AAYL I'M A JUNKY + CAN'T SLEEP

Continuing from the last post's theme, here's another old entry relating to music. From the same year, 2004, I'm guessing it was written in Perth. 

Context? There's mention of "remembering" (meta-textual, addressing the audience, v. edgy, no?) sleeping tablets. A few years back I bought sleeping tablets for insomnia. They didn't work. The pills were left alone in a desk. Around the time of this post... well, you can figure out the rest. 

**************************

Tuesday 23rd of December

Why does the human race feel the need to dance? What is it about music that makes us want to move our arms and legs, hands and feet in complicated patterns to beats and rhythms? Why is it the more stupid humans in a room, listening to music, the more chance there is of an instance of dance? Why does one feel more inclined to dance when one's friends are dancing? Peer pressure, generations of social dancing drilled into us from the embryonic stages of our impressionable young lives, an avoidable impulse. What fuels this impulse? Does the beat of the music tap into a congruent primal rhythm running through our bodies? Do the fluctuations of our hearts play a role in this worldwide epidemic of foot shuffling? Whenever I'm at a club I start to get unnerved by the mindlessness of this hidden, ineffable suggestion to move with the music. My paranoia grows as I see more and more people fall under its sway, as their bodies are no longer theirs to control. It's almost like dancing is a global plot that has been hatched in the center of earth and then left to filter through all facets of society. He who controls the knees and hips can use the remote to strike the giant boot against any opposition of his choosing. The power of such a combined kick would be a mighty weapon indeed. Is music really a tone to set us off, drone-like, on our primary objective? I can only fear for the worst. We stop at the lights. A dude sticks his head into the car window. "Are you going to the casino?" No, we're not. The dude walks off. It's as easy as that really. Remember the sleeping tablets which have the horrible side-effect of causing drowsiness? If you don't then too bad, as cheats don't deserve bonuses. Over the last week or two I've noticed that the packet containing the tablets has been moving about my desk of their own volition. Tablets have also been disappearing at an alarming rate. So I set the trap. The packet stays on the desk but the tablets are hidden away. In their position is placed a folded up note. On the note is an anonymous message, which reads "Why are you taking my sleeping tablets without asking? (They are three years out-of-date by the way.)" Days go by with no apparent change to the packet. Finally, I come home late one night to find the sleeping tablet box open, with the note half sticking out. I open it up and a second message has been scribbled on the piece of paper. It reads:

"*Unintelligible scribble* FOR THE SAME REASON U EAT MY STUFF I'M A JUNKY + CAN'T SLEEP !!"

So I'm watching bands. They start getting brighter and faster, transforming into the most cacophonous noise I have ever heard. White hands beckon to me from the front of the stage. They're trying to draw me closer. My chest tightens. My breathing goes shallow. I follow the turning of the wrist with my eyes. My feet stay glued to the ground. A low squeal cuts through my ears. I can't move, I feel stunned. Fingernails and shoulders taunt me. My vision swims for a wild moment and then hits back with a jolt. The floor rushes up to me and away, past the follicles of hair and skin, finally coming to rest just an inch underneath the ceiling. I'm left in this void existing between space and time. It is infinite and yet nothing. I know the real world is above me but I could travel downwards and still reach it as a final destination all the same. Isolation is being positioned between two plains as they are slowly pushed together. Some hand flicks the light switch off and I awake, alone.