Conceited
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq3F-V-BQWA
I don't know my mind has come up with this fantasy, borne out of imagination bred by desire and torment. But alas, here I am, writing something akin to madness. This is my third piece- you may want to search the others- and probably not my last. Above these paragraphs rests a piece that I only heard once in passing, from a film that I cannot recall. I've watched a lot of films over the years, you see. I searched YouTube for a 10 hour upload of Pixies - Where Is My Mind (the original), clicked on this and here we are. This will do. I'm content with this.Without dreams, Humans will die. This is a fact. We require it for REM sleep. I won't pretend to understand the Science behind it, and you aren't here to read about it, but I think that you and I can relate on something that we've both experienced. I've been alive twenty three years, so I've experienced a lot of dreams. But isn't it difficult to recall even one of them? We wake up, and if we've had a particularly enjoyable or memorable dream, we may recall a faint echo of what that dream was. It's likely that your experiences during the day will make you forget that echo, and suddenly, whatever trace of your dream is amalgamated into your sub-conscious. Whilst we're following this train of thought, it occurred to me that Humans, in their final moments before death, release a chemical compound in the brain that research suggests is them experiencing everything they ever knew. That's a nice thought.
But three nights ago I experienced a particular dream, to the point that I don't know if it was a dream anymore. But for the sake of this piece, I will say it is. I finally left. I packed a rucksack of clothes, my laptop and, somehow, I had managed to get hold of a camera. I don't have money for such a device right now, but it is something that I have been wanting for the past month or so. I wanted to record my last ever moments, to tell a story of my final journey. I would walk through the streets of London at night. Then I would walk along a motorway. Night would come again and I would be passing through some rural town, which I would pass through and onto the next. This camera, that I dreamed of, would record these parts and I would pause between towns. Whilst I rested, I would upload these recordings to a channel on YouTube.
I would do this for a year. YouTube has become a strange place, as most places become on the Internet. Humans are strange creatures. As I speak, there is someone in the world watching a man- this man- record himself licking all kinds of strange objects, ranging from a train that was about to take off to him breaking into a military base and lick the underside of a plane. People watch HowToBasic's 30-1 minute videos, where he essentially destroys something valuable, with a trademark egg splatter to boot. I am under the assumption that a year of me uploading 10 minute recordings of me essentially traveling across the United Kingdom would be watched.
So lucid was my dream that I experienced this year within the 8 or so hours of sleep that I managed to get. I would stop by these hills. I would walk down to the Rectory Skate park and sleep in the same spot I was once assaulted by three women eight years ago. Eventually, my dream climaxed in a forest. I don't recognise the forest- it was probably my mind recycling some memory (I've watched a lot of films/programs that have forests in them)- but there I was. I would build a bonfire, screaming her name: "CHARLOTTE! CHARLOTTE! CHARLOTTE!" and then I would watch the flames go up.
I would attempt to capture the moment as best I could, attempting to convey to my audience that my videos had led up to this point. In this moment, I would no longer be burned by society and their rules. I would be able to scream and shout. I would be able to let go of my inhibitions and finally absolve myself from all this grief. I've never been an arsonist. The idea of playing with fire, as some kind of release mechanism or twisted enjoyment has never entered my brain before. But fire is the symbol of destruction, isn't it? Countries drop bombs onto other countries and the people below scream and die beneath waves of fire and smoke.
Sinking to my knees, I would bow my head before this fire that I had created. Naked, unburdened and released. The camera would continue rolling, capturing me as I knelt before the stars, before my anguish and then it would pan out, whilst the above melody- that I have been playing for the duration of writing this- would play and eventually fizzle out as the video came to an end.
I do not know what all of this meant.