another short story in the making

Cat Fancy
(part 1)

I remember the first time I ever experienced boredom. It is a frightening feeling to have for the first time because we are born into a world of saturation constantly titillating the senses. There is always something new to experience. An experience capable of shaking the very center of our existence. But with all that surrounds us, we sometimes feel that it is not enough. The senses tire and inspiration turns to a lump of coal awaiting combustion from a source we do not seek. All that is mundane begins to stew around the pit of the intestines in viscous bile until the blood boils. The skin becomes irritated, yet we feel we can not satiate the itch. The itch lies beneath the surface, struggling to puncture its surroundings and find release. Amongst this turbulence, we always manage to find something to sooth this irritation. A spark. Something intriguing to the sleeping senses finds its way to our consciousness and we react. The coal ignites and the fire within once again pushes us to move on, to seek further inspiration and deeper purpose. We feel relief and a renewed sense of strength. We strive to become the warrior as we run from the belly of the beast.

I was ten years old. I am sure that I felt restless with things before, however this was my first realization of what it meant to be bored. I wanted nothing to do with what surrounded me yet I didn’t know what would alleviate the feeling. I was sitting at our kitchen table in the mid-afternoon watching my mom bake cookies. She stood at this sink with her back to me as I stared blankly at multi colored pieces of construction paper. I drifted in and out of listening to my mom tell a story about my grandfather’s missing teeth. Apparently he took his dentures out at a restaurant while he was eating soup and forgot to put them back in. The waitress chased him down Lincoln Boulevard with his mouth in her hands screaming, “Sir! you forgot your teeth!” She shook her head and chuckled. I knew the story was supposed to be funny. I just forgot to pay attention to when I was supposed to laugh.
My mom turned around and gave me a look of disappointment at my lack of a reaction. I smiled and let out a forced giggle of approval and she resumed her mixing. I began to pop the caps off each of my Mr. Sketch markers. I liked to line them up side by side and take turns smelling each one with my eyes closed. Sometimes my friend Alexandra would come over with her own set of markers and we would compete to see who could guess the flavors fastest. I always won. Sometimes I could smell two or three at a time and be able to distinguish them individually. We always ended up with rainbow moustaches and we’d laugh so hard that sometimes tears would stream down my face and blur the colors into a giant fruit bowl around my mouth.