Writer's Commentary: Breathe
On Post: Breathe
Date: January 11, 2013
Alexi (another buddy so it’s cool I rock his first name here, trust me) repeats “Don’t forget to breathe,” several times in the song in what he clearly intends as a sort of mindfulness, “ground yourself in the moment” exercise. The message is don’t get overwhelmed, don’t let yourself lose track of yourself, a fairly straightforward common bit of advice.
However, take it out of context. Imagine, for instance, reading furniture instructions that include a command to “breathe.” And was insistent about it. Odd, right?
But not really enough for a story. A party anecdote, perhaps, but that’s it. What if you gave that set of directions to someone who, for whatever reason, had some sort of nearly pathologic issue with following instructions? How would such a simple directive affect them? And if that directive was highly emphasized, thus making it even more of an issue than usual? What then?
So I dropped those odd directions on a couple where one member desperately wanted to follow the rules but kept finding a way to derail himself and a woman who lived life exactly to the letter but loved the idea of coloring outside the lines and using her boyfriend to get those desires out.
It’s actually a pretty silly story that gets sinister is you really think about it. She wants him to break the rules early and often, he doesn’t but can’t seem to stop. So she is generally pushing him to go against his most precious wish and, by doing so, continues his torture. Plus to not follow the direction to breathe is a danger for a creature that needs oxygen to survive but she seems to exhibit no qualms about that.
Not something I meant at all, hence the light tone, but in review…brr…that’s dark.