Unsanitary Sipping

An omnipresent part of life

A famous researcher I’ve never heard of clears his throat and gives the crowd a warm smile. He thanks us for being here and notes the importance of his findings. Stress. Stress is a reaction to a stimulus that disturbs our physical or mental equilibrium. Research suggests that there are four possible phenomena occurring inside the human brain when an individual feels stress. These occurrences often play out simultaneously and with limited awareness for the individual. Though chemically unique, each one of these unsolved mysteries share a common variable. In the unlikely event you find yourself gaining a realization of what is going on, do not panic. Stress alone is hard on the body, but an unconscious disruptance of stress can be detrimental.

Festivities are joyous as the crowd jubilantly sings out Dennis Rodman quotes. Annotated fiction and masked ravens square dance with the sole intention to not storm the beaches of Normandy. Invisible tea is served, always throwing the fourth cup into the bonfire. The flames speak in calligraphy and fluctuate into faint images of objects like trains, Ethiopian flags, and disorientation. Clouds wake up from their hibernation and go back to their nine to five jobs. A pile of sand tosses me a single sandal and I use it to mix my tea, maintaining a clockwise rhythm. I check the grill and adjust the barbequed anxiety. I tie my shoe and glance up to see the grill being stolen by a group of enchanted cats. I chase them. I follow them for hours and casually acknowledge the crowd at the party as we circle back around them. We’re running in circles and yet I can’t catch them. I’m on a deserted island and while there’s no escape for these phantasmal cats, I can never quite seem to catch them.

My phone vibrates but I don’t answer it because I’m at a wedding and it would be rude. The priest speaks to the groom again: Do you take this woman to be your wife in sickness and in health, etc. The groom is a friend of a friend and this is the fifth time he’s been asked this question. From what I can tell, it’s been at least half an hour. He’s ambivalent; he wonders if he’ll be able to afford the rent. A middle-aged gentleman sitting in front of me turns around and introduces himself. They call him the Panther. I ask him who he knows here and his response is that he’s only here for the collection. The collection? He tells me that every human has a few screws loose in them and his job is to collect them. He points at the groom and I watch as three transparent screws wiggle out of his ear and silently hit the ground. I do. The crowd breaks into applause and the Panther casually gets up and picks up the screws. He looks at me, knowing I have more questions for him. He eats a screw. All you need to know is that our bodies aren’t built to handle the constant pressure of life and that’s why we lose screws. You’d go insane if it was any different he tells me, as he eats another screw and laughs.

Disgruntled, I put my phone away - why can’t people answer their phones. Society is now forcing everyone to maintain the well-being of a tree. Rule 721 they call it. My sapling has its roots in a bowl of cereal and I don’t know how I’ll be able to keep this thing alive. The radio cuts to silence and I hear the familiar voice. Rule 722: all humans will be designated a star and have a duty to wash and dry it once a week. Effective tonight at 10 p.m. I look at the sky. How is that logical? Rule 723: all humans must log their thoughts in journals, provided by Society, and these journals will be analyzed periodically. Effective tomorrow. I have too many thoughts at once. I can’t do this? Rule 724: all humans will limit their footsteps to 108 steps. Effective immediately. Rule 725: all humans must run at least one mile a day to keep their hearts healthy. Effective immediately. Rule 726: all humans must submit documentation of the exact time they fall asleep. Failure to answer correctly will result in punishment. Effective tomorrow night. I can’t keep up with all these rules and regulations. How is this fathomable? I resort to my usual antidote and close my eyes. Zzzzz.

The professor concludes his speech and I feel so enlightened. I really need to go to these kinds of seminars more often because they help better myself. I ask the girl sitting next to me if she liked learning about the whole stress awareness thing. She hesitates. She mumbles to me and I’m taken aback. What do you mean this was a Christmas musical? I cough. I cough and can’t stop coughing. The elves on stage look at me. Santa is clapping. My vision is getting fuzzy and I can barely keep myself up. My eyes begin to close rather sluggishly. I feel something come up my throat and I spit it into a napkin. A screw.

© 2017 Gaston Villanueva

Author's Note

I have a few screws loose myself

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Rana

Reading this was like wandering in a dream! Your conscious thought process imitates the subconscious one quite perfectly, it's remarkable.
"The flames speak in calligraphy"- beautifully put. About the morphs i said oh it's usually clouds we try to interpret shapes from and then they were talked about next :P
Good thing the cats stole the "barbecued anxiety" - eater disguised as food. The cats are actually symbolic, right, - um, of? They do serve to distract the mind from anxiety but now you're trapped in a loop of thoughts leading you to no conclusion, as in circles? Or wait, i got it, you chasing the cats is like a metaphor for the consciousness chasing the next thought and you can't really get your hands on them because there always is another next. Yay. The wedding para is the best, what with its subtle satire and the loose screws taken so literally it's refreshing. The groom goes from having loose screws to having lost screws, haha. The Panther's version of explaining stress is a sharp contrast to the researcher's version, of course, and it's cool to see Art and Science dealing with the matter differently. Also, can I borrow the rule book, because I loved the excerpt, haha, clever-imaginative rules. Society sure loves torturing. The journal one would be my favorite if Society could manage to come up with the technology to make an automatic thought logger, with privacy controls. I love the climax and the ambiguity [whether the Panther and the protagonist were the same (schizophrenic) person or the protagonist was actually dealing with stress too] in the ending. I love the whole piece, actually. The craziness is so infectious I felt screwless by the time I completed reading this- which might mean I was freed of all stress, right? Haha, this is the Gaston's Best and is totally my new favorite of yours! :)