Monday 17 September 2012

brain damage


And so my image vanished, as if it had never existed. As unbelievable as things were, it was not possible to mistake in the assessment of the depth of change. In my new life reality dominated the feeling that my brain is essentially turned off and that its activity is almost null. I moved about with a feeling that there is a black space beyond my skull and found it difficult to produce thoughts. In the void in which I conducted myself the brain wheels operated their meager labor with a fatiguing slowness, and when people turned to me I stammered for a few seconds and had to strain my mind again and again in order to decide what to answer. Every word that exited my mouth was forced and had not a thing behind it; I had no content, identity or personality from which I could draw, and so I was left no choice but to emit into space the words that I had forced my brain to produce in an effort to satisfy every person that surrounded me. The act of searching for words was so difficult that it had suffering in it. It was so exhausting, until it left me with no strength. When I did not perform it, I was silent for whole days. My mind was turned off and I saw myself only as a body that is carried from place to place.

A permanent weariness fell over me and was always present. If I was deprived of sleep even for a short time, the stupor and the mental fuzziness increased and I experienced a real cut off from reality. I used my voice as a tool that was disconnected from my body, and its note was artificial and robotic. The reality that was carried out around me was so rapid compared to my mind and it astonished me; even though I knew that in the past I had been part of the human beings that surrounded me now, in the new state of things these human beings seemed to me as being a strange form of life that was different from me and that I was not part of. Everyone, without any exception, walked swiftly about, their minds full of such and other contents, thoughts kindled in them easily, feelings flamed plentifully, while I was an empty shell.

Why have you become so quiet, all asked me; taciturn. When the recession bell rang I frequently stayed sitting at my desk and my friends, who did not notice the change that came over me, approached and talked to me. I heard their words but no response was created in me. In an attempt to recruit all my power and to cooperate with them I looked at them smiling and stammered yes, then fell silent. They looked at me embarrassedly, without understanding, and went away. A stupor encircled me. My family asked why me why I was so closed up.

My friend M. asked me why I had become so quiet, let's talk, she said. Again and again I answered that I don't know why, that I have nothing to say. I was astounded at her failure to notice the deep change that had come over me, and she only mentioned my silence once in a while, although it is certain that during that period she had begun to experience a personality change and turned all her concentration to herself. In the reality of my new life I had no interest in a thing, I did not feel a thing and I did not do a thing. Similarly to my relations with any other person, my relationship with M, that had been significant and close before, became a burden too. After a while she contacted me less and less during the afternoon hours. I did not ascribe much importance to it, although I felt relieved. So several weeks passed, at the end of which she shared with me her feeling that I was no longer interested in a relation with her. I explained that the fact that I had not made contact with her had no meaning, and things resumed their past course. Her blindness amazed me and I knew that no one could understand. After a period we talked by an immediate message software, when I let M. know that as I was no longer the person that she knew, it would be better if we terminate our relationship. Even though she refused to confirm my words, this came about.

I was left alone without knowing what I should do next. Before my image dissolved into hidden districts, I had been a person with powerful feelings and bothered with various thoughts. I had been a creative human being; I engaged in writing prose and poetry, painting, photography and playing the piano. Needless to say I neglected writing and photography in the void that was created altogether. As to painting, surprisingly I succeeded to keep engaging in it for several more years, but finally I felt that my hands did not obey me and I could not continue to paint despite wishing to do so. As to the playing, with the change that had occurred in me, the nature of my playing changed too: in the past I used to practice different pieces in a reasonable frequency, but now I played and did not feel a thing. In the slowness of my new life I found it difficult to strain my mind and my hands in a playing action that was now horridly slow. I had never stopped playing, although I had made minimal efforts. I stopped listening to music, which seemed to my ears as a jumble of insignificant sounds, except for a single group whose sounds managed to pierce my ears, even though it often sounded suddenly as a jumble of sounds.

I knew that something was wrong, but I did not know what it was. In a desperate effort to break the state of all things, which remained unchanged, each day I deprived food from my body from the moment I woke up and till I came home from school. To my surprise, a spark of the familiar humanity was kindled in these hours of fast, although by noon I gave in to the needs of my body. On one of these days of fast I felt a sort of curtain coming down in a clear movement and melting from my head up to my feet, and noticed that the violent energies that had accompanied me these last months were no longer there. I stopped fasting and only my empty image stayed on.





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