DEHUMANIZATION IN SEVEN PARTS

A human being in reverse.


People are human. We feel. That’s why we are called “human”.

PART I

It’s been a year, give or take a few days, and still, sleep….is ever more elusive. All that remains are brief respites of a hundred thousand blinks that ultimately add up to seven lousy minutes. I have never been one to think a great deal about numbers, but lately, let’s face it… numbers have been ruling my world. Counting the hairline cracks trailing the expanse of my ceiling that only seems to be looming closer and closer to my face with every bloodshot blink… Counting each new freckle on my face every night, under the covers, using a penlight and a small green and silver hand mirror that my brother’s girlfriend had given me two Christmases ago…two Christmases ago… feels like a fairy-tale life ago. Counting the days that never seem to end, and the nights that always come to soon… a mocking reminder of my incapacities.


Happy Anniversary.

PART II

I saw a dog get run over today. A mangy mutt of dusty browns and grays in odd tufts of furry patches. Now, I used to adore dogs. I was an animal-rights advocate right down to the core. But as those muddy tires bore mercilessly down on his skull and crunched those old canine bones straight through the mottled fur, splashing the most vivid shade of red I had ever seen across the road and into the breaks in the pavement, all I did was look upon the scene with a distant curiosity. Not batting an eye… and with not even the slightest flinch… I stepped into the cab, careful not to let the hem of my skirt brush against the blood stained tires, and began to powder my nose as the cab sped off to school, the mutt already lost and forgotten in the trailing wisps of my Juniper perfume.

PART III

The beginning of the end.

Although it had not begun as abruptly as I make it sound, the process of dehumanization developed step by unorganized step. I merely refused to acknowledge that it had, in fact, begun that one night in October when three girls were out to have a bit of fun. I did not foresee that “a bit of fun” would eventually take me to the place I am now, lead me down a road of nothing, living dead center in the town of nowhere… surrounded by the people of no one. Where eyes look on ever-wide, sparkling vacantly.


PART IV

I ponder ceaselessly on the senseless, and on the inane, until a weak sun wavers tremulously through the graying blackness of night and realize how the importance of the letters A and H are sadly overlooked.
I also think of chessboards, and wonder why the standard pieces are colored black and white. Is it a classic representation of Good VS Evil…. Light VS Darkness? Or did this come about simply because sometime around 6th century AD, a certain person in India had no taste or feel for color?

I think on rusty refrigerators housing plastic grapes and contorted glass pipes… I think on ceiling fans whipping patchwork ribbons round in annoying swirls… I think on sketches of wedding gowns done reluctantly to the nagging voice of a crazy old man… on card games that never seem to finish… on pretty bottles gathering dust in a secret corner… on smoky gray kittens held prisoner in overturned laundry baskets… on barbecued chicken left cold on a table… no pIate…no spoon…no fork.

I think endlessly on these things, and of many others like it. My mind races backward with thoughts of nothings over and over again, until the exhaustion of the mind carries over to the body. And bit by bit, my humanity is lost more and more with each senseless inanity demanding to be given recognition of significance.

PART V

I enter nervously… I know what challenge awaits me in the dining room. I give hollow stares to whispering girls… they know I have lost it. I see it in their human eyes. A magnificent feast spread before me, sitting expectantly upon fine white linen.

“EAT ME”

I get a flashback of that scene from “Alice in Wonderland”. And I think to myself how I DO resemble Alice today in my iridescent blue taffeta dress, hair curling just below my bared collarbones. A slightly twisted version of her is perhaps a more accurate way of putting it. In the throes of hunger, I lift my intricately carved silver knife with reluctance, and drive it mechanically through the steak. The juice oozes onto the floral ivory china, soiling its former immaculate beauty. Firmly jamming my fork through the tender meat, my mouth twitches at the corners in repulsion. I flash a crocodile smile at the Indian girl sitting across me. In her cobalt blue frock, she strikes me as a much more “appropriate” version of Alice. After all, she has a healthy glow to her cheek…not to mention the human eyes. I quickly ram the fork into my mouth. Stifling a gag, I will myself to swallow. And after three agonizing bites, I become less human again.



PART VI

I wait for him, but he does not come.

I search for him in the dreariest books of mathematical theories gone obsolete… in the lulling rhythms of Bach’s soft melodies….in Japanese home-shopping channels robotically playing on and on… in warm showers of vanilla sugar… in the imaginary sheep leaping gingerly over my head… in the steady ticks and tocks of the clock on the wall… in the depths of a single flame of a citrus candle…under the blankets…

…. in my bed…

… In the crevices of my pillow…

But I cannot find him.


Where is the Sandman?

PART VII

The importance of the letters A and H are sadly overlooked.

A human being in reverse.

People are human. They feel. That’s why they are called “human”.



EMPATHY is what I once had…. But I have lost my letters A and H…


Take them away…



And that is what is left of me.