
Walking down
Graham Street towards Greenpoint I am hyper aware of the things going on around
me. I notice the different shops and places along the way. There’s a restaurant
called Mother’s, a bar called Daddy’s, Uncle Louie’s ice cream shop and finally
right under the BQE, Grandma’s Rose’s pizzeria. It’s all connected. We are all
family. I am suddenly happy in a strange and new way. It seems as though my
anxieties have vanished. As I grow closer to the McCarren Park I notice details
of people’s faces, of things around me. I wander around for the rest of the day
speaking with strangers. Eventually I head home to bed.
In my bed, another
night without sleep, I feel my body shake uncontrollably. My eyes won’t s stay
closed and I am unable to lie still. I want to remember stillness, even
stillness feels like a motion lately. I fantasize about silence, I can’t hear
it. Perhaps death is how we find stillness, silence. Maybe it’s sleep. Not for
me. I’ve been waking up in fear, not knowing where I am and how I got
there. It sort of feels like being born. It sort of feels like being a grave.
It sort of feels like every place and no place.
Things haven’t been connecting
lately. It’s like a lot of pieces, strands of things. Today was an exciting day
but I can’t put it all together. Things are both absent and present. The
fabric of the language behind my emotions is falling to pieces. I am trying my
best to put it back together, to figure out what is going on. The stakes feel
high.
I hear my
boyfriend grinding his teeth in his sleep, a trait which I usually find
endearing, not tonight. It has been too many sleepless nights and with this
sound I will be unable to sleep.
“Wake up” I command him. He opens
his eyes with a concerned look on his face.
“You need to leave.”
“I don’t think
that’s a good idea” He responds groggily, “You are acting strange again
tonight, I don’t want to leave you alone.”
“I can’t sleep. I need sleep. You
need to leave.”
“I don’t think that is a good idea.
I am concerned about you.”
“But I need sleep! You need to go!”
“You are acting crazy!” He yells,
“I’ve never seen anyone act this way. I’m concerned.”
“I need sleep! I can’t sleep with
you here!” I am growing agitated. I need to look out for my health. I need to
figure things out.
“Fine!” He yells, “I don’t think
this is a good idea” he says as he begins to move from my bed. He throws a ring
I’ve given him to the ground in anger.
“You don’t have to act that way!”
“You are acting crazy!” He repeats.
I throw the ring he has given me in
response. “Go!” I scream.
He does and I fall
asleep almost instantly, exhausted. But the rest is not restful and I wake in
an hour feeling anxious. I need to move.
I exit my
apartment and go outside. The night air feels cool but refreshing. It is
still dark and currently around 4:00 am. I feel bad for having kicked out my
boyfriend and I decide that I should go out and look for him, even though
he left about an hour or two before. I begin to run down the street. I pass the
diner a local diner and notice the lights are on. I go in and ask if I can use
the bathroom. The cook, beginning to prepare for the day, agrees although he
seems surprised to see me. I thank him and leave.
It suddenly feels
as though anything is possible. As if anything I want I can do or have and that
people will help me, like the man in the diner. If I need to go to the bathroom
I could stroll into whatever the nearest building was and ask to use it. People
are accommodating. My experiences earlier today also made me aware of this
fact. I’m on the verge of new ideas.
The world feels as
though it is trembling with the need to communicate. Every sign in the window
of a store means something. There is a cosmic relatedness about everything.
Papers on the ground hold secret meaning. I stop to look signs in every
storefront and to pick up pieces of paper or trash I see on the ground. I
assume that everything has some important message because this is a moment of
change. Everyone has been talking about it. Everyone has been talking in codes
about it though, which I have to decode. It is a language of puns and
riddles. I am finally beginning to understand. Everything around me holds
secret meaning. I have to figure out what it is. I’ve been overwhelmed by these
ideas and not sleeping but things are coming together. I have a role in
all of this change. I need to contact everyone that I can to tell them of my revelations.
As I run down the
street my thoughts move rapidly, I think of all that there is to do and all
that I have to say. There aren’t many people on the street at this time but
everyone I see I make eye contact with. A man follows me for a bit and I am
certain that it is because he wants to protect me. He can sense my importance.
This is a special time and things are going to be different now for me. I can’t
live in constant fear, as I have been. This man must be following me because he
knows who I am and is protecting me. People are beginning to recognize me. My
phone is recording me and streaming everything I do on the internet.
I continue down
the street picking up papers off the ground and knocking on storefront doors,
none of which are currently open. I find a card on the ground for a cab
company. I decide to use it later today to get to school. The ride will be
free, I am certain. I see a cat and decide to follow it for a while. It leads
me back towards my home and I realize I should return home and prepare for the
day. The sun is beginning to come up.
At home I take a
bath. I watch my naked body twitch in the tub but I don’t feel concerned about
my body’s uncontrollable movements. I instead move out of the tub and dance
around my room, putting on wild makeup and recording a video of myself doing
so. I get dressed and wipe some of the makeup off my face but there is a line
of pink lipstick up my arms that won’t come off. This makes me laugh. I
put on a sweater. I text a bunch of people from my phone whom I feel I need to
speak to today, my parents, my brother, some friends, some people I haven’t
spoken to in a long while. I text my boyfriend feeling bad for kicking
him out. I then call the cab company on the card I found in the street. I give
them my address.
I head out the door and the cab is
waiting for me.
“This is a free cab service,
right?” I say as I get into the car. “I have an apple for you!”
The man says, “You can’t pay for
the ride?”
“No, I can’t. But I have an apple
that you can have.” He takes the apple and accepts the deal. I feel so
successful, as though anything is possible. I call my mom and leave her a
message about my recent good fortune. She doesn’t answer and I call my dad and
do the same thing.
The cab driver asks if I am married
and I tell him,
“Yes. You have to be in this day
and age,” I explain, though I’m not sure why I do this. But it makes me feel
safer talking to this man and him believing that I am married. I text
Timothy and my brother. The cab driver asks if he can drop me off at first and
14th street instead of taking me to my school. I agree.
“Thank you so much!” I say as I
leave the cab. He smiles.