Day 344 - Blurred Story

Blurred Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

Reality wasn’t what it was supposed to be. Perhaps it was just his perception. Neil realized this to be a distinct possibility, but knowing this didn’t help. Things were still unclear. He couldn’t tell. He saw things in so many ways; he just wasn’t sure what was, what was supposed to be, what was possible, and what was simply his mind playing a trick on him.

Reality was a blur, a blend of overlapping possibilities. He saw them all, unfiltered. It was fluid and always flowing and changing and redistributing in different ways and different patterns. He saw endless changes. Sometimes they merged; often they were very close, working in tandem or just slightly out of rhythm with each other. It was like looking at a skipping image of a broken film or listening to a million skipping records all playing at slightly different speeds.

If he tried very hard he could pick them apart and see just one. But that could present its own problem – perhaps he was looking at the wrong one, living in the wrong place or wrong time. He would say something or do something and he would apparently be out of step with himself and those around him. He often seemed like a babbling fool or a madman seeing visions of the impossible. Most of the people he encountered simply took him for crazy. Sometimes he agreed.

Reality had become his obsession. It was his conspiracy to see, his riddle to unravel. He and he alone could see that reality wasn’t what it was supposed to be. It was a never-ending shift. He could tell. Everything was a blur.

Somewhere in the blur, Neil believed there was a pattern. If there were a pattern, didn’t that suggest a design of some sort? Perhaps he wasn’t the only one out there that knew what was going on. Perhaps there was design and intent and purpose.

History supposedly repeats itself. Or that was what people were fond of saying. But what did that really mean? That people in the past were similar to people in the present and they made similar mistakes and had similar successes? Or did they mean that history literally repeated itself? If that were true, that would mean there could be a pattern. Was it specific? Could he recognize it? If he could recognize it, he could figure it out and have the answers.

It was a puzzle. There was a pattern and he just had to figure it out and put all the pieces in the right place. Then, maybe then, he could find the creator, the master behind it all. There must have been a purpose. Certainly there must. Otherwise it was just chaos for the sake of chaos. And that made no sense at all.

What was it? Was there one answer? One pattern that would answer every question? One answer that could control every pattern? Could he make himself a master of time and space? Or was he just looking at randomness and driving himself further insane?

All he had to do was find the right combination of words or data or people or things. All he had to do was put the pieces together so they fit. But what if he did and it didn’t fit? What if these things had just been coincidence or a statistical anomaly? Wouldn’t that be great? To find the answer and then find out you were wrong?

One day. One minute. One second. He just had to break things down into the smallest unit possible and then he could see the answer and rebuild it so that he fit. If he could just put it together in the right way, he could see the hand that was writing everything. That was all he wanted. Just a glimpse. Just a chance for things to make sense. Nothing had made sense for far too long. He just wanted the world to slow down and make sense for a minute. Then he could get back to living. But first he had to figure out the puzzle pattern.