Ohmigawd, you wouldn’t believe what happened last night. Hell, – I – don’t believe what happened last night.
So, I think to myself, I shouldn’t be staying up quite so late, should get to sleep. I mean, really – tired -, eyes keep going unfocused, sure sign. Well, that and the yawning. Horrible sleep. So, like I do every night, I shut down the computer, turn off the screen, pick up my drinking glass to put on the shelf/table across the room so I don’t knock it over with the fan or something, doing great!
Well, apparently standing up was a bad idea. Know when you twist a bit in the seat to get ready to go in a particular direction? Yes, well, I got up facing to the right of the room after the pc screen was shut off. Darkness isn’t supposed to be Dark, dammit, there’s normally ambient moonlight filtering through to make out -something- and my curtain was pulled to the side, always is. Except once I was up I lost my sense of orientation. Direction gone and panic/terror set in, bye-bye don’t forget to write. No reason I can figure.
So then you make a flying mental leap/scramble and grab hold of your last thought, which is now considered The Plan, Everything else in your head has, quite literally, escaped. Ze Plan(tm) is suddenly your only goal in life, thought is relatively short. If you weren’t doing anything in particular before, you can squash panic/terror down for a second to come up with ~Something~, but good luck noticing the smaller things. It isn’t like an anxiety attack, that’s relatively simple. Anyway, before last night said terror only showed when it was ’supposed’ to. Like when I sunk in the H.S. swimming pool when I was younger, me being a fool, leapt off the diving board, figured I could dog paddle off to the side. Yeah, didn’t happen. Guess who made it a few feet and, finally, sank like a fucking stone? Flailed a bit, panicked, managed a gulp of air and just walked/ran, I figured I’d hit one of the walls, preferably before inhaling water. It worked, at some point I found the floor but I must’ve looked really ridiculous making my way to the shallow end as my eyes were screwed shut. So there’s me, see, making good pace I figure since m’sinuses hurt, have to hit the above water soon, right? A-ha. I didn’t notice there was air available until my legs got cold, didn’t register the change in temperature. Must’ve been some really shitty lifeguards there, because no one noticed. Anyway, that’s a good definition of terror/panic.
Everything else is merely irritation. But this, this didn’t even have the decency to be obvious how it came about. Worse, it was a particular kind. Not dulling like it was supposed to. Was akin to the split second when someone pops out from behind a door and scares the hell out of you by accident, except with the door scenario your terror goes – down – because you recognize what startled you. It didn’t go down. In fact, I suspect it went up a bit more as there was – no – light to go by. Though that doesn’t make much sense, since I’m not scared of the dark. There was supposed to be light though, why is there no light? There’s generally at least moonlight. Couldn’t see a damn thing so continued with The Plan, (Gotta call it something) which I got stuck on when m’brain short circuited when I made the grevious mistake of standing up. So!
I go in the wrong direction, hit the edge of my bed, attempt to orient myself because despite now remembering where I started (because, you see, my sole goal while being frightened witless was apparently to put the glass on the shelf and go to the bathroom, and my head was kind enough to let me remember the layout. Orientation, however, was still fucked. Anyway, I was somehow facing in the wrong fucking direction. Many times. I followed walls, I bumped into furniture, at one point I think I recognized the feel of my closet, in a distant sort of way. I’ll note that for some reason closets at the time equaled hollow space equaled Leave. Almost hit the fan once, but pivoted cuz I felt a breeze and the table was in the other direction. Might as well have played Who’s On First. Did you know it is indeed possible to accidentally step on your own feet while shuffling? Repeatedly?
Anyway, I found the shelf, but I couldn’t find the light that was supposed to be above it since there wasn’t any moonlight to make anything out like usual. So I had to keep the glass. =/
So what’s weirder than getting overtaken by terror when you’re getting up (innocently, might I add) to go about your nightly ablutions, you ask? Apparently trying to find the door once you made it to the bookshelf so you could at least take a piss but end up wandering around in vain with an empty plastic cup for another few minutes because somehow, not only did you Miss. The. Door., you lost your way -AGAIN-. (The door, mind, was but two and a half feet to the right of the bookshelf)
Fuck only knows why, but I had the notion that if I could just make out something on the wall, or -anything-, really, perhaps I could redirect myself. (Again, I’m guessing here, short thoughts, spent too much time trying to reign in terror). At any rate, attempting to stare the darkness down is a bad idea. Wasn’t quite the experience Nietzsche meant. But, I got a visual reaction! And I really wish I didn’t, was disturbing. Apparently there was a bit of light behind the window. I should point out that this is conjecture from remembered bits, it’s a bit muddled. So I saw something, but I didn’t recognize it. The thing with eyesight is apparently I don’t even trust it when I’m on the verge of keeling over, because when I saw it I got back a kind of error message when my brain tried to process the visuals. God, my poor brain.
You know how people are a little leary of things they don’t recognize? Yeah, that, only multiplied. Terror got -worse-, Wouldn’t think it could get worse, but no, Murphy likes to kick me, apparently. Do you realize it’s the first time in my life that “Is it going to eat me?” seemed like a perfectly valid question when it flitted through my head in the hubbub? I don’t remember -ever- thinking that before. It was long and sort of bright red/orange, and the shapes it contained swirled. Then it occurred to me that my curtain is long and light and bright red is that fucking color my eyes like to leave me with when the light’s too bright, though how it could’ve been too bright when I couldn’t find moonlight, let alone the sun I don’t know. Perhaps because I wasn’t staring directly through the window earlier. Not even sure I faced the window in my previous stumbles. Don’t think so though, cuz I also missed the chair under it. At any rate I geared up some sort of cautious courage and …..swatted at the curtain, looking for a reaction. Figured if it was the curtain, I would feel it. Didn’t occur to me that the curtain was several feet away with, yes, a chair in front of it, so wasn’t as close as it appeared. Yeah…not the brightest. Anyway I couldn’t feel the damn thing and it did look like there was swirls there, well, more like a lava lamp, so was more than a little leary about turning my back to it (quit laughing) So I sort’ve …inched off to the side, exit stage right. From a curtain. Boggles my mind. I mean, I’ve made gaffs before, like that gigantic pipe I thought was a dog, but those were -recognizable-, expected to a degree. This thing was just fucking creepy. So when I finally managed to completely turn to the right I notice three things. First, I want to get the hell out of my bedroom. The second was that I rammed into the bookshelf again. Third was that now some of the darkness had a red tint, which was comforting considering that’s how I see it about half the time anyway. Well, not so much a red tint as you can’t discern if the darkness itself is black or a really, really dark red, and if you stare at it or change head angles it seems to switch, except you can see it doesn’t actually change color because you can’t decide if it did. It’s…hrm. Cross both your eyes and try looking at the tip of your nose. That’s what your eyes feel like when your brain tries to figure out what shade lack of light is, except I don’t get two perspectives, unless my left eye is actually attempting to see, in which case; failure. I managed to find the door after bumping into a stand again. First thing I did was turn on the hall light, and left it on. Totally killed the terror, well, vestiges take several minutes to leave, in my defense) but I’d like to know what triggered it in the first place. Went to the bathroom, came back, – set the glass down on the bookshelf – (because yes, I was still holding it.) and then…I was self satisfied. Because I left the door wide open to all that lamplight. Well, The Minis were also nice enough to come sleep with me, although #1 perched herself on m’futon’s back, which really …surprised she didn’t fall.
