I tell my mother that it helps me sleep.

She’s always asking why I like to go to bed with my fan on, even in the dead of winter…and every time I tell her the same thing. I tell her this because I have no way to tell her the real reason why.

Without it I am alone…and I can’t stand to be alone.

Now seriously, I know that the fan is an inanimate object…I’m not an idiot. I also know that my parents are just a few rooms away with the TV on. So what the Hell is my problem? How can I feel alone?

Not just alone—soul-numbing alone (how’s that for melodramatic?). Not just the feeling you get when you imagine being the last person on earth…that can be kind of fun. I’m talking about that sense of aloneness you can get even in a room full of people. That sense that there is so little connecting you to this world, and at any moment those cords can snap and send you hurtling through space with nowhere to go but blackness.

::breathes::

Hmm…maybe I am hyperbolizing just a little bit.

But I don’t think so. Not really.

Back to the question of the fan. How does this simple mechanical device prevent me from flying off into the Void (or some other nonsense)? Two reasons:

The noise. The touch.

As long as that poorly placed contraption vibrates and hums throughout the night I have the sense of something being with me in my room. I hate silence. HATE HATE HATE silence. To me silence seems like the closest one can get to death and not kick the bucket. No music, no voices, no friendly conversation, no midnight talks with your best friend on the phone…no whispered secrets in bed. So really all the fan is doing is talking to me (God how dumb does that sound…), holding some sort of dialogue in which all I need to do is receive and not respond.

Then there’s the touch—the touch of the air blowing across my face and arms like a gentle touch from a comforting friend or lover. It reminds me that I am indeed not alone in this world, because I can physically sense the breath coming from the fan overhead as it holds its conversation with me throughout the night.

All for the sake of not feeling alone…not feeling as if you are the only person in the world that can see through the utter absurdity awaiting you in your adult life.

The capitalist slave mines that fork in millions upon millions of dollars each year while the common working man’s corpse is used as the base of the CEO’s pyramid.

The government which doesn’t care about its citizens anymore, but would rather lick the hand of the lobbyists and “big business” for getting them elected.

“By the people, for the people” my American ass….

The environment that screams in pain as we rape it over and over and OVER again. If most people saw some poor girl getting raped in the middle of the street, the majority of them would try and beat the son-of-a-bitch raping her to a bloody pulp…or at least slow down their damn car and gawk in horror or—you guessed it—lust. I guess there are three kinds of people left on earth: those who still have some sense of morality, the perverts, and the indifferent.

God…or whatever is out there and hasn’t given up hope on this forsaken lump of rock…help the first ones. Without them…without those precious few…we’re, in a word, fucked.

The religious zealots across the world arguing over whose God is better.

How dumb is that! It’s like arguing over who has the better imaginary friend! (I know I stole that from someone…but I don’t give a damn at this point). We are killing people because they happen to believe in a different being which we cannot even prove exists!

It’s like putting someone on the rack for not believing in unicorns…

I guess I don’t think it’s all bad. I know I am not alone in my thinking. Hell, some of us even want to make a commune so that we don’t have to deal with the absurdities of the current sociopolitical (you can tell some “expert” came up with that word) situation.

Plus, I still have my health, my family, and my friends…and if not for the last I would have lain down to die (figuratively) a long time ago without. And I don’t just mean my friends I have had for years, but maybe the friend I just made yesterday. Each person you meet is another branch on the tree of your life, and nobody knows what type of fruit that branch might bear. Just because the branch is new, doesn’t mean it can’t be as strong or as healthy as the older ones.

Okay, that’s enough metaphor.

In fact, I think I am done writing. I am just glad the Muse was able to descend through the layers of smog and pollution to get to me tonight. I worry about her sometimes. That oxygen tank can get a little tricky to fly with on the way down…plus she has to worry about low-flying airplanes. It’s no wonder the lot of them refuse to come down from Olympus these days…

::insert witty ending comment here::

I wonder if you think I need psychiatric care yet. In some ways I almost hope you do…

But I digress…

Yeah, the fan helps me sleep.

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