Recurrence

I'm currently experimenting on styles of writing, and this is my first short story that tries to incorporate a person's stream of consciousness. All rights reserved.

I felt that it was already past midnight.

"Ugh. I still can’t sleep,” I thought to myself.

My eyes have been clamped shut for almost an hour, but the lingering thoughts that have been running in my mind had prevented my body from following suit. Slightly giving up to this restlessness, I opened my eyes and glanced at the wall clock that had been collecting dust at the corner of my room. It was hard to see because the room was enveloped in darkness, and the only available light source was the flickering beam that was emitted by the busted blue lamp on my desk. The lack of adequate lighting, as well as my struggle to sleep, forced me to squint my eyes, as my pupils tried to focus on the hands of the clock to check what time it was. It was, indeed, after midnight, thirty four minutes past twelve to be exact. A sigh escaped from my nostils as I laid perfectly still on my bed, eyes fixated at the ceiling.

“What on earth is keeping me up so late?” I wondered to myself. I was worried about losing sleep because I had a big day at work the next day. My company was in the process of upgrading our systems, and as the principal sponsor of the project, I had to devote most of my work hours to monitoring and improving the upgrade’s progress. The late nights have been going on for the past few days now, and to be honest, I was pretty exhausted. Not knowing the answer to that recurring question did not help at all. 

My line of thought was interrupted by the choking sound of the fan’s motor. I remembered foregoing the A/C for the night because it had rained the whole day, and along with an open window, the fan was enough to keep me cool under the sheets. I shivered the cold in me away and turned to my side to search for some warmth from the pillows that were right beside me.

My eyes opened wide.

I shot up to a seated position, with my palm, wet from a sudden occurrence of cold sweat, on my forehead. Cold sweat. It all came back to me.

"It wasn't always like this." 

The comfort that I had seconds ago disappeared as fast as it was realized. I reclined back to my initial position; my eyes focused on the ceiling once again. 

I felt my left hand, palm faced down towards the bed sheet, search for something beside me. Although nothing, except for my cold pillows, was there, memories of warmness emanating from that particular spot, as if someone had been sleeping there, rushed back to me. 

The room, and all the sounds and distractions that came with it, slowly faded. I was left staring at what seemed to be a long dark tunnel, with nothing but this cold hard realization as my crutch to help me traverse it. 

I didn’t realize, until that moment, that it was getting harder and harder to remember how it felt for my hand to search for something beside me, and actually feel reciprocity. The sensation felt a little too normal for my taste.

The tunnel seemed to be longer this time. I tried feeling for a wall, but there wasn’t any around me. With nothing else to do, I decided to move forward. I thought about trying to reach the end, but the more I walked forward, the more the memory of warmth moved further away. 

At that point, I felt stuck and helpless. Me: a grown man. Helpless. I tried looking back to try to retrace my steps, but there was nothing behind me except a veil of pitch black darkness. There were no flickering lights from my busted blue desk lamp to guide me this time. Since there was no choice but to try to follow that memory of warmth, I continued to move forward. It was faint, but it was there. I felt it, although each step forward made the eye-opening realization feel much closer to reality. 

So I walked. It didn’t feel right, but I had no other choice. Despite not have to squint anymore, and my eyes were wide open, I still didn’t know where I was headed. I tried to guess which way to go to, but to no avail, I ended up wandering around. After what felt like half-a-day, something shiny in the horizon caught my eye. 

Ding.

The hair at the back of my neck stood up. “Could it be?” I asked myself. I hastened my pace, “crutch" in hand, and headed towards the direction of the shiny... object. I didn’t know what it was, but the thought of it felt warm. It appeared again, and this time, it lingered for a couple of seconds. I still couldn’t tell what it was, but seeing it only encouraged me to walk faster.

Ding.

It took some time for the shiny object to appear again, and although it didn’t disappear anymore, it looked really far away from where I was standing. It didn’t take long for me to sense that increasing my walking speed was starting to pay off; it looked like I was getting closer and closer to the object as time went by. And despite the heaviness that started to creep on my legs, I still continued walking.

I was right. I knew I was getting closer because it came to a point when, although it was still quite far, I started to recognize what it really was -- a door knob. A small, shiny, golden door knob in the middle of the darkness. I was ecstatic at the thought that, finally, I was going to be able to reach the end. My mind was filled with guesses about what was behind the door. It was all the right kinds of warm. My vigor was renewed with each step that I took. When I realized that I was shy of a hundred meters away from the door knob, which looked relatively life-sized already, I dashed like my life depended on it. In some ways, I really thought it did.

I stopped right in front of the door knob. And despite the build up of my anticipation and excitement, I wasn’t able to help but notice my inverted reflection on the door knob. I looked a little ruffled, not to mention tired, but it didn’t matter. I was almost out of the darkness, and all I had to do was turn the knob.

I reached out and held the shiny golden door knob. It felt like a familiar kind of warmness. I held it for a bit before my pent-up anticipation reminded me of what was potentially waiting for me behind whatever the door knob was attached to. “This is it,” I told myself. I turned the knob.

Ding. 

Darkness greeted me behind the door. I was confused. I blinked, and when I opened my eyes, a steady flow of sunlight dancing with the flickering light form my desk lamp met my gaze. I tried to make sense of what just happened, and I let out a deep sigh when I realized what the situation was. I was back. I turned my head towards the direction of the dusty old wall clock to confirm that I was indeed back in my cold room, alone. I closed my eyes again, which caused me to visualize the door knob shoot away into the dark unknown.

"I really thought this time, it was going to be different."

END

Author's Note

still working on the tenses, not sure yet. thanks!