I'm having trouble sleeping. I wish there was someone to talk to but there is no one. I used to have acquaintances. I mean I used to have acquaintances online as opposed to in person. I could get online pretty much anytime and find someone who would talk to me. Now I don't.

I was recent posts that people have just posted. I thought about leaving a comment on a few but I stopped myself. The reason I didn't leave a comment is because I didn't want to impose on anyone. I know that sounds stupid, but most people are not interested in what I think. At least not interested enough to have a conversation.

I had a conversation with someone once and I confessed that most people find me boring. The response I got was that it's not that I'm boring it's just that my interests lie outside the normal scope of what most people are interested in. It got me thinking that there is someone somewhere who is interested in the same things I am. To that person I would not seem boring. To that person I would be someone interested in talking to. I guess the trick is running into that person. So it's okay if anyone reading this finds this post or any other post I've made boring. It just means you're not the person I'm looking for. Here on Prose, we do have a common interest in writing so maybe the person I'm looking for is here somewhere or maybe not. If they are, they may never find me.

But then I think if I ever did run into anyone who was responsive, I wouldn't know how to handle it. It would be something way outside of my normal experience. It would really take some getting used to.

I didn't take any kind of stimulant to keep me awake. I would really rather be sleeping. Since there isn't anyone to talk to, I will just have to settle for writing out my thoughts and posting them.

I'm awfully drained from over doing myself.

I'm terrified of being neglected and misunderstood.

I'm feeling sorrow from pretending to be happy from unleashed acceptances.

I'm jealous of the way I was brought into a persons life as a second option.

I'm a weeping willow screaming for a soul resurrection.

I'm finally walking out the door with my soul tied and heart caged.

I'm so sick of pleasing others turning my insanity into reality.

I'm exhausted, thumping my head against the wall from all the trauma.

I'm running away from the blizzard falling into another nutshell.

I'm slowly looking towards an actual fairy tail reality through a dark tunnel.

I'm much so your second option but I'll be top tier for myself for once.

I'm taking off all of my clothes and dipping myself in a fountain of youth.

I'm more than everything they said I would be.

I'm extremally disciplined due to hectic unacceptable volunteering.

I'm sipping on deprived Macallan, the water of life.

I'm giving myself a reason to get to the moon slowly but surely.

I'm the reincarnation for my ambitious ways.

I'm not looking at the clock for misconceptions anymore, time will tell.

I'm ok with closing a chapter without an ending when it feels right.

I'm much so your second option but I'll be top tier for myself for once.

I had of course meant to write something myself into the challenge, but I couldn't Will it into words on screen, though naturally I thought about it. I suppose I carried my own title through to "leading" conclusion.

A momentary block.

I greatly enjoyed all twenty-five entries linked here to the challenge itself:

https://www.theprose.com/challenge/14212

Thank you very much for your thoughtful work to @AnaviChopra @graceinpoetry @GentlmanBastard @Beccawaits @pretty_archaic @DianaHForst @lakelaur @Verbose @cassJW @WhiteWolfe32 @hunter_graham @thisisit @speedtype @Nor @Celeben @Plexiglassfruit @aflalo22 @TheOliveTree @kadelebg @deb1900 @ARC9 @DrSemicolon @7v7 @cjmoznette35 @Jenissa

The entry that intrigued, most, is the almost unfinished as-if write by ARC9. It opens more questions and while it seems linear in suggestion of Time, we know (in thinking) our being is neither chronological nor logical. The battle continues overtime, true, usually as if with less urgency, until the Spirit dies, but not necessarily in death itself-- was my interpretation. We reach back and forth, in past and wishful thinking, and hesitate in the moment.

The Mind over Matter battle, countered with one more element-- of Fighting Spirit.

I will continue to ponder this, and eventually write that write I was stopping.

Thank you again everyone for the wonderful reads!

I'm tired of thinking outside the box. I like getting boxed in.

I'm tired of giving it my all. I like to keep some of it.

I'm tired of all I said being done. After, it's not, is it really?

I'm tired of the crow and the way it flies. I don't want to go that way.

I'm tired of being sick and tired. I just want to be sick.

I'm tired of the one or the other. I'm just another.

I'm tired of cautious optimism. I want to be recklessly pessimistic.

I'm tired of an abundance of caution. I don't have much left.

I'm tired of being a free spirit. I've captured my spirit.

I'm tired of going all the way. I want to stop some of the way.

I'm tired of the fairer sex. Neither is fair.

I'm tired of free and easy, because easy is never free.

I'm tired of the end of the day. At that time, I just want to get past midnight.

I'm tired of the bottom line, because the bottom line isn't.

I'm tired of sticking it out. I'm much too careful with what I stick out.

I'm tired of loving and leaving. I want to stick around.

I'm tired of sticking 'round, because it always involves π in some way.

I'm tired of pie, because it isn't easy as.

I'm tired of cake, because it's not a piece of.

(I'm tired of halving my cake and eating it, two.)

I'm tired of spunk, because I don't got it and don't need it.

I'm tired of can't missing it, because I always am.

I'm tired of me and you. Just you will do.

He read alot.

He would often romance with old books, maybe six or seven decades old from his dads study, their binding was often de-glued but the content visible. He would display them with comfort over their content than remorse over their form. He wouldn't read them word by word, but he skimmed over them. Remembered words from them, portions from them which he would then flaunt in little meet-ups in that remote study that chimneyed up in the smoke of pot with a little Louis Armstrong in the background.

Those moments - that moment- the chimneyed up one - was close to him. It was a moment where he was silent, savvy, listening to friends who had treaded life with their own arithmetic. Their own arithmetic was at times a lonely single bedroom in Chicago or tears whilst facing the Indian Ocean in Srilanka. They resembled his cracks. Flamboyance etched in misery on a termite spree. But he was the supposed sober one. The one who had it all sorted out. Working, social life, apparent symmetry. How was he pulling this off- how was he hiding all the grease beneath the lid, the fact that this porcelain despite having all these age cracks was the one he had decided to serve, present.

His friendships had been punctuated... punctuated by echoes of others in the ears of everyone who was close to him. He kept on working in the hope that the moment one sees in films....that morning where everything had changed ....would arrive. However he could see that every night you sleep and every morning you wake up and this 24 hourly occurrence is basically life and 90 or 35 this is what it is. However he also knew that this 24 hourly occurrence also made Muhammad Ali Muhammad Ali and Michael Jackson Michael Jackson. There was a last minute goal in football or a last minute sixer in cricket. So he knew these things existed. But his ability to see the larger picture was rebutted by an instinct of practicality without which he couldn't have managed. So there's a word... he was managing.

He had named all the sculptures at his house. An ebony paper knife from Mauritania, a boob infested piece from Burkina Faso, an old guy from Srilanka, an elephant from Srilanka, a big cat from Egypt, so on and so forth. He would look at them. Their age marks. And relate to them more. Relate to his grandmother's Alfred Meaken plates from 1937 more. He was more comfortable with the otherside being capillary less. Being wooden. Being still. Being unresponsive. Being shut. And here is where he would also fight with himself. Fight that people existed and had to be dealt with so there was no need to be as cocooned. But this was a self defense mechanism. He feared familiarity. Feared conversations with the unknown. He wasn't willing to survey the unknown. He had his reasons. That boob infested wooden woman from Burkina Faso was maybe a refuge. He was skeptical of the known. Fearful of the unknown. To adjectivize him would be a sin.

He had developed a certain passion for graves. Graves looked nice to him. Symmetrical. Beautiful. There was more love inscripted on those tombstones than was ever bestowed upon those sleeping below. He would think on these lines. He would sit before that bench in front of the latest row in the graveyard and think. Think that what is this drama if he was to be dug over and under when the battery would die? He would sit before his dad’s grave and think of the words he had stung towards him but were never stung back. He would stand at his grandfather's grave and think whether he would have wanted this sainthood or not. He would think. Knowing that he needed to think discreetly. Thinking out loud would cast him as an intellectual. An intellectual without loads of money these days is nothing less than a prostitute in her eighties. But you see.... what had he become... he had become a rodent with some gold spilled over.

He's thinking of painting the big room. He's thinking of his next night with solitary beers with no sound in the backdrop. He's thinking of why he resents sound in the backdrop so much. He's thinking where to quote Henry Miller's spavined horse or Robert Fisk's sclerotic edifice or Austin's province of jurisprudence. He needs to flaunt. Sit. Talk. Shine. He wants to tell them in that chimneyed room that Winston Churchill had coined the term 'terminological inexactitudes' for lies. He was imagining moments. Thinking of making it. Whatever making it means.

The charades he had played all his life had become him. Part olive, part dust. He had even choreographed his imagination. He thinks of reproduction as a biological necessity than to love someone. He thinks he cannot love anyone. He fears them. He fears that 'her' specie. Fears their ability to be chasers. He wants someone who will sleep with him in a tent in a desert if the wind takes the palace. That is chess again. To act literary, he wants a queen and not a pawn. Someone who would keep him on the board even if checkmate was possible on every single fuckin' move. He has the capacity to think beautifully too.

There is every possible chance that he won't survive. He won't exist. But if he lives that would be some extra purple on that jacaranda over his fathers grave.

Alone amidst an abounding abyss

and azure aspirations age again.

Agitating already angry airs

and aching, awaiting anxiously.

Anticipating any affection's afterglow.

Always absent.

Ancient roots take hold,

Tiny seed to growing oak,

Life's journey unfolds.

Youth's branches stretch wide,

Reaching for dreams in the sky,

Unfurling with pride.

Maturity's bark,

Weathered by time's gentle touch,

Stories etched within.

Autumn leaves descend,

Whispering tales of seasons,

Nature's final call.

Silent in slumber,

Beneath the moon's watchful eye,

The cycle renews.

Open, all is cracked,

Wispy eyes and a hushed face

quiet tears are split.

My first step towards

I call a place, nothingness,

what they call a life?

I breathe in unknown,

surrounded by the warmth, friend

cracked heart or fire ball.

My hands are worn, burnt

thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, doom

count the seconds past.

Restless heart, could stop

old, wrinkled, may skin be dry.

Pierced soul, wounded deep.

Samih rubbed her hands together, and then shifted her wrists a bit to check the time on her strawberry watch (a gift that her godmother had given her for her twentieth birthday). Soon the sound of clicking-clacking was heard coming from the east. The train came to a screeching halt, and some folks disembarked from it. A few of them looked so drained, as if some dybbuk had sucked all the life force out of them.

"All aboard to Chive!" The conductor bellowed. Samih rushed toward the back of the line leading to the train to Chive. The smell of chamomile tea filled the space, and air Samih had been told to sit.

Most folks in the train were either: getting ready to catch several hours in dreamland, or grabbing one of their portable frosty detachable tablets to continue watching one of their favorite shows. The train took a few hours to get to its final destination, and Samih decided to also take a catnap.

Samih tried to fall asleep, but as much as she tried she was not able to drift off into the land of what some believed to be a gateway to foretelling the future, or tapping into visions passed on from Morpheus. So, it was time to do some more people watching: from seeing whether the people on board packed light (like Samih), or decided to move with luggage that made them look like they were carrying a dead body, or bodies aboard the train.

The conductor, who looked like he was in his late thirties, or early forties, stepped right up to Samih. "Ticket, please, Miss..." Samih gave a slight nod, and handed the ticket to the conductor. He scanned the bar code, and gave a slight nod, too.

Someone quickly ran past the conductor. The conductor shouted, "Oy!" This made most of the folks in the train, even the ones who had been asleep, jump up in their seats. The runner continued to take off, leaving the rest of the folks looking on with puzzled expressions. Wondering, and looking around to see where the running man was headed to.

There was no place to run, or hide. He could not get off the train; it was still moving. They had just left one of the stops along the way to Chive, Rolon.

Samih rose to her feet, and as soon as she was about to take off to check out what was going on, a hand landed on her left shoulder. This startled her. "I suggest you take a seat, young lady."

She wanted to continue walking, and check out what was going down between the conductor, and the runner. Maybe he was a secret agent who had caught sight of the wanted person on their agency's hit list.

The stranger snapped his fingers, and the train was covered in what seemed to be dark stormy clouds. Samih gulped, and stared at the stranger. "What in the Chive is going on?"

She watched the stranger form a slight o, and wind rushed out of his mouth. Her very own mouth gaped at the sight of this metamagick form. "Now," the voice rose like a rushing wave, "please, I would prefer it if you took a seat."

Samih rubbed her eyes, and pinched herself. "What're you doing?" The stranger asked. "I am trying to check...making sure that I am not stuck in Morpheus' realm."

The stranger sighed. "Being stuck in Morpheus' realm should be the least of your worries."

"Why?" Samih asked. "Who is on this train that has much greater power than The King of Dreams?"

The stranger took out a notebook, and sketched out a drawing.

"Samih..."

"How do you know my name?"

He chuckled, and said, "Even the great Sherlock Holmes would have easily figured that out." He replied, and pointed to her ticket which she still had in her hand that had her name written on it in bold and capital letters: SAMIH.

Samih placed the ticket inside her gold leather jacket. Then she realized who the stranger was. "I did not realize the great Inspector Mpaso would be gracing us all here with their presence." The Inspector smiled, "Samih...it seems you will not take a seat. Alright then. Would you like to find out what has happened to the young man that I have been tracking?"

The dark stormy clouds that had surrounded the train gradually drifted away. "It would be such a great honor." Samih said with a slight bow.

Mpaso moved to the side, and the two were off to see where the conductor, and running man were currently along the space, or cabins of the train. Samih tried to contain her excitement. Here she thought the train ride was going to be a humdrum, and long mode of transportation.

The Inspector had managed to place a tracking spell on the runner. He followed the silver trail of dust which only his eyes could see. "Follow me."

Samih shrugged her shoulders, and thought to herself. "Okay. Let's go!"

They hurried along, moving from one cabin to another- with the Inspector in the lead. He ducked behind one of the seats once he and Samih had walked into another cabin. "Get down!" the Inspector cried out.

The Inspector mumbled something under his breath. Samih ducked behind the seat that was right beside the Inspector's. The train began to jerk backwards, and forwards.

There was a bright flash like lightning that struck into the main cabin. The Inspector looked around, and jumped to his feet. Samih followed him, "What were you expecting Inspector?"

"Not this." The body of the runner was missing. What remained was a charred body of the conductor with his hair still burning. Samih felt as if all the contents of her belly were about to make their way back into her trachea. The Inspector snapped his fingers, and softly mumbled "Obliviscar, Samih."

18.07.23

#MPOSA (c)