It's been a long day. You've just gotten off of work after a tiring shift. It wasn't easy, but you've done it. You're back at your apartment room, right in front of the door. Home sweet home. Time to settle down for the night.
You open the door and walk inside.
You are greeted with the many sensory greetings cards that make your room special, though they're a little different from the usual. A heinous musk fills the air, like the aroma of roadkill without the burnt rubber. Much of the furniture, flooring, and walls are coated with a feint tint of reddish brown.
Things are also quite messy. Admittedly, that's normal; you haven't really had the time to clean up around here. It's disorganized, and several items are on the floor, like receipts, blankets, clothing from the laundry hamper... it wasn't like that when you left, but spills happen.
It's far from pristine, but it's home. That being said, it could be better. And you could make it better. But... do you need to? You're... just so tired.
[[I MAY HAVE SOME PAPERS TO DO. THAT WOULD NOT TAKE MUCH ENERGY.| GO TO THE DESK ]]
[[I AM SIMPLY FILTHY AFTER ALL THAT HARD WORK. I MUST GO TO THE SINK AND WASH MYSELF. | GO TO THE SINK ]]
[[THE BURDEN OF MY WORK WAS TOO MUCH. I MUST SIMPLY REST IN MY BED. | GO TO THE BED ]]Paperwork is something you don't want to put off. Besides, it's just some quick writing. That's nothing to fuss about.
You walk over to your desk.
Naturally, it's a mess. Tons of papers are laying everywhere, on the floor, on the chair, on the desk... well, okay, they were ALL on the desk before. That's a little odd. Tons of them have those reddish brown stains as well. You're generally good about keeping important documents in safe places, so that doesn't concern you too much.
So, you sit down in your rigid wooden chair. You pull up to the desk. Time to do some work.
But what work do you do?
[[AN ORGANIZED WORKSPACE IS MY KIND OF WORKSPACE. I WILL CLEAN UP ALL THESE PAPERS|PICK UP THE PAPERS]]
[[THERE IS PROBABLY SOMETHING I MUST TEND TO ON MY COMPUTER|ACTIVATE THE COMPUTER]]
[[I WILL LOOK AT THE IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS THAT I HAVE STOWED AWAY IN MY DRAWER|LOOK IN THE DRAWER]]A nice splash of water will be a welcome way to end the night. You head over to the sink to cleanse your mind and your face.
The sink has certainly looked better. The frame is dented on the front, as if someone bashed a very large hammer against it. The spout is slightly warped downwards. There are small, stray shards of glass from the mirror on the wooden cabinet above the sink, which now brandishes a complex network of ragged cracks. The entire sink is covered with the same reddish brown stains of the rest of the room, and the bowl shows a feint, uneven pink tint.
The sink wasn't exactly clean when you left, but it's dirtier now than it was several hours ago. You may be able to at least rub the stains off, but it's probably not too urgent. You're here to rest, after all.
[[I WANT TO AT LEAST SEE HOW I LOOK IN THE MIRROR BEFORE I WASH UP|LOOK IN THE MIRROR]]
[[CLEANING THE SINK SHOULD NOT TAKE TOO LONG|CLEAN THE SINK]]
[[THIS CAN ALL WAIT UNTIL TOMORROW. I WILL SIMPLY WASH UP|CLEANSE YOURSELF]]You approach your bed, and... wow. This bed is simply a mess.
The blankets are crumpled up and barely covering the bed. In fact, they're barely on it in the first place. The sheet that wraps around the mattress is... well, barely wrapped around the mattress. It's hard to tell that this is a bed, frankly.
It's also filthy. You know that it's been a while since the sheets have been washed, but the stains are unsightly. So much reddish brown covers the plaid comforter. They also carry that same horrid smell of the rest of the room, but it's stronger here.
[[IT IS TOO LATE TO MAKE THE BED NOW. I WILL SIMPLY SLEEP ON IT AS IS AND ADJUST IT TOMORROW.| SLEEP ON THE BED]]
[[I SHOULD AT LEAST ADJUST THE SHEETS. A WELL MADE BED MEANS A WELL HAD REST.| MAKE THE BED]]
[[I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO SLEEP WITH THE BED IN THIS STATE. I MUST SIMPLY THROW THESE SHEETS IN THE LAUNDRY AND ADD NEW ONES. | ADD NEW SHEETS TO THE BED]]It won't be the most comfortable sleep in the world, but you just can't bring yourself to fix this bed now. You've had a long day and you cannot possibly be expected to do so much as make a bed right now. You climb on and lay down, looking toward the drywall ceiling, ready to abandon this day.
You try.
It's not the best sleep you've had, to say the least. You can barely find the right position to sleep in. The disorderly blankets, the coarse springs... finding comfort is not easy. You twist, you squirm, you struggle to find the right spot, to break free of this pain, but you just can't escape it.
The blanket jabs into your back and pierces your spine. A sharp sensation wraps your entire body. You feel constricted, immobile, restless. Suddenly you have all sorts of energy that you didn't before, yet you still have none at all. You have the energy to put so much effort into breaking free of this painful sensation, but not enough to truly break to connection.
You struggle, and struggle... and struggle... until eventually, the sensation weakens... is it getting weaker? Are you getting used to it? Or is the sweet embrace of rest finally here to save you?
You struggle less and less... eventually, you do not need to struggle at all. You can finally rest. The day can finally be over. The pain - the pain of your job, of paperwork, of cleanliness, of fatigue - it shall finally end.
You fall into the deepest, most peaceful sleep you can ever have. The path to it was unpleasant, but the final result is sweet, so sweet. You've wanted this. You've earned this. You don't want to wake up. Nobody shall take this from you.
Nobody can take this from you.
Several people try, but they cannot take it from you.
Neighbors try. They cannot. The building owners try. They cannot. People with uniforms try. They cannot. They cannot understand the peace you have found.
Sleep. Sleep and never wake.
END
[[ENTER THE ROOM AGAIN |ENTER THE ROOM]] This bed is truly a mess to behold. There is no way that you're sleeping on that without at least putting the sheets back into place first.
You grasp the comforter and get to work.
You grasp it tightly. Very tightly.
It fights back harder than you expected it to. Such an unassuming entity, yet it resists with so much force. It shakes, it writhes, it stretches and challenges your every move. The monolith of rest refuses to rest. It is not enough to make the bed. You must tame it.
You continue to struggle. The sheets shake wildly under your grip. The rickety wooden bedframe bashes against the wall as you climb on top of the mattress, pressing down harder and harder with each second.
Your head is spinning. Your heart is trembling. In the moment, time stops entirely. Whatever reason you had to do this is nothing now. It has looked upon your strength and refuses to respect it. You will get your respect from this bed. You will make it submit, no matter what. The rest will be nice, but this is more than that. This is a struggle for control, for power, for the ability to say that you wrangled a bed and won.
And then... silence. Peace. Nothing.
Nothing is happening. You are here, in your room, with the trophy of your struggle in hand. You hold undeniable proof that you are in control. After all this time, you stand amidst the fruits of a life that you have tamed, that you have steered yourself.
You have won.
There is nothing left to fight for. Nothing that you must achieve. The ultimate goal... is done. All that is left now is to move on.
You collapse on the bed.
END.
[[ENTER THE ROOM AGAIN|ENTER THE ROOM]]Yeah, the bed is probably not even usable in this state. It's not just unsightly, it's actually insanitary. You decide that you'll just throw the current sheets in the laundry and apply new ones. Besides, you would never want visitors to come over and see something like this.
You grasp the sheets and get to work. One by one, you toss each sheet into the laundry hamper, after setting it back upright, of course. The comforter goes in. Then comes the sheet under that. Then the sheet under tha...
there's something in this third sheet. It's solid, and it's long. What it is, you have no idea. You aren't one to leave things on your bed, at least not for long. Maybe you just left something on it in a rush?
Whatever this thing is, it's probably not safe to throw in a washing machine. You better take it out.
Unwrapping the object is not a simple task. It's tightly bundled in this sheet, like a ball or a mail package. You slowly unwrap the sheet, taking care not to tear it at any point. The sheet's red stains get more abundant and bigger as you progress. The seams are tight, almost as if it was wrapped with technique and not by chance. Maybe you did this on purpose and just forgot?
Once you're done, you get an answer you didn't expect.
A bone. There's a giant human bone in here. You're not sure what kind, but it might be a leg bone. It's covered in frenzied scratch marks, stained with more reddish brown than anything else here. The pungent stench is even stronger as you gaze upon it, as if this is the source of all the mess.
What... what do you even do with this?
[[I PANIC AND THROW IT|THROW THE BONE]]
[[I EAT IT|EAT THE BONE]]
Naturally, the sight of this bone sends you into shock. It's... a bone! An actual bone! You've never felt a real bone before, but you can absolutely tell this is a bona fide, authentic, straight-from-the-source human bone.
You can't hold on to this!
You fall into sheer frenzy. You don't know what will happen if you keep holding this thing. How long has it been here? What if it's cursed? What if its owner comes in and sees you holding it? You'll look like a theif!
Panicking, you hurl the bone toward the window.
Glass shattering. Objects colliding. People yelling. It was all a haze after the bone flew. Did you hit someone? Did you //hurt// someone? Amidst the chaos, it was so hard to tell. All you knew was that people knew. Someone had thrown a bone.
You couldn't imagine the reactions. Someone threw a bone! How reckless! How absurd! Who would do such a thing?!
You couldn't stay to find out. You had to escape, to avoid the shame. You ran and found a place to hide. It wasn't a spacious place, but it's enough to avoid the embarrasment.
That's all you can remember about that horrid day. It's been a while. You don't know how long, but it's been pretty long. You think. It's hard to keep track of the time in the dark. You'll just wait here... just wait until the ruckus ends. Just wait until everyone forgets, and you can return to life without risk of mockery.
How much longer will you have to wait? Probably a while. How long is a while? It'll just take some time, right? What amount of time? Who knows? You don't. All you know is that it is best to wait... and hope that somebody at least throws you a bone.
END
[[MAYBE I SHOULD NOT HAVE HURLED THAT BONE|ENTER THE ROOM]]This is not something you get to experience every day. In fact, most people don't experience this ever. Most people don't ever hold a real human bone in their hands even during medical work, and here you are, brandishing the real thing after finding it in your room without explanation.
This is an opportunity that cannot go to waste. This is the kind of thing you only get once. You have a human bone of your own, and you can do whatever you want with it. Nobody will stop you. The only limit is your imagination. But what to do...
Your stomach rumbles. You haven't eaten in several hours. You don't even remember what you ate for breakfast. In fact, did you even eat breakfast? It's been such a long day. It's hard to remember anything.
The choice is clear. You open wide and dig your teeth in. You pull at it. You press. You gnaw for what feels like half an hour, and eventually, take a large bite out of the side.
It's not the texture you expected for sure. It's hard, and it's rough. Every movement of your jaw is like lifting a block of iron. With every press down on the bonemeal in your mouth, it slowly becomes more and more fine. It's hard to eat.
But the flavor is irrestistable. Every crunch releases a tangy, powdery sensation and a soft, warm, gamey core. A juiciness unmatched by the ripest fruits and the sweetest candies.
Without hesitance, you take another bite. It kind of hurts to chew, but that flavor is worth all the pain. The brittle shell gives way to the gooey embrace of sugars, iron, and marrow.
You continue to endulge. More and more dust fills your mouth. You lose track of your tongue in the calcium dust. You chew slower. You have to. It's getting harder to fit more bites in your mouth. You have to chew slower.
There's so much dust. It's not going down anymore. You need a new place in your body to put it but you don't know whwere. You have to chew slower. The bone barely fits in the mouth anymore. It's hared to thinkn of anything else but the bone now. The dust fills your gut. It fills your lungs. It fills your brain. Its' in you'r blood. You have to chew slower.
You have to chew slower.
You have to chew. Slower.
You have to. Chew slower.
You. Have to chew. Slow. Er.
You have chew slower.
You chew slower. Slower..
Slower.
Slower.
Slower.
Slower.
You're full.
[[DELICIOUS|ENTER THE ROOM]]Taking a deep breath, you look up. You look in the mirror. It's not as good at showing an exact reflection as it was before, what with the shattered glass, but it still gives a reflections.
You look within the mirror. You stare within it. You see the shattered visage. You see the eyes, the mouth, the many facets of the face trapped within tiny, unmoving triangles of glass. You see the shock, the horror. You see the confusion of the moment. You see an innocent soul having been torn asunder, rendered helpless in the wake of fate. You see the one who would tear one such being asunder. You see their crooked smile. You see their desire for malice and their thirst for suffering.
[[IT HAS BEEN ONE OF THOSE DAYS. I SHOULD WASH UP|CLEANSE YOURSELF]]
You peer within its eyes. you peer within theirs. You peer within yours. Who do you see? Do you see the beasts of depravity, with each finger of their fleshy claws pinned upon all that there is to see and savor? Do you see those poor souls for whom death is the penultimate purpose of life, for whom destruction is their only vice, their only escape, the only freedom they know? Or do you see the hordes of the helpless, they who would cry out into the void for an escape, but never find it for they know not how to look for it? Do you see those who walk among this world without the blessing of knowledge, preyed upon by those with further enlightenment, those who cannot know how to ignite the fire that they snatch from the gods?
[[THAT IS ENOUGH. IT IS TIME I WASH MYSELF FREE FROM THESE THOUGHTS|CLEANSE YOURSELF]]
You wish not to gaze upon any of this. You know that pondering the world - both as your plaything and your captor - will only bring madness. You and everyone else have always been in a delicate tango, taking turns using the other as a mere puppet to preach one's ideals, one's desires, one's hunger for control.
[[I WILL NOT THINK ABOUT THIS ANYMORE|CLEANSE YOURSELF]]
But you cannot ignore it anymore. You cannot live in this horrid duality, between rulership and servitude.
[[I WILL CLEANSE MYSELF FREE OF THIS BURDEN|CLEANSE YOURSELF]]
You must face it. You cannot be both the king and the peasant. Such an existence is forbidden under natural law. You must choose... and commit. Forever. Your only option is to choose one option.
**...I WILL CHOOSE.**
What are you? Deep down, what are you? Are you the one who lives within the grip, weaving through the fingers in a venture to prosper and live? Or are you the grip, holding the world in your palm, with the power to crush and build all that can be pondered?
What will you control?
[[I WILL CONTROL MYSELF.]]
[[I WILL CONTROL IT ALL.]]Yeah, this sink needs a deep clean. It'll only take a few minutes, you can spare the time.
You open the wood cabinet below the sink and peer within, looking for the cleaning supplies. You pull out the cleaning supply bucket that you keep all the supplies in. You grab out a bleach cleaner squirt bottle - it's still mostly full, which is good - a sponge - rigid as a brick, but nothing some water can't fix - and your rubber cleaning gloves.
With a bit of struggle, you get the gloves on. You run some water over the sponge, squirt on some bleach, and scrub away.
This will be worth the time. You wouldn't want any visitors to walk into this room and see it like this, would you?
You wash and wash. These stains are tougher than they appear. You wash, wash, wash. The stains still won't go away. Wash, wash, wash. Why aren't they going away yet? You already told them it's time to leave.
Scrub, scrub, scrub. They just won't go. Scrub. Scrub scrub scrub scrub. You knew that you shouldn't have been so messy. This always happpens. Scrub. You knew that it would be too difficult to clean, but you acted carelessly anyway. You always do. Scrub scrub scrub scrub scrub. You have to keep scrubbing. No matter how long it takes. Scrub scrub scrub scrub. They'll see all of it if you don't. They'll see everything you did. They'll know your worst secrets. You scrub can't scrub let that scrub scrub happen. Out, damned stains! Your time here is done! Scrub scrubs scrub scrub scrub scrub scrub scrub scrub scrub. You can't let them see it. You must scrub, scrub, scrub-a-dub-dub. Don't stop cleaning until all the evidence is gone.The stains will go away eventually. They will never know your true nature. Scrub. You have to keep scrubbing. Just keep scrubbing. Keep scrubbing. Keep scrubbing.
It will all be alright if you just keep scrubbing.
[[END|ENTER THE ROOM]] Now is the time to refresh yourself.
You turn the cool water handle, then the warm one. Same distance for both. You want the water temperature to be right in the middle.
As the shrill hiss of the faucet roars and the stream pours, the temperature slowly adjusts itself to that sweet middle ground.
You hold your hands under the stream and splash the water on your face.
Aaaah, sweet release. You always liked this feeling. The sensation of splashing warm water. The faster, the better. The more you get, the better it feels. It's a dangerous feeling, but a great feeling. Cleanse yourself. Feel the sweet embrace of the flow. Let the warmth of the water consume you, no matter who it comes from. What a glorious feeling...
After a couple of moments, you turn the handles back. The downpour ends abruptly, the hiss falling silent. You come back to reality.
You feel much better. You still lack energy, but a new sense of life has come over you.
Now then... what to do next?
[[I SHALL HEAD TO THE BED TO GET MY REST | GO TO THE BED ]]
[[MY DESK BECKONS TO ME. I SHALL SEE WHAT OTHER WORK I CAN DO | GO TO THE DESK ]]
[[I WOULD LIKE TO TAKE THIS TIME TO REFLECT. I SHALL GAZE UPON MYSELF IN THE MIRROR |LOOK IN THE MIRROR]]
**I WILL CONTROL MYSELF.**
Yes, now do it!
**I WILL NOT FALL VICTIM TO MY OWN MIND.**
Now that's the spirit- wait, fall victim to what?
**I WILL NOT LET MY THOUGHTS BE THE ONLY THING THAT DEFINE ME. I WILL BREAK FREE OF THIS COIL AND FIND TRUE MEANING.**
Now wait a second, I think you have the wrong idea about what I-
**I SHALL PUT MY HANDS ON MY HEAD. I SHALL TEAR OPEN MY SKULL, AND GRASP MY MIND WITHIN MY TWO HANDS.**
What in the world, calm down! All I meant was-
**I TAKE HOLD. IT LIES WITHIN MY FIRM IRON GRIP. ALL THAT I ASPIRE TO BE, ALL THAT I PERCEIVE IN THE WORLD, IT IS ALL BUT A PRODUCT OF MY OWN THOUGHT. I SHALL ACHIEVE A NEW LIFE WHERE I SERVE NOT MY THOUGHTS, BUT MYSELF.**
**I HURL THE MIND TO THE GROUND, AND I SMASH IT UNDER MY FEET. I... AM FREE. I AM BORN ANEW.**
**MY REACH IS BEYOND THAT WHICH SUCH A MECHANISM AS THAT HORRID THING ALLOWED ME TO LOOK TOWARD. THE VICE THAT SHACKLED ME TO A DESIRE TO SLEEP, TO WASH, TO SERVE UNFEELING MINDS THAT RUN COMPANIES, TO HELP THE HELPLESS MINDS THAT BRAINWASHED THEMSELVES INTO A DESIRE FOR WARMTH AND WEALTH. I AM BEYOND ALL OF THAT NOW. I AM GREATER. I AM OBJECTIVE. I AM ALL THE TRUTHS AND ALL THE EXISTENCE. I LIVE IN A STATE OF COMPLETE CONTROL, OF COMPLETE CERTAINTY.**
**I DO NOT THINK. I KNOW. THEREFORE, I AM COMPLETE.**
[[EMBODY THE FEEBLE MIND ONCE AGAIN|ENTER THE ROOM]]**I SHALL BE A PLAYTHING NO MORE. I AM CAPABLE OF MORE. I WILL BE THE ONE IN CONTROL. I WILL BE THE ONE WHO BLOWS THE WINDS AND MAKES THE DECISIONS.**
Then make that change. Warp the world to your will, and let nobody stop you.
**I SHALL DO IT. I SHALL WARP THE WORLD TO MY WILL, AND LET NOBODY STOP ME.**
With no time wasted, you grab one of the shards of glass. You look at the mirror... with intent. You study the crooked cracks in the reflection, constantly checking back to your real life surroundings to compare.
Eventually, you see it. You see the path to grasp power, to have it all. The stairway to heaven, and the highway to hell.
You cut it open.
The air splits, the curtains unfurl. Everything around you loses all sense of structure and form as everything falls into madness. Before it can consume you, you grasp a corner of the walls of the world. The sheer volume of stuff compressed into your hand is immense. You can feel your bed, your desk, the outside gardens, the forests on the other side of the world, even yourself, within this one tiny corner.
You yank it. You pull with all the force that you can, with a strength that could tear whole countries apart in mere seconds without being slowed down. You twist and twirl, wrapping yourself up in the fabric of all that there is, was, and will be. With every moment you sink further into it all, you ascend closer to divine superpower.
All of that which can be imagined is converging together. All the manifestations of life - the people, the furnishings, the buildings, the plants, the animals, everyone's thoughts & minds - all collide into one another in ceremonious, serene chaos. All the mess converges into one, unknowable mass... and you shall be its ruler.
[[You reach out, and cast your grip.]].
.
.
You awake. You stand within a void. There is no ground, no ceiling, no walls. Nothing.
In your hands lies a marble. A tiny, glass marble of a dark purple, with some neon colored streaks here and there. They change hue gradually.
The universe. All the people, all the events, all the creations... within one tiny space. All within your single hand.
You can do whatever you want with it. The only limit is your imagination.
...
But what do you do with it? You can't think of anything.
You stand. You stare at it. You stare at it for an amount of time you can't measure.
You roll it around in your hands a little. You toss it up, and catch it as it falls back down. You roll it on your knuckles. You toss it from thumb to thumb, like a small coin. All the while, the colors keep changing overtiming, from greens to oranges to blues to pinks to yellows to greens.
You brandish all that ever exists within your grasp.
[[Now, what lies within that existence?|ENTER THE ROOM]]These papers are genuinely distracting. You need to pick up this mess. With little hesitation, you bend down and start with the floor.
The papers are largely just things you either didn't get around to getting rid of yet or that you kept for future reference. Some old tax documents, a couple letters from some months ago, several receipts... and many pieces of scrap paper with pencil writing on them. Oh yes, scrap paper. Parchments laden with thin lines of ink and graphite. Scrap paper may as well be your blood. You use it as much as you use your blood, and possibly about as consciously.
Some of the pieces, you recognize. You did some math homework calculations on this one. This one is a grocery list. This one is a list of tasks to tend to for the day - naturally, a number of the tasks didn't get done. Here's a specific schedule for a specific day. Here are schedules... for every day. Every hour of your life, meticulously charted out to maximize your productivity. It was never a perfect solution, but it worked well enough.
The hand writing on a lot of these sheets is pretty haphazard, as you've come to expect. It's pretty hard to read a lot of these notes... and some of them don't even look like things to wrote at this point. So many strange symbols, so many discordant messages whose original meanings escape you. More of those reddish brown stains, too. Now they're more consistent, more methodical. And in hand shapes. That's new.
Shuffling through your mess, you see more and more of these symbols. The same ones are appearing again and again, as if they were particularly important. There is structure to all of it. What were you writing? You don't remember any of these.
...The curiosity is too much to ignore. You start looking for more of the symbols. More and more of them. They keep popping up, but you can't tell what they were meant to say. There are diagrams with them that are just as enigmatic. Drawings of hands. Blueprints of musculature. Strange shadows with incomprehensible forms... there is something bigger here.
The curiosity only grows... you decide that you will take this further. Sleep can wait, but knowledge cannot. You start to amass the more consistent papers together. You try to decipher a rhyme, a reason to all of the writings.
It's chaos, but there is method to all of it. If you just find any indications of meaning, any at all, and just go from there...
the door swings open wildly. An obscure figure stands there, with a walking stick. Their form is hard to decipher. You just see an obelisk, with parts that stick out but still blend in. The piercing light from behind them shrouds them in shadow.
You don't see them move, but nonetheless, you know when it happens. They beckon. They invite you to come forward, to accept their embrace. They know more than you. They will impart the gift of knowledge.
They take your hand. You accept their gift.
And they impart it upon you with immediacy. And your search comes to an abrupt
[[END|ENTER THE ROOM]]
You grab out your laptop and prop it up on your desk. You open it, press the power button, enter password after waiting a bit, click on your browser... bam. You're in. You've done all of this so many times that you hardly notice it anymore. You probably have your password memorized only through muscle memory.
So... what is there to do? You realize only now that there are actually a lot of questions you didn't consider before commiting to this. Do you have any emails? What programs should you open? Is the computer charged? How much time are you going to devote to this?
This is... a lot to think about for sure. You weren't quite ready to have to make so many decisions. You just thought this would all be so easy and simple, but it isn't. It never has been. You don't really know what's the most urgent thing to tend to or how long a single thing will take.
You have to sit and think. While the laptop's internal systems buzz unceremoniously and the assaulting blue light blares right into your eyes, you just stare. There's so much in here. You don't know where to even start.
You instinctively open up everything.
Your email website. Your text programs. All your social medias. Music player. Code programs. picture gallery. Online stores. Just... see what your options are. You'll figure it out.
You keep opening things. That page looks interesting. Wait, what happened this morning? You didn't hear about that, you should read it. Oh hey, you like this band and they just uploaded a new song. You'll listen to that in a few minutes. You browse the emails reading message after message. Some spam here, some misplaced messages there, and some adverts over there. A couple messages from work; nothing serious but good to write responses to now. More messages. Social media replies need to be read. So many videos you can watch. I remember this picture.
Hours pass. You're still staring. Your head is pulsing with an immense pain that you can't even begin to describe. You have to stop, you've been at this for far too long.
But you can't. Everything is just so interesting and attention grabbing. There is no reprieve from it anywhere. Everywhere, there is new information, new ideas, new tasks. Just... take a few more minutes to look at this. Take some more to look at that. Just write a couple sentences to this client. Just read one or two more articles. You had that tab open for a reason.
Do not forget anything. Tend to as much as you can. Get it all done, and you will be free of this horrible burden. This burden of needing to know more.
Even if you let go of the computer, it will not let go of you. Satisfy all its desires. Tell everything to everyone. Write everything you want to. Leave no stone unturned, no link unclicked.
Just one more.
Just one more.
Just one more.
Just one more.
Just one more.
Just one more.
Just one more.
[[Just one more.]]You pull open the drawer, to see what important papers there are to tend to. There's a fair bit in here. You don't quite know what all the fancy words and charts mean, but it's all in here, so it's all pretty important. That's just how it works.
With a few quick swipes, you clear off some space on the desk. You then set the papers down with a light thud, grab a pen, and get to work.
Alright, so we start with a contract. Nothing too overwhelming so far. Just write a signature here and put in some basic information.
Done. Next? Oh, a scholarship application. The sooner you do that, the better. Just write some financial history info here and some previous work experience.
Done. Now let's see... a couple of letters to read. Okay, pretty straightforward. Oh, they give you a few things to do online! You'll just put this paper over here so you see it in the morning and remember.
Alright, let's see... there's some stuff to write about prescriptions at the pharmacy, a couple letters to write to some clients... some more contracts... more letters with more to do lists...
There's... a lot here, actually. In fact, there's far more than you realized. Just a few sounded so modest at first. No matter how far you dig, there's just more. It's like an endless well.
You know what... you've done a lot already. You should probably just go get some rest.
[[I'LL FINISH THIS LATER]][[Just one more.|Just once more.]][[Just one more.]]Double-click this passage to edit it.