Unordinary Experience

I awoke to an eerie day. Things weren’t quite right, not in their right order, or mise en place as the French culinary expression goes. The sky shown with a mellow hue, distinguishing individual particles floating in the air around me. Rays of sun permeating through the cloud layer kept pulling my attention away from the road as I drove to Walmart. Along the ride I saw telephone poles of an odd assortment. Their transformers had been replaced with automobile exhaust mufflers, connecting to each other with a mess of wires and strings. At the store I crossed paths with a Brazilian colleague who was inspecting the zucchinis in the produce section. I try to avoid chalking this event up to anything other than chance, but as it is, my lizard brain is always ready to declare things as special or significant. What if this is an indication of things to come or cosmic energy hinting at life guidance? To think in this way will surely drive a person mad, so I let the thoughts pass and continue perusing the aisles. I may be making a leap here, but my experiences at America’s Walmart stores have always bordered on those of religious quality or those at an amusement park. I am greeted at the entrance with a smiling customer service clerk and all my worries external to the massive building are soon forgotten. Perhaps it’s that familiar sense of overstimulation that others have observed and commented on. The multitude of colors and lights, how couldn't it resemble a theme park? 

But soon my routine fun house experience devolved into one of a haunted nature. I began witnessing shoppers' carts overfill before my eyes, until there were mountains of goods spilling over. Their clothing seemed to constrict, swelling their limbs and faces, bulging their eyes, which all appeared to be looking at me. Reaching for a green pepper, I was struck by a sudden sense of unfamiliarity with the vegetable. I started questioning, is this edible? Is this a common shape? From which exotic land was this imported? The pepper’s glisten and shine suddenly gave me a sensation of nausea and I placed it back down. Suddenly I felt like a trespasser who had walked into the wrong building unknowingly and had become the recipient of mean glares. This unfamiliarity persisted despite my best efforts to continue with my mission of buying food. It wasn’t until I reached the checkout lines that my anxiety dissolved. As soon as an employee gestured for me to go to the available station and I spoke a few obligatory pleasantries, my trance was released. I heard the growls and chortling that had been background noise return to a jumbled ambiance of shoppers chatting. Fellow customers began to lose their foreign appearance and I felt my heartbeat slow.

Later on that day, oddities continued. I decided to go on a brief jog to boost my serotonin levels. Not a gust of wind blew and the air felt stagnant as I glided across the pavement. The temperature felt climate controlled, as if I had been transported to the Truman Show, under a dome manipulated by a small team of researchers. Upon finishing the jaunt, I sat on a park bench to rest. Gazing down, I saw a small spider sprint across the bench between my legs. It stopped for a brief second and I swear it waved to me with one of its eight legs just before ducking out of sight. Then my eyes fell upon the grass beside me. For many long minutes I sat transfixed. The growth and energy of each blade was perceptible. I felt a humming as they all soaked up the sunlight in unison. The dirt made a crunching sound as the growth broke through the soil. An image of a youthful child stretching after rising from bed overlaid my vision for a brief second. I could sense the ground's bright, glittering eyes looking back up at me, greeting me with a wide naive smile. As I sat, still breathing heavily, another sensation overtook me: everything felt in its right place, just as the Radiohead song goes. There was nowhere else I could be, except right here, sweaty and warm, transfixed on the green grass.

When I got back home, I took a seat in a comfortable chair and once again became absorbed in an odd phenomenal experience. A calming stillness washed over me and my mind went blank. I felt immensely relaxed and my limbs hung without any tension. Everything seemed steady and clear. I closed my eyes and felt like I reclined into a rocket ship cockpit chair. A pleasant dizziness gave me the sensation of being rotated and weightless as if in zero gravity, or freefall. Perhaps that’s what it was, falling through the dark subconscious, only visible when at rest. I then gained a sense that I was in a sound booth with a thick fabric on the walls. I began talking with a woman who was behind a glass pane, but her voice came through a speaker in my head. She was telling me to repeat words and phrases like “blue dog,” “neat,” “faith,” “onion and pepper.” I did the tasks, but a couple of times I wasn’t able to make out the words, so I repeated what sounded like the intonations, but was, in fact, gibberish. My speech felt sleepy and I affirmed questions she asked by saying  “alright” in a tone of nonchalance. I can’t be sure how long this lasted, my sense of time was severely distorted. It could’ve been a few seconds or a few hours. Eventually it passed and I grew tired.

The novelty of the day had worn me out. I went to the bathroom and washed my face with a thick, metallic water dripping from the faucet and unquestionably dried my hands with a wedding dress hanging from an ornate hook. I brushed my teeth with bristles that resembled a porcupine and paste that seemed to be alive. Taking a big yawn, I looked into the mirror. I saw you. I saw your head’s curvature and your spine’s bend. Your gait as you walk. I saw the world’s stroll as it crossed the street and it all became too much for my mind to handle. I looked away. As I was making my way to the bedroom, my legs felt like noodles. Had I now become a squid? It was impossible to know for sure. Upon reaching my bed, I collapsed and drifted off into a pleasant slumber, anticipating my dreams.