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changehistory"You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present."
I've been dying inside
Little by little
Nowhere to go
But goin' out of my mind
In endless circles
Runnin' from myself until
You gave me a reason for standing still
Adam stared at the ceiling listening to the whine of the heater as it kicked on spitting warm air out into the chill of the motel room. He was freezing, so it was a good thing, though he supposed he could have crawled under the covers long ago to fight back the cold, but the cracks and lines in the plaster were far more fascinating at the moment than any pressing need for physical comfort. Bob hadn't kept the cells all that warm. Cold was a longtime friend; central heating was still new in the grand scheme of things. The ceiling in Hartsdale had been smooth, perfectly painted without a ripple or ridge for his gaze to dance over and trace, but this one...it was interspersed with vertical snags, jagged lines breaking up one long one tracing across the width of the room from the window to the wall that separated the room from the bathroom. Long and winding, it wasn't a straight line, but it followed a course, a path set in motion from whatever started it to a clear destination, even as each new crack tried to divert it, to push it from its intended destination. But it knew where it was going; it knew it had to do what it was intended to do, to fulfill its destiny, to reach the other side of the room, as it were.
It had been set on a road, pushed and pulled and prodded and forced, splitting the plaster in two, dividing it against itself, and cracking slowly further and further, more and more as time went on, heading toward an inevitability that anyone with foresight should have known was coming. It would reach the wall. Then it would widen. The crack would grow; this wasn't the sort of place that repaired such things. No one would come in with any care to fill it in, and even if they did, it would always be there, different than the other. You could see where it started, there by the window, the force that something applied. Perhaps the window was opened too fast. Maybe something flew in. Possibly it was just shoddy workmanship from the start, never meant to stand the test of time, but expected to, anyway. Something always started it, though. Something came along and applied more pressure than it was meant to bear, and it cracked. The crack grew, a line through time, stretching out, now, over him and further, there, across the bed next to him and over the boy sleeping in it that destiny brought to his side, to the cell next to his, an answer to prayers to a God Adam no longer believed listened.
So easy to shift, to turn, to look at him, really look, to see, but he kept his gaze on the ceiling. If he looked, if he saw...there were lights that lit the ceiling from a car in the parking lot and he closed his eyes against them, blocking out the crack and the temptation to turn his head as well. Everything had a beginning. Everything had a purpose.
He couldn't let himself be diverted from his.
Falling faster
Barely breathing
Give me something to believe in
Tell me it's not all in my head
Take what's left of this man
Make me whole once again
Little by little
Nowhere to go
But goin' out of my mind
In endless circles
Runnin' from myself until
You gave me a reason for standing still
Adam stared at the ceiling listening to the whine of the heater as it kicked on spitting warm air out into the chill of the motel room. He was freezing, so it was a good thing, though he supposed he could have crawled under the covers long ago to fight back the cold, but the cracks and lines in the plaster were far more fascinating at the moment than any pressing need for physical comfort. Bob hadn't kept the cells all that warm. Cold was a longtime friend; central heating was still new in the grand scheme of things. The ceiling in Hartsdale had been smooth, perfectly painted without a ripple or ridge for his gaze to dance over and trace, but this one...it was interspersed with vertical snags, jagged lines breaking up one long one tracing across the width of the room from the window to the wall that separated the room from the bathroom. Long and winding, it wasn't a straight line, but it followed a course, a path set in motion from whatever started it to a clear destination, even as each new crack tried to divert it, to push it from its intended destination. But it knew where it was going; it knew it had to do what it was intended to do, to fulfill its destiny, to reach the other side of the room, as it were.
It had been set on a road, pushed and pulled and prodded and forced, splitting the plaster in two, dividing it against itself, and cracking slowly further and further, more and more as time went on, heading toward an inevitability that anyone with foresight should have known was coming. It would reach the wall. Then it would widen. The crack would grow; this wasn't the sort of place that repaired such things. No one would come in with any care to fill it in, and even if they did, it would always be there, different than the other. You could see where it started, there by the window, the force that something applied. Perhaps the window was opened too fast. Maybe something flew in. Possibly it was just shoddy workmanship from the start, never meant to stand the test of time, but expected to, anyway. Something always started it, though. Something came along and applied more pressure than it was meant to bear, and it cracked. The crack grew, a line through time, stretching out, now, over him and further, there, across the bed next to him and over the boy sleeping in it that destiny brought to his side, to the cell next to his, an answer to prayers to a God Adam no longer believed listened.
So easy to shift, to turn, to look at him, really look, to see, but he kept his gaze on the ceiling. If he looked, if he saw...there were lights that lit the ceiling from a car in the parking lot and he closed his eyes against them, blocking out the crack and the temptation to turn his head as well. Everything had a beginning. Everything had a purpose.
He couldn't let himself be diverted from his.
Barely breathing
Give me something to believe in
Tell me it's not all in my head
Take what's left of this man
Make me whole once again
