“How much longer, Sam?” Malory asked.
“I don’t know. We have to check the bus stops around here and hopefully, one of them can take us to L.A.,” I answer.
We find ourselves walking on a sidewalk for a few minutes till we finally reach a bus stop.
When I try to look at the bus’s routes, I have a lot of difficulties. It was the lighting. There was not enough light.
I look over at Malory, “I think this is the bust stop,” I tell her. “Malory, I really hope that you have your own money,” I tell her, hoping that I wouldn’t have to pay for her.
“Hahaha, you make me laugh, Sam. Don’t worry I have an old, bus pass that I never used, so don’t fret over me,” she informs me.
We take a seat on a bench and wait.
I could feel the cold air against my skin. The sidewalk is a bit dark, but the streetlights offer enough lighting. In the distance, I could hear the echoes of other cars driving on other streets.
I lean back onto the bench and stare into a streetlight. I watched the streetlight and noticed how moths hovered around the light, and how the moths smacked their bodies against a glass barrier encasing the light bulb. I continue to observe the moths. Hitting their bodies repeatedly against the glass. I wonder if they were in pain. I couldn’t help think about one of the voices that spoke to me. ‘You are what a moth is to a flame’ or in this case, a light bulb.
For some reason, I started thinking about how we all dream. I feel sad when I think about how uncontrollable dreams actually are. We don’t get to choose our dreams. And we don’t get to remember a lot of them. I tried to think about the last dream I had where I was happy. I tried really hard, but I couldn’t remember anything. The only thing I remember was that I smiled once in a dream two years ago, but I can’t remember what I smiled about. I couldn’t help but wonder if others are happy in their dreams. I couldn’t help but grow jealous of others, jealous of those who smile in their dreams and remember what they smiled about.
I look over at Malory. She’s perfectly still, probably lost in her own universe too.
I go back to staring at the moths. Caught in my own contemplations about life. The moths bump against the glass, repetitively, mundanely, and with the same outcome.
“Sam?” Malory seemed to whisper.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Can I ask you something?”
I became a bit hesitant, not completely sure what she was going to ask me. I was a bit apprehensive about answering, but I pull my confidence together. “Sure,” I reply.
“Do you believe in anything, Sam?” she asked me.
“What do you mean?” I reply, hoping that she will elaborate.
“Like, if you have a religion of some sort, or if you believe in incarnations, or if you believe in higher powers?”
The question took me by surprise. “Before I came here to the Center,” I began, trying to recall past information. "I use to be an inpatient at another mental hospital called Aster Psychiatric Institute. The First Presbyterian Church funded that hospital. The employees there weren’t necessarily from the First Presbyterian Church, but the church was what kept it running. The Church had charity drives and donations. And that’s what pretty much kept the Aster Psychiatric Institute going. They had goodhearted interests in helping the mentally ill, and a lot of other disadvantaged groups for that matter.” I paused to adjust my coat. “Anyways, I appreciate religions and it makes me happy when people find happiness in their religions. But as far as what I believe in, I don’t believe in anything.”
“Soooo what does ‘anything’ imply?” she asked, wanting a further explanation.
“I simply don’t believe in anything. I never favored one religion over another in my life. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I didn’t have a purpose for joining a religion. And now, I guess I would be considered an atheist. When I was younger, I use to categorize myself as agnostic for a brief period in time, but I simply came to the realization that I didn’t believe in a god, or divine spirits, or anything of the sort. Sometimes, I just feel that we have the misfortune of coming to existence, and having to deal with our inevitable death, and that there is no incarnation.”
There was a silence in the air. I realized that the topic of the discussion was very heavy, and I felt guilty for revealing this side of me. I usually don’t talk about it with anyone.
I look over at the streetlight. The moths were still flickering their bodies against glass. I sighed.
I look over at Malory, and a tear ran across her face, and another one, and another one. The tears ran down her face and onto her dark forest green uniform.
Chapter 68
I felt guilty. I never imagined that my response was going to cause such an emotion out of her.
I felt horrible. I felt as if I had made her cry.
“I’m sorry,” I attempt to articulate into an audible apology of sincerity, but it sounds feeble and weak. And it’s not because I don’t want to apologize, but because I know that my apology won’t fix whatever bomb I triggered.
She avoided eye contact with me. She didn’t whimper or make any gasping sounds. She showed no signs of discomfort or restraint either. She had a slightly worried expression, but otherwise, she was just as still as she was five minutes ago. The only difference being that tears ran down her cheeks.
“Malory,” I try to get her attention, but she still wouldn’t look at me. “I’m sorry. I-,”
I can’t seem to finish my sentence. The tears kept dropping down her face, and I couldn’t find any reason for her to stop crying. I feel horrible.
She wiped her tears with the back of her hand. Still avoiding eye contact with me. “It’s just,” she tried to speak, but had to clear her voice. “It’s. I don’t know, Sam. I’ve had this anxiety, and I’ve had it for quite a while now. I have an anxiety about death. My own death. I don’t know how to explain it.
It’s not depression. It’s almost an intense, passive phobia. I am afraid of my own life ending. We are born into this world and expect to behave a certain way, do things a certain way. Go on errands, get haircuts, make appointments, but sometimes, I feel like I’m not like everyone else. I look at the people around me, and I wonder how they behave so systematically and calm. How they have such a tight grip on the fragile sanity that is the human mind.
I don’t understand it at all. Are we just supposed to abide by the rules of society and die happy? When I think about my own death, I think about screaming. Shouting and scratching. I think about refusing to die as my body convulses in despair. Why am I given life when at the very end, I am expected to die.
When I think of dying, I see no beauty. How are we suppose to accept the fact that our body will one day shut down and that the neurons in our brains will stop firing? And that we are going to decay and that we have to accept that? Am I supposed to ignore that? And that at the end of my rope, that is what is waiting for me? My inevitable and impending death? And nothing else?
This fear is something horrible, Sam. It consumes me. I don’t know how to describe it. I don’t know what to call it. It robs me of my daily life, Sam. It’s terrifying. I could be buying groceries alone or I could be at a social gathering, and suddenly, it consumes me. It eats me. It robs me. And I can’t stop it.
And the worst part is that the people who try to help you, they are going to die too. They give advice about an impending death that they will also share. It’s not at all like a fear of heights; it’s a fear of death and life. And it’s worst when the person who is giving you advice about death is older than you. That’s the worst part. You wanna know why? Because they will give you advice about death, but what happens when they die? The person who tries to console you about death dies. It’s all blasphemy. I refuse to simply accept death.”
I try to say something to her, but it feels like I have been robbed of words.
“It gets so bad,” Malory continued. “So, so, so bad! Not only does it rob you of the fun in your life, bu
t any given time, at any given place, you break down. I have broken down so many times. And that’s all I have known—life lacking enjoyment and periodic mental breakdowns when the reality of death sits on my shoulders. I wish I could say that I have a good angel and a bad angel on my shoulders like normal people do, but Death sits on both my shoulders everyday. Sometimes, I forget about death, but it always comes back to remind me, Sam. And let me tell you this. Death is heavy.”
Dear god. What had this woman been through? Malory was on a whole different level.
She took a slight pause, but finally added. “Some people run from their past, some people try to escape their present, but me, I have no artistry that will ever be able to fend off the one and only guaranteed future. Death.”
Chapter 69
Malory’s words shook me. They made me insecure about my own persoectives. Not only because she pointed out the absurdities of life, but even more so, because part of what she was saying was true.
There was a silence between us, and I was afraid to break it. I tried to build up courage, trying to find a way to comfort her. “Malory,” I approached her. “Did you lose someone? Did someone hurt you?” I asked as carefully as I could without offending her or personifying myself as intrusive.
“No. I didn’t lose anyone in my life. And from what I know, no one has hurt me. I don’t know what caused this phobia of my own death,” she replied.
“What about religiously? Do you believe in anything?” I ask her.
“That’s the thing. I don’t believe in any of it. No scientology, no spirituality, no Hinduism, no Christianity. Nothing. I believe that we are born and that we die, and that’s it. No reincarnation. No heaven. No hell,” she explains. “We are a mass of eukaryotic cells that will one day stop sustaining themselves and we will just cease to exist. It’s a cruel thing. That one day we have consciousness, and the next, there is nothing for eternity.”
As she continued, I feared that I would be of little help to her.
“So is there anything that you can trace this phobia to, or when it originated?” I ask her, still as non-intrusively as I can.
“No, I just woke up one day, went to school, and in the middle of a class like any other, it began.”
I was still confused. Something in her life must have triggered this phobia. Why did she have this anxiety, she didn’t look like she was going to die tomorrow, or next week, or months, or years from now. But to a certain degree, I could understand some of her fears about how we are dying. How right this second, we are dying. It’s not a great mentality to have, but being ignorant to it might be worst.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” I say politely, “how old are you, Malory?”
“Twenty-three,” she responded.
Twenty-three. I wanted to tell her that she was very young and even gorgeous, but not even a compliment or act of assurance could fix her underlying fear. I couldn’t say ‘you are twenty-three, you have the whole world ahead of you,’ and expect her to, all of a sudden, agree. It wouldn’t make her forget all about her phobia. I wish I had the skills, or even the wisdom to say something that would be able to get her through a day, but I can’t think of anything, and I don’t think I would ever be able too. Not even if I had a lifetime.
I looked at her, and thought, we all have our demons I suppose, Malory.
She calmed down a bit and her tears ceased. I felt exasperated from the conversation. I could only imagine what Malory had been feeling. She was completely distraught.
Malory stood up, cleared her throat, and finally looked at me.
“Sam,” she addressed me.
I returned her eye contact. “Yeah, Malory?”
“I think I’m going to leave,”
“Leave?” I asked her in confusion.
“Yes, I think I am going to go now. Thank you for letting me accompany you for as long as I did,” she responds.
“Malory, I’m sorry if I said something that upset you. I didn’t mean to make your night any harder,” I inform her.
She takes a pause and stares at the moths that I had been observing earlier. “Don’t worry, Sam. I didn’t mean to scare you like this. It’s just that from time to time, thoughts like these run through my mind. The absurdities,” she finished. She breaks her trance of the moths and looks back at me. “Thank you again, Sam,” she adds.
I almost want to ask her to stay, but I refrain. I remember that she is a person and can make her own decisions too, independent from me.
I smile back at her and say, “no problem.”
She fixes her uniform and pats her shirt. “You sure you are going to go?” I add.
“Yeah,” she responds. I can’t help but remember the comment she made earlier, about the dangers of the streets.
“It’s too dark to be alone,” I reply slowly.
“I’ll be fine, Sam.”
There is another prolonged silence and we simply stare at each other. Then she looks around, deciding what direction she will go. I had a feeling that she wasn’t going back to the Center.
“Sam. I hope that we cross paths again, okay?”
“Where are you going, Malory?”
“Sam. If you are going to remember one thing about me, I want you to hear this. ‘I think, therefore I am.’ A great philosopher once said that.” She took a quick pause and decided in which direction she was going to go. “Goodbye, Sam,” she said.
I wasn’t entirely confident about the whole situation. It was so sudden, her departure. “Goodbye, Malory,” I reply.
She turns around, and begins walking away. She is gone within a minute. Concealed by the night. First fading, then completely vanishing.
The night grew silent and still. I stared at the moths and how they continued to flicker their bodies against the streetlamp.
I’m slightly perplexed by Malory’s spontaneous departure. I suppose that we all have our own agenda, and that might be one of the beauties of life. Free will.
It’s just me now. Alone.
Chapter 70
I sit alone. The sounds of far-off vehicles continued to echo through the street.
Suddenly, a bus stops right in front of me. I had almost forgotten why I was here. This was the bus that I had been waiting for.
I ask the driver if this bus stop could take me near L.A. He says yes, but that I would have to be taking a second bus as well. I ask him for the name of the street that I should be getting off at. He supplies me with the name, but also offers to simply notify me when I should be getting off. I climb aboard and pay the fee. I sit at the very front of the bus just in case I had any questions. I look behind me and notice that the bus is almost empty. I look outside the windows of the bus, and everything outside looked unusually dark. It must have been something to do with the glass.
I couldn’t help but think about Zoan and his poem. I wondered how Zoan was doing. And I wondered about Fidel too. And I hoped that Malory was all right. And a lot of the other patients that I have come to know, despite my preference for isolation. I even wondered about how Pandora was doing.
I looked up at the bus’s digital display. It read, ‘September 23, 2008. 9:56 P.M.’
9:56! I stared at the display with disbelief. How had it been almost four hours? I left the Center at 6 P.M. How was it that four hours had gone by since then. The combination of walking several kilometers and waiting for a bus consumed much more time than I had anticipated.
“This is the stop you want, ma’am,” the bus driver informed me.
“Thank you,” I replied and got off. I quickly crossed a street and found the next bus stop. I checked that it was going in the right direction to where I needed to go. I was having luck, it was.
I opened my map again and took another look. It seemed as if I was going in the right direction. I didn’t wait very long at the bust stop, as this bus quickly arrived. I paid my fee and climbed aboard.
I sat towards the front of the bus just in case I had any inquiries. I unfolded my map and paid
close attention to the intersections that I was passing. Despite the outside being very dark, I began to spot very odd, tall buildings from far away. They were skyscrapers.
A computerized speaker was announcing intersections as the bus drove. It helped me keep track of my location on the L.A. County Map.
I couldn’t help but wonder if L.A. was anything like the movies. We drove over a bridge, and just like that, I was in L.A.
The bus arrived at the next stop. I quickly checked the time before getting off. It was 10:34 P.M.
The bus driver opened the mechanical doors. Sights of deteriorating and run-down asphalt pavement and dust-covered buildings immediately greeted me. I was confused. I quickly turned back to the bus driver, and asked her if this was L.A. and she said yes.
I got off the bus. As I stood atop the rundown sidewalk, confusion seemed to overwhelm me. I was hesitant about my surroundings.
There were several concrete buildings that lacked life, and the sidewalks were virtually empty, and there were very few cars in sight. I looked back at the bus and watched it disappear. I must have been right at the edge of L.A.
I pulled the hood on my coat forward, hiding my face more than it already was. I did this not because I was scared of anyone finding me, but because I was growing more and more concerned for my own safety.
I kept walking, and realized that I had no direction.
I was heading closer to the city, but I concluded that in no way, was my walking going to get me anywhere around here. I kept looking for bus routes or bus stops that could help me, but I couldn’t find any.
I opened up my map and tried to find where I should be headed, but there was one problem, I didn’t know where the Union Station was. I kept wandering aimlessly. And after a while, it felt like I was walking through a maze. Nothing in this area was aesthetically appealing. I start nearing neighborhoods and small markets.
I grew anxious. I felt time passing through me, slipping away from me. Ugh. How could this happen? I’m so close. I made it this far, and I’m having such a hard time finding the Union Station. Why now?
Stand Tall My Sweet Dandelion Girl Page 24