literature

Stream of Consciousness

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Literature Text

I feel like a ghost, walking through campus.
My heels, they slam against the cement and it reverberates soothingly inside my ears, almost to the beat of the music.
The cold brushes my face softly, whipping my hair around me.
I meet the eyes of a boy, and stare blankly.
I have heard that some people have dead eyes. They lack light, or life, or something essential.
I don’t know what dead eyes look like, but I wonder if maybe I can make my own eyes dead.
The boy glances away, but before he passes me, I get the urge to ask him.
Do you think my eyes are alive?
I don’t.

My hands are fisted inside the pockets of my jacket.
The fabric is soft against my skin.

There is an old couple walking nearby.
They are not holding hands.
I don’t know if it is because they are not husband and wife, or simply because at their age, hand-holding is irrelevant.
Leave public displays of affection for the young- their love transcends physicality.
I try to imagine myself in their place. Crooked back, wrinkled face. But I can’t.
I can’t picture the leather folds on my face, or my hands. Looking down, I only see dry skin, cut skin, blue veins underneath a quasi-smooth surface.
I can’t picture myself walking besides anyone, either.

I look away, and turn up the music volume, until my phone warns me it is too loud. It could cause permanent damage.
I ignore the advice.

On one of the benches besides the path, there is an Asian boy taking a drag from a cigarette. His warm breath intermingles with the dark smoke, and the image strikes me as lovely.
Suddenly, I wish I could smoke too.
I can, I guess, physically. I am capable of going to the store and purchasing a pack and a lighter, all the while avoiding the perceived judgment in the cashier’s eyes. I have done it before.

But mentally, ethically, I am unable to go through with it. Buying cigarettes feels like I’m endorsing suicidal behaviour. It feels like I am going into a children’s cancer ward and laughing in their faces, because I am healthy and they are not- and I choose to throw my health away.

The Asian boy raises his eyebrows at me, and too late I realize I have slowed down my pace and been staring a him for a long time.

I fix my expression into something nonchalant, and he goes back to glaring at his phone.

I finally arrive at the building. It is a tall, ugly thing. This is no architectural accomplishment. Instead, it looks like the designer was forced into the task of creating. To spite his superiors, he conjured up a grey, lumbering mass of concrete.

I push the glass doors and grimace at the interior. It is as aesthetically offensive as the exterior, and unbearably warm.

I consider taking off my jacket, but choose not to. It just seems like too much effort for the sake of my comfort.

There are a few tables, chairs and couches. All of them are occupied by a lonely individual, and I want to yell at them that there is enough space for more than one person in each fucking table, so why not share?
Are we so averse to human interaction nowadays?

Instead, like a hypocrite, my eyes desperately scan the floor until I see a girl putting her things away.
She glances up at me, closing her bag.

We don’t say anything to each other.

She leaves.

I take a seat and begin writing.

“I feel like a ghost, walking through campus..”
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