A Serious Cloud Formation

__________Serious Cloud Formations________

With malice, frozen ice grips the granite firmament in a grinding, glacial embrace, hobbling the mountain’s lofty pursuits.

Anthropomorphic Secquence

The Author

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         What can you do when your two-pound cluster of neurons refuses to fire in a predictable manner? What else can you do but ride out the experience like it is a bad trip. I'm stuck in that place right now, the bad trip place.

         I think I'm dead.

         You can understand what I'm talking about by imagining that the car you're driving is just about to crash into a tree. There's a place—actually a time—just seconds before your head goes flying through the windshield when everything stops and reality changes. Time looses meaning. Your life, both its past and your hopeful future, flash before your eyes as though the impending doom doesn't even matter.

         I'm stuck in that dreadful time right now, but the crash never actually happens. It's a time warp ride, and I can't get off. I want to scream.

         Here's what happened just moments ago (or maybe longer). It really was a pathetic day….

         Sunny, clear, and all that, but in spite of the handsome environment I was in another existential stupor with a serious self-pity thing going on. Still, I had my cigarettes and a bale of hay that provided a comfortable place to lay my head. But there were sounds as well; other distractions, including a cool breeze and a warm sun.

         So, I'm laying back on my armchair of hay, eyes closed in a relaxed way. I missed the flash completely; it was the assaulting thermal winds that rattled me from my daydream.

         It was a powerful and angry force that lifted me directly from horizontal to vertical for a brief moment, and then all hell broke loose. First, I first greeted the hard ground with my knees which shattered from the impact. Then, I was hurled backward like a cartwheeling cadaver. The adrenaline rush caused all of my senses to misfire at the same instant. My pupils dilated and began to flex and pulse as my brain attempted to adjust for the bright fires that now blazed all around and in the distance.

         Now here's where I get caught in that bad-trip place. The problem is, I see the situation differently, not exactly like a car crash, but more of a birds-eye view of the melee, you might say. It’s as if I were outside the car watching it approach, yet in the driver's seat at the same time—completely unable to scream.

         I tried to drag myself away from the nearest fires; of course, my hay bales had ignited immediately. I was forced to watch, wracked with pain from my shattered legs, as I dragged myself across a field of blooming alfalfa. I could only watch as my skin began to blister and peel away leaving a trail of blood and gore.

         Then, as another concussive wave of unnatural heat and wind coursed past, my bones blew apart, flinging soft tissue, muscles and organs in all directions. My heart continued beating through the torture, and the effect was absolutely spectacular.

         And now—I’m not sure—it seems like everything happened only moments ago. I can still see things, like the shredded remains of my body, the fires, and destruction, but it’s all different now. I’m no fool, those aren’t normal clouds there on the horizon; they grow taller, blossoming like a flowering hard-on.

         I don’t know how long all this will last, this bad-trip thing. This is uncharted territory for me. But as I think about it, there is a slightly brutal consolation to this day. I was spared the grief of watching the destruction of mankind. Instead, it was just this man.