The demise of Jim James

This story is about a man who's had his passions pushed aside

 

When asked of his favorite hobbies, or if he had seen the shows or films that lit up the square like a great explosion, Jon James sat with a cold, impenetrable gaze. He was rather fixated with the charming painting of the three chicks on the wall across the room. Where had the mother duck gone? The room was sweltering and he began to detect the fruitful perfume that his therapist must have applied too generously that morning. The smell reminded him of the yellow lilacs that surrounded his home in central Kentucky many years before, and subsequently of the prosperous future he had hoped for upon his departure for New York. Having never been to the city before then, John had only heard of the great things and the shiny metallic structures erected on every city block, the emanating scent of labor, and the forthcoming prospect of opportunity that the city painted. His hair had only just begun to turn gray in the past couple years and his eyes now glowed feverishly in the few sentimental moments of recollection that had intruded his thoughts.

“Jon, are you doing alright?”

Sara, his therapist interjected. “Um…Films? No. Far too busy at work for any of that. I never liked films very much. In fact, I don’t believe I like them at all.”

“Not at all? You must like some films. What is it that you don’t like about them?”

“Too long. They’re all too long. Who has the time to sit and watch a film now? Besides, they never end like you want them to.”

“What about music? Surely you must enjoy some music every now and again.”

Jon waved her off. “Overrated. I don’t care about that noise. My mother once gave me a box that opened up and played for about thirty seconds. I never understood the point, but it was nice on her part to give me something like that.”

“Well Jon, what does make you happy?”

“Sometimes I’ll walk.”

“Do you walk anywhere specifically?”

“Sometimes I’ll walk down to this park near my flat and I’ll sit on this one bench by the tallest trees there and I’ll look at the lake and the squirrels, and sometimes there will be a few ducks and it’s kind of nice. To be honest the only reason I came here today is so that you can tell me I’m alright. I mean lately I’ve found myself doing things.”

“What kinds of things, Jon?”

“On some days I’ll wake up in the middle of the night just sweating and I’ll have to get up and open my window, and sometimes I’ll stand there in front of my window and stare out into the traffic and I’ll think about things for about an hour or two. And sometimes I’ll stand there and remember certain things about myself and about my life, and I start to wonder why it is that I’m thinking all of it, but I can’t stop. It’s like I’m on the verge of something that I don’t know, like I’ve begun to realize something about myself, but every-time I try and put my finger to it, I’ll get distracted by the traffic or the moon or I’ll hear the neighbors shouting. It’s like I’m trying to tell myself something, but I can’t.”

“I’m going to prescribe you 25 mg of Xanax, Jon. Time’s up.”

Perplexed by the benign reaction to his existential revelation, Jon stood up slowly and attributed his therapist’s reaction to her professionalism and determined that she probably had to remain temperate despite any circumstance. He took the sheet of paper out of the manicured fingers of his therapist, and made his way out of the small room, looking over the paper and imagining the uniformity with which his therapist might prescribe this particular remedy to her patients. He nodded at the receptionist in the lobby, opened the transparent glass door out to the hallway of the medical complex, and continued walking down the hall, fixated on the exit sign that was mounted above the staircase that was flickering red in and out. Jon made his way down the stairs.

 

            That night, Jon became afflicted with the very ailment that he had described that afternoon to his therapist. He quickly awoke and rose straight up as if he had been possessed. The ceiling fan churned out heavy gusts of wind that blanketed him, mildly placating his disillusionment. His bedside clock read three a.m. There were four hours left until Jon had to be in his office. Upon realizing this, Jon began to regret the path that his life had taken, that the passion catalyzed by his youthful imagination had evolved into a career of perverse and frankly opposite means. Thus, his hours of catatonic reflection had begun, accompanied by taxi horns and beams from headlights darting through the streets below.  He pulled a half full pack of cigarettes from his bedside table and plucked one out of the pack, and then pulled a chair up to his window, lighting the long cigarette with a quick flick of his zippo and subsequently capping the cold, metal lighter. He sat still with a single ember keeping him company, slowly puffing away until the ember was gone and he was left alone.

 

            Jon worked as magazine editor for a monthly journal of necrology, which documented the deaths of citizens throughout the city of New York that were deemed to be of some importance. This particular line of work was one that he fell into and one that he had not intended of pursuing when he was much younger with more forthcoming and tenacious ambitions. Initially, Jon James had moved to New York from his childhood Kentucky home at the age of eighteen with the hopes of writing the great American novel. He settled down in an apartment in Queens with the money that he drew from an account that his wealthy parents created for him. After writing pages filled with the kind of rhetoric that was symbolic of the struggles and hard work necessary to be successful in America, he realized that the large sums his parents had implanted in his bank account had begun to dry, and he found himself in the thick of the struggles that he portrayed in his fictional accounts and with the hope that his endeavors would end as such. After inquiring for many positions that he found in the back of newspapers, he eventually was granted an interview with the journal for which he currently worked. He began writing obituaries, researching the lives of achieved and tenured men, articulating that the circumstances of their deaths displayed these qualities.  Jon worked hard and moved up the latter, eventually being promoted to editor and securing enough money to move into a small flat in Manhattan from which he had an easy commute to his job in Astoria. He had achieved monetary success and had gained the respect of his peers, and he began to realize that with the right words, his life could be portrayed in a way that is reminiscent to that of Nick Carraway’s or some other figure strewn into the middle of a life that is grand but disadvantageous to their presenting intentions. Jon walked into his office and greeted his receptionist and staff of some thirty people with no indication that he had been afflicted by the unusual behavior that he displayed the night before. He walked into his office and closed the door behind him, and started to review the large pile of fresh obituaries that were stacked on his desk, each one tucked inside a manila folder. He perused each one, making sure that each account displayed a tinge of grandiosity and reverence towards the demised, and then he made the necessary grammatical revisions.  Normally this task would be monotonous and done with a certain protocol that he had created to ensure that they were written with quality and adhered to the correct format. Today however he took the time to explore the actual lives of these men, trying to make at least a tenuous association between their success and his own. He found himself to be unsuccessful in this matter, but tried anyway to pacify himself with reassurance that the accounts had been exaggerated at least to some minor extent. He went on with his day in a stupor and feeling heavy as if his limbs were filled with lead, ordering lunch to his office, remaining stationary.

 

            Around two, one of his veteran staff knocked on the door.

“Come in, Jon bellowed.”

In walked a man that was about five years younger than Jon and a veteran staff member. This man was poised for a better position within the company, but yet to be promoted from his current position. He and Jon had become friends of sorts.

“Here’s half the day’s accounts, Jon. Not too many today.”

“Thank you Stuart. You can lay them on the desk there.”

Stuart nodded and began to exit the room.

“Stuart wait. Shut the door if you will.”

“Is there a problem, Jon?”

“Stuart, why do you work here?”

“What do you mean Jon?”

“Have you ever regretted the path your life has taken?”

“I’m not sure what you mean, sir.” The room tensed.

“I’m not sure either. Recently I’ve been confused about my life, and I’ve reached a point where I’m not sure what to do. My life isn’t where I want it to be, and the success that I’ve had isn’t the kind of success that I’ve wanted. I’m not sure that I can take it anymore.”

Stuart looked him over. “Are the reports okay? If there is a problem with them, I can change them.”

Confused with the brevity of response, and slightly worried that his revelation might have been unprofessional, he responded starkly:

“They look fine Stuart, you may leave.”

Jon sat in his chair and was becoming enraged that for some reason people would not respond to his cries, that nobody reacted with understanding or sympathy for the ailment that plagued him. On the way back from work that day he noticed a pawn shop. He made a U-turn and went inside, speaking to the man inside for only a matter of minutes before exiting the store with a black case.

 

            The next week he went back to see his therapist.

“Hello Jon. How are you doing today?”

“Not much better. I’m not feeling any better at all actually”

“Have your symptoms gotten any worse? Are the pills helping at all?”

“Yes in fact I can hardly sleep at all now and the pills just make me feel useless and weak.”

The banter went back and forth like this and Jon began to wonder why his therapist was so monotonous in her tone, and why he didn’t feel understood.”

“Well Jon it seems to me like we need to increase your prescribed dose to fifty miligrams.”

The room slowed down and swirled around for a moment. Jon was fixated on these words and heard every syllable and watched Sara’s mouth move slowly up and down as she prescribed him and he began to feel like he was in a strange dream.”

Jon stood up and quickly grabbed the prescription from her, ushering himself out of the office as quickly as he could.

            Jon quickly drove home after stopping at the pharmacy to pick up his prescription which was quickly becoming his only means to sanity, and that he consumed with much reluctance and skepticism to the positive affect that it would have on combating his persistently erratic and menacing thoughts. Once home, he swallowed down his dose with a glass of cold water, and went to sleep. He awoke some hours later like he usually did. He found himself panicked more than usual, and his thoughts raced despite how he tried to slow them. He lit a cigarette and stood by the window as usual, shaking and frantically hoping that the pace of his thoughts would slow. He looked out of his window at the opposing building and noticed that the exit sign in the hallway was blinking like it was in the hallway of the medical complex. Jon couldn’t shake the sense that he was not well, and that he were beginning to become delusional. He reached his hands out the window towards the blinking red light, becoming entranced by it and wanting to get closer. He stepped out onto his ledge and felt a strong gust, and became happy. And then as if his life were dictated by some grand premonition until now, and with a conviction that his sanity were destined to be lost, he jumped falling hard on the concrete below.

            Weeks later, Stuart walked into his office building with a new coat on and greeted the some thirty employees that now worked under him. He shut the door of his office and looked over the fresh accounts, each one placed inside a manila folder. He ushered through them with a uniformity marked by a tediousness for details, and he looked through the pictures of great and achieved men, noticing that each of their pictures were portraits. Stuart believed that these portraits might as well have been caricatures, and that they were inaccurate depictions, devoid of any primal or human characteristics. Many of these men did not appeal to Stuart’s sensibilities, and he believed that a great many of them were frauds. How sad, he thought, that men with passion die out long before their time and always after they realize their passions cannot persevere time; and even sadder, he thought, are the men who realize this and settle for less. He marked the accounts down as being sufficient, and poised them for production. Stuart gave them a quick count, to see how many would be in this month’s issue, skimming the grand titles, his former boss, Jon James, nowhere to be found. 

Reviews

[daisymiller]

Incredible :-) I realize that this story was posted a very long time ago, but I stumbled upon it and couldn't stop reading. the juxtaposition of Stuart and Jon is perfect. I gained a lot from reading this story, your talent is evident and thank you so much for sharing. It all felt so real to me, i felt like I knew Jon and everything he represented.

[DeandreSugandhi]

Wow. In my opinion, some of the lines here work very very well.... Beautifully written. Lots of interesting symbolism as well. The character's feelings, for me, was also conveyed really well. I think it's an amazing, deep story. Really loved it mate, excellent job :D