buzz

Finally lying in my bed, I can afford the luxury that I longed for all day. A luxury that, over the years, I have begun to better glimpse its virtues. The pleasure I'm talking about is nothing more than being able to go to bed with a blank mind, far from any need for thought or action.

Unfortunately, I always see this luxury disappear due to the bad habit of wanting to "fix" my life every night. To continue wearing out my neurons on ideas and events from the past, with the naive hope of escaping the cycle of self-sabotage that my life has become. But it is that during these long hours, in which I remember seeing from the most absurd idea to the most painful arrogance, I have never considered a handicap that eliminates any possibility of progress. That factor is nothing more than the worn-out criteria with which we go to bed after a long day at work. A component that enjoys when it is used, because from the outset it knows its vast weaknesses and, nevertheless, it does not mind hiding them in front of a being as defenseless as we all are during those long hours of starry night.

But as absurd as it sounds, after all this time I keep falling into the same trap. Knowing that at least four nights a week I am going to bed thinking about my problems, deceiving myself that that night will be different and incidentally enduring my tiredness. This is why I have decided to stop lying to myself and opt for the nap path, knowing that those hours of rest will be a fundamental step to achieve a better tomorrow.

As if it were a bad joke, when I'm seconds away from falling asleep I hear a sound that wakes me up with a torturous inability. An impotence that separates me from all logical reasoning and focuses me on just one thought, to annihilate the beast that emits that unbearable buzz. A sound that, upon hearing it, transforms me into one of those mythological warriors that I fondly imitated in my distant childhood; only unfortunately for me these modern times in which I wander, force me to abandon the honorable spear and instead draw the simple flip-flop.

My senses have been heightened during my search, I am in one of those states of attention that is only acquired under episodes of extreme necessity. I stumble upon the beauty of a room that had been indifferent to me in the past, an attraction that I had ignored simply because of the plainness of its origins.

My sight notices a silhouette under the wall of my desk, made with a technique as innovative as the use of shoe soles. A shadow that, with the proper lighting, makes me see a face with changeable features. At the same time, I perceive an atmosphere of dirt impregnated in my collection of books, an unmistakable sign of being a presumed pastime in front of society, but forgotten in reality.

My sense of smell has expanded to such an extent that I can't avoid the idea that my smell is now stronger than the one I remembered. I feel with a varied frequency, how my aroma is penetrating into the deepest tissues of my clothing and sheets. I delude myself thinking that this can be pleasant for others, interpreting it as a reminder of my previous presence or even, with an even more optimistic appreciation, as another extension of my existence.

My ears have been the bridge with which my opponent has entered the depths of my fragile being. These have served as the platform with which my enemy has started another night of martyrdom. His hum reflects an art in his execution, transporting me to his design through the unpredictable curves of insomnia. I have fought a battle that from the beginning premeditated that there would be no trace of compassion, where all traces of coherence have been extinguished and I have been transported to the realm of madness.

Seeing myself without solutions, I choose to leave my window open and escape to the armchair in my anteroom. Unknowingly, a hope accompanies me during the contemplation of tomorrow, one that allows me to dream of an early morning free of strange presences. The next morning, with the clarity that dawn offers us, I go back into my bedroom, perceiving an environment dampened by my sweaty arrogance. After a few minutes I am convinced that my room is free of my enemy.

Arriving home again, I am surprised to remember how easily I have endured my routine. Until now I realize that just today I have rediscovered a love for my already trained labors. Something that excites me knowing that, with each passing night, it becomes more difficult for me to lie to myself. Well, the excuses that I used to carry in my youth have begun to disappoint me in my established adulthood.

I see with sadness that the path that I had optimistically traced in my puberty has been modified by the obligations of life, which are discrediting and finally discarding, on our name, our forgotten interests. Not without first making it clear to us, with obvious irritation at our insolence, that we have no say in such complex decisions. That our only function is to obey with gratitude his wise advice, because it is not for nothing that there are many who acclaim his opportune criteria.

When night came, I went back into the room that hours before had witnessed my bitterness, observing to my joy that there is no trace of my companion left. Leaving aside the concerns of my daytime existence, I am ready to transform my tiredness into my long-awaited truce. A night of a pleasant rest awaits me, in which my eyes will only perceive a pure darkness in its density.

A pain interrupts my rest, appearing as small stitches in my right ear. I sense how a strange object enters my ear, while its intolerable hum resounds in my depths. Which keeps me away from the murmurs of life and submerges me in the inconsistencies of my mind.

I am being forced to remember, with a feeling far from admiration, my doubtful combat with the beast. Which, seen from the maturity of the misfortune, presents me with each of my naive mistakes. Which, unknowingly, are the cause of my uncertainty, not knowing for sure who is the author of my pain. I just hope it's not that beast that had "escaped" the night before.

Like a flash of light, a thought crosses my consciousness and presents me with a scenario that is difficult to consider. One where I would finally get rid of the beast, but pitifully face an adversary from higher powers. The one who works behind our backs, until being discovered by the aftermath of her incoherent speech. That opponent that we collectively know as the greatest misfortune, but that we colloquially refer to as the misunderstood madness.

Perhaps as a desperate attempt to know the inevitable, I decide to go to the emergency room with the excuse of having constant pain in my right ear. A pretext that, to my surprise, is admitted without malice by the health personnel. I find myself in a room full of deplorable comrades, many of them with ailments that, in my preliminary opinion, ephemerally affect the quality of life of their afflicted. A situation that I do not have the happiness to share, feeling more and more lost in the labyrinths of madness.

When I am finally taken to the room where I will meet my fate, a gray-haired doctor awaits me at his inn. Without waiting for him to sit me down, he begins to ask me what are the causes of my visit, to which he takes note with superficial attention and without change in his tired expression.

When he goes inside me, he just lets out a sigh, remembering my strange predictions of the cause of my pain. He looks at me with the same integrity with which he looks at a child victim of his innocence and without any kind of hesitation, he assures me that this supposed beast is just living in my imagination. With an unquestionable diagnosis, I am sent home with the promise of a speedy recovery. Something that to any other person would seem positive, but in my case, it only plunges me further into the abysses of hesitation.

A few months later, waking up in the softness of a morning free of obligations, one that curiously began because of my desire and not because of that alarm that auspices us for another day of monotony. I have woken up forgetting about my condition, which is about to reveal itself through a buzz. A melody perceived only by its mourner and that, like a sentence, lives rumbling in my head.

At least, I have the pleasure of seeing that the pathology of which I am now a patient presents me with an unexplored universe. It allows me to rediscover a world at the hands of a buzz that, although it was initially discredited, finally makes me understand how invaluable this sound is. Well, without intending to, it has turned me into what I was unknowingly looking for, to be someone different in this crowded uniform.

Andres Sossa,

13 of December 2021