So here i write. In a parking lot outside CVS in a town in Virginia, I now sit holding a notepad and the cheapest mechanical pencil money can buy, ticking away. Here I write, though I'm not sure I am (I mean I'm unsure about my existence, not my current writing state) (Yes, Descartes, I think therefore I am, but what if I don't feel?)
At this point in a story, you'd start getting hints about my 'tragic past'. Well, in reality, it might sound pretty ******. It'd go like this;
"Polly Perks, born April 17, 1993 once deeply and profoundly felt. She held lust and envy, bounded in happiness and spun out thoughtfulness, wandering with curiosity, released lust, her body was a compendium of emotions (whatever that means). And sometimes she felt them one by one or glutted herself on many feels. Then, as per usual narrative style, came a boy who made her heart beat, her brain swoon and then her insides scream all within a school year. That boy was no good for her because he was, you see, deeply forbidden (translated to exclude melodrama, he was dating her best friend, that *******). Polly carved through that summer with whiskey, daydreams, and a quiet ripping noise coming from her chest as the emotions shanked their way out. Then her dad died. Then she went to college."
You see, after I watched my father's skin turn yellow and his eyes churn milky tears, after i left behind my life with shallow and fleeting throes of excitement for books and tests, after I was finally escaped from this man-child who pulled and pushed me like a yo-yo, i made a pact subconsciously, or maybe hallucinatory, or maybe completely aware-ly, but from that day on I abandoned emotion, and so I have lived for nigh on 279 days (I made that number up, but the gist is its been awhile since me and feelings have hopped into any kind of bed).
Well today, nearly one year later, Polly has had enough with emotionless-ness. Let's get back to narration, shall we?
"One day after work Polly finds herself shaking her head. Not in a manner of saying 'no' or conveying confusion, more like a 'wet dog shaking off the rain' shake. rain is what she wants, and like a fairytale rain is coming. She hears thunder and strikes up, leaves the house and enters rain. Inside, she feels (not emotionally but in a scientific way, as if she's taking inventory of her organs and thoughts and building blocks) movement, like her pulse is bracing to start. She's felt it before this year, while watching shooting stars with a cute, drug infested boy in college, and while witnessing the comedies of friends, and after telling the nightmarish apparition of her yellowed father he died and must leave her dreams alone. She feels she should feel."
So I run. I run and run and run in the rain, and God, I'm feeling like emotions might not ****. But then the rain starts slowing, and I start skimming, and soon I'm on a tree, a fallen fractured tree upon a metal playground (there's probably symbolism in that, so go ahead and rejoice, high school english teachers). I think 'i don't want to be empty' and then I whisper it and soon I find myself standing on this tree, yelling at empty clouds and the bricks and the metal climbing bars i don't, I Don't, I DON'T.
and then... a heart beat. a strong one. I feel it. I feel the story, I feel colors, I feel inspired and man, I feel like ****. But I'm feeling something.
"Delirious with this re-discovered feeling, Polly decide to challenge the skies. She sees a flag pole with an shiny brass eagle on top sitting as a bright and proud beacon of America, home of the free and the brave and those who eat their feelings or starve them out.She sees the clouds, she hears the thunder, and the eagle speaks. 'So you feel now, Polly? Come put it to the test. Feel reckless. Come and feel my skin, cool metal, during a lightning storm.'
So she does. And she dies. And her feelings die with her. That, or she lives to write her odd, slapdash story in a frenzy in a parking lot outside CVS, to the pitter patter of mad rain.