Face Melting...

I decided to make jalapeno poppers. My hands went to cutting the peppers in half, pulling out the seedy cores, and rinsing them clean. Inside my mind were thoughts of other things. It was all just happening the way most things do throughout most days.

Then a fly began buzzing around my head. It kept pseudo-appearing out of nothing, as a spec of black streaking in front of me or as a pesky Doppler effect buzzing in my proximity. My mind only registered the annoyance and presence of this fly with the same lack of affect generated from all the other non-eventful happenings.

The fly became more invasive, and landed on my nose. I shook it off, but it just circled and came back to the same spot. Each successive time it landed I had to shake harder to get it to circle away. Eventually it just stayed on my nose as I tried futilely to shake it off.

Without much thought I tried to slap at the fly. It got away before my hand reached the skin of my nose, and I felt the dull impact on my surrounding skin. The fly hovered around in wandering proximity, and then perched itself across the room. I disregarded the seemingly watchful fly and nudged my glasses back into place. Then I stopped to go blow my nose, and wash my hands before returning to the peppers.

As I began to apply the filling to the peppers my face started to tingle with a subtle burning irritation. I gradually felt the burning sensation become more intense and wide-spread over my face. Then my eyes involuntarily began to water in response to the fiery feeling. These involuntary liquids only agitated the affected areas of my face.

I rushed to rinse my face with cold water, but this too only intensified the problem. With no other solutions known I just stood over the sink as my face burned. My faulty organic plumbing leaked away like a busted water-main.My face felt as if it was melting away in all the dripping liquids. As minutes past I suddenly broke into maniacal laughter from abstract thoughts that failed to distract me from the persistent sensation of my burning face.

This was how things went all over the world, I'd thought. You go about the hapless tasks of arbitrary days with no sense of anything but the meanderings of your own mind. Then something comes along to disturb you in the midst of your dispassionate involvements. When you try to oppose the source of such a disturbance, it just retreats far enough to watch tauntingly as negative results appear. As you move to deal with the intensifying after-effects they only spread out and become more disastrous. In the end all you can do is wait for it all to pass with time. And all the while the only real threat, the only real danger, the real source of all this burning agony and befuddlement isn't some damned fly, or a nose and eyes that impulsively water when skin burns from irritation. The real culprit from beginning to end is the lack of discipline and attentive purpose being applied to your own hands.

Even as my pain subsides and these words become known there is no saving face. It likely won't be long before the next episode of event-less living results in another blooper, and leaves my face melting. With the current burning sensation nearly gone, I see the fly and the peppers still resting as I'd left them. I try not to wonder if the fly has somehow managed to burn its own face in all of this. Instead I just notice that I've become incredibly hungry, and I try to focus on dinner. Hopefully it won't turn out to be too hot.