I Dream of Gurney.

March 22nd???

Nothing.

All I hear is nothing. Am I forgetting what it sounds like to think because thinking is all there is? The silence is loud and the darkness bright. I still open the curtains each morning expecting a hot and sunny hello. Instead, I am met with a cold “to the abyss you shall go.” Darkness seems to be usurping change as being the only constant. Without morning there is only mourning.

Imagination is failing at its job of illuminating my mind. Strength melds with weakness and trauma with wonder. Those that lurked hidden in the shadows no longer need to conceal themselves. This is their home. Sometimes I can feel the onset of fits of paralysis and I yearn for the grey area. If the lack of sun is pushing me into perpetual angst, then I’m going to finally do it! I am gonna start my long-time-coming one-man band, “Taking Back My Forever” (Lol how emo can you get!)

We are not allowed to speak, nor listen to anything but the sound of our thoughts and the local radio announcements. The Overlords are indoctrinating us with the belief in the rising of the sun: man's effort to move the moon to reveal the light once again. They say we’re in a permanent eclipse linked to humanity's descent into the ego of materialism.

My compound seems to be one of the more strict-- at least from what I’ve heard of other places. We aren’t allowed to go to other compounds, let alone wander out of our own homes. Our food is delivered in rations and most of it has been refined into a liquid that avowedly contains our most vital nutrients. I’ve never heard the overlords talk about drinking it themselves though.

Sometimes I feel like I'm floating in a place where death means nothing. We aren't allowed sharp things for obvious reasons but it's ok. I’ve been getting and feeling little sparks of life from thoughts of stealing the militia van, driving into the compound center and really adding some bass to our lives. We can call it sub-woofing! If I sit in my room for long enough and replay that scenario over and over in my head, I sweat and feel pinches in odd parts of my body; trauma response to escapism?

When it's time for bed my mom comes in to sit. Her presence is longing yet hopeful. When she kisses my forehead, I feel her heart-shaped locket against my cheek. The stainless steel feels like dipping your toe into a pool on a 90-degree day. I find solace in the fact that she has never taken it off, nor talked about its origins. I guess when you’re lacking in vitamin D and human communication, your mind reaches for sources of comfort and validation.

The overlords have gone as far as to ban speaking in households. They say that a new dawn will come by way of silence. In silence we meet our inner light whose father is the sun. Only then, will grandmother moon allow her son to shine again because it is through her that we meet him within ourselves. The crazy part (haha isn’t it all kind of crazy?) about this is, one could say that this pursuit sounds noble but every house is bugged. I figure that they look for sound impressions that detect human speech or anything that comes close. Then, during each inspection, they check the formation of the waves and listen back to classify it as human or non-human.

When the inspections happen, the militia has a prerecorded list of questions to ask us pertaining to our activities and health. We blink twice for yes and once for no. This is the overlords way of keeping things non-partisan. Last Christmas they broadcasted that they were sending every household a fake bouquet to “raise our spirits” and shortly after people were being taken away because they had “seen the light.”

Many in our compound have found ways to get a little communication in without speaking but we still have to hide it during patrol hours. I know it’s part of their oppressive agenda because if they catch us trying to communicate, it leads to more questions and tests. A few have made up their own sign language. My friend and I did it last summer. We took some of the most common words used and wrote corresponding signals down in personalized dictionaries. We also started an alphabet just in case we ever really got in trouble.

Honestly this sh*it sucks………….

Eternal Knight of the Night of Nightless Nights, there’s no Day in Sight, I’m Trying to See with all my might to Fight the plight of….. The militia! GASP! Did I just spit a rhyme? I think so! A new signature? I think so too!

Day 122

It has been almost four months since my last entry. Night terrors are beginning to spread around the compound and I have been chosen!

Here’s the scenario:

I’m rushed to a hospital, and they have the oxygen mask on me. They say I’ve fainted and stopped breathing. I’m on a stretcher. We’re in the ER. My mom is bent over with her right cheek on my forehead and her locket swings against my chin. The nurses are running. They are hooking me up to a machine. I see my mom clutching her locket. She mouths, “all you have to do is wake up.” The locket blinds me as it reflects the overhead lights of the blank hospital room.

FLASH

I’m in a bed of water holding the locket in my hand as if I fell from my mother’s arms and grabbed it for support. Someone pulls me out.

FLASH

“What do you mean I don’t have any other options? Aren't you the doctor? Isn't this what you are here for? What would you do if this was your child, wouldn't you do everything that you…….

“Mom….?”

“Oh my GOD MY BABY………… I prayed and prayed and I stayed praying that my baby would come back to me. I thought about what it was like for you and where you went and was just praying that you wouldn’t go to the light…”