Transcript from sometime in the future. Location unknown. Names redacted. (document 2)
Q.
A. I couldn't tell you when it started, no more than a man who slept late could tell you when the sun rose.
Q.
A. Look. I fucking told you I don't know. Ask me another stupid question and the session is over.
Q.
A. Don't apologize. Don't ever fucking apologize to me. Means nothing.
Q.
A. By the pauses. I would say memory, but that is long gone, like the flavor from a biscuit left in the sun. Insipid. Is that the word? Fucking insipid. My memories.
Q.
A. The juxtaposition of those two words. About how my fucking has been. Ever have an orgasm without having an orgasm? Didn't think so.
Q.
A. I don't laugh much anymore. Indulge me. Screw it. What did you ask?
Q.
A. Right. You know not by the thing itself because the thing itself consumes you, becomes you and you can no longer distinguish between it and you. So, you don't know. People look at you funny. They know. But you don't. That is, until you have slippage. You don't know what slippage is do you? Well, slippage is a flash, about that quick. A flash of light. And in that light, just in a millisecond, you know. You know that what is, is not as it should be. And you slip back into the humid dark. A darkness unlike anything out there because the darkness is within. There is nothing out there as dark.
Q.
A. It comes and it goes of its own accord. I've met no enemy I fear more. I never know if the day will bring light or dark and even within the day, like passing clouds, the moods change, sometimes on a dime. How. Why. I've no fucking clue. I do know, there was a time it was not this way. There was a time when the light was all there was. There was a time when I could do no wrong. Now, those times are like another life. I don't even recognize who that person was.
Q.
A. The shift, either way, happens in an instant. I can't predict it. I can't anticipate it. I can't control it. And those around me, they don't understand. To them, I'm an asshole. And, I suppose, looking from the outside in, I am. I treat them like shit. I know it. I know it when it is happening. I see it unfolding. And I am powerless to do anything about it. Except . . .
Q.
A. Leave. The only power I have is awareness. I haven't lost my awareness yet. I know when the moods shift. I know when I'm out of control. I know when I'm going to shit on anyone and everything in my path. I can't change the behavior so I have two options. Either they leave or I leave. Because if we stay in contact, bad things happen.
Q.
A. I feel like you are not listening. I can't fucking control it. I can't not be what consumes me in that moment. I can see it. I can know it. But I can't be otherwise. Imagine it this way. When you are drunk, you know you are drunk. You have that awareness. Now, that awareness does not make you less drunk nor does it give you better judgment. So you don't drive. So see. You isolate your ability to do harm. That is your option. Same here. When the mood changes, it is like in one moment you are sober and in the next you are drunk. And that quickly, you act like the drunk. Now imagine what those around you think? You see, there is no bottle in your hand. You are not at the bar. They see none of the outward signs. Just bam. One moment you are yourself. The next, you are an asshole. A danger to yourself. A danger to everyone around you. And no one understands. So you live with your sickness alone. Unlike a fever or a cold or the flu, you get no sympathy. Instead, you get scorn. And hatred. And you watch your friends, one by one, go away. They stop calling. The visits become less and less frequent. You understand. They don't.
17 comments:
Sometimes I get more insight to the chapters by reading comments and your explanations there in.
*hint*hint*
But that last paragraph.... unfortunatley I understand it. I can feel that alienation at times, and can see certain things within myself that repels people, even as I would like to keep them close.
Wonderful how you put that emotion into words.
Regardless of how well I understand it contextually, it was a VERY powerful chapter.
I hope that you have a great 4th.
Jen
Oh! Nice picture. :)
Jen, may you and your family have a fantastic 4th too. As always, your comments are very much appreciated.
Since I don't know who this is, it is hard for me to say much about this chapter in the context of the story. All we know is it is sometime in the future--we don't even know how far.
Part of what I'm trying to do, to the best of my ability, is capture the dark mood, capture depression. What is not exactly clear is to what extent this depression is caused by external events and to what extent is is a random illness. I can only write these chapters when I am close to that edge and what I write is what I experience or at least a sliver of that experience, a taste. I've not yet figured out how to exactly use words to describe something that eludes me so at times I feel as if I have a fist full of water and when I open my fist, nothing much is there although my hand is wet and I will swear to you the water was there.
I would tell you more if I could. But like the character in this chapter, I can't because I don't know. The reader is like me. We both sit on the front row and what happens next is as much a mystery to me as it will be to you.
Don't try to understand a chapter like this. It is not about understanding. Feel it. On only a very few occasions have I used the crude language this character utters. I didn't like using it. But I had no choice. It is what was said in the transcribes. It is what was. It does help one 'feel' the chapter. To be awash in the tide pulling you out to sea, to be in the elevator that drops in free fall. Feel it Jen-nay. Close your eyes and let it seep into your tired hands.
Ah, the pic. I was just in from a ride and I like the way the special effects caught the light and the dark. Same person, two sides. ;-)
Hey you,
Happy Friday
Back in a little while for this wonderful chapter, x
It matters not in the reading, matters not even if we are never enlightened, but one cannot help but wonder whom it might be. The possibilities of whom are more inclusive than at first one might imagine. Given what is going on in the story at the moment, three people come to mind and it is an interesting experiment, due to this being in a different time frame, to place each of them in this place. As said however, we cannot know all that happens between now and then and so the others have their time in the chair of potential too.
You did exceptionally well here, it is a noisy chapter. Reading each answer, like those of 1, and a hundred thoughts clamour for attention, fleeting in a way that doesn't occur to the same degree with anything else that I have read of yours. The water that you speak of, it's there, it's seen, you capture perhaps not all of what you wanted to, but certainly enough to make a great impression upon the reader. Perhaps that is why it is read that way, why it seems to burst through gate after gate, accelerating so that the next appears almost before the previous has been recognized as such.
A lack of control is what rides above all else, not whilst in it, not being able to prevent it, not being able to cure it. Being at the mercy as dark clouds roll in. What changes is an unanswerable question, at least that is the conclusion that I have drawn, since there seems to be no pattern, sometimes something, sometimes nothing...taken it too much in now, but if I am not mistaken it is written too, one moment there's gladness and thankfulness and anything else is mere bonus, the next it seems as though everything has moved and there he is left, aside, asunder, somewhere else than where he was before, almost like waking up, or realizing that there has been clarification, that for those moments there can be no pretence, not that those thoughts are the right ones - like those infuriating people, philosophers commonly termed, who ask the question how does one know that our dreams are not the reality and what we believe is real is actually not. The very thought is a tumble, dizzying. The chapter is too, like being hit by a large wave, tumbling along and then it ends but regaining balance takes a little longer. Wonderful chapter, challenging and intriguing and a nice continuance to part 1 which was beyond words amazing.
Sweetest, what I need to develop more fully is the frustration of a mental illness in that on the outside one looks just fine to to those around them, they have no clue that something is amiss. Likewise, when there is an explosion, the outsider sees it as a burst of anger and not as a long simmering deep-seated illness, so, after the outburst, they think is everything has been 'resolved' or fixed or expressed and they are ready to move on. The only problem is, the illness is still there, it hasn't gone anywhere and the person that is sick feels the disconnect, knows that those around him/her don't understand and so the hole gets deeper and darker. Maybe in the next continuation. :-)
:-) Look forward to it.
The last one is my favorite. :)
How goes the cooking? I'll have an update of my own tomorrow :)
Happy 4th!! Wishing you fun and marshmallowy goodness!! :)
--snow
Snow, it wasn't anything to write home about. No one has gotten sick yet, so I consider it a success. But keep your fingers crossed. :-D
Brilliant as always darlin'!
Y, you always know just how to turn me to puddy. Now get to work and put me back together. Take your time. I like the smoothness of your warm educated fingers.
Oh, and I'm still looking for that train, the one you stand before falling back in my lap. ;-)
Tree..You're sooo naughty! I'll working on it my darlin'! ;-)
You know you encouraged me to feel it in your return comment but it is those very feelings and emotions that I refuse to look at within my heart, that I will not give in to. I have a NEED for laughter, and lightness, and joy. The heaviness of heart that you talk about TERRIFIES me, even if it is just part of the full experience of life.
Just like I would rather not taste something new. Even if it means missing out on something wonderful, because I do not want to take a chance on experiencing the bitter. I STRIVE to maintain sweetness.
And yet, there are times that I am drawn to those very things that I try to avoid in MY life, in others.
How 'bout, Tree my Friend, I just live vicariously through you? I am completely willing in matters such as this. Not quite as scary that way.
Jen
Jen, hang on tight, I'll try not to drop you, at least not too hard. :-D
And it IS a form of fear by the way. This need to keep things around me happy.
NO! Not at all! I'm askeered of that fall!
A what? ROFL
I'll bring some skeeters. Skeeters always distract you from what you fear. ;-)
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