Japanese Beetle

How does one become a hermit in the third largest city in America? How? Impossible, preposterous. Half past midnight, and I can scarcely breathe, yet my heart seems to think my body needs enough blood to send me to the moon. My hands are shaking, purple, corpselike.

The clutter in my room has suddenly become too personal, as though it’s mocking the disorganization of my mind. The lights are dim but somehow overbearing. I grasp my cigarette case, fumble for my lighter, and hurry down an endless hallway. I swear it extended while no one was watching, extended just to hinder my escape.

My legs are trembling, and I have to steady myself against the wall as I step into the elevator. I hear every grating elevator noise with the precision of a kitten avoiding a sadistic child—the grinding, the beeping, the humming, the bashing down a technology-reliant shaft. The tall, metal walls are more present than they’ve ever been before; they’ve transformed the elevator into an urbanite tomb.

Right as I’m about to sink into the corner, positive that I’ll faint at any moment, the heavy doors slide open. With my cigarette tin and lighter clutched next to my heavy chest, I hurry outside, anticipating relief. Only two puffs in, I realize how mistaken I am. My heart is still racing. My eyes scan for something lovely to focus on, but armies of boisterous Bears fans, shit-spitting students, and speeding cars blend together and form an ominous whirlwind of seizure colors and smut. Exasperated, I look towards the ground for something plain, only to find spit stains, cigarette butts, and ash.

I close my eyes and try to envision the only thing I’m desperately homesick for and the only thing Chicago doesn’t have to offer: mountains. My eyes are shut so tight that my brain begins to pound at the front of my skull, the backside of my brow. It’s useless. The serenity and wisdom of the Rockies and Andes can scarcely be felt through nostalgia alone. The distance between me and those dear elusive landforms of my memories sends tremors through my entire torso. My body is no longer human; I’m a piece of subconscious floating out of a whimsical cadaver. The notion is terrifying, to say the least.

My sanity is retreating to spare my cardiovascular system. And though it’s not uncommon for my dreams and realities to mesh to a psychedelic extent, they’ve never been so beautifully blended as they are in this moment, and suddenly jumping off my building’s neighboring skyscraper seems like a reasonable idea. I’m thrilled about finally actualizing my dreams of human flight and apathetic about the aftermath.

After all, I’ve always been curious as to what awaits after death. Will I be translated to another spiritual plane? Will I have the ability to lurk in my friends’ closets, communicating through energy? Will I be reincarnated into a bird? Or is death permanent sleep, permanent dreams? Any of the above sound so fabulously appealing, until—“Hey!” my sanity becomes the wet blanket of the evening, “What about your mother!”