What To Wear?

There was an extended moment of consideration.

Crayon, Sharpie, and colored pencil on an index card.

This was his understanding of the conventional ways that a person or individuals experience self:

He began with a faulty premise. He thought there were only two distinct narratives that ran simultaneously in his unique simulation.

In his mind, there was the self-defined self—the thought behind the puppet. The floating him-ness that lived somewhere between the optic nerve and the synapse that enlivened such nerves.

Then, there was the self that is self-identified as—other, or not self. The other is the voice that attempts to confine his initial concept of self.

The other being the voice of contradiction.

If his other wished to eat a cupcake, it would say, “But what of fatness or some other strange social construct?” He assumes that self-1 was the natural self, the pure uninhibited Id or will, to burrow useless phrases.

Self-2 in this instance was thought to be learned or the educated, not fearful from an instinctual perspective, but fear as a learned response to isolation, doubt, and madness.

This premise outright dismisses the third self, or the witness.

This witness is most often found in mystical or spiritual writings, and in its own way, is how some would imagine an all-powerful deity, if they so desired. He did not desire such thoughts and chose to remain ignorant of any concept that existed outside of his comfortable duality.

In simple terms, he believed himself to exist as desire in a struggle against what he identified as knowledge.

This binate fetish extended into his view of wake and sleep. He viewed dreaming as something entirely separated from what he believed was the waking world. Because of this, he was not shocked when, in this instance, he became aware of his surroundings.

His brain began to register that it was underground. It was able to do this because the light was coming from below instead of above. This might feel counterintuitive to some, but to him it was the simplest explanation. He became keenly aware that he was knee deep in a substance. This substance had the tactile viscosity of water and the color of a deep bruise or lavender. This shade of purple was distinct from other shades of purple but also remained in a pre-remembered color spectrum. His waking mind quickly jumped into the idea of subconscious pattern recognition, a loosely archetypal representation of deeper meaning.

Purple could, in some instances, represent royalty and abundance, or it could represent poison or injury. His inclination toward a negative interpretation was superseded by an innate survival mechanism.

He decided this purple was a “good purple.” Not a “bad purple.”

Being partially submerged in purple water and underground would have been a dreadful experience in the waking world, but here in what he believed to be the dream realm, he relied on his psychological defences and a very human material confidence to assuage any fear.

At first, the path in front of him was straight.

His three options were

1. to remain stationary.

2. turn around.

3. move in the direction he was already facing.

He decided to go forward—to move in the direction he was already facing.

Stationary seemed pointless in his mind, and turning felt dangerous for some reason.

As he sloshed forth through the purple fluid, he took in some of the dark atmosphere of the place he was currently located. In his mind, the closest he could come to describing it was something like a sewer or subterranean superstructure. He also thought this could be a complex aqueduct, but it must be abandoned. Fluid this polluted, even polluted with “good purple,” would serve no purpose in his mind. Additionally, within the liquid, there seemed to be other living things. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny creatures that scurried and squirmed around him.

He felt it best to leave them to their own purpose.

Their peculiar lifestyle was none of his concern, and up to now, they had barely acknowledged his presence. Now, some other types of people might have been curious enough to examine exactly what type of things these were, but he quickly decided that this instinct was based on curiosity and would only further hinder his forward momentum…

Progress…his forward progress.

With his eyes adjusting to the hazy darkness, he continued moving in the direction his body propelled him. He was unwilling to pause for long, as that was sure to raise questions about how sure he actually was.

There was an extended moment of consideration when the river of living purple fluid decided to fork in two directions.

One direction was to his right, and the other was to his left.

Other than this, they were identical.

Closer inspection revealed no new clues.

There was an impending sensation that the longer he remained stationary, the more likely he was to garner the attention of whatever shared this space with him, be it what was in the water, or something else, something that remained in the dark areas of his vision, something he had yet to see fully…

Clearly…

Buried deep within him was a sense that the left was the more sinister of the two choices. He was not sure when this idea was embedded into his soul or why he held some vague notion that it was religious in nature. He also thought that it might be etymological. Ultimately, to suss this out was a waste of time, and somehow remained important.

Right is right, so he chose the path to the right.

The right path he now followed was very similar to the left path he had forsaken, but he was not aware of that fact. The right path was also very similar to the path he had been on previously, except for some slight changes. The changes were more atmospheric than they were material.

As he continued to make what he felt to be progress, the creeping dread of darkness that had, up until now, only been alluded to in his feelings, began to manifest into something that held more of a material form. This belief that the darkness was getting heavier and the thickness of the murky purple fluid was getting thicker was a trick of his usually docile imagination.

Once the barbed hooks of imagination sink their curved blades into one’s skin, attempting to tug free only increases the bleeding. The blood of his imagination’s horrors was flowing from him profusely. The weight of his meagre selections all seemed to be heavier. He wondered if, in fact, he was supposed to have gone the other way entirely. His doubt and second-guessing did not prevent him from continuing his movement.

After a long while, he reached what he could only assume was his destination. He assumed this because the purple water ceased to exist. A dense strand of light burst from both the ceiling and the floor of the vast final room. The ladder was unornamented and appeared to be made of simple dark steel. It stretched up into a hole that waited high in the ceiling, and it also extended downward into another illuminated hole which beckoned below. In front of this ladder began to materialise a large quadrupedal form. The blackness and shadow that painted the walls of this catacomb moved in a singular direction. They came together at a central point, taking shape as haunches and shoulders. The beast was on the verge of fully materialising.

He waited for this process to reveal its outcome.

The expectation he held was that this beast would fully form, and when it didn’t, he was befuddled. The sheer size of it was imposing, and the multiple heads each seemed to have long, dangerous fangs. Each fang held a varied level of serration. Several sharp tails reminded him of various thin animals: snakes, worms, centipedes, and eels. The tails waved with a ferocious seeking but never entered into a full material threat. He waited longer as the beast postured and snarled, but nothing else came to fruition.

He shrugged and continued past it. His pace was quickened, but he had decided the threat was minimal and was comfortable leaving his back exposed.

Now he was faced with the choice of going up or down. Naturally, going up was victorious. It was the seemingly correct choice.

Upwards would lead him out, and by out, he imagined the waking world. He began his ascent with firm grips and steady boot treads. Before long, he found himself back in his bed. He had returned to the waking world confident that he had made all the correct decisions.

He looked at the clock beside his bed and realised if he didn’t get out of bed now, he would be late for work.

He wondered what he would wear today.

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