Die Vampire Die

It's funny the stories we tell ourselves.

Stories of how we are not good enough. How our lives are only full pain. How bad things always happen to us.

And how we believe them to be true.

Beyond belief- often we forget that they are even stories.

Mistaken for reality, we no longer even hear the little voice whispering the lies into our ear.

I like to make up stories about myself.

One of my favorites includes daring deeds of procrastination. Scandalous subterfuge useful for avoiding follow through. Exciting encounters held off due to unprecedented lateness. Can not. Instead of can do. Frustration at every turn. Why even try.

This story is told to me over and over, by a funny looking little old man riding on my back. His eyebrows angle down and center, perhaps pulled south by his thick purple rimmed glasses. These lenses rest solidly on his greasy nose which strangely lifts upward at the tip- contrary to every other drooping feature on his face. Breath smelling of decay and half eaten cheesecake he spins this story to me, in a surprisingly soothing voice. It sounds like the wind sometimes, or is mistaken for a passing car. Often it's the hum of my computer. Generally I don't even recognize him speaking to me. I've heard this story so often that it has become my reality.

It's a spiral. A mobius strip. The story feeding my action. Each action feeding the story. Ad Infinitum.

A question: Which came first? The action or the story?

A better question: What will break the cycle?

A contradiction.

To every rule an exception. (Even to that rule?)

The problem with this crazy old man on my back is that he doesn't always think things through. Sometimes he'll just spout off a story full of holes. Thinking (a story of his own perhaps) regardless I will still accept it. And much to his credit, often I do.

But I've discovered a hole in his logic, and in this novel of non-committal action: I have followed through, full heartedly, in believing that story and putting everything off, like an Olympic gold medalist. Now how is that possible? This story is true... but by being true it also proves itself false.

I imagine the little old man shrieking into the wind as he jumps off my spine and runs down the street, smoke rising billowing from his back.

Time for a new story.