"Oh my goodness!"
My mother pushed past me and entered the room. She stopped at the foot of the bed and shot me the disapproving look I knew so well.
"You spilt red wine on the blanket again," she cried.
Breathe, keep breathing, Thom advised from the record player, aided by a synthetic swell of a sad bastard choir. Don't lose your nerve.
Cheers, mate. Always solid advice.
"Sorry, mom." I offered weakly. I wanted to raise my arms and cover my chest but I was afraid that doing so might draw her attention there. A moment ago I literally ran to the closet and pulled on the first long-sleeve shirt I saw. One I hadn't worn in a long time, one that I'd thought fit a little too snug even back then.
I needn't have worried. She didn't seem to be aware that her son had begun a metamorphosis that was beyond his own control. She started explaining that I would have to be alone for a while. Her sister, my aunt Constance, had gotten herself in trouble again. Dad was already getting the car started, they would get something for lunch on the way back.
I nodded and nodded somemore, interjecting whenever she left some space between the rapid firing of details. I wasn't really there, though, at least it sure didn't feel like it. I suddenly felt like I was high, but it wasn't like the adult sugar rush of a couple beers. No, this was more like dissociation. And then I figured it out.
It was my voice.
An airy quality, like my vocal cords were being stretched thin. Almost sweet, like I was about to go into a musical number. Higher too, at least a semitone higher than usual. Picture a piano. If my habitual speaking pitch was a C before, now it was C#, which would be the piano key next to it. Told you I was a musician.
That wasn't all . . . no, I was speaking funny too. Emphasising words I wouldn't usually emphasise, ending sentences with an upwards intonation. How all this went right past my mother, I don't know, and would be enough to warrant some hurt feelings any other normal day. But I was all out of normal days.
Before I knew what hit me I was alone in the room again. The sudden silence would've been jarring if not for the scratching of the needle against the dead wax. I heard the car pulling out of the garage, and walked over to flip the record, but returned the tonearm to its clamp. The day had begun, and I needed to focus, to make it to the end and find out all I could about subliminals.
I spent the next twenty or so minutes preparing for the first Zoom session by frantically checking my emails, downloading the course materials and panicking about the login details.
At nine I sat in front of the laptop, little miss punctual over here, staring at my breakfast. A sandwich consisting of pastrami, cheese and chicken ham, bookended by raisin bread. A handful of almonds, and a tall glass of black coffee that could wake the dead.
Five minutes later the trainer appeared onscreen. For attendance and verification purposes, she requested that we all turned our cameras on. More faces became visible, each confined in their square two-dimensional cages. I was the only person who didn't opt for a blurred or virtual background.
Satisfied, she launched right into her well-rehearsed script, taking us through the friggin' 900-page textbook. Rightfully so; she only had three days to school us. Did I mention that the geniuses at the firm booked me for an in-person exam first thing Friday morning? A horror greater than my breasts and apparent full-blown blossoming into every boy's dream girl.
By the first break at eleven my eyes were watery from the strong brew and boredom. Surely no amount of variable commission-based income was worth this; it felt like my life-force had been drained away. That's how you feel when you're not doing what you're really supposed to be doing right?
I dripped down the stairs for a refill, but no amount of Robusta beans was going to get me through the remaining hours.
If only there was a way to become super focused and adopt a scholar's state of mind . . .
I would've bounded up the stairs, but you know, piping hot glass of coffee and all.
Christening my new playlist Fin. Study. $$$, I was ready to assemble the sonic saviours for my subconscious. But there was the question of onset. I needed instantaneous, immediate, yesterday if possible. So I did the sensible thing and opened five tabs with the absolute cream of the crop.
exam genius! ★ ace all exams with zero effort subliminal
#GENIUS | complexity whats that? everything is too easy for me. [ study subliminal ]
HYPERFOCUSED MOFO NOW
..what? studying isn't even that hard, wdym?
Boost Yr Intelligence Subliminal : Neuroplasticity + neurochemical!!!
If it sounds like I wasn't really taking all this seriously, well . . . Have you ever been in a situation where your overall frame of mind was quickly shifting from worried sick to tired lunatic? You just let go. Might as well have a little fun, what you got left to lose right?
So I sat my ass down and turned on video again. The first thing to tip me off that something was terribly wrong was my posture: straight, just perfectly straight. None of that tech neck shit. Then the the trainer resumed speaking. Her name was Julia, and I remembered marvelling at the rich origin of her name. Feminine form of "Julius," derived from the Latin lulus or lulius, meaning youthful, downy-bearded OR descended from Jupiter.
Holy shit.
This was either success from the subliminal cocktail blaring in my ears, or a prelude to schizophrenia. But why remain enslaved by duality? In a chaotic universe that's very conducive to seemingly stochastic processes, it could very well both!
I was suddenly very wide awake. In fact, I felt good, optimistic about this whole new endeavour. Better than good. I felt like that Bradley Cooper in that movie Limitless, you know with that magic NZT pill that turned him into a novel-completing, stock market-dominating demigod. I felt like Sherlock Holmes on crack PLUS Sherlock Holmes off crack.
"Never invent your own answers," Julia said then, in reference to a wrong answer someone had offered. "Never defer from the standard. You have no choice here."
Why not, the question resounded in the crystal calm lake of my mind. Says who?