I.
The words which never caught me by surprise were only exemplified, amplified by the faces of others. They made me realize reality, real life, whatever it may be, to them anyway, to everyone else. I was confused; the looks of disgust, of dismay, or of disappointment. I never understood how or why anyone would think that of me. I have no real ties to anything but the reactions that lie within these facial distortions, within this cage that language bears, within this monstrous speech reverberating from my esophagus, beyond my lips, curling around any ears within audible distance. If I thought there was ever time, it was only a joke. Worry today, worry tomorrow. These ties to reality are socially bounding, economically bounding, aesthetically bounding, even. Without them, my sanity would be questioned, my stomach would be empty, my vocal chords perhaps of no use.
There was an understanding once, where humans were supposed to have these things called morals, know the so-called right from the so-called wrong. But the life I led seemed utterly devoid of morality, mostly socially, mostly economically, if economics ever had any real morals to begin with, that is. Every day was a simple stretch of time littered with incessant errors. Regretful decisions strewn about the lawn as you fled for work each morning, on the license plate of the car in front of you, in the morning cup of coffee; they were there to greet you at the dinner table, or on your bed, if you were like me, sitting in the same goddamn spot for hours upon hours upon days, so many instances you can’t even remember the last time you did something else real with your life. The mistakes only got worse as you aged; growing and spilling profusely all over your man-made time, without missing a spot. Perhaps it was just the complete lack of confidence, I’ll never know. The self doubt, pity, loathing, the hatred, the misery, the empathy, it was all a communal effort.
I felt as if I could only feel what others felt. It would emanate from within them, would burst through their flesh and would grant me cascading waves of false emotion. The suddenness was always astonishing, an exaggerated, excessive weight that would pummel me, make a raging emotional monster out of me. The instigation would begin someplace deeper, but the foreign feelings would forcibly thrust themselves through my bloodstream, dousing everything in its path with remnants of itself. I use this excuse, empathy, to put a name to these nameless emotions, the ones so intense, yet so alienated, I could sense them but I could never tell why or what they were, who they claimed to be, there was never any reasoning with them. They were the monarch, and I was the peasant.
All of this commemorates, welcomes a myriad of hate. Everything I say, I am, or I do is an act of self-destruction. An explosive action grasping every piece of humanity that surrounds it; it crushes it all, and it reveals nothing but the truth, the unyielding truth, bound to nothing but selfishness, that lags behind the so-called person of morale.
There was morning; and morning was time for my own evangelical speech, myself yelling throughout the condo I claimed was my own with strained vocal chords. Morning was when I’d brush past fifty-four mirrors from my bedroom to the bathroom, and once in the bathroom, I’d glare into each of the twenty-eight mirrors that adorned the walls of the nine foot-by-nine foot enclosure. After my purely aesthetic actions were over, I’d slowly make my way to the largest, center mirror, gazing so hard I eventually appear soulless, a desolate form wading in the universe for no known reason, for no apparent cause. Where my day would begin splashing water against the reflection, though I was never sure where the water would really go. Some days I would feel the water souse my nose, mouth, eyes, and others, I wouldn’t. Others, I would watch it bounce from the glass, or gracefully run across it.
“you are a casted shadow, a shadow who lives and breathes, feeds off of first rate versions of yourself, yearns to be everything it never could be, never would be. Systematically, you aren’t even there, you’ve nothing to contribute, nothing to show for, nothing to be. Never will you be anything but a reflection of an imposter, of a fool behind a hideous mask. The space you’ve taken up with your existence is far from eminent, it’s far from understood.”
Rounded eyes dirty with hazel and burnt gold, so focused they appear to be trembling, so decadent they could be mistaken for something of much greater purpose, my heavy eyelashes quiver. There’s nothing but me right now, so absorbed in myself in a trance-like state of perplexity, but I won’t snap out of it, and I won’t even try to bring myself back to any sort of so-called reality. I run my hand over the long brown hair that protrudes from my pale scalp, thick and stringy. I clasp locks of it in my hands and watch my reflection cautiously. My rounded face with few freckles placed so delicately it seems to have been done by a painter with a life’s worth of masterpiece, each one of them perfect, doing nothing less than accentuating every beautiful feature I posses: impeccable cheekbones, arched eyebrows, angular bone structure, bow lips so graceful it was difficult to believe that anything but eloquent speech would come from them, anything vulgar was completely out of place, and my symmetrical nose atop a fair complexion. Yet I loathe all that I see. Everything from within me makes me glow with an overwhelming sense of debauchery, all of the sadism, all of the hideous thoughts and feelings, everything I fear, it all reflects back at me; it looks me in the eyes, questions me, and drives me to do things I’d never do if it weren’t for this oracle staring back at me, like I was some sort of vigilante. My forehead hits the mirror, the both of us, we become one, and single tears trickle celestially down my cheeks, bending around the corners of my mouth, tapping the sink and scattering themselves about. I’m illuminated by shame, by horror, by victimization. Turning away, following my steps backward, I strip of all my clothing as I slink down the hallway, hardly moving.
“You deplorable coward”, I repeat in my head, an interminable string of profane scolding, “nothing of success will ever come from you. Nothing of this world will ever appease you; nothing of you will ever be appreciated. Become decrepit, wither within your repulsive self pity, don’t expect any sympathy, don’t expect any care.”
It’s not even you anymore, it’s some sort of divinity trying to tell you how to live, why you live, or rather, why you shouldn’t any longer. Standing in the doorway, my esophagus is shaking and I let my eyes once over the entirety of the room: a single side-hinged casement window rests in the center of the room, elegant golden sheers suspending from a bar placed an inch above the head of the window, and ending an inch below. To the left of the window was a desk made of oak, its contents are inconsequential. The wooden floors are polished; I can nearly see the reflection of my bare legs, twice as tall as I remembered them to be.
The walls are a rifle green. A canvas of 28x36 blank with grey was leaning up against one of the two ceiling-high bookshelves that a full bed would separate against the far right wall. The shelves were also constructed of oak. Beside the canvas were sets of oil colors laid about floor, sprawled out, making friends with the assorted brushes of fine hair, some of which were stained and stale, some of which were glistening with fresh paint, the colors didn’t compliment the dark wooden floor. The protruding bed was wedged between the two bookshelves, almost as if it was ready to be squeezed out of its displacement. Despite this, with posture not meant for six a.m., was Alex, perched up upon our sheets of marigold and charcoal as if he were meant for much greater things than this, a runaway aristocrat, the definition really not far from his typical mannerisms. He sat silently with a petulant grin and a slightly condescending air; nothing about him looked remotely tired. His slender arms reached out extensively for something bedside, to my dismay, but not surprise, a recumbent half-empty glass bottle of whiskey.
“I thought we had an agreement”, I could sense the vapidity growing inside him; he’d witnessed this routine for nearly three years now. I knew there was no giving up, on his part or on mine.
“You know none of this is getting any more pleasant; none of this is growing on me, you’re bullshit has become a part of my methodical days and weeks, years now, right? I can mock your filthy morning psalms in my dreams”, his monotony growing, rooting itself deeper into my ears, failing to cause any new thought.
His voice was making trails in my head; I heard it over and over again in utter iteration. I felt his eyes, though, as his followed mine in a synchronized pattern over to the oak plated desk, our eyes climbed the wall, together, up to the hangman’s knot swinging two feet from where it was grounded. It made a constant mockery of me; it had this omnipotent aura about it, as if everything beneath it were somehow, suddenly inferior. With a determined walk, I headed towards it as if out of rote. This was the one time I’d felt blessed with good architecture. I’d hated the wooden cathedral ceilings before, the wooden beams extended across the entirety of the room, five of them. It reminded me of an archaic cathedral. Today I took great pride in these jutting beams. There was a breath against my neck; I didn’t hear the preceding footsteps. He’d always walked with such an air that made him seem absolutely weightless, too graceful for a six foot tall human being. The warmth of his palm enclosing upon my upper arm calmed me, made me drift into a comfortable limbo, I didn’t, couldn’t remember what was happening or what I seemed to be thinking the instant prior. I’d lost the intensity of the moment, the tension within me had loosened and unraveled, the significance had surrendered itself, and the adrenaline was gone. I always seemed to forget how soothing a miniscule gesture could be. I always seemed to forget this, everyday.
It could have just been the indication that someone was there, the reminder that you shouldn’t necessarily need, but you’d still occasionally wish would reveal itself, the kind of reminder that made you all but impenetrable, and yet made all else inconsequential.
“I…” words don’t even begin to configure.
“There’s no explanation needed, you know that”, he starts, with narrative nonchalance. “I just think we both concluded long ago that it’s mutually in our best interests if these outbursts weren’t….so routine. Surely you can manage to be a functional human being without…”
“Without what,” I interject.
“Well, without, you know, torturing yourself on an almost daily basis.”
“Why is it that you feel obliged to handle everything with such a juxtaposed standpoint? For once, couldn’t you recognize me as an individual as opposed to a part of the masses? I’m sure,” at this I turn to face him, the peak of my head stands only mid-chest, “you can comprehend that people operate differently under different circumstances, and even at that, they cope differently.” The anger in my voice is drowned out by what looks like an isolated smile on my face, I’m sure.
“I was hardly comparing you to anyone among us.” He also hands over an unyielding smile.
“Just…in general, I’m so used to it always being about other people, so I always make it about myself….”
He moves back to the bed, sits down.
I can see that Alex is hardly startled by this statement, the self-indulged me has been around for quite some time. I’m not only admitting to this, but proud to admit to it, I would deem self-interest the first and foremost reason for existing, and such things comparable and contrived.
I realize the quizzical, enigmatic look upon my face and am sure to wipe it clean. I can sense that there’s more conversation, though it’s dull and incomprehensible, as most words will be today, or any day. The sentence structure may be of some sensible significance to you, or to her, but there are only desolate plains that seem to show themselves behind my eyes, a dancing desert racing towards…imagination, coursing itself through all audible points within me, but missing each piece of its own crucial meaning. It’s all gone eschew, been abandoned by the wind which the whispers of words create, ironically, seeing as these words were originally intended to be interpreted by me, without, of course, being lost in their formation.
I keep falling in love with the fascination of living alone in my head, although simultaneously I dread being here without someone’s company, though the people never seem to stay consistent. It’s as if the paths never truly cross, mine and another’s. I can say, but I can’t mean. Nothing spoken, nothing written, nothing conveyed can be true. The only pure form of explanation lies within the walls of your skull, existing purely by itself, without any help or any way to let those explanations fly from your mouth, gestures, or hands. Alone and isolated, I just want to draw someone in, lock them here to hear and see and envision with me a world where none of this exists. What is mine and what is yours doesn’t matter, it’s inseparable. It’s one.
“There’s nothing different about today…?” I say flatly, “Is there?”
“You aren’t listening to me.”
“There’s nothing different, is there?”
“No.”
I’m indifferent, or so I think. Or so I feel. Slowly and silently I creep towards my bed, our bed. Lying on my side, today is every day is every day is every day. It’s six thirty. My shift begins in something like two hours... Today isn’t the day. My mind isn’t nearly as composed as it should be, isn’t ready to walk anywhere where I can feel the presence of other lowly life-forms, living organ bags, sucking the oxygen out of the atmosphere without a simple thanks. I can feel the tolerance level in me draining, falling deeper into the ground and rooting itself where I’ll be unable to retrieve it, I can feel any potential for me being able to properly function run dry.
And it was all flashing so lifelessly ahead, while I was recumbent in bed, a pillow making its way around my head, wrapping it up as if to mummify. The all-encompassing vacuous night, the seeping darkness sousing the room, dousing it with absurd fears, fruitlessly unyielding, making its way through, beneath, above the windowpanes, devouring all things memorable, so I was blind to the obvious.
“The darkness isn’t even natural….” I mutter from just below a plethora of feathers.
“You’re only seeing it because you’re surely doing a good job of making it real.”
“I don’t do a good job of anything but making the unwanted the tangible.”
“It’s all a matter of choice, it lies within the mind. Whatever you may believe, you are all the power you need to cease it.”
“Today is a…a great day to keep lethargy intact, don’t you think?”
“You have to work, I’ll make some coffee.”
“Wait,” I’m sitting up now, reaching for his forearm as he’s turning away from me, “don’t you have to work today too?”
“Would I still have whiskey on my breath if I was planning on hauling half of the world around in a taxi today?”
He turns, I watch him leave.
I silently muffle the word ‘yes’.
There’s nothing to do these days, nothing but to stride from person to person, from person to person….
II.
Nothing ever made much sense anyway. Not to me anyhow. I’d walk and stare, walk and glare. There was everyone, everywhere. They were consistently making sense or maybe not quite making anything. The odd tones and noises sporadically spilling out of their lips, overflowing with things no one wanted or cared to hear. No one wanted to bear the burden of the nonsensical jargon, listlessly and full of absolute pride, or sometimes timidity, and then integrity, which upset me most often. The words overlapping, the sentence structure so contrived and misconstrued. The beliefs and not-beliefs were getting to me; they were settling themselves halfway between my ears, not exactly being heard either way. Watching out for the jumping, squirming syllables, the only way I’d understand how to respond. Running these free fingertips of mine throughout my hair, strand by strand, representing the frustration, being the frustration. In an utter haze, the labyrinth of existence, my mystery is a continuation of virtually an absolute. An absolute non-existence.
There were no critics in today’s society, only curses. They’d misinterpret our behavior, when was it that you became so seemingly complex? Right now, others were watching me as I lay face down outside of my apartment on the concrete near the streets. Every ten or so cars that would groan by decided to make me their concern by hesitantly descending their windows about half way, just enough to peek their insincere lips outside. They yell to me as if this is some sort of heroic effort, to be sure that I’m not dying or in need of some medical or mental help. I repeat that I’m fine over and over until it gets to the point where I’m mentally exhausted of it, so I start raising a thumb or two to show that I’m doing just fine, I’m alive, alive, alive. This happens until I fall asleep, which leads an elderly man to pull his car over to the curb and shuffle out with a ferret in his coat pocket. He nudges me several times until I sleepily moan that I’ve never been better. I decided laying under the sun anyplace that isn’t near a beach or pool is too much of a hassle to enjoy. He gave me a card that resembled a business card only it was a card for some sort of church he’d called revolutionary. Where I usually would have told him how incredibly far-fetched it would be to try and convince me to have any sort of faith in anything, I thanked him and fiddled with his ferret for some time. This led us to a conversation about how he’d seen Jesus recently; I just nodded a little and hinted to the fact that I had to leave. I couldn’t listen to this any longer so I turned on my heel with a pivotal movement in the direction of my apartment. I walked until he offered me his ferret and told me he couldn’t keep it any longer. When I asked him why all he had to say was that he hadn’t much longer. I admit, his face was weary, and I’d never been upset by death before, though right now I was devastated that this man’s life was going to be swept from beneath his feet. I wanted him to be able to care for his ferret, whose name was Azalea, by the way. His name was James, so he told me after we shook hands. His face resembled worn, rugged leather at least six decades young, without many wrinkles, just sacks of skin begging to be welcomed home, trying to grasp the muscle beneath with maximum effort. His hair was thinned but more full than a typical man of his age, and darker gray as opposed to white. His entire presence had given aura of experience, and as people become more conservative with age, I could tell he was still far from senile. He was far from having any sort of elitist qualities. He was far from possessing any sort of zealousness whatsoever. The most melancholy man I’d ever met, in fact. And as I was noting this, I thought of how that confused me seeing as the card he had handed me was one claiming faith, and this is something I felt James had lacked.
“Today marks six months. I haven’t gone home or seen any of my family in six months. Not Laura, not the kids, no one.”
Cars were still clanging all about.
“Laura? Was she your wife? Or..am I mistaken?”
“Absolutely, still is, and forever more.
“So, uh, why is it you’re avoiding her?”
By this time he’d sat down on the curb, forlorn legs beneath him; Azalea was in my arms with her eyes closed. I sat down, facing him on the sidewalk.
“I’m like a cat, when I’m sick, I don’t want anyone to know, I don’t want anyone to worry. I can’t, you know? They’ve all got their own issues to deal with. They’re smart kids. Laura is the strongest woman I know. My being around would only make them feel obligated to watch me die. They’d stop all else to hear my last words. I can’t have that.”
He was looking at the ground with empty eyes. I could tell that he’d been coping with this for some time, but that he was also an inconsolable man. He’d joined a church to restore what he had left of his life alone, thinking a community would make it any easier. This is what my first thoughts were, anyhow.
“Maybe it’s better this way than, if you believe it’s simpler for them. I don’t mean to be insensitive, but would you feel I was intruding if I’d asked you what it was exactly you’d come down with?”
Even I was surprised with my genuine tone.
“I was diagnosed with prostate cancer a little over nine months ago.”
“So, aside from your family, aside from all of those people who you’d assume you’d hurt by going back to them, how do you feel about it? What’s your ruling in this situation?”
He sighed, and proceeded to explain to me that he loved his wife more than anything anyone could have given him, more than anything fathomable and anything not. He told me he was utterly indifferent to dying. His whole life had been a mess of people who desperately cared, whom he cared for just as much, only somewhere within the net of love he held for those people, or beneath it, was an abysmal pit of self-hatred and worry, beneath that was selfishness. He told me that that piece of him always found a way to take over even if he’d never conveyed that. Even if it never surfaced. He didn’t look up the whole time he’d been explaining himself to me. He didn’t get the opportunity to see the bewildered expression that I wore, the expression that his whole explanation caused. I knew that between everything he’d experienced throughout his ventures and endeavors, all of that was dead, had been dead. What he’d just spit out was exactly how the account of his life would be told, maybe not by others, but by him, and what’s funny is, in the end, regaurdless of how much is true to you, that doesn’t matter. It’s everyone else who sets some sort of stage for you. A stage and a scaffold are set before you without your permission or acceptance, made solely for you, molded for you without your blessing.
My eyes were burning into his wool suit jacket. Without hesitation, I glared silently until he felt it.
I told him I had to leave, but I did show him which apartment I lived in. I told him to come over any time and visit Azalea, and I thanked him. He asked my name as I’d turned to walk away. I told him it was Judy. I lied.
Today, I went to the Zoo, I sat on a bench near the Panda Bears for roughly two hours while tiny hands of children smeared the glass as their popcorn fell from between their fingers, mothers yelling, smiling, fathers with their little girls riding on their shoulders for an extra six feet of height. I only wanted to know each of their innocent thoughts. The thoughts when you’d first began to realize that you had that fantastic capability of thinking in general, thinking without speaking, speaking without thinking. You just sat there, stood there, remembering how all this time you’d been conversing with yourself in your head. Not a word was said, and you’d cherish that ability seeing as there was no use for anyone else at that time. Center of the Universe within your mind: You.
Where was I? Where were you? Wrapped up in what could be considered the silence of the city. Rest assured the words that lie within me are guarded, deeply frozen beneath seas and seas of falsely contrived tragedy, a well-planned out ending for a story full of unnecessary difficulty. I was thinking all of this, word for word in my brain, just tossing the syllables from crevice to crevice, suspending them in open air. I held Azalea in my arms; she’d been nipping at my forearms, she lay now, with no worry whatsoever, no instinctual need for movement, just rest. She seemed far from young, which was nice. Alex hadn’t been gone all day, I presumed. He sat on the living room carpet, in the middle of the lion’s mouth, where the coffee table typically was. He was cross-legged, his mouth shaped in a vibrant grin only because he heard my footsteps just before the door had opened. One of his palms extended upon his corresponding upper thigh, the other made a rooftop for the glass sitting beneath his relaxed palm. He sat like this, and for one reason or another I couldn’t place, I had realized how long it’d been since we gone anyplace together, anyplace at all. I knew he wouldn’t say anything, seeing as he was trying to meditate again and didn’t yet expect me to return. It wasn’t late; I was usually at work for extended periods of time.
