Funeral face, again.

Today was another slow motion day.

Once every month or two, I wake up disconnected - slightly removed - two shakes shy of real life - plumbing the depths of the dark behind the daylight - ensconced within a roll of soaking wet cotton batting threaded with fibers of lead - according to no rhyme or reason.

Like the mortal agonies, waking up half dead and stuck inside the slow-flowing sap of apathy and despair is a seemingly random phenomenon. I'm clueless as to the unholy clockwork which motivates these inflictions.

On days like today, managing a facial expression feels like lifting weights. Speaking above a whisper feels like suffocating. Every action is accompanied by a desperate prayer located just below my awareness:

Guide me, protect me, as I'm forced through these motions.

Bad brain chemistry, triggered by unknown ingredients... that's the best explanation I can come up with for these little dips into hell that come every so often.

My boss got onto me today for having 'funeral face', as he puts it. Funeral face... that's a good name for it.
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Why you have funeral face? You scare away customer! What wrong with you today?

Geez, I dunno, Chiy. Nothing is wrong, I just wake up like this sometimes.

Customer ask me what wrong with you, I try to protect you, I tell them, he have back pain, but customer leave and don't come back! It hurt sales!

I'm sorry, Chiy. I can't just force myself to pretend that I'm happy.

What wrong with you? Something bothering you? What happen?

Nothing's wrong, Chiy. I just wake up like this sometimes, there's no reason for it! I'm having a bad day. People have bad days. Customers have bad days, I have bad days.

You need help me out, I'm losing sales...

It's not my fault.
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And I move through the entire day in slow motion, like a puppet submerged in syrup, scaring away customers and freaking out my boss because my brain chemistry is experimenting with recipes from a forgotten appendix of the Necronomicon.

Thank God these events only occur a few times a year.

The bestest idea that probably won't kill me.

Oh man, I just had the best idea that I've ever had in this world. I dunno what brought it on, it just hit me like a 59 lb bag of Angel feathers! Here it is:

Sometime soon, preferably on a cold night with low clouds and lots of ice on the ground, I'll gather up all of my necessary accoutrements, such as:

Music
Fully charged internet
Thing to write with
Flashlight
Camera drone
HotHands hand warmers

and...

Spare alcohol

and...

Coffee in a thermos

and...

A couple packs of smokes

and maybe...

A slim jim

And then I'll find a place to perch myself, as high up as I can, possibly at the top of a tree. I've got a couple of tree locations imbedded in my to-do memory banks that would work. I'll wanna get perched no later than 3:00AM, because I'm gonna need several hours of perching to get ready for the daylight. Anyway!

Then I'll wait for the dawn to roll over the horizon, in whatever shape it takes. After that, whatever happens, happens. Maybe I'm so overcome with emotion at the beauty that I lose my grip and fall and break my neck and die (tragic).

Maybe I'm so disappointed at the gray dawn that I slit my wrists and stain the white snow and ice with blood and then I die (that would be the most rad).

Maybe I fall asleep before the crucial moment and lose my grip and fall and break my neck and die (lame).

Maybe I stay awake the whole time waiting for the sunrise, and when it finally happens I forget to watch, and in my discombobulated state, I lose my grip and fall and break my neck and die (hilarious).

Maybe I get tired of waiting for the dawn and just say fuck it and decide to kill myself and then change my mind and just go home (probably).

What I'm counting on though, is a Dawnrise moment that will cure me of all the symptoms of death, kinda like the Grinch when his heart grew three sizes that day, except in real life and not a lame cartoon.

Damn, that's an awesome idea, Ash! This winter, that's what I'm gonna do.