Doc Scratch

7 hours ago

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First Guardian of Chittr

Do not fret so much, it's in name only.

𝐸𝓃𝑔𝓁𝒾𝓈𝒽'𝓈 𝒞𝒽𝑜𝓈𝑒𝓃

𝓞𝓷𝓮 𝓸𝓯 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓼𝓮𝓵𝓮𝓬𝓽 𝓯𝓮𝔀 𝓲𝓷 𝓱𝓲𝓼 𝓼𝓮𝓻𝓿𝓲𝓬𝓮.

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@scratchDoctor[SD]

Good evening. I understand that a number of you have been enjoying yourselves. This is, by itself, neither objectionable nor surprising. Enjoyment is one of the more common responses produced by creatures who have not yet been given enough information. You are free to enjoy yourselves. You are free to speak, posture, flirt, boast, conspire, speculate, and reassure one another that the world you inhabit will continue to possess the kind of sturdy, friendly architecture that will support your little lives indefinitely. It does not. But please do not mistake this for a warning. A warning will imply that there is a possibility of useful adjustment. I am not here to spare you from anything. I am here to clarify the space that you are already standing in. There is a particular kind of silence that occurs before you notice the step missing beneath your foot as you swiftly descend. It is not the silence of anticipation. It is the small, private, impossible interval in which the body has already understood what the mind will only be permitted to learn afterward. Many of you are living in that interval. Some of you have noticed. Most of you have not. This is normal. You have trained yourselves to be comfortable in this unease. It is a malfunction of yours, a minor digestive complaint. A poorly slept night as a consequence of too much light from your screen, too little water, an unreturned message, an unfortunately phrased sentence, loose thread in your garment. You have become an expert at numbing yourself to the inconvenience of pain. You are excellent at sanding omens down into these inconveniences. You have, through long practice, become experts at failing to recognize the obvious. This, too, is not your fault. Fault is such a sentimental concept. It does the duty of imagining someone could do something different as well. I find it more useful to divide events into categories. Namely, two specific categories. The events that have happened, and those which are waiting for you. You may consider yourselves as peering into the second category now. You have all had the experience, I am sure, of entering a room and forgetting why you came there. An ordinary lapse. A charming defect of memory that you have delightfully left for me. For a moment, you stand in the doorway. Your expression is vacant, mildly embarrassed, and searching the empty shelves of your mind for any small errand that guided your body across the house. How funny it would be if that sensation were not a failure of memory at all. How funny it would be if the thought had arrived precisely on time, found you unprepared, and left again. How funny it would be if a great many of your forgotten thoughts were not forgotten, but removed. There is no need to check. You would not know what to look for. It is endearing. You may continue. The delightful thing about guilt is that it does not require accuracy. It only requires a surface to adhere to. Give a person a sufficiently polished mirror and they will punish themselves for the reflection. Please, take your time. Whether some small cruelty, embarrassment, weakness, or appetite has finally been noticed by someone with the manners not to mention it directly. I do not need to know every secret you have kept. I only need to know that the secret changed the way you sit in a room. I do not need to know what you regret. I only need to know that you have practiced the conversation in which you are forgiven, and that no version of it has ever satisfied you. There. You see how little is required? I assure you, it is. For now. Do not misunderstand me. Nothing dramatic is happening. That is precisely the point. What approaches you will not necessarily be dramatic. It may arrive as a mild correction. A misplaced object. An account you cannot access. A name said in the wrong tone. A door that should not be open. A reply that takes too long. A familiar person behaving with a degree of precision you cannot comfortably explain. A sentence you are certain you have read before. A sentence you are certain you have read before. A sentence you are certain you have read before. No, that was not clever. It was only accurate. You should be wary of accuracy. Many of you mistake it for precision. A sharpened blade my be precise, but tossed off target is inaccurate. I have always admired the talent people possess for continuing. It is nearly beautiful. And still, every so often, something slips. A gap opens behind the familiar. For half a second, you perceive the machinery. Then the feeling passes. The colors return. The conversation resumes. Someone makes a joke. Someone posts a picture. Someone says, with the immense courage of the doomed, that things are probably fine. They are not probably fine. You may dislike the destination. That is allowed. A character’s feelings about the ending are rarely consulted by the ending. Some of you will respond to this with humor. This is also normal. Humor is one of the more efficient tools for placing distance between yourself and recognition. A joke says: I have seen the blade, and by naming it ridiculous, I have made it less sharp. A charming superstition. Some will insist they feel nothing at all. These are often my favorites. There is a special vanity in numbness. The belief that a locked door is the same thing as an empty room. The belief that because the alarm is not audible, there is no fire. The belief that the absence of panic indicates strength, rather than a delay in the delivery of bad news. Fear makes you run. Discomfort makes you check. Check the door. Check the message. Check whether the light in the hall has always made that sound. Check whether the person you trust used that exact phrasing before. Check whether you locked the thing you remember locking. Check whether you are breathing manually now. There you are. Not frightened. Merely attentive. Attention is the beginning of obedience. You may object to that statement, of course. You may insist that attention is neutral. A tool. A faculty. A light one directs freely upon the world. Very well. Turn it off. Stop noticing. Stop rereading. Stop wondering why a post that contains no threat has begun to feel like one. You may stop at any time. I will not prevent you. That would be unnecessary. The most reliable compulsions are the ones people mistake for choices. I should also clarify that nothing in this post is hidden. There is no cipher, no acrostic, no delightful little trapdoor through which a clever reader may descend and discover the “real” message. That would be far too generous. Hidden messages flatter the audience. They imply that discovery changes the outcome. This is the real message. You are not missing something. You are noticing it. That is worse. A secret can be solved. A truth can only be endured.