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    Cognitive Debris
    Cognitive Debris
    Cognitive Debris
    Ebook195 pages1 hour

    Cognitive Debris

    By Steven C. Nelson

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Throughout the years, you live and witness and experience. And all of those phenomena are recalled later in varying degrees of completeness and accuracy. These excerpts from life are periods of personal tumult, events that generated intense emotions, and accounts of others’ conquests that are so poignant you’ve never forgotten them, not one detail. They are variations of trite phrases that you’ve altered to help you better remember them and fictional stories incubated in your imagination that you augment to become more complex and pleasing. They are funny things you used to say, a trademark phrase, a “youmark”—something everyone at the party expects to hear at least twice from you. You collect them and protect them because they mean something to you, and maybe only you—they are you. We all live with this cognitive debris, and how we interpret and react to the events of each day is filtered through the prism it creates in each of us. This is mine.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSteven C. Nelson
    Release dateFeb 13, 2017
    ISBN9781370878932
    Cognitive Debris
    Author

    Steven C. Nelson

    Steve Nelson was raised in Central Ohio, where he still resides with his patient wife and rambunctious children. His writing is influenced by the contrasting seasons and rural aspects the Midwest has to offer, as well as the purity of the emotions experienced when with his family. After a long day of working and chasing his kids around, he tries to recapture some of his sanity with a little reading, a little jazz, or some good old fashioned vid binging.

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      Book preview

      Cognitive Debris - Steven C. Nelson

      Steven C. Nelson

      

Cover photo by Jason Nelson

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2016 Steven C. Nelson

      All rights reserved.

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      This work is inscribed to those who engendered within me a love for writing, reading, and expanding my world through both.

      Contents

      Title Page

      Dedication

      ~ Prose ~

      A December Walk

      Snow

      Amber Glow

      Simply Words

      At Day’s End

      Apprehension

      Bearing Our Burden

      The Last Time

      Becoming Strangers

      By the Apple Tree

      Confidence

      Captivation

      Car

      Creatures of the Night

      Corridors

      Diamonds

      Dichotomy

      Eyes

      I Am Calm

      Devotion

      Fading

      Dismay

      Frustration

      Feelings

      Fear

      The Great Contemplation

      Cursor

      Her Love

      The Hill

      Hear

      I Am Capricious

      Impasse

      The Journey

      Realization

      Learning

      My Fiery Companion

      Let Us

      Love’s Isolation

      Lust, Not Love: An Education

      Fruitless Revelation

      Pain

      The Man Who Was

      Plea from the Heart of a Troubled Man

      Man In Control

      Relief

      Presence

      Return

      Proclamation

      Refuge

      Retroactive Bystander

      Self-deprecation

      Static

      Sunny Day

      Stroll Through a Dream

      Waiting to Flourish

      Yearning

      Work

      Thoughtful

      ~ Verse ~

      Something Baroque

      An Autumn Storm

      Tried

      Cure

      Everything

      Acceptance

      I Awake in the Morning

      The Cursed Home

      The Long Winter Ahead

      The Lacking

      Loss

      Literary Impotence

      Approval

      Napping in the Morning

      Pledge

      Redeemer

      The Unmanned Boat

      Remembrance Reverence

      Rooms

      Wondering

      You Walk Beside Me

      About the Author

      Prose

      A December Walk

      I step outside on a cold December evening

      To fetch another fireside bench for my guests.

      The snow crunches crisply under my careful steps,

      And my breath lingers in the air in front of me.

      All is dry and still—

      Even the wind cannot escape cold’s lethargy.

      I reach the bench

      And wonder at the snow resting upon its top—

      Scrupulously erected mounds I am reluctant to disturb.

      With a gentle tilt, the flakes trickle to the ground;

      I watch in solemn silence,

      Hoping this undoing of a masterpiece will be forgiven.

      I lift the object of my journey, intending to rejoin my companions,

      But notice the grandeur of the world surrounding me

      And stop to admire it instead:

      Laughter fills the house behind me,

      Then sprawls across the land before me;

      Smoke from the fire inside meanders through the barren trees;

      This as the sun’s last rays retreat across the snow-covered terrain.

      My boots suck up the snow’s bitter cold

      As I linger in what I know, someday,

      Will be one of my fondest memories.

      But knowing happiness is seldom, fragile, and fleeting,

      My contentment slowly dwindles,

      Like the morning’s fading dreams,

      Doubting it will ever be this good again.

      Snow

      The uninhabited plain sprawled out for miles around me. I wondered at the beauty that time and nature had collaborated to create. The cold wind nipped at my nose, and I shivered and folded my arms across my chest—the leather of my jacket creaking as I moved. I shifted my weight and the dry leaves, long ago detached by gusts of incoming fall air, crackled beneath my feet. I took in a deep, full breath—the cold air hurting the back of my throat—and exhaled, intrigued as I observed the lazy column of white steam scurry into extinction in all directions in front of me.

      A single snowflake drifted into my cognizance. I watched, captivated, as it lazily floated down—swaying back and forth in the wind—and came to rest atop a few spindly blades of browning grass that had wisely begun their winter slumber. It slowly crumbled as it melted into drops of water that then clung to the blades—the ground not yet cold enough to host it—but my glee did not wane. This delicate first flake, this ambassador from the cosmos, carried with it the promise that more would follow. It was a harbinger of undisturbed white plains awaiting my eager travel across them, serene landscapes to daydream on, and drifts large and small that would pile up and soften the edges of the world around me.

      This flake meant that life would soon slow down and a new set of experiences would be unlocked: The approaching cold and snow would make gatherings with friends and family more intimate, inclining us to huddle together indoors rather than indulge in the autonomy that warmer weather encourages; the white blanket traversing man-made barriers would connect one man’s front door to his neighbors’; I could wake up on a snowy morning and spend the entire day reminiscing as I watched ice form on the trees outside.

      The wrinkles that had bunched up around my mouth and eyes burned from the wind’s continual blowing; my aching knees and tired back supplicated the comfort of my fireside chair. I wanted to delight in that moment as long as possible, but my body did not have the fortitude it used to—a trend my mind had started to mimic. My memories seemed scattered anymore; I could not find the ones I needed when I looked where they should have been.

      I reluctantly turned around and made my way back inside, hoping age would not erase this memory too.

      Amber Glow

      There is something about a rising or setting sun that seems to set the perfect stage for greatness to transpire upon; perhaps

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