what is real after death? after love? after life?
a real-time hyperfiction experiment
It is going well. I am dying right on schedule. She has flown into disrepair again. She is uncaged now, and free to go. She persists.
Muted, I get back to myself. My return to a steady state. I just revisted a few chapters of Exodus, written in September. Happy alone. Evaluate any compromise in relationships toward discord and its effect on productivity.
It wasn’t triggered. I wasn’t glitching or hiding. I was flooded. Blasted with odd accusations. My own words parroted back and used against me. But, she didn’t understand the meaning behind what she was saying. A few days later, I would here her using my description of our issue as her description of my issue.
“You don’t listen.”
Um, okay. “Am I listening, now?”
“Now you’re going to do that thing.”
“What am I doing?”
“That face. That tone of voice. You’re lecturing me.”
“I’m confused and trying to find a way to bring us both to this present moment we have. The next two hours available to us, together.” I reach out a hand to her.
“I’m not going to comfort you!”
I put my hand back in my lap. “What do you need from me, right now?”
[Click. Put a bullet in the chamber.]
No incantation or spell could remove the words, the offer, the gesture of love. She couldn’t look me in the eyes. She wouldn’t. Didn’t want to admit she was causing this entire rupture, yet again. I didn’t want to be a part of it. Even for the most engaging cuddle partner I’ve ever had.
That is not enough.
Injecting more chaos into my already stressful life, is contraindicated. No good results. Comfort for a temporary fix. More like a cocaine addiction than a solid base of love and understanding. The turnaround, repointing my complaints back at me, was getting shorter. As I cut ties, her texts become more furious. Like Kubler-Ross and grief. She would go from lovey dovey, won’t you come back. As the silence wore on it would change to “oh what a fun time we had, I hope you find someone better,” and finally to “you fucker, you used me, then left me for dead.”
“I’m a nice person.”
Um, yeah. Me too.
Rain has been all around this week. Today, humid, drizzly, overcast. Muggy. The power-free house is a bit “meh.”
It is hard to give up a wonderful feeling. To depart from a loving partner. None of this is good fun, or fun. Essential conserving of energy and resources. Each dollar, a dint in the debt. Each no, a night of ease and cat purrs. Reading back a few novels ago, to fear*god, I understood the lesson again.
Don’t force the river. The water is strong, consistent, and flowing with intention and potency. Don’t fear the freezing water and white caps when things get spicy. Self-soothing has become a martial art, like Tai Chi. Perhaps the Drunken Monkey routine. Deflect. Distract. Fall into despair at learning the river is too strong to fight. As good as it gets, the swim into headwaters, into discord, into the morrass of some one elses damage… Too much.
Let go and float downstream. There is beauty in the end of things. In the chill and tonic of loss that can spur the courage to leave, to die, to begin again. This one is dead now. All currents flow downward and away. The faster spiral out.
[pull back the hammer]
Pushing the river provides only fury and frustration. Dancing in the river provides insights and risky attachments. Letting go and allowing the river of life to reclaim my energy and attention, I am both renewed and tender at the same time. Thirsty, now. Awakened the deeper root chakra energy. A bit bothered, at the moment. Seeking alternative remittance.
Here dangled off the edge of the earth, tethered to wifi at my former employers lovely patio near my house. Services blink out daily. Renewed angry grams from banks, credit cards, stuff. Here’s what I’ve learned. House. Car. Gas. Phone plan. All else is expendable. I’m not going to go deep into any of this, but the dark side of the moon (mood) is getting grim.
Okay, that’s not entirely true. I’m just days out of my last high. I’m still on the residual molecules of heat and attraction. The modern dance performance relit some of the vibrations, may have caused the final relapse.
I am one day sober. Today.
[Squeeze trigger.]
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