Learning to Speak

Started writing up a story sketch that was supposed to get much naughtier, but things changed and it turned out quite different than I thought.

-----------------
Steadily clanks of metal pounded securely from a safe, solo weight machine in a pleasant condo.

The effort pulling on tension strings helped shape muscles that were carved and maintained over years of routine exercise for a pleasing aesthetic.

The effort for an outward appearance was countered by the irony of being fed by meals for a single person, filling the cabinet, just enough extra in case a guest dropped by.

As the weekend day wore on, the 20-something drifted through attempts at personal entertainment and fulfillment, though the only thing which came close was artwork of many types, attempts to communicate and reach out to other people in the condo.

Phone calls were made, but a very short list of friends that were at least very close showed no availability, and it kept the media in the condo alive. Multiple screens were going, only one source of sound at least, whether it was a TV show, a web show, music, or a video game.

Words are written, lines are drawn to create shapes and images, video is stitched together into collages of moving life. Eventually a hookah is lit up, and the scent of tobacco soaked in molasses, and the light tinge of ash filled up the place.

While the hookah slowly burnt late on in the night, a laptop held an experimental timeline of loving couples on video, an examination of love. The footage that was selected, however, was combined with the footage and experiences not selected, and the over-thinking young man, an odd luxury among 20-somethings started to shape things between the lines.

Eventually the project stopped. It was closed with quiet frustration after enough lip service and memories contrasting what was said to be truth, and the animal reactions people had that motivated them. The more he heard words, the more humanity slowly disappeared in front of him. The final image seen was one of a couple of friends who talked about their love for each other, but in private he knew the woman talking about manipulating the man like a dog, and the man talking about manipulating the woman for sex.

The question "Who are you?" rolled around in the rings and serpentine trails of smoke floating from the young man's lips.

Like all good questions, it was turned inward, and the man was laying on his stomach, still smoking the luxuriously flavored tobacco when it came to a vulnerable spot that was always feared to address.

Like those criticized, this man knew he was just another animal as well. Though he could recognize it, there was no stopping an animal fear that came about, the animal fear that kept the large, nice condo, and that well built body made for the appreciation of others filled with meals for one. Though perfectly social, there was no vulnerability for closeness. As intellectual as he was, there seemed to be no way around the anxiety.

When cleaning the hookah, way late at night, and watching the ruined water spiral down the drain, the question to "Who am I?" was apparent for him just as it was for anyone else he knew. "I am an animal," was the only response to eventually come to.

The monuments of media machines were turned off, and he went to sleep quietly and alone with this in mind.

Previously, he might have said his dreams were all painfully average, parodies of every day life relived.

A workday drifted in esoteric washes before him. It was a skeleton of reality put together by his mind, as usual the day went by, but amusingly, as things happen in dreams, the eventual frustration of two people arguing over a silly problem instead of going to horrific screams that made no sense, as few things do in dreams, instead went to growling, snarling, yowling and barking.

It was enough to let the normally frustrating situations of shallow formality drift away.

The crack of daylight through the curtains of bay windows lit the room in the early morning after only a few hours of sleep. In necessity of more, the young man turned, rolled over, and hid his head with the covers, but not before the natural effects of morning hormones brought about morning wood.

No amount of humanity will destroy the chemical and physical nature of the body, and this morning development affected the young man just as any other. Now his dreams turned, and he was confronted, alone, in his anxiety in his mind.

There was a handsome, strong man, as the young man had always liked. As it was in dreams, there was no face, in his mind only the essence of what he wanted was dealt with. But while he wanted the naked body before him, he wanted the interaction, he felt paralyzed in his own dream, too afraid to move, or react.

There was no face, there were no voices, as things can be in dreams, but he knew the question the man before him was asking. What is wrong? All logic should say nothing, nothing at all. But that wasn't said.

Instead, the young man made a single, animal sound. He was scared, anxious, panicking. His body was unable to move, he was unable to form words, but there was what he wanted in front of him. Something had to be done, anything, there was nothing else to do but try and say something but words couldn't come out. To keep the dream from washing away in a haze of panic, he cried out to beg it to stop, and it came out in one, single sound. He barked. Like a dog. Like an animal.

It was one single sound that said everything, a sound made in absence of words and the presence of the animal fear that filled him. The sound broke as an admission of helplessness, and behind it came everything.

The dream was like a raging river following, and the young man awoke in the mess of his own release, but the details of everything save for the wash of freedom he felt during the dream were lost to the haze of his subconscious mind.

The second day of the weekend continued as it normally would. He showered, got dressed, ran errands as needed.

Eventually he came home, and started a very mundane process of mixing the ground beef for a patty melt. The cheese and spices in the meat melted, of course, and darkened it. The bun slowly toasted. The sight clicked an image in his mind. There was no immediate reason that sprang to mind for why, but the image had a relaxing effect.

Broth and other ingredients were combined to create a simple gravy. The bun was crumbled into chunks and fully toasted, and before it was over, the meat was broken and mashed into chunks as well. In the end, the meal ended in a wide dinner bowl, a mess nearly like a stew, of meat, bread, and gravy. It all happened like a dream.

The meal stared back at him on the counter once it was finished, as though it were a person. The primal reaction suddenly gripped his heart, though alone, as though he were being challenged.

The bowl was set on the ground of the kitchen, and he walked away.

He came back to the bowl to eat. He came back to eat, braving an unspoken, imagined challenge like a man. To do so, he came back on all fours, naked except for a simple flat cap, functionally worn backwards to keep hair that was just too long out of the way. He came back on all fours like an animal, and ate from a bowl on the ground, like a domesticated dog.

It felt like he was dreaming, so much so his heart was pounding. It was a symbolic gesture to no one but himself, but an admittance that he didn't have control over something. The connection it had caused a fiery arousal, but he paid it no attention and continued eating like a dog.

The bowl was empty, and he cleaned off the excess gravy from his face. It was like a ritual, but with it completed, he moved on.

The weight machine pounded again. The media machines started. The search, research, and creation carried on with a direction. He reached out with new concepts to explore, and he even had a simple message.

The message was one to carry to the right person to hear it, but he participated in his ritual on his own. There may have been other ways to address his fear, but he had found one way to feel he could start to address the primal fear in him out of control.

The act on its own carried the message, and would make it all clear what he was asking to those special few he finally started to show through his body what he couldn't say through his mind.

The simple request to help train away his animal fear.
-----------------