DeLorean Gray

You wake up.

 

You slowly open your eyes and blink the sleep away.

Sleep… sleep. Wait. Where were you? You think.

You breathe deep and stretch, letting the fatigue roll down your limbs and out through the tips of your fingers, out through the tips of your toes. Then you realize… slowly… you look around… it’s coming faster now and it hits you –

You have no idea where you are. You are wide awake. You scramble to your feet to take in your surroundings and regain your bearings. It only takes a few seconds to realize that when standing in a seamless gray void, the two are infinitely different.

Even without knowing, you know two things. The gray is infinite (maybe?). And you aren’t dead.

Frowning to yourself, you furrow your brow and look around. Your fingers trace your jawline while your cluck your tongue, as if stumped during a game of hide and seek.

You open your mouth to curse and realize you don’t remember how to speak. You panic.

You begin to hyperventilate, you run. You run as hard as you can. You move as fast as humanly possible and you get nowhere. Humanly possible isn’t good enough.

You stumble to a halt and fall into a crouch, supporting yourself with an outstretched arm. You reach for peace, you breathe deep and exhale slowly, letting the panic roll down your limbs… wait. Déjà vu. Again? No. Wait. Where are you?

Who are you?

Panic. System overload. You run again. You run as hard as you can. You move as fast… wait. Déjà vu. Again? No… wait. Yes.

Who are you?!

You panic. You run your fingers through your hair, combing your mind for the answer. It doesn’t come. You glance down at a stray hair on your finger. It’s white. You panic. You rip out a few strands of hair. White.

You scream.

You scream nothing.

You scream at nothing.

You scream anyways.

You know that, somewhere, sometime, you knew who you were. But you can’t quite place it. You DID know who you were. Yeah, that’s it. You just forgot. You must have known. Right?

Your mind races and you rack your brain, looking for something. Anything to latch on to. You probe your mind until you gag. Change is the variable, but memory is a constant.

Until you forget. But that means you must have remembered sometime, if you’ve forgotten now. You tell yourself. One can’t exist without the other. Something clicks in the back of your mind.

A jigsaw falls into place. One can’t exist without the other. Something about the duality of man. But what does it mean? You file it under some papers in the back of your mind.

Suddenly, you remember the gray. Your eyes slide into focus and you have to brace for impact. The despair shatters through your shields, through your armor, and blossoms in your soul.

Whatever that means, you laugh nervously out loud, but there are no echoes in space.

You’re overcome with hopelessness, you scream again into the nothingness that is everywhere.

 

Time sadly passes.

 

You blink away the tear, but manage to catch it on your finger. You look at it.

Something flashes before your eyes. You blink. You look closer.

Look closer.

[Something] flashes before your eyes. A memory. Memories? Was it just one or an entire life?

Can a life be captured in one moment? Surely. Or maybe not. You look closer. The tear rolls down your finger. You manage to lick it off with your tongue. The tear is salty.

Bittersweet. You think, for a moment, and laugh to yourself. But it’s salty! You reflect on that for a moment. Or maybe it was a lifetime? No matter. Back to the task at hand.

 

Your mind races and you rack your brain, looking for something. You didn’t get that education for nothing. Wait, that’s something! You nearly cry with relief. You remember, therefore you were. Once upon a time.

Remembering anything at all is enough.

Then, all of a sudden, like fog, it’s gone. You can’t remember what it was. What what was?

You panic. You scream again and start to run. You stop, steady on. You open the door to your cave but there’s been an accident. The paramedics wheel the foreman out on a marble-top stretcher.

Ah well, the black lung would have killed him anyways. The police ask you to exit the area and point you towards a gray sign on the wall. Wait. Gray. Where have you heard that before?

You snap back to the present. You see gray. You panic again. You begin to hyperventilate, you run. You run until your veins bulge like ropes and each breath gives a little less respite and your legs turntojellyandyourvisionturnstoblurasyourunharderthanyoucanyoumoveasfastashumanlypossibleandyouget nowhere. Humanly possible isn’t good enough. You see gray all around as you collapse with exhaustion. White stars burn around you and –

You black out.

 

You wake up.
You slowly open your eyes and blink the sleep away.

Sleep… sleep. Where were you? You think.

You breathe deep and stretch, letting the fatigue roll down your limbs and out through the tips of your fingers, out through the tips of your toes. Then you realize… slowly… you look around… it’s coming faster now and it hits you –

The gray. The gray is still there. Everywhere. It suffocates you and you choke.

You can’t run. You can’t reason. You vomit gray.

You stare at the gray and remember something. Something you had made a note of. Once upon a time. Years and years ago. Or was it only a few minutes ago? You shrug to yourself and rack your brain. One can’t exist without the other. System overload. Your mind shuts down and reboots.

You lie down, unable to cope with your epiphany. Black can’t exist without white. You try to remember if you learned that or made it up. Gray’s kind of an average of black and white.

You remember… something… but you can’t quite place it. Déjà vu. Again? Yes.

You accept it. You accept everything. You accept nothing. And you note: what’s the difference?

You black out.

 

You wake up.

 

You slowly open your eyes and blink the sleep away.

Sleep… sleep. Where were you? You think.

You breathe deep and stretch, letting the fatigue roll down your limbs and out through the tips of your fingers, out through the tips of your toes. Then you realize… slowly… you look around… it’s coming faster now and it hits you –

You’re me.

 

You’re me and it doesn’t change a thing.

 

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