It’s Not ADHD

I can’t seem to get anything done lately. I’m constantly fidgeting. I act without thinking. I’m unable to concentrate on tasks. I know what it sounds like — Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. But it’s not. I can’t get anything done, I can’t relax, and I can’t focus or prioritize because people from the future are constantly trying to kill me.

Self-diagnosis is a dangerous thing. It can create a negative feedback loop inside your head and reinforce thoughts and feelings that would normally subside with time. I see this in posts from my friends’ social media feeds, and I really do feel bad for them. But do you know what is more dangerous? A person appearing out of a miniature black hole in your living room, armed with a futuristic weapon and shouting a cacophony of futuristic gibberish at you. Try to hit your menial productivity benchmarks with that threat hanging over your head at all times.

“I’m sorry I’m late for our meeting. As I was leaving my house, a person from the future manifested themselves, and I was forced to engage in brutal hand-to-hand combat to protect myself.” I can’t send that email. It reads as desperate.

“Can’t he just admit he has ADHD, like the rest of us?” I can hear my co-workers saying. The signs are all apparent, but only if you didn’t realize I was being stalked by killers from a faraway time. It would appear that I have difficulty maintaining a schedule because I am constantly thwarting assassination attempts. It would appear that I have mood swings ranging from fear that I will be killed at any time to elation when I vanquish my threats to depression as I think of all the futuristic blood that covers my hands. Yes, I am increasingly angry. Yes, I am having trouble coping with the stress. But I swear, it’s not ADHD. It is the goo-covered people from the future who wield carefully refined weaponry in an attempt to take my life.
Man, would I love to shove some proof into these people’s faces, but that’s just not possible. The moment I plunge a blade into their hearts or one of my bullets finds a vital organ, they are engulfed from the inside by a black mass and swallowed back into their time. Some kind of paradox eliminator, I suppose. All that is left of them is a few puddles of the thick after-birth-like goo that they are covered with when they appear in my present. A real pet peeve of all these assassination attempts is when they appear in my car. That goo is killing its resale value.

When I first encountered these neo-brutes, they were sophisticated and cunning. I would feel myself being stalked for weeks at a time. They would blend in with our world, learn my patterns and plan a perfect time to strike, like when I’m on the toilet. I must confess, and I don’t mean to brag, but they are pretty easy to dispatch even with your bare hands. I don’t think there will be a lot of vegetables or calcium in the future; I’ll leave it at that. In recent months, they have shifted into what I would call a “bukkake” strategy where they send people at random, as close to me as possible. Weaker and obviously lacking any of the training of their predecessors, they are usually naked. They are covered in goo, and they want to fucking kill me.

I have a thought, though. What truly came first? The neo-brutes or the end of my attention span? I used to love to read. There was a time when I would snuggle up with a book in the afternoon and devour it until the wee hours of the night, but now I find myself having to re-read the paragraph four or five times to understand what is happening, my mind consistently drifting away. “I need to look at my phone,” “I need to watch another Tik Tok,” “I need to keep my eyes peeled in case a person from the future tears the structure of our world open with the sole intention of murdering me.” The habits are so invasive, so compulsive that I reach for my phone (or my strangling rope) without even thinking. Looking back, was I constantly trying to do ten things at once? And what were they before I was constantly adjusting tarps to protect my hardwood floors from the futuristic after-birth, checking and rechecking my single shot, easy-to-conceal derringers or sharpening my many knives? I feel like I do so much, but I don’t accomplish anything at all.

I’m not exactly sure what they want with me. How did I become the linchpin of the future? I’m a pretty good guy. I keep to myself. But who knows how history will frame my story? This simple man, who spends his days toiling in a lab, trying to convert the theory of time travel into a tangible reality, has, for whatever reason, a bounty on his head in a time so far away from his own that he cannot even fathom what their sky would look like.

Ah fuck. I think I hear something upstairs.