Is There Life On Mars?

The middle of the day flows into the end as the beginning felt just out of reach now. I lean back and close my eyes. I can feel the earth rotate beneath me. I search for the bliss of hearing the bustle of work around me, just on the other side of the partitioned wall. The chair beneath me sinks, and I'm floating in my dreams. I'm aware of my body, but don't feel a thing.

Not a single thought races across my mind, and only then I start to breath. I've been fighting at being productive all day, and my lack of laziness has paid off. My worries, fears, and loathes are all but gone it seems, and I don't know what hide and seek game they are playing, but I'm glad they've let me get to home base, if at least for the moment.

Before I remember it I find my face being held up by a thousand red poles. They are gentle and warm in touch, and a wry smile spreads across my cheek as I realize that I had been dreaming for a time. I don't remember what time I started to read my book, or remember a conscious decisions to abandon it and lay the right side of my face down on the soft red blanket I have on my bed. I don't even know how long I was untethered from my consciousness. It could've been a minute or a week, and regardless of the difference between the two, I feel extremely refreshed and worried.

The weight on my mind has been one worthy of a two man lift, but I've been mulling over it mostly alone. I watch the world deteriorate around me, and wonder what my part will be. I imagine I could be in the middle of stopping things, of saving it all. In my thoughts, i realize the sacrifices we must make, before it's all to late, before we've squandered it all. We've been selfish and greedy for far too long.

The earth rotates and I flinch back awake, feeling the gravity pulling me back into the chair I had forgotten I was sitting in. I open my eyes, the bustle, the noise is gone. The barrier between it and I is also gone. They all are staring at me. I look in their faces, can feel their contempt, can see the hope of my demise in their evil eyes. They have my eyes. My arrogance has turned me into them. They stand fast and ready to take my chair, and I never even realized I had it. It's gone. I no longer float, I no longer have my chair. I sit on the floor in my rags and cloths.


Counterfeiting Ourselves