“I have a lack of interest, you see.”
“Care to divulge?”
“Well I don’t worry about a world that never once worried about me. I’m not out
there and out there am not I, you follow?”
“Hardly.”
“Anything I need…needs me.”
“That’s not true, John.”
“It is true!”
“Air doesn’t need you, John. The plants don’t need you.”
“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong! Air does need me, it needs all of us, or there’d be too much, it’d be over-populated. The air would grow violent; begin attacking the defenseless, what then?”
“What about the ice age? There was air and close to no life.”
“Something was supposed to happen but didn’t.”
“When are you going to come to terms with this?”
“Come to terms with what?”
“Why can’t you go outside? Why won’t you leave your house? What’s stopping you?”
“You know what’s stopping me. I don’t pay you to not know what’s stopping me.”
“John, there isn’t anything stopping you. Why don’t you come with me to my office,
I’ve got a real comfy chair.”
“You know I won’t do that.”
“But do you know why?”
“What if something happens? I won’t know where to go, or how to leave or how to go! You don’t understand, I can’t leave, nothing makes sense out there - you don’t understand!”
I wrenched at a fistful of my hair, jerking my head down. My eyes were sealed so tightly I could see little flickering, dancing lights moving and forming patterns, forming memories. Memories of silence and solitude and behind silence and solitude I lie. A flicker of hope, a flicker of light, an overwhelming sense of imprisonment: I’m running through the dark, trying to find the light and it’s not there; it was never there. Something was always missing.
“Calm down, John.”
“I won’t go out there.”
“I don’t expect you to. Not yet.”
“Not ever.”
“Then what am I here for?”
“To help me.”
“To help you what?”
“To help me leave.”
“You said you don’t want to leave.”
“You know I want to leave.”
“Looks like we’re about out of time.”
“Okay. I’ll see you next week.”
“Look forward to it, John.”
The heavier black man gathered his things and proceeded out the front door. This was my first meeting with the therapist. It obviously didn’t go as well as I’d hoped, it doesn’t seem like we really got anywhere.
The days passed and I coddled my own insecurity, as if to make it a part of myself. I never thought of this…problem as a part of me but I guess it is. It’s shown me a whole new world I would have otherwise overlooked. I’ve become an author because of it – a professional writer. It’s almost ridiculous the lengths I’ve gone in order to avoid facing myself (and it is myself I’m facing). Was it that lack of a barrel forced into my mouth? People seem to function much quicker on such occasions.
A few more days and a resounding knock at my door. Like a greyhound from the gate I raced to the door, unlocking the door and letting the therapist inside.
“Hello, John. How are you doing today?”
“Good as it gets.”
“That’s good. Come with me.”
The smile that plastered my face now shattered and drooped. My eyes widened and sunk into my skull. I quivered “Out there?”
“Yes, sir, John. There’s no time like the present and if you want to get over this little deal you have, you need to take the step.
“That looks more like a leap to me.” My eyes darted all around the outside scenery. Everything was covered in a layer of thick, puffy snow. My breathing got heavier, more stifled. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t see. I was falling to the floor and I couldn’t feel anything. I wasn’t ready for this. I was ready for this. I couldn’t do this, not now. Yes, now. Why not? I was falling. Everything was black. Where had all my sensation gone? Black, falling, numb, suffocating.
…Clarity. It was white and I could breathe. I was standing. I was dizzy but I was standing. I was breathing, I was alive. I was walking toward the white, gathering it in my hands and showering myself in it. Everything made sense. Fear was not a factor. I could breathe. I was smiling. I was cold, it was so cold. Open throat, full lungs – I could breathe. My eyes shut tightly I felt the world. I couldn’t believe I’d lost touch with this.
Walking and breathing and smiling and people and snow and rain and sun and air!
“John!”
I was being shaken violently. My eyes flashed wide open, I didn’t remember them
being shut. I was on the carpeted floor of my warm home but I was cold. I could breathe, my heart was racing but I could still breathe. I was dizzy, it didn’t make sense. I was outside, I was showering myself in snow and walking and breathing, really breathing. No, I was inside; I started to panic and fell and hit my head.
It felt so real.
The man gave me his hand and I grasped at it, pulling myself up. “Are you alright, John?”
One foot ahead of the other, keep it slow, keep it natural. Don’t lose your balance, open the door, breathe in the cold, fresh air. One more step, you’re out the door. A few more steps, you’re freezing, you’re breathing. Open throat, full lungs. Heart starts to race but it’s okay. This is new, this is you. Reattach yourself to society, link yourself to the world.
I heard laughing and I look to my left, a young girl playing in the snow, doing what she can to make an igloo. Her mother watched her from the stoop; a hand tucked into her pit, the other holding a canteen of steaming warm something.
“How is it, John?” the man had the biggest smile on his face as he watched me from the stoop, his hands tucked into his pits.
“It’s fucking cold,” I told him, but I was smiling.
He came to me and we shook hands. “Do you fix all your clients this quick?” I asked.
He let out a bellow of laughter. “No no. Most of them take months. I don’t think they all wanted to be out here as much as you did.”
“I can’t imagine why I gave this up.”
“Just make sure you never give it up again. Also, make sure you take it easy when you come to more crowded places, like the mall. Take everything in stride, think it through, breathe.”
“Breathing is important. Breathing is good.”
“Make sure you put on some warmer clothes the next time you’re out here, alright?”
I looked down: flannel pajamas and a white t-shirt. “That explains the cold.”
I shook his hand again, “Thank you.”
He smiled, “You’re welcome, John.” He walked to his car and drove off, becoming nothing more than a memory to me.
I stood there, transfixed on the peaks and valleys of white that surrounded me. I was thirty-two and this was the beginning of my story. Thirty-two and I was starting all over. Thirty-two years of separation, isolation, repression,
desperation.
And I lived happily ever after.
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