daydream
Sometimes I have dreams... or rather, daydreams. You see, time here behaves quite strangely. It goes somewhat like this:
Imagine the movement of time like a river that flows vertically, but that flow is not confined to a single lane. It acts like raindrops: they are the flow, and they fall onto 'time slots'. When one drop hits a slot, that time happens, and then the next drop hits another slot, and that is the continuation of that earlier slot. This happens over and over very quickly. Each slot hit is completely random and unpredictable, but all the slots are where we can experience them. So instead of moving from one slot to another, we are continuously jumping from random slot to random slot. But there is no continuity between them at all. So, what happens when you start at a slot, and the flow continues to a slot several steps ahead or before? Then, that becomes another "first slot", and that means that time is basically standing still for my body. My existence can only fill a small number of slots. Things such as the moon, with its huge scale, can fill more slots than I can count, so time seems to progress for the world as usual, as normal as it can be, since several slots are being hit at once very quickly. That is why I can never get tired or grow old, and get sleepy, for that matter. Which is why I can never dream, only daydream.
In plain terms, there simply isn't enough continuity to my existence here for mortality to occur, much less drowsiness. Mister Moon there and the mountains continue to age while time moves around me, without me ever moving through it. The moon passes through millions upon millions of temporal states. Buildings decay. People are born and die. Seasons change. But I remain trapped inside a tiny constellation of states that the rain of time keeps revisiting. I can only occupy a small region of that enormous temporal structure. There is also something else this implies... have you realized it yet? My own memory... is not continuous. That is why I always have a notebook and a pen in hand, so I can note everything down as it happens. Pretty inconvenient, right? But not as bad as you might think. Humans say that "People can change", don't they? So, if I change into a 'new' me, you could say the experiences of that new me up to that point become a core of my existence, and the memories of this new me carry on with me to whatever slot I might exist inside that temporal state.
Inside this temporal patchwork, I am like a dark spot where the light of time happens to illuminate sometimes, and this notebook... is pretty much an extension of my body, and is what helps me survive this continuous discontinuity. Luckily or not, not much ever happens that it becomes chaotic for myself, but I am still being deconstructed and reconstructed over and over again. That sounds like a lot, doesn't it? But as I experience it, I don't feel that roughed up. Sometimes I feel like I could almost cry, and other times, I just feel sudden joy. When you look at it like this, it's not so different from the life of other people. Or am I just trying to make amends with my fate? Heh, you tell me! I would like to think I don't mind it that much, but can I even tell? How many of my selves do actually feel like that? Probably not all of them.
There is no need to look at me like that. Do I look miserable to you? Or maybe I lost that capacity? That's certainly something to debate about. But, rather than that, I think it has to do with why I can only have 'first times' with relationships and nothing much more than that. Just as I don't know you, I don't know anyone that I have ever known, and they also will never know me, almost like any path leading to slots where that is not the case is being erased as we talk about. The beginning is also the end of the road for us. Sounds bad until you consider you don't have to care about a stranger like me. I might as well be just like someone picking up rocks by the road, fragments, and trying to glue them together into something that makes sense.
Oh, I see that my talk has bored you, seeing as you are prepared to leave already. I know that to you I might as well look like a carp with a mouth closing and opening, since you can't hear me at all. Actually, it reminds me that rather than the end of a road, it's more like a dead end where I happen to exist inside a wall or atop a tower, talking to the wind while you can only turn back, right?
[ the person was long gone ]