Thoughts in Repeat

The doctors thought it was narcolepsy, but like all angsty teenagers, Jim thought otherwise. He had been through hell, and worse, he didn't make it through. Not in one piece anyway. Jim was a special child. His mother had fled in the middle of the night with his older sister, leaving him to the clutches of his alcoholic father. Jim's dad was, by day, a well respected journalist, but like all in his trade, he could only manage by drowning his life in alcohol when it wasn't absolutely necessary to be sober.

And when he was drunk, he tended to vent. Violently.

And so for his entire childhood, Jim alternated between having the snot beat out of him at school, and having the snot beat out of him at home. Violence was the answer, and inevitably, it wore Jim down to the breaking point. Something happened, though Jim always says he can't remember what. In the end, it doesn't matter anyway. The next time Jim woke up, he was halfway across the country in an airport terminal that smelled of stale curry and rubbing alcohol.

Jim adjusted well to his new surroundings. He was put in foster care - a relative angel compared to what his foster parents called the "usual raff." Still, Jim regularly slipped into melacholic trances. He would lie for hours, staring at the ceiling. Barely breathing. His body wouldn't move, but in his mind, Jim was a million miles away.

Insect wars and petty ambitions. Shaky diplomacy and a stiff backhand. A life spent for a life gained. Stars in my hands and a moon at my feet. I don't feel anything anymore, and I can't explain why. It's so hard to face, and there's so little to say. The answer to everything is death. Destruction. No amount of diplomacy can face against this thing. No amount of love can fix this, as it was love that bred it. Grass, subtly slipping by under wing. A safe place to rest for a moment. Death and the defiance of it, the life that continued to burn. One could go and not be missed. Many more have gone and not be missed, so what is but one? One person. One moon. One sun. One life.

To Jim, a normal life was a completely alien concept. His brief relationships always ended in awkward disappointment, when interested parties would find that his brooding and aloof personality wasn't a cover. In fact, he had no personality, and was perfectly content to stare at his ceiling. He sought no companionship and felt no loneliness. To many, it was a state to be pitied, and many hoped it could be remedied. But for Jim, it was nothing. A triviality. Many find him pleasant to be around, and even liked him. But in Jim's mind, they liked the pieces of him. The pieces that had held through the torture that had broken the rest of him. In essence - in his own mind - he wasn't a person. Just merely some parts of one attempting to hold itself together.

Not that even that would matter. One day, Jim got a splitting pain in his head while he was in the midst of one of his trances. He was seeing the future, when suddenly, the vision was consumed by fire and noise - a cacophony that left him nearly blind out of one eye for the next few hours. He had saw something terrible. But life went on. Life itself was often times terrible, and he thought nothing of it.

The next day at school, while sitting in class, Jim fell into another trance. In it, he watched as a fellow student stepped into the classroom brandishing a rifle. He swept the class with gunfire, but most were saved because they ducked under their desks. Most, except for Jim. Who remained in his desk, stuck in a trance-like state.

The coroner said he probably died a painless death. But like all angsty teens, Jim knew better. He knew that he had already died long ago, probably not long after his mother had abandoned him. In his final trance, time seemed to move backwards, like a film reel in reverse. In it, Jim watched his life, what passed for it, flick by. All the things he missed, he gleaned. Up to the point of his birth, where everything became hazy. All the pieces he was missing were there. At the point where his life ended, his life also began.

---

It was the year of children. Twenty deaths. All younger than twenty. Where was the sense?