Depressing Weekend: Midnight Seminary | Theland E. Thomas

There is no hope. There is no hope. There is no hope. Every day I wake up and turn on my phone hoping that someone contacted me. Who? A long lost friend? Lover? Someone I’ve never met? There is no one thinking about me in the middle of the night. And truth is, if there were I’d reject them outright. Same way I rejected my family and friends. There is no hope.

Open social media to upvote a post from some revolutionary candidate. This time he’s going to save the world. This time. This time there is no hope. Walk outside, suit and tie, sunny day, freezing air, go to school, drive to work, life is great, so unfair. There is no hope.

Every day the hype is not enough to convince me I’m not dying inside. They spent all this time trying to make me believe that if I got the next big milestone it would make me happy, and I convinced myself a time or two, but the truth is, even if I find my one true love, I’ll hate her too. There is no hope.

Some called my anti-materialism a trope, but I’m not anti-materialist. That would just make me a hypocrite. I’m just anti-everything-and-everyone, which makes me more of a hypocrite. Screaming “I love myself” at the top of my lungs didn’t convince me of it. There is no hope.

I’m losing sight again. My goals are far away, and I’m not sure I want them anymore. I really just want someone to hold me in the night. Someone to love and make love to. That too is impossible because I hate her elusive idea. She doesn’t exist for me, and if she did, she wouldn’t put up with my bullshit. There is no hope.

Met this girl at a party. Her name was Jasmine. I’m guessing it’s spelled like that. She caught my eye. Introduced herself. Cute. I just wanted to be around her. I wanted to dance with her even though I hate dancing. I wanted to not be me for a second. But she was already dancing with someone else. Because she doesn’t exist for me. And there was a sweet girl. Talking to me. All night. And I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. By telling her. I’m not attracted to her. Because I’m shallow. And I hate myself.

Write what I think?

Curses. Curses. I wrap myself, I bathe myself in curses, curses that drip venomously through the wrinkles in my brain through my glands to every artery and organ and seep through my pores. Curses pouring from the mouths of the demons that deny me sleep and watch me from the shadows. I hear their mouths stretch open, and I give them what they want before I pray a shallow prayer. As I lay me down to sleep, I pray the lord my soul to keep, but I might die before I wake, and if I do, my soul forsake. For I’m a filthy dirty wretch not worthy of your love. I learned that back in Sunday school, no grace comes from above. Forgive me for my blasphemy, forgive me for my shame. Forgive me for my life of sin made manifest through pain. Forgive me for every little thing I’ve ever done. Forgive me for breathing. Forgive me for being born.

Now I’m so edgy. Now that I’ve written all this. Now that it’s almost 2 AM. What do I really think? What on earth could I possibly want? I think I just want to go back in time and re-do high school. Well, actually, I’d stop my parents from getting divorced. No, that’s a horrible idea. I’d just prevent them from ever meeting in the first place. Nah, I’d prevent my grandparents on both sides from meeting. Just kidding, I’d erase Jamaica completely. Scratch the whole New World thing actually, the Natives can have it back. And screw the British too. And all of Europe. Just. Just erase humanity. Just completely reverse the evolution of animals and earth. Just volcanoes everywhere. You know what, not even those. Just unmake the entire earth. And the solar system. And the galaxy. And the universe. Just go back into the big bang or whatever, I don’t even care.

Bus Muse | Theland E. Thomas

My responsibilities hang from my shoulders, a heavy cape that trips me with every step. This week, I have four essays and a test. Better study up. Better schedule my time. What day for what essay? What if it takes longer than I thought? Don’t forget you have work today. And when you’re at work, that needs to be the biggest thing in your life. These sales goals the most important we’ve ever had. We need to perform this month. We have to hit our goals. These goals are important to me to because I can get a small bonus even though I’m already being paid, and don’t I want that bonus on the end of the string? Who doesn’t want a little extra cash in their pockets? And we have to pass our audit. My bosses scream: NO MISTAKES! NO HUMANS! You will fail if you are a human. Are you mad? Didn’t you know this was the name of the game all along?

Yes, I want that dream on a string. That’s why I work so hard. For the dream. I want to work my way up the hamster wheel and earn enough money to live comfortably and get it all together and make my mommy proud.  We came from a third world country, and now we’re Americans. An opportunity some people only dream of. Wouldn’t want to squander that. My mommy wants me to make something of myself. Make her hard work worth something. I don’t want her life to be a waste, do I? Better not waste mine.

I don’t have time for a relationship. I’m too busy working on getting it all together so I can make a better life for my wife and kids. I don’t have room for love. I take all of my emotions, and I squeeze them into a chest. And I lock the chest in my chest and ignore it as it threatens to burst open and ruin me. Better keep it on lock. You don’t want anyone seeing what’s inside. Better to be a functioning member of society. Better to be the helpful, smiling face. Better to be a successful businessman. Better to play the role. My bosses scream: NO EMOTIONS! NO HUMANS!

Right now, I’m a student and a banker, but soon I’ll be a lawyer, and then everything will be better, and I’ll start loving life. After I get everything I want, I’ll start loving life. Until then, it’s back to the grindstone. Until then, I will continue to forget my needs. I will continue to ignore that pesky necessity of sleep. I will continue to chase the prize at the end of the string. I will continue to hustle. From one place to another. I will never sleep and never wake up. I sip the coffee. My bosses scream:  NO SLEEP! NO HUMANS!

Be efficient. Be effective. Be intelligent. Be persuasive. Be successful. Be marketable. Pull my strings. Rip out my heart. Cull my emotions. Erase my personality. Mechanize my body. Lobotomize my brain. I scream along: NO HUMANS!

A Happy Story | Theland E. Thomas

I’m sitting at my desk, laptop open before me, typing these words. The desk is at the end of my room, against the wall, and my back faces the open door. Old pens clutter the edge. I don’t know how I got so many, but I hardly use them. I type everything now. On the left of my laptop is a tissue box, complete with crumpled tissues next to it. A testament to the final vestiges of a cold I’ve fought and beaten and am chasing to a humiliating retreat. Behind the laptop is a picture of myself, age 10 standing in front of the sign displaying the library’s hours. Next to that is an expensive greeting card with that has a blue, cloth coat on a coat rack popping out of the paper. A former co-worker gave me that card when she left the company, and I read it whenever I’m feeling depressed. It tells me all the good things I seem to ignore about myself. On the back, it reads, “I hope we stay in touch!” Well, she didn’t make good on her end of that bargain.

It’s Saturday night, and I’m stuck with the familiar feeling of my time evaporating with every second. Just vanishing into thin air with each tick of the clock. Saturday night, Sunday, school, homework, work, homework, school, homework, work, and when will I have time to write again? Recently, I feel like life has become a series of tasks I have to do before I can do what I want. And that those tasks are so consuming, so taxing, that I’m exhausted when I finish. Worse yet, I don’t even know what I want. Except for tonight. I’m going to use my time tonight. I’m going to write a story.

A happy story. The prospect bounces around in my head without gaining any traction. Through the reflection of my screen, I notice my sister walk in. I turn to her, arm slung over the back of my chair. “I’m going to write a happy story.”

“Is that possible?”

I laugh. She’s really been on a roll with the sarcasm lately. I’ve never written a happy story before. The closest I’ve gotten is a story that ends with the same disappointment as waking from a fantastic dream. I don’t know if I can do it. It would be as much of a stretch as writing about love, something completely out of my frame of reference. I reply, “Maybe I’ll write a story about how I can’t write happy stories.” I open an onscreen notepad and type a few ideas, not noticing when my sister leaves. Hanging out with a writer must be boring. I slip my headphones back on, slow, stirring rock turning in my ears. Then, I open a document and start typing.

I can’t decide if writing is a reflection of the state of one’s soul, or a mere magnification of certain aspects. Those are quite limited categories, since there are many kinds of writing, so I’ll stick with fiction. Hemingway says,“there is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” This is true, in a way. A writer’s personality shines through in all his works, so when you read this, you’re seeing a piece of me. But you’re not seeing my whole soul are you? That’s preposterous! I doubt I have the skill to articulate every urging, memory, disposition, or notion of the soul or the unfathomable profundity of its intricacies. Rather, you’re seeing what I choose to show you, some subtext I include, and some that sneaks betwixt the letters, unbeknownst to me. Furthermore, I choose what aspects of life and self to focus on depending on the story. And some stories include personalities completely alien to my own, even if my biases influence how they are portrayed. But Hemingway is right, we writers do bleed on paper. I’ve never actually read Hemingway, but I have the audacity to compare myself to him.

I can’t really wrap my head around how to write a happy story. Good stories need conflict. They need action. Drama. Violence. Loss. Good stories need unhappy things. But, good, happy stories and good, unhappy stories share the preceding traits, so there must be something else that separates them. The ending! My stories all end with people dying or some hilarious body horror or a depressing twist. Well, I think I made a hopeful story once. No, I made a depressing story with a hopeful ending. So, if a tale can still be unhappy even if it ends well, what makes a happy story? The outlook. The mood, the voice, the word choice, the implications. It’s a whole new style that requires muscles I haven’t flexed. Would I drop the sarcasm? The cynicism? The commentary? I shake my head. I don’t want to write a happy story. I want to write what I feel. And what do I feel?

Unhappy. Not really as a mood, as a mentality. Here’s where I bleed on my keyboard. Sure, I smile a lot. Around people. I make jokes. Some say I’m funny. But no one would describe me as happy. I’ve heard “well-adjusted.” I love that phrase. Well-adjusted. Adjusted to what? The horrible reality of life? It just comes with the implication that the world is so startling, so crushing, that you have to adjust to it with coping mechanisms. Maybe that’s true, but I don’t think I have anything to complain about. So, if my life is so great, why do I have an unhappy temperament? Why, when I put my figurative pen to paper to write a happy story, does this blather spew forth instead? Maybe it’s chemical. Maybe it’s genetic. Maybe it’s what I focus on. Maybe it’s the music I listen to. Who knows?

I only know that I used to visualize my soul as a dark chamber filled with swirling, black clouds. A tumultuous environment of bitterness, sorrow, anger, frustration, and pain churning around the axis of my heavy heart. A place where hope is called fraud, where love is called lie, and where happiness is a pipedream. That’s the place from which my stories grow. That’s the void I see when I peek over the precipice. That’s the blackness in my blood mashed between the keys.

The stories I write are mine. They are reflections of my soul. Magnifications of my aspects. My stories are my blood shed and forged into letters, sentences, paragraphs. They are the natural outpouring from the well of my experience and perception. They are detailed insights into how I process and relate to the world. I get up and find my sister, saying, “I didn’t write a happy story. It’s not who I am.”

She smirks. “Well, I knew that.”