False Positive

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Something real just happened there, I said to myself. I could almost swear that it did. But then again that would be an anomaly. Definitely an anomaly. An anomalous bit of data. A false positive. How could something real happen and yet not be an anomaly? I was somehow separated from my own experience – my own experience of whatever it was that I was experiencing. I couldn’t experience my own experience. I couldn’t even experience my inability to experience my experience! That too existed somewhere else, somewhere at a remove, somewhere beyond my ability to comprehend or care about. “If it was that good then I would have heard of it!” I heard myself think, somewhat disjointedly. The thought went its own way – it didn’t seem worth replying to it. It didn’t seem worth the effort of taking it any further. Some thoughts are like that. Most of my thoughts are like that, come to think of it…

 

Things still happened but they always happened at a distance, at a remove. I never had much of a connection to them. “I’m travelling Business Class in my own head!” it occurred to me. I was sitting in comfort in the Executive Lounge, but only in a manner of speaking. That was only a metaphor for processes that I could not understand. Nor care about. “I’m saving points with the Frequent Flier’s club!” I told myself brightly, but the metaphor seemed tenuous to say the least. I had no connection at all with what I had just said. “Did something real just happen there?” I wondered numbly, lost in the ever-proliferating suburban sprawl of my own disjointed thought processes. Was the data anomalous? Should I chalk it down as just another false positive?

 

I felt at a distance even from my own distance, removed even from my own removal. Something somewhere was happening, but I didn’t know what. I couldn’t help thinking that it didn’t really have a lot to do with me. Even my own thoughts were strangers. “I liked it so much I bought the company!” I remarked brightly, if somewhat disjointedly. My own comments had very little to do with me. The easiest thing by far was simply to ignore them. All around me were grey-clad businessmen with oddly bright ties, engaged in earnest conversation with each other. Swapping motivational stories, the way they do. Dreaming of a brighter future. Talking for the sake of maintaining a certain sort of illusion, the nature of which no one really understood. Nor cared to. Least of all me. I neither understood nor cared. The flight had been delayed indefinitely. No one was going anywhere.

 

Distance was the important thing here – I could see that. Distance was the key factor. Nobody really wants to know. A type of vague speculation was in the air. It was like a low hum. Speculation about what? It was all done for effect, I decided. It was all done to maintain a certain sort of illusion. Nothing was ever said right out. It was all inferred. It was all in the tone of voice, the way one looked, the colour of one’s tie. It was all done to generate a particular brand of illusion. The Executive lounge was shrouded in grey smoke, clumps of ghostly figures sitting in earnest conversation all around me. “Something somewhere is happening” I commented cryptically from the side-lines, but somehow the thought seemed to have very little to do with me. I let it go. The easiest thing was to ignore it. I was lost in the ever-proliferating suburbs of my own disasterously dissociative thought-processes. I was travelling Platinum Club Business Class. Waiting for a flight that would never come…

 

 

 

 

 

 

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