by M. B. Julien
After they park, and after one of the street lights cast a white light on the car, I can see the color of the car and I realize that the owner of the car is Lynne. Where do people go at two a.m.? What do they do?
I'd have to say about ten minutes have passed by and I'm still looking at this car and Lynne still has not gotten out of it. Did I miss that part. I'm tired, but I don't think I did. Ten more minutes go by and nothing has changed. Lynne is sitting in her car but I have no idea why. Is she asleep? Maybe she's too tired to get out. Maybe she is thinking. Or, maybe it's not her.
Five minutes, and now I'm falling in and out of a daydream. In the daydream Lynne walks pass me and she smiles along the way. I'm getting tired of seeing that damn smile. For a second I want to punch her in the face in hopes of never having to see it again. When I realize I'm daydreaming, after I find myself staring at the same car I've been watching for the past thirty minutes, I ask myself if I'm bitter towards Lynne because I'm jealous of Silvio, or if it's because I'm angry at her for being so stupid. For falling into a trap that is clearly labeled "Trap."
Now the car door finally opens, it's Lynne. She walks towards the building. That slight limp due to a foot that has said goodbye. Before she enters the building, she admires her flowers. For the rest of the night, I'm left thinking about why she could have possibly spent that much time in her car.
After the darkness of the night begins to lift, I hear arguing from my window in another apartment building. It's a little after six a.m. and I can't tell if I had slept or not, the only thing I knew was that I was awake now.
The arguing continues until one of them leaves and then there is finally silence. This is not the first time and I'm certain it will not be the last.
The frustration of not being able to sleep properly, it prompts me to go outside for a walk in an effort to tire myself. It has worked before. As soon as I hit the first sidewalk, that's when I hear it. Real silence. No cars, no birds, no Sun. No people, no wind. Everything is still. I stand there and admire the scene because I cannot believe it's past six a.m. and the world has not yet gone to work. I must be dreaming.
On the walk, along the way, I think about the dream I had several months ago and how I'm still convinced that the white shade was some kind of representation of God. Was God speaking to me?
There are some who will claim to hear the voice of God, or in other instances claim that God interacted with them in some way. It seems to me like, considering the stories from the Old Testament of the Bible, God use to speak to its creation time and time again, but as its creation began to multiply it became very difficult to keep moderate social levels with every single human being, so maybe he stopped trying. Maybe now he only speaks to the people who need to hear his voice. The people that need to know he is still out there somewhere. Of course these sentences may implicate that God is not all-powerful and that it is possible for him to give up.
Without the presence of a higher being or someone to hear our words and answer our questions, life becomes a mystery, and because of this I believe it is possible that even the wisest person can spend their entire life searching for something they will never find while the most foolish person dwells in a lifetime of prosperity. Sooner or later we will all have to learn to fend for ourselves when there is no one there to guide us. We will have to find our own way.
Somewhere in the pages of the composition notebooks there is a story of guidance. Dreams about a society that is now, depending on which side of the line you stand on, completely run by a corrupt government. In the same dreams I am part of a group of outsiders, and somewhere along the way this group searches for a leader. Someone to guide them while they continue to evade the efforts of such an evil civilization. A civilization that barely seems civil.
After such a long time of running, we all begin to see these "civilians" as monsters, and when you come across any of them, it's better to run than to fight because they will certainly not welcome your ideas and beliefs. That's the mistake that Gary made. He thought he could convince them that they should be friends rather then enemies, and their reply was to imprison him simply because of the way he looked. They could not understand our language. I mean they could, but philosophically, our perceptions were not in tune. We may have spoken the same language, but we were two entirely different species.
Because Gary had gone and got himself caught by the civilians, for Stephanie's sake, we had to get him out, and where there is a plan, there has to be a person to mastermind it. As much as I didn't want it, the outsiders looked to me for leadership in hard times because of the things I had done before, and because of this, the rest of Gary's life was in my hands. Metaphorically.
By the time I get back home, the world had begun its day. Cars on the street, people and their dogs on the sidewalks. School buses eating children one by one as their parents watch with that distasteful smile and that redundant wave goodbye.
I wish someone could give me mathematic or scientific formulas to apply to these things that I see so I could figure out why people are always smiling when there are few things to smile about in life. Maybe I don't understand because I don't smile enough myself. Maybe I don't have the right people in my life who can tell me why smiling is so popular or important. People do it all over the world. It's one of the few words that share the same meaning in the perception of a civilian versus the perception of an outsider.
Why do these human tendencies plague me so much. No question mark. I accepted who I am a long time ago, but I'm starting to think that maybe accepting who you are and knowing you are this way simply because you are this way and you might never change may be the first sign that you should not accept yourself. That is, of course, only if you despise the pain you receive for being this way. Some people don't.
Chapter 45:
BLOODTHINNER
You can keep pretending to live these lives that are not yours, believe you are these people that you are not, but the fact of the matter is your dreams will not save you. They will not fulfill your desire to live. These are the words of a therapist I was suggested to see many years ago. "Everything is an illusion." Those are the last words of a woman before her execution.
Depending on who you ask, dreams may be many things, which is why it is almost pointless to ultimately define them. This notion that a certain thing may mean one thing to you while it means something completely different to me does not only apply to dreams but to many other things. You know this because you've been in at least one debate or argument in your life.
The therapist doesn't tell me what dreams are, but he does tell me what they are not. Of all the sentences he's said to me, the ones I've previously mentioned were the only ones that stayed with me. Even though I chose to argue with him, even though that was my last visit, in the end I knew he was right. "Your dreams will not save you."
Never "my" therapist, using such a pronoun would implicate my submission to the idea that I actually needed to see one. I never agreed with Maria, but I did it for her. Instead, I often use the definite article "the" when referring to him. The therapist. Just another proper nounless character in a story within a story. The aim with the whole therapist idea was to help me more easily and socially express myself, to not seem so indifferent on every subject and so cold to the people who loved me. To escape the stoicism.
My question then was, how can I function in a society that is constantly clotting my blood. A society that all too often disappoints; where the stories of redemption are much too few and too far between. How can one who suffers from misanthropy find a cure to stop the clotting. Eventually, one can die from such a disease.
There was a Winter night where I had a dream in which I was interrogating someone while my father watched. I couldn't see him because the darkness of the shadows hid him well, but I knew he was there. The son of a bitch who I am questioning doesn't believe that I am willing to go as far as shooting him to get what I need to know out of him. So now he's taunting me, telling me that I don't ha
ve it in me. He's right, I don't. At least not yet.
He keeps talking, and I'm thinking of something I could do to shut him up and get him saying the words that I actually want to hear out of his mouth. Now I'm taking a pocketknife out of my pocket. "Oh, now you're going to cut me?" He laughs. No, I'm not going to cut him.
I put my hand on a table, and now he's quiet. I start to hack away at my one of my fingers, and I know I have his respect and attention now. After a while he is completely silent. I pick up my now unattached finger and wave it in his face. Then I put the gun to his heart and give him a cold stare that you could only get from someone who has ice-water in their veins. Someone so cold and so far gone that any attempt to save them would only further progress their destruction. Something like a therapist who fuels the part of you that needs therapy and ultimately is successful in doing the complete opposite of what is listed in his job description.
Not a second later, I have him believe that I actually am insane and now he's telling me more than I needed to know. My father comes out of the darkness and tells me that we need to go now. We leave the man there and walk through a hidden door, and the next thing I know, I'm sitting somewhere with my father and he's trying to tell me something but I can't hear him. After we both get up and start walking down a dark hallway, his voice reaches me and I can finally hear him.
On the news they say the police department has made the biggest drug bust this year last night when they raided a home that sits on the corner of a street. With fifty kilograms of heroin seized, it makes it one of the more notable drug busts since the biggest drug bust this city has ever seen back in the 1980s.
Along with the drugs, they found money and weapons, and of course a few people to put in handcuffs and question later. At a press conference, there is a man who I'm assuming has some kind of dominating rank who addresses the people and answers their questions. Lieutenant Scott Merils. He talks about how this accomplishment would not have been possible had it not been for the recent initiation of a new task force with the help of the mayor designed to improve the quality of life in the city.
I start to think about Derek and wonder if he is anywhere near all of this. For some reason the thought reminds me of when Tao asked me if I had ever wondered if I read a book written by a criminal who had never been caught. "Just imagine, you're reading a book by a serial killer who never got caught and you never even knew." I can only hope that when I looked at Derek, I wasn't looking at a person who had it in his nature to become a criminal.
I open my apartment door and head down the flight of stairs to check my mail. What kind of junk mail will I get today. When I get to the most bottom step, I notice that someone is entering the building. The first-floor man. Think of the most mysterious person you've ever known in your life; the first-floor man is at least two to three times more mysterious than that person. Not because he has the look of a mysterious man; tall, skinny, always wearing a long dark coat, but because he never speaks. In fact the only time I hear him speak are in my dreams. Otherwise, he's just another character without a proper noun.
He is also in the mood for mail-checking, and when I take a glance at his preferred type of junk mail, I notice he is holding some kind of science magazine. One of the taglines is "The secret to eternal life is perfect cell regeneration."
He finishes before me and then disappears. Not a moment later, another tenant is attempting to open the stubborn front building door with too many grocery bags in his hands. I help him open the door, but I don't ask if he needs help with the bags. Anyone attempting to do what he is doing must also believe he can achieve the impossible without any help from anyone else.
I'm back at my door and I can hear the phone ringing on the other side. Who is it now. I debate whether I should just let it ring or if I should answer it. Sarcastically, I think to myself, "but what if it's Kathleen, she may need my help." She hasn't spoken to me in a while, and I've never felt so free.
I decide to answer the phone, and after I say "Hello," on the other side of the phone is a soft-spoken voice of a young girl. I find out it's Sarah, but what I can't figure out while I'm talking to her is how she knows my phone number. "Mom told me to call you if she doesn't answer her phone." Fucking emergency contact forms.
I must have told Lynne my phone number and then forgotten about it. "Why are you calling me?" That's what I would have asked her if I didn't have a soft spot for children. "How are you?" She tells me that she is good today. I ask about David, he is good as well but misses his toys. She asks me if I could see if her mother was home, and because she is such a little princess, I do.
Lynne opens her door and I tell her that I have her daughter on my phone. After she expresses a look of someone who has made a mistake, we go back into my apartment and she begins to talk to her daughter. The conversation that they have, or at least the words that come out of Lynne's mouth, they imply that Sarah simply missed her mother and wanted to hear her voice.
While they are talking, I notice that Lynne unknowingly brought along a book of some sort, except this book seems to be overly designed yet has no title whatsoever. I also notice that it has some kind of belt around it, or perhaps a locking device. What kind of an author would write a book in which they do not want you to read the contents inside? Or at least want you to struggle a little bit before you finally manage to open it? I'm actually still sitting here baffled by the lack of no title.
When she hangs up the phone, I ask her what book that is, and she laughs. I must be missing something. She tells me that it's not a book, and before she finishes I realize it's her diary. I forgot people still keep those. Whenever I think of a diary I picture it being owned by a teenage girl who has a hard time controlling her hormones, but I suppose even adults of either gender need a way to reflect on these days of darkness.
Lynne apologizes about the hassle, but I tell her it's no problem. She explains to me how she just wanted some peace and quiet so she unplugged her phone and turned off her cellular phone, completely forgetting that her children or mother may need to contact her. I planned on asking her about how Sarah knew my phone number, but I decided not to, to avoid any implication that I am not as aware as I seem to present myself as.
After she leaves I begin to wonder if she is anything like me considering she keeps a log of some sort. I do it with dreams, she does it with whatever she does it with, but at the end of the day it's the same idea. Write this down so you don't forget. Maybe one day, when you're older and you've forgotten, you can open up these pages and relive the experiences. Your bloodthinner. The only thing is, unlike me, she probably throws away old diaries.
Moments later I hear yelling in the apartment next to mine. That familiar voice that seems to have a soft-spoken inferior counter-part. I don't have to guess that it's Mary because she always seems to find the strength to be angry. A door slams shut and now her angry words have translated into loud footsteps. Stomps, almost. Give them a few seconds to grow up.
As the angry footsteps begin to drown out, the sound of my television becomes louder and louder as I hear a news reporter speak about another homicide and how the case was solved less than three hours after the homicide because the perpetrator was an idiot. Not in those words. Even though the idea of having stupid criminals may sound great as first, the police that chase them should often find a challenge as to keep themselves from being just as stupid as the criminal.
There will be police officers who praise an intelligent criminal simply because the criminal made them a better cop. If a police officer is lucky, they will chase a criminal their entire career, and regardless of whether they catch the criminal or not, they may thank the criminal under their breath for giving their life a purpose. Or at least keeping them busy.
The reporter begins to speak to a female police officer and she makes some mention of sentencing. You could almost say a prison sentence is determined based on the average of the crime's frequency, and of course the crime itself. If it was statistically correct t
hat each person would kill at least one other person in their lifetime, then the severity of the punishment for a homicide would go down. One, because the the crime happens so often, it would not seem as heinous, and two, because there would be too many people in prison and there simply isn't enough money too keep them all there.
Imagine the punishment of a homicide if there was only one homicide every ten years. Someone might call that murderer Satan himself. It should also be noted that the crime itself holds a large amount of value towards determining the punishment as well. You won't get a hundred years in prison for stealing a radio from a radio store even if a radio is only stolen once every one thousand years.
There was a man who said that political and religious authorities will often try to confuse the people with over-complicated moral systems so that the people might actually believe that certain things are more complex than they really are. To get people in a state of mind where they are vulnerable and realize that they may need guidance. Sometimes you wake up and assume that you didn't have a dream, but I've heard some people say that no matter what, you will dream about something each night, even if you can swear that you didn't have a dream. You keep trying to remember what it is you could have possibly dreamed about until you start to make stuff up.
