Time Travelling

**



3a.m. Tuesday was always a significant event for me. I put out my cigarette and watched the last tendrils of smoke get swept away by the constantly squeaking never relieving rickety ceiling fan. It was going to be another long night, I thought, as I meticulously cracked each knuckle on both hands and slouched back down to my compbook god bless them no matter how old they are or how yellow the pages become they never fail to capture my thoughts. I was another broke-ass in another small town, trying to plot the ways I would make it big by getting jobs at circuit city at starbucks at FedEx at the bank at the carwash and the fuckin 7-11 asking if they would like a conveniance card because God knows it's fuckin conveniant. It was high time I made some big decisions, I thought.

Tomorrow I will have soy in my latte.

Inexplicably I couldn't understand why I was stuck in this rut, the endless hours of insomnia followed by weeks of emotional distress and freeze dried oven pizzas bought half price because the packaging was damaged. I searched as diligently as a lazy minded fool could and I found nothing - all in vain - my attempts of speechless futility were definite signs of unhappiness. So I started the change, I started the revolt against the norm I started to plan and plot against 3a.m. bland coffee in the morning and fancy lattes at lunch, against time against place against poor and rich and lazy and motivated. I was going to start the new and overtake the old.

Tomorrow I will take the train into town.

Again I was proposed the same droning question the train brought no relief and the soy no better health. Each day was just one more step closer to a revolution in my life to a change to a new place to start and a new time to exist with girlfriends and boyfriends and no names and big names I was going to change. I could feel my bones morphing and the air smelled different I knew it was different something had shifted something was brought anew in the air in time and in the now of another 3a.m. There was something I had been driving towards and it was Friday the 31st of January the coldest month in the coldest year in the coldest life I'd ever lived and I could feel something start to grow in side of me. It escaped through my lips and brought explosion as I heard myself speak out in the the night but now I can't remember what I said. I know it was something beautiful something I should have written down and something that I know I will regret not hearing until the day I die when maybe, just maybe, Death will whisper it back into my ear and everything will all come back to me.

Tomorrow I will have pastrami on rye.

I sat determined hunched over my coffee table. I could smell garbage and old smoke and inexpensive deordorant and generic smelling expensive scent. It came to me today that although I had been living here for so long I'd never had anyone at my apartment no one had walked up the rickety stairs on the backside of the building and opened the door that creaked slightly on it's frame and no one had sat in my small living room with a cup of tea coffee or just water without ice. No had joined me on the fire escape to refuse to break the rules of no-smoking inside please it makes the halls smell worse than the dirty diapers, mildew, old sweat and bad asian cooking, bless Mrs. Chan's soul. The idea of change pounded in my mind it had been grasping with icy cold fingers at my solar plexus and it was bringing new life into my body. I could break the air with my voice or just the cloud of smoke that always kept me company in my living room during my ever lasting incredibly repetative nights that I noticed only, that I only noticed at 3a.m. I knew change was coming, started to forget my past the past moments past memories past minutes passing away. last week's lunch was completely gone out of my head, yesterdays news must not have been important because the newspaper no longer existed and my memories of reading the far and distant headlines had all but escaped my drifting mind.

Tomorrow I will clean my apartment.

I looked around my sorted environment and realized that it'd been along time since I've seen clean floors and that I missed being able to cook in my kitchen and walk around in my bedroom and the guitar was setting nicely against my closet where inside the clothes smelled nice and they were hanging stoutly along the rail and there was nothing to be afraid of when I opened the bathroom door. I knew that change was coming I could smell it still the air was still different and now the ashtray in my living room was going to stay empty and the can on the fire escape would fill duly and the plants would stop wilting and everything would be fresh and I would see the day as something to be conqured, not feared and it was time that I put an end to 3a.m.

Tomorrow I will change everything.

I slept in for work and I suppose the last straw had never come so late too late too close to call too late to call in and feign a cough feign sickness while the children of the planet starved there I was calling in sick to work. I woke in the morning I ransacked my apartment simply destroyed the apartment and took it back down to dirty clean is not good clean is bad clean is disorganized and futile in my cleaning rush I misplaced my shoes glasses jacket lighter cigarettes and more random neccessities of life and I sat hunched over my coffee table at 3a.m. in the familiar mess I could smell the air and something was tricking my mind. The ashtray sitting on my coffee table was overflowing and one of the plants fell over but I hadnt bothered to clean it up and I'd ignored my calls right after I'd started to answer them and I knew it seemed like a waste but my friends would always be there in case I needed them, even if I did ignore their calls when they needed me. I had never felt better in my life. yes change was still coming I was still breathing and living a revolution but maybe (just maybe) it did not have to begin with me. Change was change but I'd never felt more comfortable using yesterdays clothes as a pillow and sitting for five minutes staring at a plate in the kitchen trying to guess what that is and if its okay to just scrape it off and keep using the dirty plate.

Tomorrow I will sleep in.

I have made the day change and I have made change in the day. I have brought revolutions to cities and I have shakent he very foundations of lives. I have played God and I have been the Devil. I have brought life and I have taken the last breaths from the lips of the most pathetic dying men. It is time now that I tell you who I am.


I am another broke-ass living in a smalltown. I am ahuman being with regrets and apologies and pride and humilty. I am the average normal human being with average normal eccentricities. I can never drink a full glass of water and I can never read the sports section of the newspaper and it's high time it's 3a.m. and you've also learned to change and break out and unlock the chains that have been forever weighing you down. it is time to shatter the cement block that holds your feet and holds you down at the bottom of the sea the bottom of this job this life and this universe.

It is time to spark change.




**Disclaimer: This was written years ago while, once again, staying up late.