The Meatfields: Chapter Seven: Vignette No. 3

Alan was a young man of 21 years. He didn't do alot of thinking about why he did what he did, on either a grand scale or from one moment to the next. You know, the kind of things that people- especially young people- ask themselves: the first type would be why do I always get really drunk even if I don't really think I should? or Why do I always put down my friend even though I don't feel good about it? The second type would be: Why do I take this particular class? Or where this particular hat or shirt? etc. Alan didn't think much at all, actually, only he didn't know it. Where one to confront him with that fact one would find themselves at a proverbial brick wall.
It was early in the morning and he was sleeping when he awoke with a thought. It was vague and unclear at first, more like an emotion, the kind of emotion one might experience were one to be in the locker room before the big game and coach was giving a big speech about the importance of winning and the glory of victory- only it was out of context, free and un-channeled. The details remained unclear but his desire to know was overwhelming. It was tuesday and he had class at seven but somehow that didn't seem to matter anymore. He felt as if he would do anything to figure out what was in his head, what he had to do.
He was in a state of delirium as he pulled on what clothes lay closest at hand- pausing at times to try and remember what to do next: belt buckle, tuck shirt, tie shoes, brush teeth, un-tuck shirt, apply deodorant, etc. It was during one final pause before the downstairs march to meet his destiny that he noticed his alarm clock. 2:19 a.m. it flashed. On, off, on off, in bright red seizure-inducing letters. And it wasn't tuesday at all, it was Friday- well, Saturday, now. He sat down on his bed, staring at the floor.
Wait- What? he thought. He tried to remember if he had been dreaming and that feeling that he had to find out what he needed to do that had awoken him just minutes before, but it had already dissipated, dissolved into the night. It was really quiet. It felt quiet. Silent. He laid his face in his hands and wept. He wept not because he lost whatever purpose he might've found for that brief moment, but because of all those things that he had thought about himself and how he thought about himself in his dream by having and loosing what he had thought he had found: how he was a thoughtless automaton. And he cried more, because he wasn't sure he even knew what that meant.
None of those thoughts, however, were to hold a candle to those that followed: the thought that he hadn't really found any purpose at all, he'd only thought that he had, and that never in his life would he not only feel like he had found purpose, but actually find purpose- there was no purpose to be found. It was something he didn't even know he wanted and now it was gone, like the night and his alarm clock and his dreaming brain had played a horrible joke on him and left him alone in the echo of their silent laughter.