IT'S SO LOUD

Voice #1: Thank you for cooperating with us today, I know this is hard. Why don’t you start by telling me what you can remember?

Voice #2: I will absolutely try, but my words do tend to fail me for this particular memory.

The memory approaches me in the way that a tsunamic wave approaches a soft shore. I will share with you now what I remember, each way I have remembered it.

Evermore, we, (the proverbial we; our species) fancy ourselves to be thinking beings who possess a tendency to feel. I must say, as our resident inmate who cannot escape the confines of the memory that I will now share with you, I have my doubts about this fancy.

09 February, 2018. A Friday.

I’m eating in my car at a middling fast-food restaurant. I eat terribly on stressful workdays. Not sure why. I’m young. Young enough to know that I don’t belong working amongst the much more competent adults that I share a vocation with, or at least, I’m young enough to believe that I know that. Out of my depth, swimming in numbers, I’ve fled to an ugly reprieve. The sky is deeply gray, as though the omnipotent blue sky has lost sight of its partner, the sea, and has decided to reflect the parking lot I reside in instead.

My thoughts are unclear, I cannot make sense of what I feel. I understand the volume of the feelings, but not the contents. Any words arrive and depart far too fast for me to catalogue them. I would rope them into sentences if I could, but the words feel like shredded paper. They’re rendered useless, trash-like in their current state.

Then, a name pops up into my HUD, my dad is making an audio call.

He’s not been doing well since divorce. Heavily underregulated drug use is a massive issue. The problem is a veritable pandemic, nearly invisible to the eyes of those it does not touch directly, except in the abstract. Healthcare systems, as ever, bend to favor those of greater means. My father I am afraid, is a victim of this inequity. Despite this, a much greater plague ails him. I have noted this in many men.

Reluctantly, I answer, feigning cheer.

“Dad? Early talk today I see.”

The response is delayed, and fights through tears and sniffs to reach my ears.

“Son…I just wanted to remind you that I’m so proud of you.”

These are kind words, but the first half of any sentence that features a dependent clause tends to lose its weight within moments. A shoe is yet to drop.

“I know dad, thank you.” I would like to add more to this, but I am overwhelmed in my own right, and he obviously incited this call with more intention than that.

He continued. “I just… I’m just so sorry.”

An urgency increases within me as my thoughts crystalize into focus.

“Sorry for what? Are you okay? What’s going on?” I have one thousand questions that are all ultimately the same.

“I’m so sorry I hurt you, and I’m so sorry that I hurt your mom. I never meant too.”

“But you’re okay right now, correct? You’ll tell me if you aren’t, correct?”

“Yeah. Yeah I’m okay. I just need to know that you will be too.”

“I will be Dad, I promise.”

“I’m so so so sorry.”

“I know, I know.”

“Do you forgive me? Or can you?”

“I do. I do right now. There’s not a can.”

Most of our conversations at this point are variations of an apology. My father, who was an extremely good man, full of kindness and consideration, was deeply embattled. When he apologized, he meant it every time. He apologized for falling into the patterned trap of opioid overuse. Opioid overuse is a health crisis; one could be forgiven for faltering to such a foe. A foe that rewrites your genetic code, interjecting itself into your very thought patterns, dictating the terms of not just your mental impulses, but very much your physical dispositions. We think our thoughts as though they are abstract consciousnesses, floating about the ether. Sadly, for us, our thoughts are atoms, and it is for this reason that we will never own them outright.

He doesn’t quite recognize that he should not be apologizing for his failure of physical weakness, or genetic susceptibility. He doesn’t realize the cardinal sin which he has committed, and will continue to commit.

“Dad, you have to promise me. I don’t care where you are, or what time it is, or what I’m doing. If you feel the urge again, if you are at risk, you will tell me. You must tell me because you cannot beat this alone. It has not worked yet, and it will not work now. Do you promise me?”

“Of course. Of course I promise. I love you son.”

“I love you too Dad. I’ve got to get back to work now okay?”

I arrive at my office building and take my elevator to the eighteenth floor. My floor is empty; everyone else is still lunching.

My attention is immediately seized. Sitting on my desk within my cube is an object I do not own and am not familiar with. I consider the object to be a spectacular distraction, so I sit, pick up the object, and admire it.

The object is a locket; heart-shaped and encrusted with incredible detail. Silver etching reveals subtle flowing patterns. The locket has a web-like punch to it. I could swear that the locket begins to glow. Flashing bright, outward glows a sickening green color. I pick up the trinket and feel the texture. It is here that language fails me. The locket’s texture is confusing. The threads and details are woven together in steel in a way that is beautiful but does not make sense to me. I turn the locket over in my hand to examine the other side, which has a phrase imprinted in glistening bold letters.

“ILLNESS IS AILMENT. DISHONESTY IS DISEASE.”

Here, the memory ends abruptly.

02 May, 2003. A Monday. Or Tuesday? I think?

I am sitting in my college apartment. I am otherwise alone, which is a bad situation for me. The thoughts that emerge from my mind tend to run roughshod over my consciousness, intrusively dominating my attention. I feel the thoughts in my stomach, my chest, and in the back of my head.

I have said before that the result occurs within my stomach, but of course, this is not entirely true. The relationship between mind and body is complicated. My stomach sends signals to my brain, my brain sends signals to my stomach, and I feel the results in every sense of myself. To be human is to be an animal, and silently, and without logical recourse, I feel like the hunted.

Disrupting the flow, my phone rings. It’s my dad. I answer with a hello, and after a few seconds my father begins.

“Son…I just wanted to remind you that I’m so proud of you.”

Have I said this?

“I know dad, thank you.”

“I just… I’m just so sorry.”

“But you’re okay right now, correct? You’ll tell me if you aren’t, correct?”

“Yeah. Yeah I’m okay. I just need to know that you will be too.”

“I will be Dad, I promise.”

My panic is profoundly quiet. Anxiety wears many masks; it appears to each victim in a form custom built to assail the target on a deeply personal level. When I am in crises, you may never know it. You would need to cut the fear from my spirit by first destroying my shell. While the anxiety feels as though it occurs within the most conceptual corners of my brain, I feel the result in my stomach, and I feel the near-silent thumping of my heart throughout my body reaching into even my soul.

My dad will pass away this year. The autopsy will reveal that his physical heart was forced into a halt as a side effect of prolonged over-exposure to excessive opioids. The autopsy will reveal on part of the issue. My dad’s true cause of death will be dishonesty. Amid crisis, he can apologize for causing harm, but cannot apologize for needing help. I would have never made him apologize for needing help anyway. His cardinal sin would prove to be pride, and the dishonest web it spun. Not the use of a bastard pill.

Night approaches. I retreat to my bed, prepared for my worry to defend the castle of my mind from the invading armies of restful sleep. The armies of sleep are badly overmatched and know the battlefield less well.

Before the battle can commence, I feel my vision drawn to a glowing in my nightstand drawer. A sharp red-light cuts through the crack of the compartment with an unnatural ferocity. The light is unlike anything I have ever seen, but it is familiar to me. I throw open my drawer. I am afraid, but not knowing is worse than knowing.

In the drawer is a heart shaped locket, which I have never seen, but I somehow know. The locket glows crimson.

Inscribed on the locket, bold letters spell:

“YOU HAVE TO PROMISE ME YOU HAVE TO PROMISE ME”

My faces turns red hot. I cannot see, I cannot form sentences, and I cannot recall the rest of the memory.

55 The Wall Month, INSERT YEAR. ITS SO LOUD.

I am in a building. It is a building with several walls and a roof and I don’t feel good. I don’t feel good at all. Why is it so quiet? When things are very quiet things feel very loud. There are several walls in this building and I can’t get around them. Why are there so many walls I swear that when this building went up I built it why would I make that its so impractical how would anyone even get in I mean I sure can’t get out. I have a phone and it rings.

*BRRRIIIIIIING BRRIIIIIIING*

That’s the phone ringing.

“Do you forgive me? Or can you?”

“I do.”

“That brings me joy, thank you. Maybe you can forgive yourself sometime too.”

*Click*

I’m in a massive empty room, there are no objects in this room except a table, and a heart shaped locket on top of the table. The locket begins to shine. Like a star approaching earth, the light shines with beyond-human determination. The locket, I could swear, wants to be seen.

I pick up the locket. It has words inscribed.

“ILLNESS CAN BE CURED. SO TOO CAN DISEASE.”

This is not usually how this memory goes, something is different here. It’s extremely bright now, and I don’t remember this.

I’m in a bright white space. I feel indoors, but this is clearly not a room. I look up. I am looking through a concave glass mirror. Seemingly on the surface of the mirror the phrase “ILLNESS CAN BE CURED. SO TOO CAN DISEASE.” I can see through the mirror now! I’m in a laboratory, are these people around? What is this?

VOICE #1: THE SUBJECT HAS BECOME PHYSICALLY AWARE. TURN OFF THE LOCKET MECHANISM. PUT THE SUBJECT INTO SLEEP, HE NEEDS REST.

SUBSEQUENT LAB REPORT: The subject has work yet to do, but he is on the right path. Evermore, the subject grows closer to understanding his personhood. Hopefully in due time, he will understand better the relationship between his body and mind. If he can forgive others, he can forgive himself. If he can ask for help, he will always receive it. If he can be honest with himself, he will find his truths.

Voice #1: Thank you for cooperating with us today, I know this is hard. Why don’t you start my telling me what you can remember?