Fading Sparks-Latent

-As he sits there, his thoughts lost in thoughts, there is a familiar sound, a buzzing. It doesn’t startle him, but rather inches its way into his consciousness. Sharply, he turns his head, right. The doorway to his room appears ethereal, and maybe it’s the smoke, and maybe it’s the dreams. He looks at the blank space beyond the doorway, the empty wall. He knows the sound, he recognizes it, his alarm, but for the moment, he’d rather not step into the room. Not now, not while the haze of the doorway’s presence is present. And as he sits there, he feels a lagging behind time’s procession and he wonder’s if he set the alarm because he has to work, or if perhaps, though it doesn’t happen often, there is some other event today. Then again, there have been times when he’s set it, simply as a reminder that another day is passing and maybe he should leave the house, in search of possibility.
At a quarter of a century his experience of time passing, is not so much an experience but a slight impression as it’s gone by way too fast. Though if it slowed, he might have died by now. There have been those days that have dragged on and he’s run around the house frantic trying to find the way out of that space. As if his lagging behind the procession of time had been exacerbated by one of his many failings.
His eyes dart back and forth as he scans the street. His feet move quicker than he intends them to, as if they are their own apparatuses and he has no control, they are only motivated by their own emotion. He catches a glimpse of the burning orange hue that slivers across the horizon, a hint of red in its scattered stream. The only thing familiar, and he contemplates a smile at the recognition but is frightened by how foreign the street feels to him. The same street on which he’s observed most of the countless faces he’s forgotten. He shivers in the warm night’s breeze.
His mind goes blank, dark. He feels empty. Homeward? He wonders. Where is home? And he thinks of all the places he’s been. With each quickened step his feet take, he tries to dislodge a single memory of a place he could really call home. Nothing. He could feel his hands begin to tremble. His stomach growls a vacancy, but he’s not hungry. He raises his trembling hand to his face and rubs his lower lip. A sigh of relief, his body has not yet been won over by some other force.
He stands there. He’s standing. He’s stopped. He looks down at his feet. They’ve stopped moving. The streets are empty now. The horizon has disappeared. His hands continue to tremble, partly because of the cold breeze, partly because of his own fear. The fear he hides even from himself that now materializes as he stands there, abandoned on the empty street. And he can feel the warm rush of blood shooting up the back of his head. He could feel the stress in his arteries as they become engorged by the rushing blood. It scares him and it pleases him. It makes him dizzy and it gives him clarity. He closes his eyes and is able to see nothing. Even the dream is gone.
His eyes scan the littered streets. They bounce around inside of him as if they are working up enough force with which to escape. He sees the cracks in the concrete sidewalk, the storefronts in shadows. He feels the cold breeze and he continues poring over the abandoned street scene. His eyes stop, fixed on the last set of headlights to make it out of the old parking structure, near by, fade into the night. Silence. Suddenly a scratching sound makes its way past him and he turns his head with a tremble to see several newspaper pages blow by. Floating, then falling, being dragged by the breeze, they stop at a puddle. The water weight saves them from any further travel. The air stills, still and cold. Its raking noise ceases. He just stands there, wondering if he missed it. He looks around and wonders where it might have been. He looks for the little dying sparks they leave; fantasies. It is after all, what draws him out, possibility.
Perhaps it is the influence of his generation or the many hours spent, as a latch key kid, in front of the TV. In his home they always had cable and always had HBO. In those days of his youth, it was one movie after another until his parents got home. The one thing that fascinated him, at least subconsciously, was the traveling through magic portals. When he goes out in search of possibility, this is exactly what he looks for. Not a passage to some other dimension, but a stepping over a threshold that may unburden him of the weight of this weightless existence. A passage through which he may find what he should have found already in this incarnation, which has somehow eluded him. A magic door perhaps. And he calls it fantasy, but still he’s always left alone looking for the fading sparks.