Disjointed

‘’Five thousand…. Do I hear six thousand?” called the auctioneer.

I remember this part clearly. I remember twitching in my chair uncomfortably as various sums were called out by strangers around me. I had never been to one of these events before, but truth be told, I had run out of other practical options.

“Fifteen thousand!” I heard a scruffy looking, middle-aged man I had never seen before. I thought I knew everyone in this town, but clearly this event had garnered interest beyond our own backyard. Everyone had turned to stare. It was an inordinate sum for a used, once-black notebook, no matter what it might have held among its pages. I looked down to my feet, heart beating fast, palms clammy. Had this been the right decision?

“Twenty thousand!” threw out a young woman in the first row. She seemed familiar, but my thoughts were increasingly muddled. I gave up trying to place her. What did it matter, anyway?

“Going once….Going twice…. Sold for twenty thousand to the lady in blue!”

I had become a bit of a celebrity of late, though it had certainly not been my intention. I preferred to go unnoticed, to be left alone. Things were easier that way. But I also enjoyed lending a thoughtful ear to my friends. I think my silence was what their innermost thoughts were waiting for to escape the entrails of their mental captivity. Somehow, their problems and dilemmas always seemed to have an easy solution, or an easy lesson to learn. And so, the ease with which we dealt with teenage angst strengthened our bond. I enjoyed the feeling of being helpful, until word got out about what seemed to be my uncanny wisdom. Eventually, more and more people “just happened to be in the neighbourhood”, as they called it. “Just dropping by to say hello to a neighbour,” others would say. It wasn’t altogether out of place in our little godforsaken town, but it was certainly making me uncomfortable.

I might have glossed over some important details. It’s not like I was a wizard of wisdom. I didn’t come up with these sought-after bits of counsel on my own. After an “episode” at school about a year ago, the guidance counsellor suggested I keep a diary of my thoughts. She handed me a standard government-issued black notebook, though I appreciated the gesture as our school was definitely not what one would call resource-flush. At first, I wrote in the journal to humour the counsellor. Teenage nonsense, you know the type. What I thought of today’s cafeteria lunch, or how envious I was of Nora’s new shoes. I admit I took a liking to it, and eventually wrote down some heavier stuff. It seemed to help me clear my mind.

But then I started noticing weird things happening. When re-reading past entries, the words seemed to have changed. Where I had previously poured my heart out, was suddenly a depiction of the same situation, but seen from another perspective. Sometimes the entry had marks throughout; sometimes it was cleanly written, next to the remaining marks of a ripped page.

At first, I thought my mother was going through my things while I was at school. She had a tendency to do that, my mom – always act as if I was hiding something from her. She must have been in cahoots with the guidance counsellor… After that “episode”, nothing had ever felt the same, but I couldn’t put my finger on the reason why. I chucked it to teenagerhood. Given the sensitive nature of my entries, I nevertheless took to keeping the notebook with me at all times: in my backpack at school, in the bathroom while I showered, under my pillow at night. But the mysterious writing never went away.

Strangely enough, the new words, familiar and foreign at the same time, always seemed to relate my original entries in a way in which rationality, sense and purpose were restored. It was as if a calm, older version of myself was talking to me. Over the next few months, my anxiety disappeared, my grades improved, and my relationship with my family became the best it had ever been. My curious teachers credited it to my newfound love of journaling, perhaps acting as a catharsis, and thought no more of it.

When uninspired by my own life, I started musing about her friends’ worries in the hungry notebook. To my surprise, the notebook’s sage advice never stopped. Where there was a problem, it found another perspective, another way of seeing things that brought clarity to any issue. When my own friends’ lives started improving, that’s when I started getting attention. It started with a few questions, “how is the journaling coming?”, to whispers of illicit activities that might somehow make my friends and I behave…well, happily. No one wanted to admit to themselves that it was an oddity to witness such well-balanced teenagers. Not in a town known for its high rate of teenage delinquency, suicide, and teen pregnancies.

Eventually, I confided in my favourite teacher what was going on. I thought I could trust him. But once word got out that I held a seemingly magical problem-solver, the visits and phone calls started. Slowly at first – but they quickly became incessant. I would be recognized on the streets, and my own house was broken into, twice. People would call me in the middle of the night, asking me to solve an urgent crisis.

The pressure was too much. That, and the fact that I was moving away to university in a few months. My soaring grades had somehow led to my acceptance into an elite program, the next state over. A clean slate, a path to a better future. But I didn’t have a penny saved – I never thought university would have been on the horizon. My journal’s advice had given me some funding leads, but nothing concrete as of yet, and the first semester’s tuition would soon be due. So, I decided to leverage the attention my notebook was getting and opted to have it auctioned off. Though I felt as if I were auctioning off a part of myself, after so many months of pouring my heart into its seemingly endless pages, I knew that there was a bigger world out there; a world where, it seemed, money mattered more than wisdom. “It’s just an old notebook,” I’d try comfort myself. “I can get a new one from any street corner shop.”

But now it had been sold, to the young women in blue, sitting calmly in the front row. Sitting as if twenty thousand dollars were a normal sum for a ratty book. Sitting as though she had not just purchased a part of my soul. On the other hand, twenty thousand dollars would get me to university, at least for a semester, comfortably. It would give me the time to find a job, or to wait for answers on those other scholarship and loan applications. Surely, it was worth giving up an old book for that. “After all, what are friends for, if not for guidance?” I reminded herself, wincing as I remembered that most of my friends wouldn’t be attending university at all in the fall, let alone mine. The rest of the auction went by in a blur.

I was sitting on the curb outside, toying with a plastic cup that had been full of stale coffee a few moments before. Deep in my own thoughts, I hadn’t noticed the strangely familiar women in blue approach me, until she sat down right next to me. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?” the lady in blue offered. “I guess so…” I answered. I’ve never been one for small talk. Especially not that day. “You don’t remember me, do you?” said the woman. That surprised me, and I frowned in answer. Her face did look familiar, but it was a small town after all. Everyone knew everyone, at least by face, if not by name.

“About a year ago, you were admitted to the hospital. Do you remember?” Ah, the infamous “episode”. I don’t really remember what happened. I remember waking up at home, confused, feeling as though I had slept through the weekend. My parents only ever referred to that time as “my episode” after that, though they avoided mentioning it at all if possible. They had been acting weirdly ever since, but I had long ago given up trying to understand why. “You were diagnosed with a dissociative personality disorder.” I didn’t know what to answer to that. Who was this woman? “Oh, don’t look at me like that. I was the doctor who admitted you. It’s actually quite common in this town…we’ve never been able to peg it on any other reason than coincidence. Your parents were not the most….understanding of the situation, as you can imagine. They refused all treatment and took you home as soon as they could.” I was still confused, still trying to wrap my mind around everything. “Surely they must have explained what that meant for you, when you came to?”

Slowly understanding that this was all new to me, the lady – the doctor- slowed down. “Listen, I bought the notebook because this idea that it is somehow magical needs to be quashed. There is enough misleading hope around this town, there’s no need to add to it! I admit I never thought the bidding would reach that sum, but here we are. It’s for a good cause, I told myself. I know you’ve been struggling to put together funds for university. You’re a gifted student…” added the doctor. “Don’t you see? This whole time, it was your own advice you were reading, your friends were reading. You might not remember writing it, but it all came from you…”

I was shocked. This was too much to take in.

“You’ll achieve great things, I don’t doubt it. It was you, it’s always been you… You just need to trust yourself. In any case, here’s a fresh notebook, to get you started” I distinctly remember her saying, as she reached deep into her purse to pull out a beautifully crafted, leatherbound notebook. “I’ve also written down the contact of a colleague stationed near your university. He’s awaiting your call, if you’re interested in learning about treatment options…” she added, a sympathetic smile gracing her face, immediately distorted by a look of worry.

“It’s all going to be okay…I am safe” I remember thinking, somehow relieved, as I collapsed unconscious on the curb.