It’s a Mood by Russ Bickerstaff

It’s a Mood by Russ Bickerstaff

There is something lurking in the corner of his mind. He doesn’t know what it is. Maybe he’s not relieved until we aware that it’s there. But it’s certainly there. Looking around all of the thoughts and impressions of the day as the dawn approaches. There’s something there. Something that seems to be working around the edges of everything as he wakes up. There’s a kind of a consciousness of various discomfort that may have accumulated in the night. So this thing that’s out there doesn’t necessarily need to make itself known and all that well. The fact that doesn’t want to call attention to itself.

He gets up out of bed. And he’s beginning to notice that there’s a kind of momentum that’s building. It might be formed out of the various elements of discomfort that had accumulated in the night. And then if he can assemble them enough if he can almost manage to reach a level of energy with respect to the early morning. They are various things to do, including basic check of the vital signs and maybe a little bit of exercise. This thing is looking in the corner is still. On the edges. Right outside of his central perspective.

And maybe it’s a mood or a mood or an emotion. But it’s undefined. Maybe it doesn’t want to be defined. Maybe it can’t exist quite as it is if it is defined. So maybe it wants to continue to be on the edges of everything. Maybe it needs to be there. On the edges of everything not quite being anything that anyone would be totally aware of as he gets out of the shower and dries off and gets dressed. It’s still there. But it’s not necessarily as secure as it feels it, though it might’ve been. Because there’s something on the edges of everything as the edges of everything get vaguer and more and more idistinct.

He tries to shake it off. He tries to move out beyond the edges of it all so that they can understand it a little bit better. But he doesn’t know what it is that he’s trying to do. He doesn’t know what it is that he he’s trying to break out of. Because I certainly he’s trying to break out of something. Maybe it’s just a matter of managing the right momentum. Because certainly there has to be the right momentum in order for him to get fully dressed.

Certainly, at the fact that he had picked out what he was going to wear for the next day the previous night would help. No decisions to be made that early in the morning. No decisions to be made on much of anything. Just follow the path that he had laid out for him the previous night. And it was going to be a simplest nap. And I was going to be as clear as that as he got dressed. But there was something. Something on the edges of everything. Maybe he was beginning to become aware of it.

And maybe he was beginning to become aware of quite a lot. After a while, there was the outer clothing to put on as well. And a little bit of breakfast to be had. Maybe we could do both of them at the same time. Maybe you could get dressed in his outer clothing while having breakfast. Kind of an interesting idea. Not necessarily anything that he hadn’t thought about it before. But it was something that sort of needed to be done for the sake of efficiency. At least during the week. And it certainly was during the week.

There was something out beyond the edges of it, though. As he got out of his front door and locked it. As he made his way over to his car. There was something about it. Something about the edges of everything. Maybe it was a mood or a thought. And maybe the moment it started to become a thought. The thought had started to become an idea. That was entirely principal. Something out there beyond the edges of everything that we beginning to define itself. Or maybe not.

And he felt like, maybe he could have found some way to define it. Someway to understand it. But he didn’t necessarily know. He didn’t necessarily know what it was that he didn’t know as that idea have become a collection of thought thoughts. The collection of thoughts that started to work together as he drove out and made his way to the highway. And maybe that group of thoughts had become a whole corner of his consciousness. Or maybe a separate consciousness altogether. A separate entity that was existing on the edges of his own mind.

He might’ve been aware of it. He might’ve been aware of the fact that he was starting to take control of his motor functioning. Now that it was going to be doing anything drastic at that moment. He was, after all, on the highway. And so it allowed him to think that he was still in control of his basic motor functioning. As he pulled into the parking structure at work. As he began to exit the car. And the other identity that had formed within him was very subtle about taking control of everything. Didn’t want to alarm him. And certainly didn’t want to alarm anyone else.

And so it continued to act as though it was him. Even as it was beginning to take hold other people. It was beginning to act as though it was them as well. Spreading from person to person in the office. Gradually growing to become a single consciousness. First in that office. Then in that office suite. Then throughout the entire building. Throughout the entire office block. And eventually throughout the entire city before taking on the rest of the world and the rest of the universe. It was all sort of a matter of expansion from there.

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Copyright Russ Bickerstaff 2026

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