When he wakes up in the morning and commences his routine, he does so without actually connecting his movements to the behavioural centre of his brain. He realised this fact once before, but told himself it was a necessary disconnect and carried on eating cheerios. He believes he has an imagination, it just isn't useful enough to bother with most of the time. He does what he does efficiently - but he doesn't know why he is doing it. He doesn't visualise screaming, bursting bacteria in his mouth as he brushes his teeth, and he doesn't visualise the toast being shoveled into the oven of his stomach igniting in a burst of life-maintaining sustenance.
Should he? Hm. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. The disconnect delves deeply into his day. The mechanical has taken over the whimsical, calculation replacing the contrived.
He goes to work by bus. He looks at his phone, checking news and facebook in alternate flashes of thumbs. The world is still bad. The world is still sad. People are still dying. People are still reaching out to each other, using thumbs to post thumbs on other peoples astral fucking facebook projections and hoping one day for thumbs in return. Sweet validation. The man gets to work just in time for his meeting. He looks at the others vacantly, waiting for his turn to talk. If only others could just listen to him and follow his ideas, he would be happier. He would start being noticed at work by the bosses, he would get a promotion, he could start going to the gym (again). He could even start juicing.
He believes this is his imagination. He'll look across the table at his Tinder date tonight with a bland smile on his face, thinking "Surely she recognises my intellect, my ambition?" And he waits a long time for his turn to talk. He believes this is listening, because he read that girls always want to fuck guys who listen. "But I sure am listening a lot right now. I wonder what she's saying?" If only he keeps going on these dates he's gonna meet that one girl who understands him. This time he just listens, pays, then pats himself on the back later mid-fuck and rolls off of her once he finishes. Just another day in the life. He managed to get from bed to bed without asking himself a single question, from sun rise to sun set without a single esoteric or obscure thought.
But it wasn't always like this.
