Distorted INT - 2024

I remember standing in line at the Starbucks. All the normal people were there. A temperamental society girl was off to my left, an Uber driver to my right was waiting for his pickup. My name was called, I picked up my pretentious latte and walked out the door.

The hallway was long. All I remember is that a friend was being held there. This ill-defined friend, who was understood to be my best friend of all. I hated hospitals. They conjured up the saddest of memories.

I remember fear running through my mind. Hoping it wasn't as bad as they said, this undetermined friend who I was racing to see.

But I found myself outside a window looking in. It was a large pane of glass, like that you see above an intelligence commend center. Lines of computers were sifting though various information. Faceless people going about their work. IDs and profiles were flashing, like a movie search, on an overhead screen. One after another. I heard indistinct muttering as a familiar face came up.

A profile flashed as an odd looking Van Gogh painting. A face of ambiguity and distortion, like a window into what can't be controlled. The imperfections that can't be filtered and avoided, as painted by torturous pain.

But it didn't matter, I was back in my building walking toward the elevator.

The elevator was nothing like the one in my building. They had updated it, complete with a glass face exposed to an atrium. I could see people looking at the the new design from their balconies. I could see trees in the center now providing greenery and a nice vibe. The cheap apt/condo building feel was now gone.

But I was alone in the elevator. It kept descending exposed to balcony lined atrium.

Finally I was walking through the lobby of a drab government building which was understood to be the lobby of my building. I was to sit down and wait for my name.

Everyone was now looking at me. Names were being called out in groups. But why were they all looking at me that way? They'd walk by and stare.

I remember feeling the disdain of the worker behind the desk. It was a confrontational exchange. Like a deposition of my plasticity. An accusation of the fraudulent, of the vainglorious and self-obsessed.

Then I was back seated in connected chairs. The underlying premise had returned. I was now at an airport going to see my unnamed friend.

It was a light travel day, as I sat by the gate in a generic airport. I understood these were the people from earlier (in the waiting room) returning to sit around me and wait for the same flight. The same people as earlier, arriving at this new location, with the same stares. I overheard their conversations.

Total misunderstanding. They didn't understand, I had to get to the unnamed city to visit my unnamed friend in the unknown hospital from earlier. I had real things to deal with, and didn't want this attention.

I was looking through the front of the plane. It had taken off, but everything was wrong. The pane of glass from the warroom had returned. I remember looking through it. It was a transparent shield separating myself from the flightdeck. The plane was still climbing, but it was too noticeably low. I was still in my seat, but with a full cockpit view. I could simultaneously see the rest of the plane. There were no other filled seats up front, with a few people scattered.

Then the plane begin falling out of the sky. But it didn't feel like it was falling.

Instantaneously, I was on the active tarmac sitting in my car. I could see the mirror adorning Etsy crap I had become accustomed to. As i looked through my windshield I could see the plane helplessly falling to earth short of final. I could hear the alarms of the cockpit blaring from my entangled viewpoint. It was deafening, and very much a statement of problems. The repeating alert sounded, "eent eent eent eent eent." It became louder and more pronounced.

And that was the last thing this version of myself remembers. So much for seeing my friend, it ended on me.



The End

a reply to: Degradation33

You had me at "pretentious latte".



The stream of conscious narrative really dream-like, too.

The portrait was the perfect denouement.

a reply to: Degradation33

What an interesting and surreal story, Degradation33.

What I find frightening is when those scenarios are experienced outside the dream state. One day, we look in the mirror and have an existential crisis... who am I? I've often felt out of place amongst the anonymous thralls, but to feel alien to oneself is when reality is questioned.

a reply to: Degradation33
A surreal story , it felt as if she was shifting places and realities back were it started?

Great work and painting

Thank you everyone that responded.

The painting was an AI representation in "Von Gogh" style from a seed image. And because the seed image itself was a photo-edited fantasy, the return of those imperfections (the seed image sought to erase) in the Van Gogh representation was an irony in my mind. And used as a plasticity element.

It was a piece about the need to exalt the self coming at the expense of things that should matter more, and the dream attempted to highlight how narcissism hijacks humility.

a reply to: Degradation33

This is amazing! I forgot to comment! S/F