1
It swelled up from my chest at breakneck speed. A gulp of emotions climbing up my throat. Could not understand it at first. The way my face stiffened and chest quivered. When it exploded I sobbed, waterfalls of tears. I could have used a hug, a cigarette and most importantly a razor blade. The darkness and the pain overwhelming me.
Macfearson looked down at me pitifully and asked the obvious. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s…it’s all wrong. Everything is a mess,” I managed.
Everything? The everything that merely translates to nothing, I thought. Nothing is certain, only the crop and the fields … but even that is elusive. I’m so tired...just wanna lay down on a train track and die.
“What do you mean?”
“Existence, life itself. Kim,” I wiped tears with my palms. My blurry vision burying me into my darkness, adding to disorientation. “I don’t know if I can carry on after her. I have given everything and tried everything else. I’m done.” I felt the strength seep out of me and I tried nothing to hold onto it.
“Sandy?” a woman’s voice called.
Raised my head to find that it was her. The one Macfearson dearly hated. Her face nicely framed by her shinning black hair. Black eyes teeming with concern. Whether it was genuine or not was impossible to know.
"Cheryl?" I uttered with a sharp sob.
“What’s wrong? You want me to call any help for you or take you home?” She asked in that therapist’s voice of hers. I always wondered if it ever changed around different people, or her personality did. She always gave out a reserved, cautious, concerned and calculated atmosphere. The possibility that her role is not genuine was bothersome. Could not tell if she liked me, hated me or thought I was downright insane. Her client-centred therapy approach was questionable, it insinuated that she did not care.
2
Time: First Therapy Session
The view was beautiful, heavenly in a divine sense. There was a transcendent aura to it. Maybe it was how people looked like ants from up here or how external noise was almost diminished. From inside the world out there could be mistaken for a mere illusion. Leaning into the armchair like I owned the world felt comfy. Out there flourished a wilderness of chaos, here simplicity and order - a small table with Kleenex on the side in case I wept. The order here was imposing, too much comfort can get unnerving.
Her black eyes focused on me for a while, glistening like wet pebbles behind spectacles. She slithered in black silk pants and a woollen V-neck shirt. Black hair curling under her jaws. Her earrings nothing dashy. All you could get are her hands and wrists if you got lucky, knees kissing and a clipboard on her lap.
“Okay,” she pressed her thin red lips. “We just gotta go through your form right now to get the basic idea of why you are here and basically how we can help you,” she paused and flicked her hair in an attempt to remember something.
I merely nodded, biting my lip.
“Alright. My name is Cheryl and I will be your therapist.”
Therapist? What the fuck it’s not like I’m crazy, don’t say it like that… like I’m troubled or shit.
Okay…okay…maybe be this is just routine, something she has to say.
“Are you alright with me being your therapist?”
I studied her.
Yeah, you look good, trustworthy, reserved and somewhat enchanted. I like that, quite goth.
“Yes, yeah it’s fine,” I nodded somewhat amused.
She nodded, glanced at the ceiling and back. “Okay, Sandy, I just want you to know that everything you say here is confidential. I am not gonna go tell anyone about it not even my family or friends. The only time I would, which is rare, is if you are a danger to yourself or anybody. In that case, I may speak to my supervisor or contact your family. That is only if I am certain that that is the case."
If only you knew all the smoked-up things I have done already.
“You won’t be judged here, this is a safe place to share and be comfortable.”
Man, this voice. It’s… it’s… I don’t know.
“Okay?”
“Yeah,” I nodded.
She shuffled through the file. “Is this your first time here?”
Why would anyone lie about that on the form? Maybe they would if they thought saying they weren't will get them help quickly. On the other hand, if I am here to find the "truth" and I say I have never been here I would fail a seemingly innocent line of questions that is designed to decide whether or not I deserve to be or I am part of the secret society that has the “ truth”.
“Yes,” despite my beliefs I answered.
“You have ticked quite a lot of things here. What interests me the most is the suicidal thoughts. Can you talk about that and what brings you here specifically?”
I stared outside at the world a bit (from up here and my imaginative eye), tapping into the thin nature of reality, my emotions and my thoughts. Then the undeniable sense I am floating captured me.
“Anything specific you would like to share?” she repeated.
"Cheryl, it's the wrongness of it all. I feel it. It's rotten cheese, I'm not the mould, but they are. This reality is a curtain, one we can't see, touch or smell. It's lurking deceptively so. It's not steel, it's more of a phantom. You can hear, in fact, feel it, that there is another level of reality. It's like I am a fish wriggling in the net, only this time I'm confusing it for home. It's suffocating."
3
Nothing is ever what it is, nothing is ever just. It is not what it is for its own sake, or purely for being. It has a life and meaning that is never linguistic, emotional or spiritual. There was a god among us raping existence to the finish, it’s true manifestation. An enigma that binds us so tightly. Knots and cuffs that free us.
Macfearson drew his sword. “I’ll cut her into pieces if you let her ruin this for us.”
Macxermillio stopped in his tracks.
"There is something different here I feel it. It's not the same. If we keep on listening to her, we won't see this through," Macfearson spoke at Macxermillio.
“But we are here because she told us to come here. This woman you hate is the reason we are here. Maybe she knew we would find something here. Maybe she is with us. Isn’t that the reason we started this all along?” Macxermillio responded, his palm on Macfearson’s shoulder now.
“You came here with a different purpose. On her terms. I made you see what you couldn’t have seen. I opened your eyes to the prize! I took you off the sort of rubbish she has been feeding you. Can’t you see what she is doing to you too? It’s like you are brainwashed or some shit.” Macfearson flicked Macxermillio’s arm off and moved back.
“Fears-”
“Shut up!” Macfearson pointed the tip at his throat. “You see that tone you are using with me? Don’t do that, okay? I know what I am doing. This is for your own good. Don’t talk to her. Make her leave. Just make her go. You hear that, Sandy?”
I nodded, quite unsure. Flew a glance at Macxermillio who turned out useless, this did not suit him at all. He was still muddled with shock and confusion, so was I.
Cheryl still waiting on me spoke again, “If you can’t go through with this or it is too much for you, you don’t have to do it.”
“Hey! She fuckin’ leaves. We can have her say no more than two lines or I kill this bitch!” Macfearson grunted in a whisper.
What do you think will happen? I thought.
I considered. “I am okay.” I told her. “It’s just something else. Me and this girl I just met are having quite a good time I must say, Cheryl. This wasn’t a bad idea at all. Kim is awesome. Thank you.”
I faked a smile and wiped my tears.
She nodded, and looked as if to go, not quite certain what to make of this. “Okay,” did not sound convinced. She pointed as if to say she will be around and I can reach her if I needed anything. “Kim?”
“Yes. It’s working.”
“Okay.” she sighed, looked around and left.
4
"Sorry I took long," it was more than a courtesy. Kim sat and took a sip from her drink. She leaned forward, cocking her head back. Her luscious neck exposed.
How delicate and beautiful.
I sat shut, gazing at her collar bone. Her skin looking like it's bathed in oil, so tender and moist but not messy. She got messy with patrons, but she was not a mess. She made mess but she was not messy. No, not at all. I began to drool over what it would be like to press my thumb right there and dig into the base of her neck. She swirled like something delicate and weightless in the wind … a curtain. She was an impression of an exaggerated slow motion sexy shot from one of those lifelings’ music videos. Her name is Kim and she made me bleed ashes, not my kryptonite, but my something?
“You know,” She flashed a smile, the kind you only gave to a friend, “ I had a revelation.”
“While in there?”
“Yeah.”
“Isn’t it dirty and loud in there all the time? How on earth did you get the chance to even have one?”
"Besides all the mess." She giggled, she clasped her hands together, eager to tell.
“You know what my favourite room is in a house ?”
She shook. “No. What?”
“The toilet,” I laughed.
“Why ?”
"For that moment you are alone and in your little world. No distractions and pure privacy. You let go and you just become. You have all the monologues and can actually come up with some good ideas. For a moment, you don't feel like you are here in this world. Like everything else." I paused. "But there is fear, you know.”
She nodded. “What fear?”
I paused for a moment. “Getting out there.”
The image of my home toilet door appeared to me.
She looked puzzled. “Why ?”
“It’s a sanctuary of a sort I guess.”
She leaned back and glanced at her drink which was now full. “Should I be scared?”
"Well, that depends," Macfearson grunted, “On some little thing we call the calling.”
“Our compass to other worlds,” I whispered.
“What? I didn’t get that ?” Kim replied.
“What was your revelation?”
“Um, you know how people are right?”
Oh fuck yeah…
“Living like there is tomorrow. Making most of our present and shit. We party, fuck, fight and fall in love senselessly. Basically, we are like animals."
“Yeah.”
“Have you tuned into the radio recently?”
“Yeah, long time ago.”
“Why?”
“Because I think it’s shit. The music sucks.”
“Right!” She nodded enthusiastically. “The music is just about sex, booze and partying your life away, like that’s all that matters. This generation is the party-yourself-senseless generation because there is no meaning to anything. Because of how we have chosen to live, our lives have no substance to them anymore. You know why?”
“Why ?”
“How many times have you been told the world will end? That is the answer. We think this is the end. Or perhaps it is near. You will never know when it could, it could be any time. So why make a piece of music, art or literature that will be epic, monumental and classic? Why do anything that has prolonged meaning anyway? Something to surpass the times. It won’t last, it will be over today or tomorrow. Why stay in this marriage? Why go to church? Why love? Why go to school? Why raise a family? Why hope? Why dream?”
“So everything is justified?”
“Everything goes.”
“Is that what you believe? “
“It’s what I am subjected to.”
I glanced at my henchmen. Their attention drawn away as if the sword incident never happened. I could only imagine what thoughts were going through their heads. Macfearson the most.
What is she? Is she a lifeling? I think she feels the state of decay her world is in like us, but yet she blends in with this world regardless. How could she see what we see and lives like she lives? It does not make sense at all. She is with me in this bubble and at the same she dwells in the same shroud that separates us. I feel something when I am here with her, cosmic transcendence and twirled with belonging. She can’t fake this. I think I know what’s to be done if she is a deathling, she will help us … it seems like she knows something I don’t. If she is a lifeling, isn't she a perfect sample? But what is this other almost mind-altering emotion I feel that she is radiating to me? What is this "thing"?
It was not surprising to see Macxermillio and Macfearson become uneasy.
Is she the key?
“What? What do you think would be the solution?” I inquired.
"Getting rid of the end," Kim replied, a grin on her face.
“Why?”
“A finished painting imposes meaning. It’s meaning can be relished in seconds and forgotten. Once a main character of a story has reached his goal, killed the big villain, saved the city or married the girl he wanted his story is no longer interesting anymore. We could interpret differently, talk about it differently, but it matters no more because it has ended."
“I see.” I nodded.
“If the world needs a solution it will come from those things that never end. Not things that last forever but unfinished things. A story that is unfinished. Now that’s more interesting. It allows for wonder, imagination and curiosity. People are left with questions that it does not answer for them. Now they have purpose and create meaning from that which is unresolved. That is better than any great piece of art because it’s a mystery. Mystery is the best gift you could give to this generation, something that haunts them and compels them. It’s things that never end that give utmost meaning to life. Maybe Christianity is one such story. What the fuck happened to Christ?”
I sat silent, taking it all in.
“I’m not saying there isn’t real art in the world. There is, but it hasn’t reached its potential yet. If it’s meaning and purpose we need as the lost generation it will come from that.”
“I see.”
She took a swig of her drink and sat back. "You wanted to know the story of my life."
“Yeah.”
“Well, I will tell you the version that never ends. Maybe that will answer your questions.”