My Dystopia

Dystopia is not some barren aftermath of a not-so-distant future. It is not the shattered remains of a civilization that once thrived or a fight for survival in a post-atomic wasteland. Dystopia is now. I thrive in dystopia. I thrive when the odds aren’t just against me but against everyone else just the same…when the world around me and everyone else is crumbling. I am alive when the sky is falling.

I was for lack of a better word, a loser. I struggled to hold a job, to pay rent, to make ends meet. It felt like anything I would touch would turn to shit…the opposite of “Midas.” I had a real knack for fucking things up…a great idea would start off strong and gradually deteriorate into a soul-crushing defeat. It was like playing a game of chess against a computer…just when I thought I might have a chance, here comes the brutal end; the hopeless inevitability that not only am I going to lose, but it will be emasculating, an ego death of frustration and embarrassment. If I managed to get a great job utilizing my wit and charm and professional demeanor and experience, not to mention my rugged good looks…whether it be in construction management or in some hip, artful office position…eventually my façade would wear thin. I can only hide my feigned enthusiasm for so long.

I used to watch society at large seemingly having the time of their lives…whether they were dressing up for a friend’s wedding or broadcasting their vacation travels from all over the world, or starting a business… or two, buying a house, or showing off their new toy. They would start a family or take a still life of a fancy brunch. All of these beautiful, practical, attainable things, a lust for life that I often wondered if I envied or not. I would compare myself to them. I am aware that comparison is the thief of happiness…but I had nothing left to lose it seemed. Except of course for my broken dreams, my unfulfilled ambitions, my fading vitality, and optimism. I still had my disheartened apprehension and my fading delusions of grandeur. I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to live in a loft downtown. I wanted to be celebrated by top cultural gatekeepers. I wanted accolade and significance…I wanted.

Then, one day everything seemed to come to a screeching halt. Something new had the entire world in a panic. A new virus, a deadly contagion. A mystery plague without prejudice. Hospitals became overrun with floods of patients without a diagnosis. Hundreds, thousands, dead all at once and more dying by the second. Fear and uncertainty gripped the minds of most everyone still breathing. Panic and pandemonium would soon ensue. Grocery store shelves overwhelmed by panic…boutiques and bars barricaded with plywood…cafe patios haunted by echoes of laughter and clinking glassware, and every home would become a prison. Traffic was no longer a point of contention either…the only things on the roads seemed to be a constant stream of emergency vehicles leaving a faint, trailing trace of a siren in their wake. A second wave of death would fall upon us shortly after…the death of all those beautiful, practical and attainable things.

I used to take long walks in the evenings…I would mostly look down at the sidewalk below. I would watch how fast it would seem to accelerate beneath me though I was at a modest pace. I would think about how the world seemed to pass me by at such an exhilarating pace too, though we rarely ever actually feel it move. It feels now that time has stood still. World-class metropolises are now ghost towns. For most people, physical interaction with the outside world has all but completely halted due to city ordinances that banned public activity and social gatherings. Not that I miss any of those things…I have always preferred being a loner. The plague has persisted for months with no end in sight, and I am grateful. I am grateful that I have not fallen victim to it, yet, and no one I know has fallen either. Perhaps more importantly, I feel a strange sense of comfort. I feel equal…as if we are all truly in this together. There is no one on the outside looking in, here.

I still see people on occasion. I’ll see them in their front yards, on their balconies or stoops…I will wave at an old-timer sitting on the porch, though they are seemingly few and far between lately. I would see people inside their homes staring out the window or just standing in the doorway. For the most part it was just me. Sometimes I would see people like me, people with nowhere to go, nowhere to be, even if there was somewhere to go and somewhere to be. Every so often I would encounter someone who somehow felt out of place…someone in need of something they couldn’t get. Whether it was lighting a cigarette, helping change a flat tire, or just being someone to just listen for a moment. I would find myself at that particular… right time and right place.

One day it felt as if I had just been given some kind of great reward. One of my failed ventures from before would suddenly blossom. I used to post to online message boards advertising my handyman services but never really got much response. The ads must have been preserved and recently discovered as I was getting phone calls almost daily asking if I was able to do carpentry work or yard maintenance. I had the tools and knew how to do pretty much any odd job there was. But this was slightly different. Apparently one of the side effects of the mandatory stay-home orders was DIY, everything. People would start a project and at some point realize they really didn’t know how to complete it, or decide they were in over their heads and that’s where I would come in.

I felt like a barber called upon to fix a bad haircut and I excelled at it. I would arrive at a residence and finish building a planter box or painting a fence. I would replace a broken window or fix a broken pipe. Small to mid-sized home improvement projects were pouring in , consistently. There was suddenly a new demand for someone like me. I felt successful for the first time in a long time. Despite the circumstances that surrounded me, I was thriving. A strange fate to find myself in when so many others were losing their jobs, struggling financially, or facing other dire consequences.

I began to build strong relationships with the people I was helping. Interactions with others were strange and mutually apprehensive…we wore masks over our mouths and kept distances between us. Some people would insist on staying inside and communicating their needs remotely and despite the lack of smiles, expressions, or even handshakes, I still managed to instill confidence and trust. Some homeowners would become regulars and have me over just to get my thoughts on a potential project they had in mind or check out an appliance making a funny noise. Sometimes they would offer me a meal or a cup of coffee…for my troubles. I was certain it was mostly just for the company, and I was proud of myself. I would leave feeling like I performed more than a service, that I performed a labor of love. I had purpose, I had meaning, I was someone who could take care of things, someone with skills and experience to do things others could not.

I recall never needing much motivation to do good. That came naturally to me. I can’t say I was ever really trying to be the change I wanted to see either; I was just being. Walking back from a job one evening I happened to kick an object lying on the ground…it skittered down the sidewalk for a moment and then I picked it up. It was a small, heart-shaped locket. It looked as if it might have been kicked around before…or trodden upon by all the dismissive footsteps of the past. I was never one for trinkets and never assigned any power to objects to any real extent, but I did tend to attribute symbolism to them, especially found objects that were found like this. I gently pried the locket open to see what was inside…I expected it to be a handsome young man in his military uniform…or someone’s grandma…instead it was just a tiny, shattered mirror. I could see myself in it, in a tiny, fragmented reflection. For the moment it was a catalyst for self-reflection, to consider my own shattered perceptions of what life is or was or could be…it reminded me that all things come to pass, this life, this feeling, this moment…this plague would end someday too.

And then one day…it did. A vaccine suddenly became available. Life started moving in again very quickly. Cities were allowing social activity and gatherings again…restaurants and bars un-shuttered their doors, businesses were open for business again, people allowed to go to work again…to live again. Surely this would be a great thing for me…but it was not. The phone calls started to trickle down…less frequent than before…slower and slower until they all just dissipated back into the air…and I was back to where I started. Society was back in action and its laughter louder than before, the celebrations more raucous and more exclusive than ever before…the haves would seem to have even more than ever before.

Despite my faults, despite my failed ambitions, and my feigned enthusiasm…I still had a good heart and that was something that could never be taken away or forgotten about and that would have to be good enough. Maybe there was no longer a use for me or anyone else like me, but I managed to get some use out of life for what felt like a lifetime as relatively short-lived as it was. I would sometimes still trace the heart-shaped contour of that ill-fated, downtrodden thing I found and hope that fate would summon up another opportunity for me to find purpose again, to have again, to be useful, productive and in demand again…or at the very least, just feel like I might have a chance...again.