White Noise Voices

I can't help but wonder if this is what a breakdown feels like.

I sipped at my coffee and stared at the cursor blinking after the last word. It had taken almost an hour to write it and I didn't think there was anything else to say. I clicked "Save and Publish" and the shortest entry on my blog was posted. 

 

I leaned back against the chair and shut the monitor off. My coffee was cooling and I drank the last of it. I didn't want to do anything. I didn't want to see anyone. The house was dark now without the light of the monitor. It was morning but all of the blinds were closed and curtains drawn. A few days earlier I had been told I had turned my apartment into a cave and I realized I had and I didn't mind. Fans and the air conditioner kept it cool and filled it with white noise and sometimes I thought I heard voices or music in the hum and static and sometimes I couldn't hear myself think in it. I sat at my desk. I paced the floor. I figured I was waiting for something. Some revelation, or reconciliation, or redemption. I found none of those things though and I sat at my desk and I paced the floor and my apartment had become a cave.

I had turned my phone off and hid it somewhere after a few bottles of wine a few days ago. I couldn't remember where I put it or why I did it. I assumed it was for the best and didn't try to find it. Dishes didn't pile up because there was nothing to eat. No one was buying stories. No checks were coming in. In the back of my mind I had reasoned that this was the last great chapter in my life. Twenty nine years old. Alone and sinking into some mad complacency in some dark corner of some nothing town and okay with it all. A part of me was willing to surrender, and many more parts already had and I couldn't see a problem with it.

I laid on my bed and looked up at the ceiling tiles. A brown water stain had been growing above me for the past couple of months and despite my apathy I dreaded the idea of wet mold-covered ceiling tiles and stale water crashing down onto me in the middle of the night. I didn't dread it enough to fix it or call the landlord though. I assumed it would happen but it wasn't happening then and that is all that mattered.

I tried to sleep.

I can't help but wonder if this is what a breakdown feels like.

 

I couldn't.

 

It kept repeating in my head.

I can't help but wonder if this is what a breakdown feels like.

 

I can't help but wonder if this is what a breakdown feels like.

 

I can't help but wonder if this is what a breakdown feels like.

 

I can't help but wonder if this is what a breakdown feels like.  

 

I wondered if this was my moment of clarity. My revelation, or reconciliation, or redemption. Recognizing it for what it might be and telling the world around me. Reaching out to it. Explaining myself. I wondered why I had even been posting to my blog in the first place. What was the point? It seemed now like I was certainly reaching out in my own way and I decided I wouldn't post anymore. I didn't need help. I didn't want help. I wanted to sleep and dream and become the darkness and the white noise and the cave itself.I laid on my bed and stared at the ceiling tiles and waited for the ceiling to collapse onto me.

To Wait in the Parking Lot While the World Ends

"Oh, good," I said. I had been grinding my teeth lately and a molar had crumbled. I could feel the grit and shards of it in my mouth and I tried to tongue them to the front of my mouth and spit them out but some of the pieces were obstinate and I had to pick them out with my fingers. The remaining edges of the tooth were sharp and cut my tongue as it slid by. I tasted copper in my mouth and it was a moment before i realized it was blood. I wouldn't be able to speak or eat comfortably for days.I went to the kitchen, filled a glass with water, moved it and the blood around in my mouth and spit it into the sink. I could still taste the blood and my tongue hurt but it would fade and it had happened before.

I checked my phone. Still nothing.

I was getting impatient. If there was one thing I hated it was waiting around for people. I always had taken such care to be punctual and sometimes I thought I was the only one. I wondered if I had to begin to tell people how rude it is to be late, but I had taken such care to be polite.

The night was creeping in and the wind whistled through the trees near my apartment and through the screens in the windows I could hear it and the branches creaking and it smelled fresh and clean and I thought it might rain. I filled the glass with water again and instead I drank this one.

I hadn't been sleeping at all. It was showing. Earlier in the day I had walked to the gas station at the other end of my neighborhood and the girl behind the counter said; "You look older today." I paid for my things and felt older. In each bone. In each crease of my skin. In each disappearing hair. I was twenty nine then but I didn't think I had felt twenty nine in a decade. I took Valerian Root capsules. I drank red wine by the gallon. I jerked off and worked out and nodded off. It never stuck. I was always up after a half hour or so and staring at the fucking computer screen and pretending I was a writer and losing my goddamned mind and patience and libido.

I checked my phone again. Still nothing.

I had put on weight again. Only a few pounds, but it always stuck around my midsection and nowhere else so you always knew when I weighed a couple of pounds more. I worked out, but ate like shit and couldn't help it. I had heard of food addictions and always assumed it was another modern American line, but wasn't sure now. Old and fat and tired in the prime of my life.

My phone buzzed and I read the text.

"Be there in thirty seconds."

I turned off all of the lights in the apartment stepped outside and locked my door and the red car pulled into the driveway. I hadn't seen it in some time and I wasn't sure if I was glad to or not. My tongue still hurt but it wasn't much by comparison.

I climbed in.

"Hey you," Marie said.

"Hey."

"How've you been?"

"Fine."

She was quiet for a second. "Do you want to drive?"

"No, let's just go."

"Okay."

The sky kept on its darkening and the rain hadn't come yet and I wondered if she had fucked anyone lately and my chest cramped and I stared out the window.

"You look tired. You sleeping okay?" Marie asked.

"Not really."

"Oh. Have you tried using the Valerian Root again? It seemed to help last time."

"Not anymore."

"Oh. Well, you'll figure something out. You always do."

"Sometimes."

A folk singer I didn't recognize was on the stereo and the car wasn't as loud now as it had been when it was ours and not hers. I could never afford to fix it. We drove through town and I saw tiny splatters on the windshield and the rain began.

"Oh, of course," Marie said.

"Do you need me to come in with you?"

"I don't think so. I just have to file. I mean, you've filed things like this before, right?"

"Not like this, no."

"Oh. Well, I don't think so. I guess I just wanted to see you. Have some company."

"Okay." I kept looking out the window and listening to the nasally folk singer.

We pulled into the parking lot. There were many cars and the building was brick and one story and hadn't been renovated in some time. Marie pulled into a spot close to the door.

"Want me to leave the car running?"

"Sure."

"Okay. I should be right back."

"Okay."

She got out and shut the door and walked through the rain and I watched her walk and I missed her. My chest was filled with tar and mud and water and empty also. I watched her walk into the building to file for divorce.

I opened the car door and got out. The rain fell cool on my skin and on my face and in my hair. I needed a drink. I needed to breathe. I paced in the parking lot for a little while and decided to drive. I got in and watched the wipers.

Marie came back out and i couldn't stand the sight of her or how beautiful she was or how I wasn't to her.


 

A Half-Assed Observation of Three Types of People I Saw on the Street This Morning.

Somewhere behind it all is the doom. The encroaching end. Be it decades away or just around the corner, it strolls along ever steadily and without a care in the world. 

It's funny to me what he does to people, Mr. Doom. Mr. Death. Mr. No More. Some gather together together as much as they can. Wealth, power, and things. As if in the end they'll be declared the winner. Fuck, maybe they will. I certainly can't name very many poor folk throughout human history (whose existences are proven), but I can name a few truckloads of the wealthy.

(Sidebar: It's interesting to note that I assume lasting legacy and the concept of names existing in books and on tongues forever as "winning".)

Other people see it as an opportunity to attempt to stave off death. To prime their bodies and minds. To be all of the things that fourteen billion years of universal evolution, through chaos and chance, could allow them to be. Strong. Brave. Intelligent. I admire them. I like to count myself within them. But, we still go out like bulbs on too long.

Then, there's another group. The opposite of both. The fatalists. The apathetic. The dooms-dayers and the naysayers. They feel death at every turn. They, despite their often armor-like resilience to admitting weakness, display almost a fear of trying with a reason of "why bother?" I understand them. But it's hard to agree with them.

It's hard to agree with any of the three groups really.

Get enough money to be able to live healthy and pursue a few things that you enjoy. Don't die before you're dead.