Sunday Service | Theland E. Thomas

We stood in the pews, mom and dad’s hands lifted, faces upturned, my little brother jumping up and down happily to the driving rhythm. And me, just standing there with my hands on the back of the bench. Everyone around me could feel the Holy Spirit, but I couldn’t feel a thing. Sound stuffed the sanctuary as the drums beat, the keyboardist riffed in an organ tone, the congregation wailed, and the pastor shouted, “Break!”

“I said break,” he said, the keyboard emphasizing the word. “God knows what you’ve been going through. Yes, he knows your struggles. Ha! He knows what you’ve been going through, ha! He knows!”

The people wailed, shouted, “Amen!” and a slight, uneasy feeling set in.

The pastor ran across the stage and jumped straight up in the air. “He knows that sometimes you feel like he’s so far away that he can’t hear you. But he can hear you. He’s always right there—right next to you watching over you, ha! He sees your every move!”

I shuttered, uneasiness growing to dread. If he sees everything, then that means . . .

“Yes, ha! He’s there when you’re all alone. He’s there when you think there’s no one else around! He knows what you do in the night!”

My heart started to race, and I gulped. The night!

“He sees you! He’s here! Holy Spirit!”

A woman two rows up released a splitting moan—

“UUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHH!”

Frantically, I punched the volume down key and waited in the dark, heart pounding, head cocked, hands illuminated by the white of the screen. The house creaked, but no doors opened, and no one came downstairs. I breathed a sigh of relief and turned back to the woman on screen, feeling a stirring I didn’t quite know what to do with.

Suddenly, the guilt crashed down on me. Oh, my God! He saw! God was watching me, and he knows. He knows everything. What was I thinking? What was I—he knows my every thought, but I have so many, I thought maybe he wouldn’t notice if I just . . . why would I think he wouldn’t see me? Why hadn’t I thought about him at all? Suddenly, it was 100 degrees, and I wanted to run, but I was trapped in between my mom and my brother, both dancing and praising the Lord.

The pastor spun on stage, arms splayed, mic in hand. He rushed toward the edge and stared directly at me, eyes wide with passion, face dripping with perspiration. “He wants you to let him in, but first you must repent of your sin!”

I couldn't swallow, my throat was dry, my stomach turned, my skin crawled. What could I do? God saw me, and now the only thing left was judgment. I looked up to the ceiling and waited for it to rip open, to reveal God and his fiery, reproachful glare, his accusing finger pointing directly at me damning me for all eternity.

“REPENT!” The preacher’s shrill scream shattered the air.

“Yes, God,” a man cried.

“Yes! Oooh, yes, just like that. Yeah. Oh, yeah, you like that, baby? Don’t stop.”

Heart pounding, fist pumping, better than middle school sex education, this is what your parents tried to keep you from with their content blocker and constant monitoring, but you were always smarter than they were, and the preachers on TV said it was corrupting the youth, but you don’t feel corrupted, you feel excited, so why were they always trying to keep you from this?

Now I knew. But the preacher wouldn’t stop.

“If you’ve got sin in your life and need to repent, I need you to come up to the altar right now!”

A few people started shifting to the ends of the pews.

“If you’re sick and tired of living the same old way and you just need a change, I need you to come to the altar right now!”

The people slowly began trickling toward the front of the church. But I stood still.

“If you need forgiveness from your sins, I need you to come up to the altar!”

I needed forgiveness. I couldn’t tell if it was my heartbeat or the drumbeat, but the guilt was eating me alive. I need forgiveness, but what if . . .

“REPENT!”

. . . I liked my sin? By now almost a third of the church was in front of the stage praying and dancing and wailing. They were experiencing the Holy Spirit, free from sin, washed white as snow. And I was back here, doomed by God, trapped, tricked. Tears brimmed in my eyes, and I tried to hold them back.

Dad nudged mom and gestured toward me. He leaned down. “Do you need to go up there, son?”

“Come up to the front,” the preacher snapped. He hunched over the podium, wiped a slick of sweat from his forehead with a cloth and sipped on a cup of water. “God sees you there in the pews, ha! He sees you in the aisle, ha! He even sees you listening from outside, ha! He’s calling you to come!”

The tears spilled over now, and I was sobbing, nodding my head. I was a sinner. Dirty, rotten, deserving of hell. My dad lead me out of the pew, and I started walking down the aisle. I thought he was walking with me, but when I turned back, I was alone and pushed forward by the stream of sinners seeking salvation.

The crush of people closed in around me, standing, arms outstretched, dancing, wailing, crying out to God. I lifted my hands and my wet face to the ceiling. Around me, prayer leaders laid hands and prayed in tongues. The preacher leapt from the stage and joined them, panting his prayers through the microphone.

“Oh, he knows what you’ve been doing. But he says, ‘you’re healed now!’ He says, ‘You’re clean now!’” He pressed his palm on a young woman’s forehead, and spoke in tongues, “Hush-shabada hashek hima kana! Holy Spirit, fill this vessel!”

Suddenly, the woman started twitching and gyrating until she collapsed to the floor, riling uncontrollably. The preacher left her and moved on to the man next to her, crying, “Jesus! Touch!” The man doubled over as if punched and collapsed in a whimpering heap.

Around me, the Holy Spirit’s power grew. It was getting closer, I could feel it in the energy of the room, in the loud wails of the congregation, in the sobbing, guttural shouts of the people by the altar, in the terrible writhing of those whose who’d let the Holy Spirit enter them and wash them clean. The temperature reached a fever pitch, until I was sweating, and my heart was racing, and the people were dropping like flies, and the voices raised in a crescendo and the pastor squealed, and I closed my eyes, and oh my God, ohmygod, there it is, the Holy Spirit is coming, a great white light at first receding but now speeding forward until it crashes upon me in a white explosion.

Oh!

I was on the floor, panting, and twitching, for a bit. When the sensation subsided, I realized that the sanctuary had gone quiet, and the pastor looked down on me with an expression of horror.

“Sweet Jesus,” he said into the microphone. “Somebody get this boy a towel.”

¿Estás Contento?/Dissociation Technique | Theland E. Thomas

“¿Estás contento?”

The question pierces through my daze and snaps me back to reality. Contento. I reply, “Yes.”

“It's just that you were staring into space. You do that a lot.”

Do I? I hadn't noticed, but this is the second time she's caught me, reeled me back to the present, rescued me from the furthest reaches of my mind.

She sits back and sips the rich wine from her clear goblet, casually observing through deep, brown eyes creased by smiles and middle age. “You think a lot?” It's styled as a question but comes across like a statement she already knows the answer to.

“That's just my personality,” I say, trying hard to stay focused on the present, on the now, on where I am, who I’m with -  me and Sandra sitting at this table, plates empty, wine aroma wafting, her worried about being a good host, me worried about . . .

I’m doing it again.

She asks, “Do you like it here?”

“I love it,” I say. “Everything’s so different and interesting. It’s a whole ‘nother world.” It’s enough to keep me momentarily distracted in order to make it through the day. Every day, a new adventure with new activities and a new culture to explore. New distractions to keep me just ahead of the lapping waves.

“It’s not at all like America, is it?”

“No, everything is different. It’s interesting. When you’re living one way, you don’t even realize there are others.”

Concentrate. What’s that look in her eye? It’s the same look she gets when she talks about her son. She already loves me like a son, and what have I done? And how do I feel? Trying not to mess things up. I don’t want her to hate me.

She says, “Yes, but at least they work in America. I could staff a restaurant there. Here, the people are very lazy.”

But I’m so tired. Work, school, long days, late nights, standing behind the counter wishing the time would whittle away faster, whispering to myself that it’s going to be okay only to wake up to another day of the same.

I say, “But you need a balance, of course. I think here and there are two extremes.”

“Hmm.”

She gets up with her plate, and I say, “I’m going to go. Goodnight.”

She smiles wholeheartedly. “Until tomorrow.”

I walk along the cobblestone path, tall buildings reaching up around me, tall, stately, looking down upon me, passively declaring, We are so old. We could tell you so much about what we’ve seen. This morning on the bus, as I gazed out the window, I imagined myself climbing up the staircase of the tallest building I could see and jumping. Wind rushing through my clothes. Eyes closed. Finally, it’s over. And the building says, There he goes. How many does that make? Six? And the people below gasp and scatter. Wouldn’t want to hit anyone now, would I? Going for suicide here, not homicide. At some point, with all the adrenaline going, I’d probably be clearheaded enough to formulate a notion of regret. Then, nothing.

God, why do you always have to

Macabre scene of my broken body spattered in a pool of red. Police sirens. People screaming and crying. Sorry I ruined your

Stop.

I turn my key door, go inside, brush my teeth, pull on my pajamas, get under the covers, and lie awake. Window’s open, warm summer air drifts in. Tomorrow, there are no plans, but I need to do something. I need to do something to stop myself from feeling this nothingness. Staring out the window, separating from myself . . .

They scrape the body off the sidewalk and shovel the remains into a body bag. It takes hours to power-wash the blood from the pavement.

I’m so tired. I close my eyes and drift away.

I wake up in the middle of the night, pull on my clothes, and walk out to the street, guided by the emptiness in my chest. Walking a few empty, cobblestone blocks, I sit on a bench and look up at the sky. A few bright stars peek through the yellow light-pollution, translating the wonder of the cosmos into urban grime. A puff of diffusing smoke drifts into my vision. I adjust my gaze to see a young woman several floors up resting her arms on the rails of her balcony, cigarette smoke curling carelessly. She wears a soft, white blouse, and her dark hair is pulled back in a bun that ends in a curly poof. She looks down at me, expressionless, a mirror to my face. We stare at each other wordlessly, two souls flailing against the impending emptiness.

I wake up as the sun creeps over the skyline. Steaming eggs and ham for breakfast, Sandra smiling in a pink robe. I make small talk until she leaves, and then I sit and stare at the wall until I leave. Sometimes, in the second it takes for my smile to evaporate, I wish I was that happy, smiling, encouraging person I try to portray. But, it doesn’t matter. Sandra sees right through me anyway.

When I leave, I find myself walking along the familiar path, stopping by the bench, looking up at the balcony, allowing myself to feel the emptiness that has materialized into a force all its own these last few years, drawing my eyes away from the sun, lingering behind. As I step away, I feel myself tearing, I hear my bones and flesh and spirit ripping apart. Walk a few steps, and the emptiness has grown. Turn around, and I am standing by the bench, gazing at myself with a blank look in my eyes and an expression others call impasible but I know is ineffable. I turn my head and face the balcony. And I walk away.

That night, Sandra’s husband makes enchiladas with that special peanut-based salsa I love. I eat alone, watching the buildings darken in the square. Soon, this experience is going to end, and I will return to my real life, whatever that means, and then one more year, and then-

“¿Estás contento?”

Sandra grazes the table and smiles, pausing from her industrious bustle to show her care.

I muster an unconvincing smile that doesn’t touch my eyes. “Sí, por supuesto.”

She nods and takes my empty plate.

Of course. Of course I am happy. I have everything. A loving family, strong support, opportunity, a bright future. I have every reason to be happy.

So why . . .

As my feet scrape the cobblestone, I think, so why . . . And contemplate simply collapsing to the cold, wet stones, face in the dog shit, and wasting away. So why . . .

So why am I not?

I’m lagging. I feel it. With one step, I take twelve steps. I have my hand in front of my face, and it passes in a shuttered blur. Behind me, I lie prostrate on the cold, wet stones, face in the dog shit, and wasting away. I’m going to die there. Typical.

Inside, I wash up and sit on the bed. But, I can’t forget the woman on the balcony. The emptiness in her calls the emptiness in me. So, I leave, walk down the street, and as I pass my prone form, it stands up and merges back with me. I reach the bench where I have been sitting all day, waiting for me to return. I touch my hand and sit back into myself.

The young woman steps out onto the balcony. She wears a red dress with a slit that reveals her slender thigh, and her hair falls in tight curls to her shoulders. She looks down, expressionless, and beacons without word or gesture.

The doors open with a simple twist, and I climb the stairs to her apartment breathlessly. I pause, outside of her door, anticipation building like a dreamy cloud of sixth sense foreknowledge. I open the door, and the woman greets me. From the balcony, she strides toward her body at the door and steps into it. Then, she takes my hand in hers and leads me to the middle of the room where we dance a slow tango, our bodies moving together, melding together so that I can feel the void inside of her. I look into her dark eyes, and see it - the deep, vast expanse of an entire universe exploding inward with twinkling, electric stars, cold and dull, but burning and vibrant all the same. I feel the emptiness, the pain of being stranded in an existential wasteland. But now we have each other.

The song ends, and she pulls away, smiling. I’m smiling too. Hand in hand, we walk out to the balcony, climb onto the railing, and jump.

Wake up to birds chirping - haven’t heard that in a while - and I pass a dozen of my selves, all staring as I walk down the hall. No sign of Sandra. Breakfast is already on the table, but the food doesn’t touch the hunger. As I leave, my selves trail me, thirteen sets of footsteps clamoring down the stairs. It’s a free day, so I go take a stroll past the beach to the rocky cliffs and gaze at the wide, blue sea blurring with the sky. Toes at the edge of the cliff, pebbles breaking off, sailing hundreds of feet in the air until they are lost in the white foam crashing upon the rocks. Wind wooshes past in a whistling breeze, chilling my bones and pushing me toward oblivion. My heart pumps in my throat, and my blood courses, and I let go . . .

And fall . . .

And fall . . .

Crunch.

My bones smash upon the rocks. Blood smears as the foamy current accepts my offering. With another splash, the crimson is gone.

And I step up to the edge, and I let go.

And I step up to the edge, and I let go.

And I step up to the edge, and I let go.

And I step up to the edge, and I let go.

And I step up to the edge, and I let go.

Etc.

The city is full of sounds. Footsteps, cars, chatter, music, they filter in through the doors of the restaurant. Sandra talks to me about how one day she wants to move somewhere where their restaurant can thrive. “Yes, business is good now,” she says, shaking her head. “But in the winter? Nothing.”

It’s always winter over here, I think, and the joke makes me smile but she thinks I’m smiling at her. Maybe I am. I can never thank her enough for her generosity, for taking me in and welcoming me as a son. Even if it’s only temporary. I’m trying hard but failing to avoid forming attachments here because I know that all the memories made here will be left behind. She’s looking at me. Oh, God, here it comes.

“¿Estás contento?”

My heart sinks, and tears start to from, and my mind screams, but I smile and say. “Yes, I’m very happy. Sandra, I just wanted to thank you . . .”

That night, I find myself wandering through the streets, jaundiced under the lights, walking a path my unconscious has plotted toward the woman’s apartment. The balcony is empty, so I go inside to find her door open for me. Soft music plays, and candles flicker, casting odd shadows and subtle spice. She sits on the sofa in a black gown that accentuates her curves, eyes dark against the shadows, but piercing and unfathomably hollow. I’m pulled toward her, captivated, and I’m not sure I’m seeing her anymore because her form flickers with the candlelight, and her eyes seem to expand like portals into the starry expanse, and shadows overtake when I wrap my arms around her, and when our lips touch, and as our bodies melt into each other, the darkness expands, enveloping us, and we float in unseeable dark, untouchable cold, careening nothingness, and we look around to find the source of the crushing emptiness, only to find a gaping hole in our chest, and we close our eyes and drift . . .

We we were younger, someone planted a tiny black seed in our chest, and that little black seed fed on sadness and produced bitterness, and that little black seed grew and grew, and as it grew, that little black seed ate away at our chest, first consuming our heart, so we could no longer love, and then consuming our lungs, so we could no longer breathe, and that little black seed grew like a tumor, pumping blackness through our veins and eroding our nerves, so we could no longer feel, but that little black seed got so big that it fell out of our back and onto the ground, dragged along by twisted veins that spurted oily bitterness, and we’ve been trying to cut ties and patch ourselves up, but we know if we succeed, we will die.

Candlelight filters in red from the edges of my sight. We are holding each other now, tears blurring our sight and snot stuffing our noses. She pulls away, stands, and pulls up her dress, revealing tawny, slender thighs, over her beautiful curls. Through the hollow circle in her chest, I see a candle flicker. Her eyes watch both of mine, so I stand and peel off my shirt so she can see my emptiness too.

The next night, Sandra eats with me. I ask her how her day was, and she grins and says, “Well, my husband and I are selling the restaurant.”

“Wow.” My mouth is full of corn chips and spice. “What are you going to do?”

“We’re going to move down south where it’s warmer. We’ll get more traffic.”

“That was really fast,” I say, but she shakes her head, and waves a chip in her hand as she talks.

“Mm mm, we’ve been thinking about it for years. It’s about time we followed through.” Crunch.

“You’re right.”

“Sometimes you just have to take that leap.”

I nod. “Yeah.”

She’s playing an ambient song over the speakers. It’s one I showed her a few days ago. She loves it, but it doesn’t really fit with the atmosphere of the restaurant. Soon, she’ll have to switch the music back to Latin jazz.

“When are you leaving?” I ask.

“October.”

October. I’m leaving long before then, but my summer home will disappear too. The most  important places only exist in memory. Everyone leaves, everything ends, but as long as you can remember it . . . I guess it doesn’t completely disappear.

She’s watching me, waiting for my return back to reality. Then she asks, “¿Estás contento?”

And I finally realize she’s not asking if I’m happy. She’s asking if I’m okay.

I hurry to the woman’s apartment. She’s waiting for me at the door with a black rose, a twinkle in her eyes edging out the hollowness. Her white dress repels the shadows behind her and contrasts her skin. White flowers are braided into her hair. We stand together in the living room, both of her hands in mine, nervous. My heart thuds, far away as I stare into her beautiful, sparkling eyes. She smiles. To the left of where we stand, the breeze blows the curtains in from the open screen door, and dozens of versions of ourselves line up, hand in hand, out to the balcony. One by one, we climb over the rail, find our balance on the other side, and jump. Sometimes, we look into each other’s eyes before jumping. Sometimes we kiss. Sometimes we embrace and careen as one. But we always fall. Sacred pact and consummation. Crunch. Soon, we are the only ones left. The woman climbs onto the rail, but I hesitate, gripping her hand. Her head snaps back at mine, expression confused. Before me lies freedom, release, the kaleidoscopic abyss. Behind me: grey emptiness.

I tug her hand, almost whispering, “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

Tears brim and spill, carving a path down her cheeks. She says, “But this is all I have ever wanted.”

“I know.” A heaviness sets into my chest, and try to fight it, but it grows until tears fall from my eyes too.

I say, “I know. But . . . I can’t. Just . . . just come back down.”

I try to pull her toward me, but she snatches her hand away, furiously glaring, crushed.

“Please,” I say, but she turns away, her loose curls caught by the wind. I reach out again, but my hand falters midway to her arm. Then, I turn and walk away.

It’s two days before I leave, and I’m sitting outside the restaurant with Sandra and her husband as they share a cigarette. They’re talking about the economy, politics, how the youth wander hopelessly without opportunity.

Sandra says, “Did you hear about that girl down the street?”

“No,” her husband says with a gruff voice and a slight cough.

“She committed suicide last night. Jumped from her balcony.”

He grunts, I avoid eye contact.

“They were cleaning it up this morning,” she says, tapping ash into a styled tray on the table. “It’s sadness that does that. Depression.”

She looks at me as she says it. I look away, but it doesn’t matter. She sees right through me anyway.

Self-Torture Is Your Favorite Sport | Theland E. Thomas

It’s almost 3 am, and you stare into the pitch darkness, eyelids heavy, but mind racing. It’s funny how your eyes play tricks on you in the dark. The longer you stare, the blacker it becomes. It starts from the edges and creeps into the middle until the entire room is five shades darker. Then, the edges grow darker again, blackness compounding upon blackness, darker until the sunrise.

You've been tossing and turning all night, trying to find comfort in the warmth of the sheets. Now, you roll from your side onto your back and stare up at the vacant ceiling. The darkness is malicious, and you’re afraid. It glares back at you, peering into you, or maybe just reflecting you. You shut your eyes, but the scenery is the same. And you can't escape these toxic thoughts.

Remember a few years ago when you met your best friend? It was by chance, which is pretty much how you meet all your favorite people. At first you were forced to spend time with each other, then you wanted to. You spent long afternoons and evenings sharing your passions, your secrets, your fears. You might know her better than anyone else. She definitely knows you.

Remember parking your car on that hill and talking until the sun came up? Looking back, that's probably when you started to fall for her. When you finally shared the part of yourself you hated the most, and she looked into your eyes and told you how special you were.

But fool, you couldn’t say the same to her. You tried, but your tongue twisted, and your mouth dried, and your words caught, so you just looked away and hoped she could somehow pick up what you were trying to say non-verbally.

You realized that you wanted to spend every second with her. Your days didn’t seem complete if she wasn’t involved. You found yourself volunteering to help her with things you hated, but they didn’t seem so bad with her by your side. You would spend all day and night laughing with her.

Remember when she shared with you that she couldn’t really handle romantic affection, and your blood ran cold, but you laughed and said, “Me neither, good thing we’re just friends, right?” And then you thought, damn, why did I just say that, and she was looking at you, but when you saw, she looked away.

Remember when she complained that she couldn’t find anyone who she really connected with, and you came that close to confessing your love to her, and you said her name so heavily, she snapped out of whatever she was thinking about and stared at you with wide, expectant eyes, but you just looked away and told her she’d find that special someone someday?

Remember all those times you laid awake in bed fantasizing about finally saying what had been on your mind for the longest time? It was real romantic in your head. In your fantasy, your fear dissolved, and you just dropped the bomb like, “I think I’m in love with you.” No, more nonchalant, like, “Hey, I love you, you know?” Actually, maybe you shouldn’t be so intense and you'd go with a, “Hey, I really like you.” And she would be like, “Like, like like me?” And you would be like - no wait, what is this, middle school? You would actually just say, “Hey, do you want to go on a real date with me sometime?” And you smiled when you thought of this one because you knew you wouldn’t be so suave in real life. And in your fantasy, she wouldn’t reject you. (And you thought what if she doesn’t reject me for fear of being the cause of what tips me over the edge but she doesn’t really want to go out with me, she just doesn't want to hurt my feelings? I would never want anyone to think that. [And then you thought how do you even think up these things?]). In your fantasy, she said something like, “Really?” And you said, “Yeah, I really like you.”

And then the fantasy you in your mind’s eye thought, what is this middle school, and said, “Actually, I think I’m in love with you.” Maybe she replied here. Maybe she said, “Wow, I love you too.” Maybe she said, “Well, that took long enough.” And maybe she didn’t say anything and you said,

“I’m sorry, but I can’t hold this in any longer. I love you because you’re such an amazing person. You see the world in a different way. You’re always ready for the next adventure, always looking toward the future. And you see the good in everyone. You saw the good in me when I couldn't see anything but darkness. I know you said you couldn’t really handle when guys are really in love with you, but maybe we can’t resist because you’re so radiant and we’re like moths flying in the dark without you.”

And, in the dark, you smiled so hard your face hurt. Could you get any cheesier? And then you laughed out loud because that’s how you actually felt.

(And in the back of your mind you were mad at yourself for allowing yourself to feel this way because you tried so hard not to develop these emotions because they always, always, always end in heartbreak. [And in the back of the back of your mind you remembered that by the time couples break up, they despise the very things they once loved about each other.])

Remember when you got up everyday for the next few months and still said nothing to her? And you watched with a gnawing feeling in your heart as she started to grow bored of you. And all of a sudden, she didn’t really want to hang out with you anymore. And you didn’t talk. And you missed her so bad. And you were desperate to have her back, and one day you finally asked her on that date, but it wasn’t anything like how you imagined you would say it. It was rushed, and you stumbled over your words, and she just looked really sad, and she said your name softly and said, “I really care about you, but I don’t like you like that.”

And you were kind of tearing up a little bit, but you didn’t want her to see even though you knew she knew, so you just looked away and said, “Oh, yeah, that’s fine.” And she reached out and touched your hand and asked, “Are you okay?” And even though you felt like your insides were being vacuumed into a void, and you were barely containing your tears, and the pain was plastered all over your face, you said, “Yeah, I’m fine.” You’d just ruined it. You’d ruined everything. But you still didn’t want to lose her, so you asked, “We can still be friends, right?” And she forced a smile and said, “Of course.” And then she let go of your hand and walked away.

Remember when you had to stand with your back to the wall while waiting for the train because you couldn’t escape the fantasy of jumping in front of the tracks and your body twisting and flailing between the car and the cement and your blood spraying and finally releasing years of pent-up anguish, but then you couldn’t do that because she would think it was her fault when really it was always all your fault, and you didn’t really want to die anyway, you just wanted the constant, dull, aching, pain to end?

Remember when thought you were over it, but then you saw her with her new boyfriend, and he was tall, dark, handsome, and strong - all the things you could never be - and you were so jealous, but you really just wanted her to be happy even if it was without you because you still loved her and you probably always would? You knew this would happen, but you couldn’t help yourself. Self-torture is your favorite sport.

Remember when you hung out with your friends, including her and her boyfriend, and you realized he’s actually a really cool dude, and he’s perfect for her and you made friends with him and even gave him relationship advice all the while stifling an enormous sadness?

Remember when you tried to drown your depression, and it worked for a little while, but then you realized that you could still feel the pain no matter how drunk you got, so you went to a club to dance it out, but you couldn't get out of your own head, and your feet were moving, but you were sinking in quicksand, and you somehow ended up dancing right next to her and her boyfriend (what are the odds?), and at least your usual suicide fantasy had morphed from jumping off a bridge to blowing out your brains right there and getting your guts all over his perfect outfit?

Remember when you asked her if she ever felt the same way about you, and her face fell, and she teared up a little bit and said, “Yes. But I didn’t think you did.”

You clench your teeth, open your eyes and turn to the other side. You curl up in a ball and hug yourself, but you can’t keep the tears in. Your nose stuffs, and the tears fall sideways over your face and soak into the pillow. And you gaze outside looking for a glimmer of light, but it’s still pitch black and the sun won’t rise for hours.

Beside a Lake in Winter | Alexander T. Damle

            Harv and I, it was just an ordinary Sunday, you know the kind, ordinary decent Sunday, sleepy and long, though the guts of it a little twisted, some knowledge in the back of your mind you just can’t quite tickle. Not to stop certain people from trying, of course, but people’ll do anything for a high, right? Anyway, Harv and I, ordinary Sunday. Or was it Danielle? Doesn’t matter probably. Well, either way, we were walking along by the edge of the river, watching the trash churn over and over itself, pulled in little gravitational whorls by the water as it wanders over the carcasses of bicycles and dogs just below the surface, when Jonathon walked up to us. We asked him if he got it, and he said nah, sorry guys, the market’s, like, all dried up this month, some guy down state got hit hard. Like, guns drawn, riot shields, tear gas grenades, bullet to the head (his own, on the floor of his bathroom, it turned out, when he heard knocking at his door. Turned out to be a couple mormons, proselytizing. Nevermore?) hit hard.

            But then he says he has something new, never even heard of it before. We ask him what it is, and he shrugs, pulls his jacket up his shoulders a little bit. Pretty sure he’s trying to kick something or another. Oxycontin? Hydrocodone? Just straight up heroin? Probably doesn’t matter. With Jonathon it’s always an opiate. Razor edges.

            And then he says it ain’t got a name yet, you know how this shit is. And Harv/Danielle looks at me, wary, eyebrows arched slightly, eyes a little wider than normal, mouth all twisted up. And then I turn back to Jonathon and ask him what it does, and he says it’s, like, a psychedelic. Probably. He thinks.

            And you know, we probably should have walked away there. We aren’t junkies. LSD isn’t addictive, no psychedelic is. I mean, you can get addicted to the experience, sure. I know people who are. But we aren’t. I know all this. But I still ask Jonathon how much, and he says a hundred fifty, and I think, that’s not bad for something new, I’ve spent a lot more for “something new”. So I say sure, and Harv/Danielle looks at me again.

            The sky looks like motor oil. Can taste the smog. Can’t really see across the river. That might just have been fog though. Or maybe we were by the ocean. Memory is all messed up in my head. But I know the sky looks like motor oil, and the clouds flow like satin, creeping down bare flesh, and the sun casts a weird ghostly pallor that makes the light flatten out real long and harsh, and reminds me of the look that daytime soaps get. Jonathon turns away from us to get something out of his bag, and when he does I get a glimpse of his face and I can’t tell if he’s smiling or frowning.

            He hands it to us, and it’s just two blank squares of paper in a dirty plastic bag. I look up at him as I hand him the money. He looks away. I see something get turned up in amongst the froth, and it looks like it had meant a lot to someone once. Somewhere nearby a train trundles down its track, and the sound of its horn pierces the muggy calm.

            So then Jonathon goes on his way, and so do we. Walking through the streets, everyone studies their shoes, and a taxi drives by too fast, hitting a puddle and splashing the gutter refuse, thick and inky, all over my torn jeans. Harv/Danielle looks at the jeans, then up at me, then back down at their shoes.

            We walk past a homeless woman, and she looks up at us, and she has the same eyes that a lamb gets when it’s about to get slaughtered. Her hair is thick like weeds by the edge of the river, and her skin is thick with ashen dirt, looks like the sky. She cradles something in her arms the shape of a child, but I can’t see its face, just a bundle of tattered rags.

            From somewhere a group of kids come running. Don’t know where they ever come from. More every day. Packs. Ferrel. Wild eyed. Never seem to see the rest of us, just push their way through like they’re the only beasts left on a dying earth. Anyway, the kids reach us, and one of them pushes in between me and the homeless woman and knocks over the battered old can where she’s trying to collect enough for dinner. The coins all start running and the woman runs after them. A few land with a plop the wrong tone in the gutter’s ooze, and she doesn’t even pause as she plunges her hand into them nether regions between street and sidewalk, and she puts her arm deeper and deeper and I briefly wonder about what happened to that infrastructure revitalization. She fishes around down there, and her hand comes back up the color of shit, and she looks like she’s going to break in half, so I give her a few bucks out of my wallet. Don’t like watching strangers cry.

            On the way back to my place, we stop in a little old diner, the sign half smothered, even as the walls are still chrome and the lights inside seem warm and friendly, calling to me out of some place in my past I feel very deeply but, for some reason, can’t quite lay my eyes on. Our waitress recognizes us and smiles (it must have been Danielle - I don’t think I ever went to the diner with Harv) and we both order our usual. It’s quiet. A guy in an expensive suit sits at the counter eating a hamburger and sipping a coke. A homeless man sits in a booth in the corner with his dog under the table. Illegal, of course, but the owner doesn’t really care. Decent enough sort of guy.

Outside it begins to rain, hard, and the dirt and smog choking the city begin to run in long streaks. Headlights flash past, searching, and occasionally the harsh yellow of a taxi is caught up in a splash of water and a weird miasma of street light and fog, pulling shadows like teeth. Down the block a neon advertisement warns of coming judgment and promises God in the colors of a strip club or bowling alley.

            I believed in God for a full five minutes once. But then my roommate interrupted me and I never believed in God again. Maybe I should go see what the sign is talking about. Maybe my God is neon.

            A woman walks by outside the window in a long red dress, stuck to her legs by the rain, her protracted auburn hair twisted like a rat’s tail about her face, her eyes scarlet. The chef sees this from behind the counter and she runs out with an umbrella. The woman turns to her and they exchange the briefest bursts of smiles, like flashbulbs on a bloody street, and this smallest gesture gives me this unbearable feeling of warmth somewhere deep inside me. Then the chef runs back in, and now her short blonde hair is stuck to her too, but she’s smiling a little bit. Our waitress smiles at her. I smile at Danielle. Danielle is looking at her food and didn’t see any of it.

            One afternoon in December I remember walking along the river, in a light like the whole world had collectively just dropped, air the sound of standing under a power line, light the smell of a dingy place thrown away in a back pocket of the world. And I remember watching them pull a body out of the water, and I remember looking at her face, crystalline and porous at once, socked in tight by months disappeared in amongst mud and reeds and old bicycles and human waste, a pallor of fresh fallen snow, her hands shriveled up like an old woman, balled into collapsing fists, and spiderwebs of something grown up her arms like frost on a window in the midst of a dead winter. She was beautiful once. Scared once. Alone once. In love once. High once, more than once. Always high more than once, if they pull them out of the river.

Why is it always raining in this city? And in the rain why do the streets expel big deep breaths of noxious steam that makes every woman look beautiful and every man look dangerous?

I held her, our bodies naked against each other like we were some trickling of stars out amongst the darkest edges of our universe, far enough out that time itself begins to dilate, and we were turning into one grand consciousness, and in some deeply weird and Cronenbergian way our flesh was fusing into one, the little patch of warmth and light on a dark night, and I didn’t feel alone. Then she left and I never saw her again.

But hey, so it goes, right?

As we walk out of the diner, Danielle turns her eyes up to me and I notice a little fleck of something gold in them, a raft lost at sea, storm clouds mounting on the horizon, sleepless. She tells me she doesn’t think she really wants to get high today, not with whatever we scored. I tell her sure and she says she has to go and I say okay. I watch her walk away down the street, men and women with heavy coats tied up about their shoulders and cheeks and walking in these little zagging running steps. The rain is coming down harder. I brush a drop out of my eye, as, all around me, the rain turns to tears.

But hey, so it goes, right?

In the windows of a skyscraper, I see streetlights reflect like memories out of time, pieces of a broken mirror, old cocaine, flesh occasionally casting up like spotlights, and her saying... but the windows of skyscrapers and the rain and the streetlights and an old man totters down the road, swaying like a kid coming out of a cheap nightclub (at the thought I feel something ancient welling up in me), a space forming around him, an airbag against his scent. I catch a glance of it and I stand transported, reminded of someone I once knew. The old man smiles at me toothless and upside down.

I remember playing in the surf at night, running just for the sake of it, the stars drowning in the sea, the E just kicking in, Harv taking off all his clothes and throwing them into the water, and us just looking at him and laughing. Later we will make a campfire and sit around it, Harv’s clothes long gone, the rest of us trying to dry off, huddled close, me holding her, him holding him, us all forging together, drifting into one great organism, cleaving a path into time, rushing for the future. Three of us OD’d in the next year. Then I left her on some great stretch of brilliance learned into me on shrooms. Harv’s still around, somewhere, at least until he’s the next body dredged up face crystalline.

Eventually I make it back to my apartment building, push open the front door, look down a stretched corridor, half the bulbs burned out, looking down dead over spattered concrete, freckled walls, doors of wood scarred like my first lover’s wrists. I remember kissing her scars like roses.

I wander in a daze up the stairs, pushing aside used needles with my feet, don’t like the sound they make when you step on them, blocking my nose against the smell of decay, as though the meat of the walls is coming apart slowly, some alien disease blowing out the cells all cancer like.

            When I reach my door I unlock it quickly and open it slowly, looking around for someone I forgot was crashing who is now sketching out. It’s happened far more often than I care to admit. This time rather than a half naked junkie running through the just-open door, out slips a cat like steam.. I briefly consider where it came from, but decide I don’t care. I step inside, still bracing slightly for someone left behind.

            A few years ago a friend whose name I’ve forgotten OD’d on my couch when I was out. When I got back and found him there, I dragged him out into the hallway for a neighbor to find. Ms. Bradise, I’m still very sorry you had to find Jimmy dead, nude, and rat eaten on the landing at 1am. I still also have no idea how he possibly could have gotten there.

            His veins looked like balloons three days after a party.

            His eyes claimed a rightful place on the mantlepiece of my soul, next to dead lovers and lovers best to think of as dead, my father burning alive in a car crash as all I could do was scream, and my sitting on a frozen lakeside in snow four inches thick, more coming down, my breaths showing like pubic hair, pondering the potentiality of my return to that party with the coke coming out and the girl I thought I loved about to leave with another guy and I think somehow that was my turning point in life, the last time I could have maybe been okay, if I’d just made my decisions differently, if I’d just followed the edge of the lake to the road, even as the snow grew thicker, and the road south, away from the city, find the little hamlet I remember spending Christmas in before my dad died, and maybe opening a little bookshop there with what was left of my inheritance, and going sober (just booze then, but, you know, that’s how it starts) and maybe just living. But instead I went back into the party and she indeed left with the guy and I took some E, then I snorted some coke for the first time and not long after I’d drop acid for the first time and the rest, is, as they say, history.

            My apartment is the city in synecdoche, a pastiche of the ugly and the beautiful, scar tissue worn on the face of an angel of marble. As soon as I’m through the door, I step on a used needle and swear. House guests, god knows whent. I wander about my apartment kind of floating, peering about for further signs of half life, smelling hard for urine (best way to get kicked out of my apartment - pee on my furniture). I step into the bathroom and turn on the light, which glows a dull hospital green. In the mirror I see my face. In my face I don’t see me.

Once I’m certain that the only forgotten house guest was feline, I collapse onto my couch, the stuffing oozing out like blood, mottled stains actually blood, and I feel a lump under the cushions, reach down to extricate it, and come back with a pair of clean, white, mens underwear. I throw them across the room vaguely in the direction of the trash. Then I take the plastic bag from my pocket. Then I look at the two tabs and consider the infinite potentiality of the unknown. Then I remember how scared I was the first time I took LSD. Then I briefly consider dosage, decide I don’t care, and put both tabs on my tongue at once. This is, as an English junkie once told me, entirely not cricket.

            And then I wait. And nothing happens. You never really know how these things are going to come on - sometimes the walls start crying thirty minutes after the tab hits your tongue. Sometimes two hours later you find yourself thinking it’s a bust, and you find yourself all two dimensional and you forget which way is up, or, for that matter, the entire concept of gravity. Really can’t know.

            After four hours though, with no effects, it occurs to me I might be out $150.

            And that’s when this sensation rushes through my head, tidal and bodily and just a bit squishy. Not from the drug, that’s not what I mean. Something deeper, stranger, realer, if you think that way. A desire, a burning passionate desire to escape this couch, this apartment, this city. And then the counter reaction just as strong that this place will be my tomb. So I sit here like that for a stretch, my mind in this helical spiral. I really wish I could’ve gotten acid. None of the rest of this would have happened.

            And that’s when it occurs to me, the natural point my last half decade has been building up to, that the city has me decaying down to. And that’s when I text my guy. And I am reminded of a phrase that has stuck with me for years, something out of an old TV show - “liquor before beer, don’t do heroin.” I always loved its causal efficiency. And my guy gets back to me faster than any dealer ever should and we agree on our usual spot out on a bridge near the edge of an industrial estate.

            And then I walk out my door, locking it behind me. And then I cross the stretched corridor. And then I drift out into the street.

            It has begun to snow, and the city has gone dead, shop windows shuttered, pedestrians seemingly invisible, what few left clutching to themselves like lovers, long jackets brimming up in the wind, snow drawn about in plumeing whorls. I watch a bus run a red (it turned pink with snow built up - how long was I inside?), and I watch the travellers, eyes tired and bloodshot, like ghosts, the city forgetting itself, time running through a sieve, a man in an expensive suit slipping on a patch of ice and ending up sliding on one foot, his arms up above him, a ballerina going in for a pirouette, his attache case flying open and spewing papers about the street, they lost immediately to the snows. Then the businessman reaches the edge of the sidewalk and slides off into a snow bank, where he falls and lands with a shower of sparks the colour of ivory. After a moment he stands, laughing, covered in snow.

            I get into a cab - too far to walk, and I fall asleep for a bit.

            And then on that bridge, it cushioned from the world in the snow, the river itself now frozen too, we exchange what needs to be exchanged, and my guy asks me if I’m sure, and I say, yeah, I am.

            And then the rest doesn’t really matter much. Heroin is heroin, a junkie is a junkie, we’ve all seen the movies. And then a few years down, a friend casts me out naked on his stairwell. And some old lady finds my corpse. And the cop looks at my broken body without pity, just a dull pang for someone he lost once. And the coroner says it was a shame.

            And that’s it.