On October 17th, 2005 I took a final look at my mother, turned in the opposite direction and rad toward the train. Hours later I am in a thunderstorm, I am at the top of the Sears Tower engulfed in the grey; eventually the clouds clear and a rainbow forms over the city. I dropped out of high-school that day and wrote this story; nine years later I still had yet to share it with anybody. I am Here and I can always be found. (no edits, so dont poke fun-- my concept of grammar as an adolescent was even more pretentious than you probably think I am now // with love, xoj) -- “It begins like this: There is no God. It ends like this: There is nothing.” “And what’s in the middle?” “Your story.” “You mean like my ‘life story’?” “No… Your story of enlightenment. You’ve been enjoying your life story for over twenty years now, but your great awakening began just about twenty seconds ago.” “When you told me the beginning and the end?” “When I told you the beginning and the end.” “What happens after the end?” “When you’re done, you’ll understand you never even began.” Ethan gradually allowed his eyes to open, not exactly the way one would after a night’s sleep, but rather after they’ve stolen a short nap. He found himself in the very same place he was when he had made the decision to close his eyes and tell Mr. Pincowski the story of his last “romantic” relationship. According to Mr. Pincowski there are three different types of relationships- romantic, familial, and acquaint. Each type of relationship could be a whole host of things from parasitical to benign, but could never stray from being one of the three general categories. When asked what he would consider a relationship with God, Mr. Pincowski gave his response in a tone even the most unperceptive could recognize as indistinctly jaded, but obviously drained. “Although your relationship with God can often times seem familial, acquaint, or even romantic, God transcends relationships because he is a part of you. A better question might be, What would you consider a relationship with yourself?” The answer seemed obvious. “Schizophrenia.” “…No. Maybe a better question would be…” Mr. Pincowski was wearing his usual two-piece suit, with his usual maroon suspenders, speaking in his usually tired voice. Ethan felt sorry for him, probably because he knew Mr. Pincowski felt sorry for him, and that seemed depressing. Ethan would have liked to believe Mr. Pincowski was having trouble finding the right words because he was lost in matters of greater proportion, but it seemed apparent the psychologist was just exhausted. “…. Never mind that. Let’s move on. How did you tell her ‘it began’ and ‘ended’?” “I told her it began, ‘there is no God,’ and ended ‘there is nothing.’” “And why did you say this to her, again?” “… We just spent the last forty minutes going over that…” Mr. Pincowski nodded his head slowly, his complete attention being paid towards the off-white carpet. The counselor stopped nodding and brought his attention up to his diploma. The certificate sat on the wall amid what Ethan supposed were pictures of Mr. Pincowski’s children. In one of the pictures, a girl, probably in her young teens, was smiling amongst what one would assume were her siblings. This girl remained the only reason Ethan continued to have sessions with Mr. Pincowski. Ethan would stare at the girl in the photograph, and could instantly feel everything she had ever felt. He sensed a deep and profound understanding of everything she would ever experience, and wished he could be with her for just five minutes to comfort her. Sometimes after being in the room with the picture for a prolonged period of time, Ethan would begin to feel castigation toward the girl. He felt like she rejected his words of wisdom and meant nothing more than to persecute him; as if Ethan was some washed-up hack who had wasted his childhood and looked towards the girl to regain innocence. Ethan would have to divert his eyes away from the picture and onto Mr. Pincowski’s diploma, which he had always felt seemed quite lackluster in stature. During last week’s session, Ethan let Mr. Pincowski know: “If I had gone to college for four years and managed to graduate with a 4.0, I would have expected nothing less than a statue.” “My reward has proven to be quite monetary, so I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.” Ethan despised Mr. Pincowski. No matter how well Ethan understood his own preaching- that “nothing mattered”, and how “life is futile”, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Mr. Pincowski had done it right. That somehow, even though it’s impossible, Mr. Pincowski was better off than Ethan, and it was because he applied himself when it had mattered. At the very least this was confusing, and something Ethan had a hard time dealing with. For a few short moments before he was to speak, Mr. Pincowski began to eye Ethan without having turned his head, leaving Ethan feeling like a bank being cased by burglars whose only intention was to irritate. “Hmm… I’ve noticed that you enjoy viewing that picture I have up there… The one of my children.” Ethan slightly furrowed his brow as he gazed up at Mr. Pincowski, while curling his lower lip into his mouth and applying an increment of pressure with his upper lip. This was his favorite way of saying “Yes…?” without actually having to open his mouth. Mr. Pincowski didn’t respond to the facial expression, so Ethan began, “When… When I was younger, my mother refused to take pictures of us when we were smiling. She said she couldn’t understand why people would want to take photographs of themselves when they were at their happiest, just to look back on them later in life to become all depressed or nostalgic over a time in which they were much happier… Instead, my mother would only take pictures of us when we were at our lowest. When I would get an ‘F’ on a test, she would be there with a camera. When I would fall on my bike or scrape my knee, she would be there with a camera. Whenever I was grounded for talking back, she would come into my room with a camera and take pictures of me crying… When my grandmother died, she was there with her new Kodak.” Ethan tried his best to look like he was truly reminiscing as he spoke. “I guess her philosophy was that, when times were rough later in life, I could look back on these photographs and remember times in which things weren’t going my way… And could at least understand that things could be worse; or that things have been worse, and that Ive lived through it… That everything would eventually be ‘okay’ again.” “That’s an interesting philosophy.” “My mother was an interesting person.” Ethan glanced up at the clock and back down towards the counselor’s desk without managing to actually notice the time; went to his right hip pocket, wiggled his hand around a bit, and came out with a piece of gum. “Hmm. Time for another piece?” Mr. Pincowski seemed to be referring to the gesture Ethan’s eyes made toward the clock before he went into his pocket. Ethan cleared his throat as he transferred a wad of fructose from his mouth to a tissue he had retrieved from his hip-pocket. “Ah-ahem… Yeah. I, uh… I could actually tell it was time to switch. After about twenty minutes, it tends to, to lose it’s flavor. I can… I’ve pretty much begun to tell time in twenty-minute intervals… Each pack-” He struggled the gum again free of his pocket. “-has twenty-four pieces, and so for example, if I start with a full pack at six in the morning, by noon there will be six pieces left… One piece every twenty minutes. Twenty-minute intervals.” Mildly distressed, Pincowski considered asking Ethan if he felt as if he had become a slave to the gum, but was reminded of a previous discussion. “Oh yeah, that reminds me. Last week you said you were going to see a doctor about your uh, your addiction here.” “Yeah, yeah I did. Real nice guy. My insurance, or rather, lack there of, wouldn’t cover the meds, so all I got were some pamphlets. I’ve been reading those for the past few days.” “What’s the story?” “Well, they ran some tests and apparently I was born with some rare genetic defect in my liver, wherein I have a surplus of the enzyme CYP2A6.” “… CYP-” “-2A6, yep. According to the pamphlets, it’s the enzyme responsible for breaking down and metabolizing the nicotine in our body. I guess because I have too many of it, you know, it results in my inability to keep the nicotine in my body for more than twenty minutes at a time, so I’m just constantly craving more.” “And I imagine this Nicorette stuff can’t be cheap…?” “Uhmm, I’ve been stretching boxes of a hundred-seventy pieces over three days, and each box is seventy bucks… I guess I spend about a hundred-fifty a week on it. Heh… According to the box I’m not supposed to exceed twenty-four pieces in a day.” “Well you’ve certainly managed to beat that, two-fold. And how much are you making over in that data entry position?” “I’ve been clearing around three-fifty a week.” “What about your apartment? With this gum thing, that can’t be nearly enough to get by.” “Hah.. Yeah, the nurse jokingly recommended I take up smoking, saying the money it would save me would be eclipsed only by the damage it would do to my health. I’ve been getting eviction notices for a few weeks now… I managed for a little while, ‘cause I stopped spending money on everything else… I’m never really hungry anymore; sometimes I don’t eat for a few days.” “I was going to ask you about that… Ethan, you look… You look unhealthy. Every week you come in here, your skin somehow manages to grow more pale, the bags under your eyes darker, and the weight on your body less prominent.” Ethan took offense, but wasn’t really sure why. He hadn’t looked in a mirror for weeks. “The uh, the doctor told me that my lack of hunger would be a result of the constant intake of nicotine. It keeps my blood-sugar level up, so I never really crave food.” Relatively uncomfortable with his appearance, or at least the discussion thereof, Ethan changed the direction of the conversation before Mr. Pincowski had a chance to respond. “Hah-hah, you know there’s a special way to chew this stuff? Youre supposed to chew a piece until it begins to tingle, and then put it between your gum and cheek and just leave it alone. When it stops tingling, youre supposed to chew it again until it tingles, et cetera, et cetera.” “Then how come I always see you chewing?” “Well… I guess it’s just become a sort of habit… A lot of the time, I’ll chew piece after piece for hours without ever putting it up there on my gum. The packaging says it should keep it’s taste for about thirty-minutes; but like I said, usually just as a piece enters the twenty-minute mark, I spit it out and put another one in. The doctor said if you chew it continuously like that, the nicotine is released too quickly and ends up getting swallowed. Apparently that causes a number of side effects, like irritation, stomachaches, indigestion-” Ethan hiccupped. “-Or in my case, the most painful hiccups you could ever imagine.” “Alright… Now let me get this straight. You bought your girlfriend Nicorette for her birthday, in an attempt to help her quit smoking, and she didn’t like the taste of it?” “Yeah. She said it tasted like… Like playdough?” “So you bought yourself some, and chewed it with her?” “Yeah.” “Alright, and then she quit smoking, and left you with nothing but your own Nicorette addiction?” “Uh huh… I had never smoked a cigarette before in my life. My doctor said he wasn’t surprised Tracy had a problem chewing the gum. He said that historically, nicotine gum has tasted so bad- especially back in the nineties, that a large percentage of people who bought it to kick their cigarette habit tended to stop using it too soon because of the taste alone, and quickly relapsed into smoking. I guess Tracy wasn’t alone on this one.” “And now you’re sitting here, addicted to that damn gum? And you’ve never smoked a single cigarette? Sounds like one wicked case of irony to me.” “Yeah.. Yeah, I guess so. The doctor said although he had never seen a case quite like mine, he had treated patients before that became drastically dependent upon Nicorette after using it to quit smoking. According to him, nine percent of people who use nicotine gum to quit smoking end up using it for longer than the recommended three months. Half of those people, I guess around five percent, end up chewing from over six months to indefinitely. ” Pincowski raised his eyebrows and had placed his hand over his mouth now, possibly, but probably not for dramatic effect as he uttered, “…Wow.” “Yeah… He said the worst Nicorette addiction he had seen before me was a woman he had a few years back, who was up to twenty-six pieces a day of the four milligrams, and had been that way for over a year, who eventually ended up with a swallowing problem due to damage done to her esophagus-” Mr. Pincowski couldn’t help but interrupt. “-Wait… And didn’t you say you’re up to sixty pieces a day? Of the four milligram stuff?” “Yep. So anyway, eventually this chick went back to cigarettes to save money. He told me he had heard plenty of stories of people who chewed far beyond the directed length; people who figured if there were even a small chance they could relapse into cigarettes if they stopped the gum, they would rather continue to chew. And that in their case, if they could afford it, it was definitely the wise choice. Any nicotine replacement therapy is going to be largely healthier than cigarettes.” “So I guess in the end, there’s plenty of profit to be had; it’s just none of it happens to be yours. Whether you’re Nicorette or Philip-Morris, you’re comin’ out on top.” “It’s rather brilliant, isn’t it? I guess everyone wins except for me.” “What does Nicorette have to say about all this?” “I guess nothing. I checked a few of the nicotine replacement pamphlets, though. It was rather surprising how I had a hard time finding anything in them about the harmful effects of nicotine. The Nicorette pamphlet in particular said something like, ‘Once in your brain, nicotine begins working to stimulate the chemicals which appear to enhance awareness and judgment.’ And it talked about how it increases dopamine levels, improving your mood… Oh, and apparently ‘It has also been known to even enhance memory, and reduce aggression, heighten awareness, enhance judgment, better moods, boost adrenaline’, all of this which was followed by, verbatim on this one, -Ethan cleared his throat- ‘No wonder cigarette smoking is hard to quit!’” “Wow... Yeah, no wonder it’s hard to quit is right; you’re making a pretty convincing argument here. Maybe I should take up smoking?” “Those brochures almost made me feel better about my addiction… Reduced aggression, enhanced judgment, better moods? Everyone should be chewing this shit.” Both men took a short break from their dialogue to acknowledge the solace they found in their rather evident conversational satire. “So… This Tracy character-” Ethan and Tracy had initially conversed while the latter was waitressing at a diner near Ethan’s apartment, after she made a comment about the book Ethan had brought with him- The Stranger. Enamored that somebody other than him in the tri-county area was familiar with Camus, Ethan fell head over heals. Granted, Ethan had in fact fallen in love before; albeit with every female whod ever acknowledged his existence. Because of his affinity for anyone who’d ever given him the time of day, Ethan admitted to never really knowing what true love felt like, but remained confident it was nowhere nearly as charming as what hed seen on television. On their first date, Tracy would explain to Ethan how she had been planning on majoring in psychology, something her parents had always wanted for her. She admitted to never finding a personal interest in it, and many a night were spent between the two, discussing an idea Tracy had for a romantic comedy she had often dreamt about dropping everything for. A week before her second year of college was to begin, she was not to return, and instead moved in with Ethan to pursue her dream of writing. “-what ever happened to her?” Ethan clearly pondered the question for a few seconds before deciding to lie back on the couch and verbally recall the last night he would spend with his equally final love. It was a Wednesday night that would end on a similar note not any more or less pleasant than that of the other days in Ethan’s recent memory. Tracy would come home from work with food; the two would eat and count her tips, watch television, and end up in bed. Depending on whether or not either of them was feeling particularly melancholy or poignant, a melodramatic conversation could occur before they drifted off to sleep for the night. On this particular night, Ethan had been lying in bed with his eyes closed tight for what he figured was at least half an hour, wondering if Tracy was yet to have fallen asleep. Ethan could feel himself begin to drift when Tracy made her state of consciousness aware to the rest of the room. “Ethan,” Her words didn’t exactly shatter their perfect silence; rather, they dropkicked the silence and left it on the ground in a pain indifferent to Ethan’s assumed insomnia. “I had an extremely provocative dream the other night.” At first, Ethan found the situation mildly humorous. There was no movement, no process to be associated with the voice; just noise shaped by Tracy’s perfect lips. When Tracy decided to follow up her statement with announcements of a similar decibel, Ethan couldn’t help feeling, at least for a couple of seconds, like a martyr. “You know what? You’re like Martin Luther King Jr. You only have one dream, and you can’t help but tell everyone about it.” “No, no, no, no, no, no, no... It was… It was different this time.” “Let’s hear it.” “Well… It was about one of the times I took DXM… The first time I ever reached the second plateau… So trippy. Did I ever tell you about it?” “I don’t think so.” “Well, the entire dream was just what I remember experiencing that day… I.. I remember feeling like I was dust.. I was dust, and I was floating around, and then I landed on the television screen.. And the TV turned on, and like I could see all of the people on it… And then the screen turned into a globe, or like, the whole earth… And I was just resting on the earth, on top of everybody for a little while, just… Just watching… And eventually someone came and dusted me off, back into the air, and I was back in my room, just floating around with the rest of the particles.” “Hmmm… You know, that’s interesting. Do you ever think about dust?” “… What do you mean?” “I mean like… You know how when we dust things off, like when we clean something, we never really get rid of the dust… Did you ever think about that? We sort of just move it off of our stuff. You can never really get rid of it, but you can push it back into the air.” “…Yeah...?” “Well I mean, I’m no expert when it comes to dust, but I’m sure it can’t be good for you. Inhaling it, and everything. I think it’s interesting how we sacrifice our health so that our possessions look better. I think that’s how most of us go through life... We sacrifice ourselves, you know, sometimes unknowingly, so that everything looks neat and tidy. Nice and clean.” “Yeah, I think I see what you mean… It’s like that episode of Daria where she goes on about individualism, about how people will fall in line rather than risk alienation, and so everyone ends up living a life of quiet desperation... It figures the great philosopher of our time would be a cartoon character.” “Hey, at least somebody is still quoting Thoreau.” “You know what though? Every once in a while, we will let the dust settle, and we do let things get interesting.” “Yeah, I guess so… But eventually we come through and clean everything back up. We shut our mouths, we rejoin the herd, and we go right back to repressing our ideals.” The next morning, Ethan would find a single piece of paper in place of Tracy, positioned on her pillow. In fewer words than Ethan could ever imagine possible, she would explain that no matter how much she loved him, and no matter how much they wanted it to, circumstances including but not limited to her parents would keep their relationship from “working out”. She would be returning home to prepare for the next semester at her university. “So how did you handle it?” “Handle what? Handle her leaving?” Mr. Pincowski nodded in response, and Ethan shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know… I guess I handled it okay, considering.” “Considering what?” “Well, considering she left without warning. Considering I ended up with a Nicorette addiction. Considering my time with her was the first time I had felt happy in a long, long while. Considering I had saved over a few thousand dollars to travel with… To travel with her. Considering I’ve now spent all of that money on gum, and am about to be evicted...” “Ethan… You spent your savings?” Ethan changed his position on the couch to sitting, clasped his head in his hands and drew back snot. For the first time since the two men had begun having sessions, the patient’s vulnerability had become palpable. Mr. Pincowski didn’t sense a desire in Ethan to respond. “You know what, never mind that. I actually gotta’ get you out of here, we’re already over twenty minutes past. I’ve probably already got three people waiting out there. Same time next week?” Ethan removed his head from his hands and glared up at Mr. Pincowski’s daughter’s picture. “My, uh… I lost my coverage… The insurance dropped me. I guess I don’t know when I’ll be coming back.” “Well, good luck with everything. I hope you can get the, uh… The help you need… By the way, are you a fan of Vonnegut or do you just have a certain affinity for pseudo-stealing authors’ work?” Ethan stood up, grabbed his jacket, and reached out to shake Mr. Pincowski’s hand for the last time. “I wouldn’t exactly call it authored theft; merely inspiration.” Ethan nodded his head and Mr. Pincowski responded with a grin, thought for a second, and extended his hand to meet Ethan’s. The two men shook as Mr. Pincowski gave his final words of wisdom. “Poo-tee-weet.”
Posted on: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 22:59:43 +0000
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