Give in, the world cries. No, he tells the world firmly. Please? the world pleads. Nope, he responds. Well, what if I just–
He wakes from the dream, forever separated from a lover he can’t remember and a life he can’t forget. He wishes he could go back to sleep; he misses his dreams.
How about now? If the world can be smug, it would be dripping in that smugness.
No, he replies. But the protests are weaker. He has grown tired, exhausted, weary. Getting up is difficult, but he does. He goes about his day, toothbrush readied and applied. Breakfast is an ordeal, but he manages. He goes to work. And the day ends and begins anew.
The world is close now; it knows it, and a part of him also knows it. But he gets up anyway. He doesn’t make his bed, but he brushes his teeth. He skips breakfast, but he goes to work. He functions, but barely. The world is close now.
How about now? please stop. Just embrace it. will you stop if i do? Yes. okay.
And so he stops. The world does not stop with him.
He wakes from the dream, only this time reality had become the dream. A friend had shaken him awake. Good morning, the friend says warmly. Good morning, the world mocks. He pays the world no mind. There is work to be done.
What are you doing? the world asks. Living, he replies. If the world could panic, it would be at the beginning stages of alarm now. How? the world asks. He does not reply.
The world tries a different tactic. Down hadn’t worked, so why not up? Up, up, up, through the sky and the stars and beyond.
What is this? he asks the world. He feels good. Great, even. If the world can be smug, it would once more drip with that smugness. Give in, the world says to him. He requires not a second thought, and barely even a first. Okay, he says.
His mind ripples with ideas, plans, thoughts, actions. He discards a thousand ideas and manufactures a thousand more. He bristles with purpose, with passion, with motivation. He sets one, two, three, four ideas into action. Five, six, seven more. He juggles them with the seasoned expertise of a court jester. What next, he asks the world? Give me more, he tells the world: your best is not good enough.
If the world could be indignant, it would spark with it now. Frustration ripples through the world, but it is nothing if not patient. A billion years of brutal evolution had taught it that much. And so, it is patient. And so the world waits. And waits. And waits.
His ideas bear fruit, now. He feels good, great, fantastic. Sleepless nights feel like no such limitation, and the hours after midnight are where he feels most alive. Countless thoughts come and go, and his fire grows with each. He spits in the second law of thermodynamics: he has fabricated energy from nothing. His heat rises until he is fit to burst, and burst he does.
But still, the world is beginning to grow worried. It has been too long– a jet can only alight its afterburners for so long before it begins to run out of fuel, yet he has shown no sign of ceasing his frenetic pace.
More, more, more– he laughs in the face of the world. What goes up must come down, the world warns him. Only until I escape your orbit, he tells the world. The world has not known hysteria, but it knows it now. What are you doing? the world asks. Living, he tells the world.