I Choose

I've always found it easy to pretend. Living in a world of make believe can be a relief, a safe-haven for the troubled mind, a seemingly simple way to control the world when the world wants to control you. But today, I let the world come with me. After all, why should I have all the fun to myself? Don't they want to know what it's like to alter your reality to your every whim? To decide what to keep and what to change as if you have any control at all over the random algorithms that hold your fate in their binary codes. I mean, if you were given an unshaped block of clay, and told you could build anything, would you recreate something known or would you branch out, experiment, and shape something you've never seen before?

I can smell it. I know where I am. I did arrange to be here, although hindsight is telling me I probably could have come up with a less dramatic way to make it happen - but alas, there's no fun in being boring. Hospitals always have the same smell. No amount of disinfectant (why lemons anyway?) can ever really mask it. Plus, you can always feel it. Somewhere, maybe in the next room, above you, below you, sometimes even beside you, someone is dying. Someone's life will never be the same. Some family is going through the unspeakable. And yet, just a few doors down there is happiness, joy, laughter, a sense of invincibility being born in a fighter who dares to defy the odds. Maybe that's why I like it here, the clash of the worlds, it all seems very unrealistic, as if some powerful prankster somewhere came up with the idea for some sort of twisted reality TV show and is just watching us, analysing our every move. Well, if that is the case, I better not let him down, TV shows are only as good as the characters they follow after all.

I don't think I've spoken to anyone since last May. Wait, maybe even April, although there was that delivery guy who was annoyingly chatty. But why shatter the illusion? I am by far better company than most, and I almost never argue with myself so it seems to be working out. Other people always seems so invasive, like they want to ruin the life that I've built myself. Why would they want things to change? I guess that's what I'm going to find out. They must have a reality in mind that far exceeds the one they have or they wouldn't try so hard to drag me into it with them, can it really be that easy?

The doctor has been talking to me for about five minutes now, I really want to listen to what he has to say. I'm pretty sure I broke my arm when I threw myself down the stairs, oops. It was only meant to be a head injury but I guess all those years of playing professional basketball in my head did nothing to improve my aim. Anyway, it doesn't really matter what he has to say, I am in control of this story today and I am actually pretty intrigued to see how it goes. I have to say something. But saying something feels so hard. Like my lips have been sown together for so long, that any words that might come out seem way too loud and intrusive. Plus, when I'm talking I can't hear myself thinking. Ok, well I chose to do this, I want to do this, I want to know what happens, what will they paint with a blank canvas?

'I'm sorry, where am I?' Yikes, that felt weird. Words have a taste, I forgot words have a taste. People are touching me, my head is fine people and why are you shining that light in my eyes, it's a bit annoying.

'I don't know who I am, where am I?' Again, such a weird taste, I think I need some juice or something because this is slightly uncomfortable. Finally, they seem to be walking away, they look confused. Imagine how I feel. But at least I get to choose. I get to choose to let them choose who I a going to be. I can always scrap it if I don't like it, after all, that's what I did last time.

I wish I could go back to my villa on the south coast of Italy, the views from my bedroom window were breathtaking, I can still feel the Mediterranean breeze on my skin, the sun beaming down at me like it was happy to see me, the only one it seems. Or that brief time I spent in Norway, log cabins in a snowy mountain range are as idillic in real life as they are in the movies. The Northern Lights making magical music in the sky that seemed to paint a masterpiece just for me, speaking gently to me, encouraging me to dream big.

But it seems I am in a car now, just a normal, below average kind of car. I'm going home. I'm being taken home. They look excited, and nervous, as though they can't believe they've been given a second chance. A second chance to create their own unique reality. And this is what I wanted to know after all. I mean, if you were given an unshaped block of clay, and told you could build anything, would you recreate something known or would you branch out, experiment, and shape something you've never seen before?