I’ve never felt so alone in my life.
So after about twenty minutes of shivering against this wall and waiting to be shot in the head, I get pulled off and taken back inside.
I kept thinking, Well, okay. They didn’t kill me now, but they are going to kill me, because why, why, why would they let a reporter not cover a street protest but see and hear all of this and live?
Of course I’m going to write about it.
I’m going to die—they’re going to kill me was on a pretty tight loop in my head as they threw me back in the cell.
I can hear people being tortured inside the compound. The voices echo and come and go and blend in.
And then there’s one voice that stands out, and I can’t exactly figure out why, except that he sounded obscenely young.
He sounded like a kid, like a teenager—a boy.
And I could tell that there was more than one person hurting him, and he was just howling; he was swearing he didn’t know things.
He was swearing to God he hadn’t done anything wrong.
He was calling out to God; he was calling out to his mother.
I couldn’t take it anymore after a while. It was brutal. So I put my hands up to my ears just to try to block it out.
But the second I did that, I felt such shame, because I realized that this kid was at his own, far worse, version of the wall. He was alone.
He was dying alone.
That’s what was happening.
And so I pulled my hands down to do what I could, which was to hear him.
I couldn’t call out to him to say, I hear you. You’re not alone.
I couldn’t identify him.
I didn’t know his name.
I couldn’t contact his family.
I couldn’t do anything.
All I had was the ability to bear witness in that fashion.
The kid was choking on his own blood in his own country, and nobody was going to know. I felt bearing witness to his suffering was the least I could do.
So I listened to him for a while, and every scream was excruciating. It was like a hole was being cut inside me with every one of them.
And then, rather abruptly, his voice stopped.
A couple of days later, the Syrians decided that maybe it wasn’t a good idea for them to permanently disappear an Iranian citizen, because they have a good relationship with the Iranian government. So they sent me to Iran via extraordinary rendition for additional questioning for a couple of weeks at another prison there.
And much to my surprise, eventually the Iranian authorities freed me and sent me back to my family.
I needed time off, but I didn’t need to go to a spa and breathe alpine air.
What I needed was to work, because not being busy and not working meant the wall was always there. I could feel it, and I wanted to push against that feeling. I couldn’t wait to get back to work.
The second I could, I flung myself into my job, taking every assignment. If they didn’t give me an assignment, I would fight for one: Egypt, Libya, nuclear meltdown in Japan, it didn’t matter. I was doing it.
And I succeeded a little too well in pushing back against that wall and that feeling. And what I did in doing so was create distance between myself and the things I was reporting on, the people I was reporting on.
So when that woman in Egypt fell into my chest and started crying, she destroyed that distance—she entirely eradicated it.
I was back at the wall, and the boy’s voice was in my head.
But as painful as it was, I realized that it was necessary for me to bear witness fully to what was happening to someone beyond the couple of paragraphs they might actually get in a story.
As much as some stories will leave a mark, sometimes that’s just what it takes.
* * *
D. PARVAZ is based in Washington, DC, where she covers US foreign policy. She previously worked at Al Jazeera based out of New York and Qatar, focusing on conflict, democracy, and human rights in the Middle East and North Africa. Prior to moving overseas, she worked at several US-based newspapers covering local and national news.
This story was told on October 12, 2017, at St. Ann’s Church in New York City. The theme of the evening was Hell-Bent. Director: Meg Bowles.
A few months ago, I walk into a party in New York and there’s this guy who I’ve seen at a lot of different events. He’s a therapist, and I always go over to him and say hello, because I gravitate towards therapists at parties. (I actually, sadly, consider this progress.)
I say hello, and we talk for maybe five minutes, and I feel better. Every time I see this guy and say hello to him, I’m in a better mood. I think to myself, Maybe I should have a better plan for my mental health than just bumping into this guy at parties.
And then I think, Maybe I should go back to therapy.
I don’t really want to go back to therapy, because I was in therapy for years; I got the tools I needed to go off and not have to do it anymore, and it came to a really clean end. I don’t take that for granted, because I hear a lot of people talk about therapy, and they never quite know when it should end, you know?
It’s like, “Do you think you’re ready for it to end?”
“I don’t know. Do you think I’m thinking I’m ready for it to end, because you think I thought that?”
This can go on for years. So I really need to think about it before I get back in that situation.
Back in 1998 my life wasn’t going super hot. By that I mean I was working at a nine-to-five job that I hated. I was in a terrible relationship—great person, things were just on a downhill slide for a long time, largely helped by me, I’m sure.
Also, I wasn’t doing anything that I loved. My idea of writing, which is something I said I wanted to do, was to go to restaurants after my nine-to-five job and drink lots of midpriced cocktails and eat really bad appetizers and talk about how “I’m probably a genius,” you know? Which is not really the hallmark of genius, ironically enough.
I had this group of friends, and their lives all seemed to get better as time went on. Not in any necessarily big, flashy way, but their apartments got nicer, their relationships got stronger, their jobs got better, they got promoted, they did more interesting things.
I was sort of living backwards. As time went by, my apartments got smaller and worse. And my relationships…they ended.
I thought, Well, maybe I should find out what’s up with these guys.
The one thing they all had in common is they talked to this guy named Milton.
I thought, Hmm…maybe I should talk to Milton.
So I asked, “Would it be weird if I talked to Milton?”
They said, “It wouldn’t be weird at all. You should call him up.”
So I get an appointment—I’m going to see him Fridays at six thirty. Great.
I meet him. He looks like a real southern gentleman out of another era. He’s tall. He’s lanky. He’s an older guy—gray hair, wears suits—real dapper dresser.
And so we start this thing.
I like the fact that he’s not a therapist—he’s a licensed social worker, a counselor, which really fits with my nuts-and-bolts approach to this, like, I’m not going to be lying on a Mies van der Rohe daybed, mumbling about luxury problems, clearly. This is right up my alley.
He has this special sort of method. It largely involves making jokes about me. I get the point through his humor.
I talk to him about things. I tell him whatever I’m going through. For instance, I never know how to say no; I would always just say yes.
So if I’m out to dinner with somebody that I can tell is trouble and they ask, “Do you want to be in a relationship?”
I’m like, “Yes, yes. Even though I’m not nuts about being at dinner with you, let’s give this one to three years.”
Or, “Would you like t
his job for this salary?”
I’d think, How the hell am I going to live on that in New York City?
But I’d say, “Yes. Thank you very much. That’ll be fine.”
I was telling Milton about this one time, and he goes, “Oh, well, have you ever read A Thousand Times No?
I’m thinking, Oh, God. Here comes the cheesy self-help-book assignment.
But I want to be willing and get my life together and all that shit, so I’m like, “Oh, gosh, you know, I haven’t read that, but I’m willing to get a copy and check that out. I will definitely buy one.”
All the while, thinking, No.
He goes, “Oh, hang on, I think I’ve got a copy in the other room.”
I say, “All right, great.”
He comes back with this eight-and-a-half-by-eleven sheet of paper, and it just says “no” a thousand times on it.
He’s like, “Thought this was pretty funny.”
And I thought, I think I like this dude. This is gonna work.
I was telling him something about a terrible week I had, and I was saying, “You know, this isn’t going great. My job sucks,” blah, blah, blah.
And he goes, “How many beers did you have this week?”
I say, “Oh, wait a minute. Are you saying there’s, like, a link between my drinking and things not going well for me?”
He leans back, and he says, “Well, you’re part Irish, your last name’s Kennedy, and all your heroes are writers, so let’s just keep an eye on it.”
“I get what you’re saying there.”
And it planted this seed, you know? His humor planted a seed.
I had been writing things. They were terrible. They were mostly not commercially viable things, very short things on the Internet.
For instance, I wrote a piece called “Reject Riddles by Depressives.”
And “What I Would’ve Said to Sylvia Plath, Had I Been Her Boyfriend.”
You know, gems like that.
Occasionally I would get e-mails from junior editors at publishers, and I would tell him about that. “Today this junior editor at a publisher e-mailed me, and it kind of made me feel like I’m doing something!”
And he says, “Oh, they’re rolling out the red carpet for you, young man!”
But the most awkward thing is that he taught me to cry, apropos of nothing.
He says, “You know, sometimes when things get painful, what I do is I put on some sad music. I get a towel or a handkerchief, and I sit down on the couch, and I let the feelings come. And then you move on.”
I was like, Okay…that’s great for you. But I will never be using that, by the way.
He started getting into stand-up comedy at age sixty-five, which made for a weird relationship sometimes, because you’d finish this session where you’re talking about all this stuff, and then he would go, “Well, you know, I’m afraid we’re out of time, but if you’ve got five minutes, I’d like to show you this DVD of the set I did at Caroline’s on Tuesday!”
You’d literally be standing in the living room after talking about all this really intimate stuff, and then you’d watch the DVD and be like, “That’s a good joke, I guess, but it’s a little weird, sir. I should go now.”
I should also mention that one of the ways I start to realize that I’m getting close to somebody is if I find myself thinking about their death a lot.
I know most folks probably just look at the beautiful person across the table and go, “I care about you. You’re very special to me.”
I, on the other hand, just get quiet and start imagining them dead and how sad I’ll be when that happens.
So, needless to say, Valentine’s Day is a pretty loaded holiday for me. It’s a sort of long, morose, quiet day where I’m envisioning someone I love’s funeral and getting depressed.
So the day after Valentine’s Day, I get there early. I think, I want to be on time for this. It’s probably going to be a little bit loaded after this sick holiday that people have.
I buzz the door. But Milton’s not answering. It’s a little bit weird.
I buzz it again. He’s still not answering.
I wait five minutes, buzz, no answer.
Call him on his cell phone. He’s not answering.
I think, Hmm, this is really weird.
I’m like, Well, I’ve got to take some kind of action.
He always taught me that time is finite and you have to always take action. That’s what keeps you from getting sad and stagnant.
So I think, Ring it again? I guess that’s action.
I ring it again. Nothing’s happening.
Then suddenly the cleaning lady comes running down, and she goes, “Come quick. It’s Milton. Come quick,” and then she leaves the building.
I go, “Oh, shit.”
I didn’t sign up for any of this. This is terrible.
But I go in. I run up the stairs, and I’m thinking, I don’t know what I’m running into, but I just keep reminding myself what he said to me: “Always move forward. Always choose activity.’ ”
Milton always said, “When you go forward, you’ll be able to intuitively handle what used to baffle you.”
I get up there. I look around. I call his name.
And then suddenly I see him. He’s in his bathrobe still, and I’m like, That’s really weird. I mean, that’s not normal for him at all.
I go, “Milton! Milton!”
I call his name, and he doesn’t respond.
I run up to him, and I feel him.
And I say, “Oh, my God. He’s dead.”
He’s just left. It’s that simple. He’s gone, but he left his body here.
I don’t know what to do. Who do you call?
The police? It seems a little silly.
An ambulance? It’s too late for that.
I think, Well, just call 911. They’ll intuitively know how to handle this.
So I call them and ask, “Who do you send for something like this?”
They say, “We’ll send an ambulance and the medical examiner.”
“Okay, all right, cool.”
So that’s handled.
In the ten minutes it takes them to get there, I sit and say good-bye. I’m thinking about how much better my life has gotten over the years because of this man. I’ve stopped drinking. I’m in a better relationship, one that I’m still in years later.
I’ve been doing my writing. I have a book contract, and my first book is coming out in just a few months.
I realize I’ll be dedicating it to him.
I’m thinking of all my friends’ lives that he’s touched and changed. It’s amazing.
And then I think about how he said, “Days are finite. We only have so many.”
And I look at him, and I think, You certainly drove that home in this session, sir.
The medical examiner comes, and I say one final good-bye, and I take off.
For the first few days, I am numb. I don’t really feel anything, and this kind of surprises me.
But a week later I’m in the apartment and something’s happening.
I’m thinking, He’s not coming back. There are not going to be any more Friday nights at six thirty. He’s totally gone.
And I’m like, Oh, no. I’m having feelings.
But okay. All right, right, right. He told me what to do.
I go into the bathroom. I get a towel.
I sit on the edge of the couch.
Oh, right, right—music. You have to put on sad, classical music.
I don’t have any sad classic music. I look through my CDs, and it’s all pretty much punk rock.
So I’m like, I’m gonna put on Black Flag or Fear and weep violently, and that’s going to be more disturbing than what I’m going through.
But my girlfriend had this one CD. I never saw the point of it
. It’s this guy who just plays his cello, and it goes on forever in the key of like “D-sad.” It’s the grimmest notes.
I think, Now I know why this man made his record.
I put it in the CD player.
I get my towel.
I sit.
The feelings come.
I feel them.
And then I move forward.
* * *
DAN KENNEDY is host of The Moth podcast and a longtime host and performer at Moth live events. He is the author of three books, Loser Goes First (Penguin Random House/Crown), Rock On (Algonquin, a Times of London Book of the Year, series rights bought by HBO), and American Spirit: A Novel (Houghton Mifflin/Little A, 2013, Publishers Weekly starred review). His stories have appeared in GQ, McSweeney’s, and numerous print anthologies. Kennedy has been a guest lecturer at Yale and a guest author at the Harvard Lampoon in celebration of his work anthologized in The Best of McSweeney’s Humor. Kennedy lives and works in New York and has served on the judging committees of the Writers Guild of America East “Made in New York” Fellowship Program and the PEN America Jean Stein Grant for Literary Oral History.
This story was told on February 7, 2010, at City Winery in New York City. The theme of the evening was Stiffs: Stories of the Nearly and Dearly Departed. Director: Jenifer Hixson.
I peered into a 5-million-gallon pool; submerged thirty-five feet below the surface was a replica of the International Space Station and a space shuttle. I was training as an ASCAN (yeah, “ASS-CAN”…that’s NASA-speak for “astronaut candidate”). We were simulating working in space.
I’m in a suit that looks like a cross between the Michelin Man and the Pillsbury Doughboy. I’m on the deck, and they start to lower me down into the pool.
At about twenty feet, I realize that the two-dollar block of Styrofoam that should be in my helmet is missing. It’s what you use to clear your ears by pressing your nose against it.
I go down another five feet, and I tell the test director to turn up the volume in the headset. From that point on, I hear nothing but static. I think, There’s probably a kink in the communication cable or some malfunction in the control center, and then I’m getting pulled up out of the pool.
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