Cluttered Consciousness | LMAC FreeStyle Collage No. 170

Heidi stared at her cooling coffee as twenty browser tabs, a half-written apology, and the lingering rhythm of a forgotten country song collided behind her eyes. Her brain was a crowded attic where the dust settled over unanswered emails, forgotten groceries, and the exact volume of her neighbor's midday footsteps. Working remote crammed the maze than the previous water cooler gossip in office.

A chime sounded from her desk calendar, demanding she switch gears instantly. She tried to organize the mind mess. 'A' was for the urgent deadline. 'B"; the laundry. 'C'; the text she forgot to send yesterday. But the variables bled together in her mind.

Turn off the oven. Water the plants. Did I lock the patio door? Each thought was a physical weight, pulling her attention in a hundred directions simultaneously. She couldn't focus on the coffee, or the desk, or the screen. There was simply too much noise in the room inside her head.

The phantom noise in Heidi's head suddenly crystallized into a sharp, terrifying frequency. The chaotic hum of her career and social anxiety forced itself to the forefront. The constant worry that she was being watched, judged, or followed was not an illusion.

Suddenly, the puzzle pieces of her daily panic snapped into place.

That shadowy silhouette she glimpsed in the alley she dismissed as paranoia was the same outline of a man she remembered seeing at the lighthouse three weeks ago. On a routine visit to her father, she noticed a distress signal in Morse code emitted from the tower. She smiled, figuring her father was testing her memory. A private joke they shared thanks to his teachings as a child. However, once she arrived, she discovered he'd been ill and wasn't in the tower that morning.

Then, there was the grocery trip. The same heavy jacket lingering near the checkout line opposite her lane

Finally, the distinct, rhythmic tapping of footsteps from the apartment above. Her internal chaos vanished, replaced by cold, survival-driven clarity. Her neighbor was not a stranger; he was the man from the alley. Her anxiety had not been a malfunction, but a radar.

Heidi’s hand froze over her phone, remembering the dismissive sighs of the officers the last time she called.

"Just an overactive imagination," she overheard one officer say to his partner as he wrote his report. That she was labeled the girl who cried wolf, caused her to hang the phone up. She was entirely on her own.

Driven by a sudden, fierce rush of adrenaline, Heidi marched up the creaking stairs. She didn’t let herself think. She didn’t let the old mental clutter paralyze her. She slammed her fist against her new neighbor’s door.

The door swung open as if expecting her. Heidi opened her mouth to scream a warning, but the words caught in her throat.

The man standing there was trembling. He wore the same heavy jacket from the grocery store, but his shoulders were hunched, and he was clutching a map of the apartment complex.

"I'm so sorry," he stammered if I frightened you, his face turning bright red. "It wasn't my intention. I'm just incredibly shy."

Heidi studied the man, then glanced into his apartment unit. The neatness unhinged her for a moment. The total opposite of her own unit. As the terror receded, the pieces of the story reassembled into something completely different

"Explain yourself. Why are you stalking me?" She didn't stop to think that normal behavior was not to approach someone suspected of wanting to do another harm.

"Stalking? You don't understand. If you won't come in so that we can talk, I'll step outside in broad daylight so that you can see I mean you no harm. I was disoriented on move-in day, trying to get the layout of the complex unit and find my back entrance."

"Keep going. That doesn't explain shadowing me at the supermarket pretending to buy groceries."

"We shop at the same market. And we work at the same company. I recognized you one day going out and wanted to say hello, but lost my nerve. I didn't think you'd want to go for lunch." He paused to gauge her reaction.

Heidi frowned, not knowing whether to believe him.

He continued. "I work two floors down in our office building and had noticed you months ago. But then I didn't see you for another month."

She didn't know why, but her shoulders relaxed. "I took a remote position instead of a full leave. I needed a break from the office. Only have to come in for our monthly meeting."

"I hear you. You're lucky. I'm in sales. The pressure to reach those quotas is unreal. Thinking about switching careers to something less demanding. Sales really doesn't fit my personality. As you've probably guessed." Noah cocked his mouth to the side to imitate a smirk. He missed the mark.

"I heard about that. I've a friend in sales." Heidi made a mental note to inquire and validate his story. But she didn't even know his name and didn't know whether she wanted to at this stage.

"I see you've yet to unpack. Probably reasons for the incessant pacing each night. I put off completing items myself. Except that my pacing is in my thoughts, not my footsteps."

"Oh, well, you could say that. I apologize if my steps sound like a maniac working up the courage to go through with his late night psychotic plans. It's my pacing nervously, trying to build the courage to knock on your door the next day and introduce myself.

Heidi let escape a long, breathy laugh that causes several neighbors to open their doors and step outside to investigate the commotion. The final remnants of her mental noise evaporated into the hallway air. He wasn't a threat; he was just another person trapped in his own cage of work and social anxiety. The same as she.

He didn't know what the laugh meant, but it spread into his soul, overshadowing the shyness. Instead of backing away, he returned her smile, then extended his hand.

"I'm Matt Henton. Apartment 2E. How about we start over with a cup of coffee?"

She accepted, her mind completely clear for the first time in weeks. "I'm Heidi Stockton. I'd love to.

My current freestyle collage theme entails a young female who's mind is jumbled with conflicting thoughts. My style of collage is a Freestyle. Although I'm not required to utilize any contest photo in my design. However, if you'd like to join in visit the LMAC account.

In preparing my theme, wanted to portray a female whose cluttered thoughts distracted her in all phases of her life. With my pure fractal I created in the advanced fractal rendering program, Apophysis 7X titled "Tic-Tac-Toe-In-Gray", I was able to create swirls that represented the female's confused thoughts. She's unable to sort out her priorities.

I utilized Canva to blend the different type images. Below are my steps in which I began with a blank, white canvas, then added layers of elements, removing backgrounds, resizing, duplicating, colorizing, and repositioning items as needed incorporating the tools at my disposal in my Annual Pro Membership Subscription.

Below are the images I included.

Item	Contributor	Source
Alley	Contributed to #LIL by @seckorama	Link
Face with flowers	Pixabay	Link
Man surrounded by numbers	Pixabay	Link
Lighthouse	Contributed to #LIL by @redheadpei	Link
Black birds	Contributed to #LIL by @onyechi	Link
Pure Fractal titled "Tic-Tac-Toe in Gray"	@justclickindiva	Link

Below is my completed collage:

Thanks for your visit. I appreciate it. I hope you like my freestyle collage theme.