Lucidity | Teen Ink

Lucidity

May 11, 2018
By bEnLarson BRONZE, Oswego, Illinois
bEnLarson BRONZE, Oswego, Illinois
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

Smoke was drifting slowly through the air in front of me, the plume had dispersed slightly by the time it reached my height. I looked down at the source and realized it was quite dense down there, I couldn’t quite make out my creation. So I split the smoke, twisting it and erasing it from my perspective. Lucidity is a magical thing, I can twist the world around me in ways barely conceivable even to my own conscious self. Allowing me to peer into things I could never have peered within in the conscious world. My sleeping self becomes the passing observer of many facets of life. Largely suffering. In this case, suffering via the most spectacular of car crashes. I was almost certain that he would have died instantly, but there’s no harm in double checking.

Move.

He lived. His cognitive function wasn’t all there, clearly. I could tell because when I reached and grasped at his thoughts, my fingers just barely connecting with the frayed knots and lines of string, the most prominent present feeling was severe confusion. The kind of raw confusion and haplessness only typically exhibited from a child. The impact had likely shaken him to the core and cracked the foundation, which means he had to build up the whole damn building. It would take a few moments. My lucid self hungered for more information in it’s sick impatience but I held myself back from wiping away this reality to replace it with another, to be fair to the poor guy within the car.

Gone.

What does he mean? Is he gone? I can’t quite follow his thought process yet. I left his brain and began to scour the external portion. Gotcha. His right leg had been caught up in the maw of his surroundings, chewed and gnawed into a bloody mess, nearly completely unrecognizable. Stuck between an identifiable piece of twisted and red hot metal and what seemed to be a car door. He needs help. But then again does he? It seems more prudent to say he needed help. His death was almost assured and that was only a cursory examination of his current health. Not that any of this was surprising. Skydiving in a suburban will do that to even the finest of human beings.

Pain.

It must hurt like a bitch too, the shock can only service his painlessness for so long unfortunately. I could share it if I so desired, feel his nerves like I feel his thoughts. I had always considered doing exactly that but I had never actually made an attempt. Why would I? I’m nigh omnipotent here, pain is reserved for the inhabitants of my dreams, not the master of them.

My leg? My eye? It must be my eye? I can’t, I cannot see with my left eye.

Got a couple questions and a full sentence. I began to watch and listen with piqued interest that began to build into a thirsty desire for more detail. It occured to me, what if someone were to do what I’m doing to himt o me as I observed him? An observer for an observer. A dying person being watched by a passively sick one being watched by whom? Probably a confused and sickened person. What a little string of thoughts. Sitting atop of a steeple tends to eliminate the feelings one might feel if they were to rest within the chapel below. This is how it always was for me within my dream state. Until right now. A small sliver of disgust flowed into my thought process and in that moment, I was removed.

And I have awoken.


The author's comments:

This piece is inspired by lucid dreaming and how it relates back to the morality of passive observation of tragedy within reality :)


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