Live within your means.
Being true to yourself means you make decisions you can live with. Decisions you won't regret in the future or wish to change.
My voice resonates in the room, bounces off bare, white walls, ponging back towards us in the dimly lit room. The lamps breathe illuminated apparitions on the walls. We are two, our heads bent over fragile pages with missing corners and frayed, stepped edges. Grandmother's voice is the third, the wisdom that joins us. Then we sleep as two, back in the physical world with a click of a switch and light muffle of bedding. A turn to the side to slip away, slow the heart to the bare minimum.
The lessons are matter of fact. Even-handed, dispassionate, unemotional. Like the truth once it's been stripped naked of intent, propaganda, what you think it means to you. And this is ironic because knowing the truth of yourself feels. It actually feels. Deep and unwavering. A tiny black pinpoint that can bear any strength put on it or against it.
He takes me on a journey. Past Cyclops, past the stores and restaurants, into ever rusting shades of ruin. The buildings transform from commercial to homes, then rundown ones, then abandoned ones with broken windows boarded up with steel panels. Is this where he does away with me. My final reckoning with the goblin within him. I am tangled, lurching on the inside, anticipating heartache of some kind.
He walks into a half-charred home that could fall apart with a push and a blow. And I follow, magnetized to his wavelength, unable to pull away towards my independence. How does this end. Or begin.
Floorboards creak, ready to give way. I leave the door open to witnesses, but he shuts it.
I try to break through the tension. “How many teams are there like us?”
“Five or so.” He answers quickly as if he knew I would ask.
I have to trust what he says.
“When will you tell?” He asks looking around the old room with everything in some state of crumbling disrepair. A black stained mattress, a round, decaying table with plates of moldy crumbs.
“I haven't made a decision.”
He barely nods, I expected him to be upset, wanted to hold that above him. I can't read him, his mind rummages somewhere else.
He leans in close, I smell the tobacco on his breath. The dried death of the musty, rotting leaves. Sodden with smoky fall burns.
He kisses my lips before I see it coming. Before I can react and move my face. I'm backed to the wall, and his arms are a wired corset cage around me.
“No, no,” I say looking away, past him, at the wall stained with high arching spurts of piss.
He tries again and I move my head to the side. He gets the tender spot right next to my ear. The spot I kiss forever on Jamie because it's virgin, unmarked by hair or texture. Just soft and vulnerable as the day we were born.
“These times... perhaps we could... begin an arrangement,” he whispers in my ear, cups the curve of my small shoulder in his palm and against the surprisingly sturdy wall.
“Or else...” I shake, but want to know the deal up front.
“Just us. No or else.”
I step out under his arms quick, on the verge of tears. “No, how could you... I thought... Never mind.” I'm feverish with upset, virulent with disgust as I race out of the home and onto the streets.
I run and run until I get back to the commercial district where I walk to fit in with the crowds. I thought he could be a mentor of some kind. The kind found in films, the one with your best interest at heart. The one who doesn't want anything from you. It's never as it's presented. I always hope for the best, for the ideal. And perhaps that's my downfall. I don't see the bad when I'm involved. How the wrecked and heartless make others the same way.
DAWN FLOODING
Lesson #2:
Be self-aware, be aware of intentions.
Study yourself and others. Be aware of your intentions and the intentions of others. Don't judge harshly or hold grudges against yourself or others, but take note on what could've been done better and learn from it for the future.
Watch your reactions – how are you reacting and is it appropriate? If you're not reacting appropriately, what's driving you to react a certain way? Be honest with yourself. Are you acting out of jealousy, insecurity or competitiveness? If so, what is the cause of that jealousy, insecurity or competitiveness? How can you use it to better yourself instead of casting negative vibes or actions towards others?
You don't need to spend lots of time studying yourself and others. Just watch yourself when you feel a strong, negative reaction arise within you towards someone or something that has never done you harm. That's a sign there may be some sort of discontent within yourself – study the negative feelings and why they arose, learn from it and try to do better next time.
Also watch yourself when you feel a strong impulse within you. What's driving that impulse? Is it something positive or negative? How can you deal with that impulse instead of following it blindly?
Being aware of your intentions will help you go to the true source of potential problems. It will help you find honest ways to deal with them.
How could I see Dr. M's intentions? What were the clues and crumbs. I see those around me through a rose-colored filter. When I look at myself in the white light of day, I see that I hope for the people around me to fill voids. Dr. M to fill the emptiness of a missing father. Jamie to fill my despondency and depression over the dust and my life overall. Danita... I don't ask him to fill a void, I only ask him to be himself.
But isn't this normal for everyone? Does that make it OK?
Danita asks, how do you watch yourself? It is an innocent question coming from a child who lives without much intention other than the moment. I tell him it's hard to do, but easier as you get older. That the key is to feel. If you don't feel at peace, something is wrong and you need to find out why. Is it yourself? Or is it someone or something else? You can try to fix it if you know why.
He asks, what is peace? I say, peace is a feeling that everything will be OK, that you are OK as you are. He looks lovely as he asks me to read it again, his brown eyes widening and aspiring, his curved eyelashes framing and feathering. And I wonder what kind of man he will become. A tender, noble one. I imagine a lone figure against a genesis of light. Quiet warrior with an outreached hand. The very beginning of a smile.
Lesson #3:
Treat others and yourself ethically and fairly.
Be fair to others while also making sure to be fair to yourself. Being fair to yourself means you are kind, but not a pushover. Being fair means everyone in the situation felt like they received some benefit. No one took advantage of anyone else.
Treating yourself fairly means you understand who you are (both good and bad) and you try your best to treat others fairly and ethically. If you falter in this, you try to make amends, you learn from it and you don't beat yourself up over it too much.
Avoid people who don't approach situations and people with good intentions. These are people who at the very least only think of themselves and at the very worst actively try to take advantage of others.
Being ethical means making decisions and treating others with good intentions. It's as simple as that. Sometimes there are lots of gray areas in life that don't offer clear cut options, and in these cases, it's best to always approach them with the best of intentions. That's all you can do.
Most importantly, go by actions. Show that you value others through your actions, not only words. And be sure to watch other's actions, for actions show someone's true intentions. Don't go by what people say, always go by their actions.
I want to know why mother never shared this with me. Why she hoarded it for herself, never gave me the chance to harvest it. She was never very direct in her advice, but this... she could have easily shared. It's a question I'll never know the answer to. Did it never occur to her to share this knowledge as I'm sharing with Danita? I'm at a loss for words. Would my life have ended up differently if I had known? The knowledge isn't earth shatterin
g news, but it's a clear, focused way of looking at life and the world. A survivor's manual for life's complications. Railways and training wheels. I'm bittersweet, filled with thoughtful inspiration one moment and resentment another. I know she tried her best, she wasn't a malicious person. But I'm disappointed and perhaps it is a very human thing to realize your parents are stunted in some way.
Jamie, Danita and I read from the book because Danita asks for it every night before bedtime. I ask him to draw pictures of what he's learned. I don't know what to expect when I see the drawings because the lessons are not concrete stories with characters and plot lines. But I see them personified in his own visual language.
The drawing for accepting yourself shows a boy and a woman, I assume a mother figure, with clouds of rainbow colors all around them. As if the clouds were trying to attack, but the boy and woman are surrounded by a white protective glow. The one for being self-aware shows a boy all alone under a large, blossoming, marigold sun that fills seventy five percent of the page. The one for the ethical treatment of others shows a heart half hidden by abstract squiggles that cover the entire page. The squiggles blurt in spasms of purple and red and black with yellow bolts striking out of nowhere. There's a patch of darkness far in the background, around the corner. I believe this is his way of knowing his parents have left him.
The drawings are a type of children's taxonomy and lexicon. The one we forego as we get older for more exacting calculations and pronouncements. For pre-ordained and pre-categorized ideas gathered by education and society. But I never want him to forget the rich or faded colors of his thoughts, the defined or amorphous shapes of his intuition. That first sequence of his impressions, and the natural, organic calibrations that occur after. The art of being himself, growing himself without undue interference from the outside.
TELL ME
I'm ready.
My love, I have a secret to tell you. I've been afraid for myself, for loved ones. But now, I feel strong. Enough. I need to tell. I want to. And you are the first.
I speak of what I know and what I do. It sings out of me gracefully, clearly. I'm swollen with the soft power of water, my words swimming fluid, unperturbed over and around granite boulders. I have a gravity with that black pinpoint. A light rises on my mind's horizon.
My love, this is my voice. Look me in the eye and tell me.
SAVAGE LAND
This time I tap the fleshy heart. It's out of the norm, but I doubt it'll raise a flag with the person behind the camera. It seems like an accident, as if I want to point out something I want to photograph. He cocks his head, lifts his eye in question then rests it. I don't acknowledge his look, just continue taking photographs of the engorged heart before us.
We meet in the belly of the dragon. The room's walls pulsate and glow with red and black lights. Scales climb the walls; the smell of fish permeates the room. Once in a while, acid pours down the walls, disintegrating everything in sight. The room shakes as the dragon swallows and squirms. Fog fills the room when it grizzles, greedy and hungry.
“This is the last time,“ I say. Red lights flash on and off.
He understands what I mean. The room shifts down diagonal for a pulse. We lose our footing, off-kilter with nothing to hold onto.
I don't know if I should tell him, but I can't help it. It's compulsive, my need for his approval and acceptance. I know I should give it up, but can't. My rational side knows it's dangerous, that I'll never receive it. My emotional side doesn't care, it wants and wants. Yearns and hungers. I'm bridled to my compulsions and emotions.
“I'm going to tell,” I say.
“Good, you've grown since the beginning... when I told you that you were a nothing.” He is clinical, pleased with himself. A slight smile for the first time.
Did he tell me I was a nothing to manipulate me into telling? Was that his plan all along. Did he know all my pain before I did.
Maybe I shouldn't have told him. This is all a game to him. I'm a nobody, just a chess piece in his game, a worthless pawn. He turns to leave. I want to stop him, say one last sentimental thing, be the bigger person. Show that I'm past what happened and that I forgive in some strange, contorted way. But I don't know what to say exactly and I don't think he would care so I stop myself. Hold back the utterance of the sounds.
He never looks back as he throws his ticket onto the ground, as if I were a throwaway project. The room turns to the next scene. Only darkness and a fading groan.
Lesson #4:
Be able to leave, be able to say no.
This includes people if they don't treat you fairly. Be able to leave situations that are unfair to yourself and others. Voice your opinion constructively, act on a solution with others and if the situation isn't fixed over time, leave. If you can't leave right away, create an exit plan and follow it slowly and methodically to leave when the time is right.
You should not withstand a situation that isn't fair to yourself or others. You must find a way to remedy the situation or leave.
You show people how to treat you. If you stay and allow yourself to be treated unfairly, you will always be treated that way. Nothing will change and you will never have a chance at living to your full potential.
Be able to say “no” to what isn't honorable or fair. Have enough financial savings to say “no” at work when you need to in a constructive way. If you are let go, you can rely on your savings while you look for another job.
Being able to leave or say no means having dignity and a belief in yourself.
I tell Danita that this one mostly applies to adults. Children can't leave their homes and schools. They have no choice of family, money and status. They have to withstand whatever they're given, grit and bear it. Try to see a world past their immediate circumstances, a future if they are so gifted. However, children can leave friendships that are no longer kind.
I know I should've left Dr. M a while ago, maybe from the very beginning. But then how could I live with myself. Be that selfish. Or be that foolish, I don't know. Maybe I would've told without any prodding from him. The compulsions and coincidences that pull us forward... show us a way out or in.
Outside, the atmosphere engorges with moisture. It's the second time it's rained since... this one is a mist, not large plops like the last one. A whisper of a drizzle spray painting our skin finely, the universe breathing cool humidity on our faces.
Jamie shows me Volume 9, turns to the fourth page. And there they are. No drawings, only the specter of my words.
I wrote that I work for the government, the part that handles citizen bodies. That I'm one of many who work in this secret labyrinth of a system, from administrative personnel to physicians to body handlers to scientists to office clerks to crematory workers. That the bodies I see are young, middle-aged and old, all from our city. And that 99% of them have damage from the dust. That it turns the insides hard and black over time. That the dust is much more harmful to humans than the government lets on. Yes, it deteriorates the skin over time, especially if you don't wear a mask. We all know that. But it also deteriorates the insides over time, even if you wear a top grade ultra-clearify mask. That citizen deaths are officially attributed to things like heart attacks and cancer even though the dust contributed to the deaths and even accelerated them. That low energy and lethargy are just the beginning. That I've seen the damage in almost every body that passes through our system. The lucky ones are those who somehow naturally resist the dust's corrosive effects. All bodies are cremated to hide evidence.
I called for the government to create a plan to move people out of the city to other cities that don't have the pollution. The government may have believed the dust would abate, but it's obvious that it hasn't these past few years. I stated that it's in our best interest for the government to move resources out of our large city to other cities, no matter the cost. Our city is the largest in our state, thus the most expensive to move, yet putting citizen health at risk is dangerous and extremely unethical. Our count
ry is currently overpopulated, but that is no reason to devalue human life to this degree.
I stated that the overwhelming majority of government officials and the rich live outside the city in areas with clean air. The middle class and poor are being left to rot and die, we are not being told the truth or given assistance so we can decide for ourselves and our children.
There are no cures, no fixes, only to live and work in areas without dust.
It is my duty to inform the public since the government has not done anything to address this, to protect us.
We choose a nation that is for us. We demand it.
And there it is. My words released into the wilderness.
I have told.
I have told.
It emancipates something within me.
There's no going back. It all changes now, anyhow, somehow. I feel it arising, a tremor in a savage, far-off land I've never been to.
PART 3
THE WAY PEARLS
A zephyr has breezed through our lives, though barely perceptible, its direction shifting, becoming liced with the singed scent of fear. I feel it, but I don't know if it originates from me or them.
Free Beast Page 11
