November 3rd, 2025
Or was it the 4th? Noit's the 3rd. Definitely. Or maybe it's not even November. What even is a month? A cage made of calendars?
Today was a mundane day. As usual. The kind of day that doesn't scream, doesn't whisperit just… sits there. Like a cat watching you eat toast, judging your life choices with eyes that've seen empires fall and pigeons win chess tournaments. Speaking of whichthe birds bark. Not chirp. Bark. Loud, throaty woofs from the sky, like feathered dogs stuck in trees, protesting the rent. I swear I heard a sparrow howl, "PAY YOUR DAMN WATER BILL!" before dive-bombing a mailbox. Maybe it was a hallucination. Maybe it wasn't. At this point, I stopped questioning which parts of reality are mine and which are lent to me by someone else's dream.
And the cat? The cat flys. Not fliesflys, with a Y, because grammar abandoned me the same Tuesday I decided socks were optional. This cat doesn't walkit glides. Like smoke with whiskers. It hovered over my cereal bowl this morning, tail flicking like a metronome set to "existential dread." I offered it milk. It offered me silence and a dead leaf. Fair trade, I guess.
Then there's the sheep. Don't ask me how, but it swims. In the campus fountain. Not the decorative one with the bronze mermaidno, the cracked, algae-choked puddle behind the library that smells like regret and expired hand sanitizer. There it was: wool bloated with chlorinated water, hooves paddling like it trained for the Olympics under Poseidon himself. A student tried to pet it. The sheep hissed. Actual hiss. Like a serpent wearing a sweater.
Don't think I'm crazy.
I'm Hella crazy.
Like, capital-H, neon-sign, circus-tent-flapping-in-a-hurricane crazy. If anyone says, "Nah, you're fine," I'll just look them dead in the eye and say, "NahI'd win." Win what? The delusion Olympics? The Grand Prix of Garbled Thoughts? Yeah. I've got a gold medal shaped like a pill bottle hanging around my neck.
But here's the thingI'm used to it. This mental static. These thoughts that skip like scratched CDs playing three songs at once: a lullaby, a war chant, and a weather report for Mars. It's not like the world we choose. It's like the water we drinksometimes clean, sometimes full of mystery particles that glow in the dark and whisper your childhood fears back to you. You don't get to pick the plumbing. You just learn to sip carefully and laugh when your spit turns blue.
Bruh. Wtf am I even talking about?
Where was I?
Right.
I… I did what?
I forgot.
Which is normal. Because I have dementia. Or at least, that's what I tell people when I walk into a room and forget why I'm holding a spatula. Truth is, I'm 20. Dementia at 20? Doubtful. But the fog in my head feels real enoughthick, woolen, smelling faintly of burnt popcorn and old textbooks. Maybe it's the meds. Eleven pills a day. Eleven. I line them up like soldiers on my nightstand every morning: tiny capsules of hope dressed in chemical uniforms. Do they work? Feels like whispering into a hurricane. But I take them anyway. Routine is armor. Even if the armor's made of tissue paper.
So yeahif I ever forget something, it's on me. All on me. Don't blame the reader. Don't blame the cat. Blame the part of my brain that thinks "Tuesday" and "taco" are interchangeable. But don't worryI'll make it up. If I vanish mid-sentence, I'll circle back like a boomerang with anxiety. If I start crying over a stapler, I'll explain later that it reminded me of my third-grade teacher's earrings. I owe you that much.
The day itself was… okayish. Nice, even. Sunlight filtered through the blinds like liquid gold, and for a moment, everything felt soft. I sat on a bench near the quad, watching students rush to class like ants late for a meeting with the Queen of Sugar. One of them waved. I waved back, though I don't think I know them. Maybe they were waving at the pigeon on my shoulder. That's fine. Misplaced kindness still counts.
I ate half my lunch. Again. The other half sat in its container like a quiet apology. Not because I wasn't hungrybecause finishing felt like a promise I wasn't ready to keep. Like, if I eat the whole thing, the universe will demand something in return. A favor. A memory. A coherent thought. So I left it. Let the microbes feast. They deserve joy too.
There was a momentjust after 2 p.m.when the wind carried the sound of someone laughing. Not at me. Just… laughing. Pure, unfiltered joy, tumbling through the air like confetti. And for three seconds, I forgot I was me. I was just a body in the sun, listening to happiness like it was a song I used to know. Then my phone buzzed. Reality snapped back like a rubber band to the forehead. But those three seconds? They were mine. And they were enough.
I won't say the day was perfect. Perfect implies order, and my life runs on chaos with a side of existential oatmeal. But it was… tolerable. Bearable. Even pleasant in its weirdness. Like finding a single blue M&M in a bag of brownssmall, unexpected, but somehow meaningful.
Still, I won't go on. Not too much. Because if I doif I keep writing, keep unraveling this thread of thoughtyou might get stuck in it. And I don't want that. You came here for an average chapter. Maybe a slice of life, a quiet observation, a mundane Monday painted in gentle strokes. Instead, you got me: a fractured narrator with a cat that defies gravity and a sheep doing breaststroke in a fountain of academic despair.
I'm sorry, readers. Truly. You deserve better. You deserve clean prose and logical timelines and characters who don't confuse squirrels with stockbrokers. But this is all I've got today. This messy, looping, semi-coherent ramble through a mind that thinks "time" is a polite suggestion and "reality" is a group project no one signed up for.
If it helps, I'm trying. Not to be normalthat's a losing battle. But to be honest. To say, "This is what it's like inside," even if "inside" looks like a painting directed by a sleep-deprived raccoon. There's dignity in that, right? Or at least, there's effort.
And heyif you made it this far, thanks. For not clicking away. For tolerating the brainrot. For seeing me, even if I'm just a voice shouting into the void about flying cats and forgetful Tuesdays.
This is for the day.
Let's do this until the day I die.
Not with joy. Not with despair.
But with stubborn, sleepy persistenceand maybe, just maybe, a little hope.
Because where there is life, there is hope.
Even if that life includes a sheep that swims, a cat that flys, and a narrator who can't remember if he ate lunch… or just dreamed about it.
Content Warning:
The following narrative contains depictions of disorganized thinking, surreal imagery, and references to mental health struggles, including possible psychosis or cognitive disruption. It is written in a stream-of-consciousness style that may be confusing, unsettling, or triggering for some readers. Reader discretion is strongly advised. If you are experiencing mental health challenges, please reach out to a trusted professional or support network.