I had a dream that I was in a world where nothing worked. Everything was broken, missing, rotted away. I was incredibly frustrated to put it lightly. Every time I went to open a door the knob would fall off, or a hinge would break. Every time I went to cook the knobs would crack off. Every time I tried to ride a bike, drive a car, take the bus, or even walk down the street, screws, bolts, parts and pieces would tinkle on the ground around me. I finally collapsed in a crying heap. I can cry, I’m not ashamed. I cried a lot.
Things that are don’t work drive me crazy. Why does it exist if it doesn’t work? Things that barely work but don’t work right really burn my whistle. Either be broken, or be right. Maybe that’s a reflection of my own self-criticism, but still, do or don’t do. Yoda was the man. Or what ever the hell he was. Donkey-beaver? That must have been a wild party. Back to the point.
After I was done crying and sobbing like a little baby on the floor, finished with my tantrum, I gave up. I quit. I resigned myself to the fact that this was the way of things and that I too was a broken, worthless lump of protoplasm. Nothing here worked, that was the way of it. Deep sigh of acceptance.
Then I stood up, looked around, pick up a small, insignificant thing, and fixed it. It was small, unimportant, not a big deal, but now it was fixed. Screw you Mr. Broken World. One thing works now. It might break again tomorrow, or in 10 minutes, but right now, it works. It didn’t make any difference at all, and nothing in my dream world changed, nor did anything else in my dream world even notice that one little thing was now working properly. But it did.
I walked around my dream world, looking at things, trying to figure out what it was supposed to do, how it was supposed to work, why it didn’t. Some things were huge, massive creations out of a steam-punk nightmare that I had no clue where to even look to begin. But other things were small, manageable. So I fixed them. I started putting together a small box of implements, just things that I found useful at times. Scraps, pieces, bits that I found along the way. I was in a dream and had no job, responsibilities, or sense of space or weight, so I had quite a few bits after a while. But just what was needed and useful. Not collecting or hoarding implements, just things that were useful to me.
After a while, I noticed there were other people around. They were far away and stared at me like I was some kind of wild curiosity- something odd. Something that wasn’t quite right. But they left me alone, so it didn’t matter. I probably seemed to have the same stare towards them, too, I guess. Maybe to each of us it looked like all the others were staring.
I woke up staring. Have you ever done that? Your mind wakes up and you realize your eyes have been open for a while looking around without you? Hello, Brain, glad you could join us. There are things to see all the time, so we just went to work as we waited for you. In the body chemistry field, it’s probably the same thing as sleepwalking or wetting the bed. The parts just do what they were designed to do until everyone else catches up. After I got through a few thoughts on my eyes wetting the bed, I figured it would be safer for everyone to get some coffee going and ingested before any other human interaction could take place. Pssssshhhhhhh the water into the tank. Crulf crulf crulf the coffee into the filter.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Ah, finally. Coffee ready. I read the news on my feeds and took deep breaths. War here. Hate there. Disasters over there. Why did I ever bring a child into this? I drank in my caffeine, focused on the heat and brown. It’s you and me caffeine, us against the world. If we can just ride it out, we’ll be alright. All this will pass. I crump crump crumped through the house caffeinating myself to the proper level, and tightened up the screws on the loose doorknob to the yard. They always come loose for some reason. But they tighten up again with some help. I watched the sun rise into the yard, took a deep breath, and marched out into the day.