We All Stare Down

a nonsense rant, mental health, and treatment for, is something we, as a nation, need to work on desperately, or, it may just be a symptom of our time.

We All Stare Down

By Timothy Linfoot

 

Some nights I find the towers talking to me. The brown buildings appear the same in the sunlight as they do at night. The wind howls and makes them wail in angry protest. I put one foot in front of another, trying to make out the words as the buildings bellow behind me. I hear nothing but vowels. Integral to the English language, but without an accompanying consonant, they just echo listlessly, never to find repose�"I keep my eyes to the ground.

I attempt, in vain, to acknowledge the strangers who pass me on my way to school. Their eyes lock on the pavement below us and I wonder what wonders they see there �" small bits of rock trapped like bugs in amber? Are they worried for the ants they may trample?  Living creatures so small that they might be saved by the calculated placement of treads. Is it all an effort to preserve a life?

My peers and I sit above the shadows we cast. We interpret the familiar hieroglyphics typed on white sheets of glossy paper by automated machines�"my eyes won’t stop palpitating�"I hear air escaping from God knows where. They contort the flesh around their faces to make the air, which they push so passionately from their being, into sounds we believe having meaning. We believe; therefore it is. It takes a few seconds for the sounds to reverberate against the walls before they hit my ears and make them ring. I’m going deaf. 

I remember biking the same weathered road to work every day. The artificial surface had crumbled in spots where the earth had been washed away, leaving places for me to avoid. Black analog tape hung like tinsel on trees. Luxurious litter contrived by man �" unnatural vines of magnetic tape entangled in nature’s foliage. Like the way gasoline will make a rainbow of colours against a canvas of plain black pavement. What could I do but appreciate the irony?

There’s no meaning in the words the world whispers to me. There’s no story in the tale it tells. It just surrounds me, embraces me with lifeless arms�"serves no function. I see congregations of people at the same time every day. In great rows of steel, we’ve encapsulated ourselves. So many people, same place, same time. Staring down at painted lines, or looking up, questioningly, for permission to proceed. Sometimes I hear long, low, oo’s, or quick, careful ee’s. An alien language that’s poetic as s**t.

I avert my eyes when being scolded. I search for a place to rest them. Look at me, they say. At what? At the hole in your iris where rotting flesh soon lay? Dark lines and blue bags that have now become my own? Look at your future �" my past, they say. Can’t I gaze beyond that, upwards, towards an endless expanse of unknown? Don’t make me look at you, at your amber eyes that dart back and forth unexpectedly like a mindless insect. It bugs me. 

I come to be scolded, because I think it may be my last option for survival, but now I am 20 minutes late for the appointment I came 20 minutes early for. The appointment I have been waiting 7 months for. They said the clinic was on Cedar Hill XR and Shelbourne behind the McDonalds. I searched around for forty minutes and found nothing. Finally the receptionist called me to give me directions; turns out it was concealed behind a place where they sheer dogs. A pink silhouette of a shaggy canine stuck out prominently and misleadingly. I had to take a left at the dog barber and walk to the end of the parkade, taking another left in hopes to find out what was behind lucky door number 14. I came in and was greeted kindly by the middle aged lady behind the desk.

The doctor will be with you in a moment.

I sit down, look at some dull magazine that’s been fossilizing on the coffee table for far too long. Something about golf.

The doctor came in and curtly said hello. He stood, holding open the door, waiting for me to come. I comply. He has a nice office with a lot of chairs. Black leather, maybe pleather. I’ve never been able to tell the difference. The office was a perfect square and I wondered why people never build spherical rooms[1]. I sit down in the corner, next to his desk. His face turnes calm and kind.

So what brings you here? He asked.

Well... that’s a loaded question. I know I came here to talk. In the middle of sleepless nights, I had been fantasizing about all the things I would say to him. I could tell him about the thoughts that are as restless as my legs, the thoughts that make my limbs tremble uncontrollably�"the eyes that blame me for shaking the whole table. I could regale him with my fossilized memories that have become so malleable they spawn (CONCOCT?) copious amounts of anger that often make me pace across rooms, occasionally causing me  to get physical with pieces of furniture until I find some form of chemical repose. I could tell him how my heart beats so erratically it often feels as if it’s going to jump out of my chest and start terrorizing the neighbourhood children.

I’d been fantasizing about this for months�"to be able to finally purge my dangerously damaged thoughts and get some help, some perspective, and I finally have a socially acceptable outlet but...

What to say…? What is the most visceral lexicon I could use to wrench his heart into a twisted sinew of pity? I have to be emphatic but genuine, because when you are well aware of the dark thoughts that percolate in your ailing mind, being fastidious with your words is of the utmost importance. This concept is rarely acknowledged by those afflicted with this particular kind of mental illness; my words have the potential to make any ill thought or insecurity I convey concrete. By vocalizing something, it is quite possible that a thought could recalibrate �" evolve from a repressed twinkle hidden in the most covert part of my brain �" to becoming a cabalistic carving in the forefront of my mind. The most god-forsaken part of my cerebral cortex doesn’t even want to consider the thought of contemplate these cacophonous thoughts. I want to cripple them, not affirm them!

Being twenty minutes late meant we have less time to talk, so we speak quickly.

I’ve been suicidaly depressed lately... I guess.

What does that mean to you, being “suicidaly” depressed?

“Exactly what it sounds like,” I think to myself. Well...That’s kind of a simplified way of articulating it. I guess...that... my thoughts are constantly veering to gruesome situations where I die in really painful ways. Even in the most innocent of situations, I would imagine these crazy circumstances that would lead to either a group of us, someone close to me, or even just me, dying in the most horrible way possible. And if I’m standing on the roof of a building, I always imagine how peaceful it would be to just let myself fall backwards, and watch the sky go from blue to black as I become another piece of decaying genetic material.

I pause for a moment. His facial expression doesn’t change; he has these enthusiastic cheek bones that you’d find on trustworthy men.

The best way to do it, though, I continue, would be to tie a sock, tie it really tight �" I mean, really tight �" around my neck. I bet the euphoria from the asphyxiation would be pure bliss.

He thought that over for a moment. Nobody wants to kill themselves. Nobody wants to die.

Well, no, I know I don’t want to die. But I don’t want to live either. Not here, anyway.

Do you take drugs?

No, I lied[2]. I smoke pot occasionally, though I often dream of being a junky.

A junky?

Yeah, cause a junky is just a guy who doesn’t want to live and who doesn’t want to die. He just feels good all of the time.

He kind of understands. He more of understands the causes and frustrations of my mental perversions. He’s a man who has dealt with a variety of cases like mine, the whole “teenage angst” thing. So why explain myself, then, when all my issues have already been summarized in academic literature he has probably studied or even memorized?

Not knowing where you’re going in life can cause a lot of angst. After being programmed as a child, it becomes difficult, later in life, to overcome that faulty programming.

He talked a lot. He categorized me by my anecdotes that, I’m sure, were slight variations of things he had heard a million times. All his observations and assertions were accurate, annoyingly so. My problems were in no way special. I know that I was brought up with whimsical ideas of the way life works, and that, now, I am just a victim of my naivety in a practical world.

No one knows what their purpose is, or where they’re headed, or what all this is for. You know, even I don’t completely know what’s going on or what I’m doing here[3]. You don’t have to like capitalism, or the government, or whatever, but you can’t avoid being a part of it. Every time you purchase something, you are participating in it, and if you don’t like it, then all you can do is strive to change it.

But, how?! My hands trembled with my words. There is no niche for me! Here or anywhere! It’s an insurmountable�"well, no. That suggests it may  still be possible�"it’s hopelessly unachievable to create a place where people are amicable and altruistic in today’s society. I don’t belong among the hoards of strangers… robots… machines that are constantly in a state of programming. My peers that congregate in silly establishments to do silly things. It’s seems so unnatural to me. All they do is wait around aimlessly for meaningless garbage that’s built to break �" and quickly, too! So after a couple weeks, days, hours, the f*****g things explode and they go out and do it again. They just repeat the cycle, you know? What a waste of resources… You know? I’m kinda scared... scared that maybe I’ll never find a place I want to be. A place that feels like home. I wish I could live like… like that Neil Young song! “I wish I could live like a trapper / I’d give a thousand pelts to sleep with Pocahontas / and find out how she felt.” Well, not like a trapper... but I’d want to live in, like a… forage... gathering society or something. A tribal community! I’d have friends that understand! We wouldn’t even need to understand each other because things would just be as they are! We could be happy with just knowing that we’re alive! And I’d be with people I’d have known forever! People these days… well... most don’t understand what I’m talking about. They’re different from me, or I’m different, I dunno. They have unfulfilling relationships based on what one can give to the other. They live lives based on perishable technology that’s just damaging the planet, and we’re not really damaging the planet, because no matter what, it will always be here �" until the sun explodes, that is, you know, when it continues its evolutionary trek and sucks up all the inner planets as it expands into a helium burning balloon. But that’s a long ways off �" anyway, its sorta like that cheap feeling I get when I use women just for sex. I mean, I love p***y, and I love licking p***y �" ‘cause  it’s not like a p***y needs to be intellectually stimulating for me to enjoy it’s soft, subtle delicacy, but their brain better be, otherwise it’s just ain’t worth it!�"But the point is... to discover a person’s core... a person’s true essence… I mean, that’s an amazing sensation! To think that when we’re the closest to someone, is when we’re literally inside of them... it’s like... it’s as if destiny guided you, you know? Just so you could connect with this kindred spirit, this person who understands. But instead we treat relationships like a game. The more you like someone, the more discrete you have to be about it. No one’s honest to each other about their feelings. People are fickle, and when they find what they’re searching for, they’re repulsed by it. But... what then about my desire to impact people? To make change with socially relevant and genuine art? Would I be repulsed if I achieve that goal?  Am I beyond these laws of nature, or attraction, or whatever you wanna call them? I mean, we’re all governed by the same natural laws, right? Am I really stupid enough to believe that I’m different? And even if I am, I could be striving for nothing as the world collapses around me. All this could be nothing�"NO!�"It is nothing! A speck of light in an infinity of darkness! there’s probably nothing for me to change!

That’s a cop-out, he says, there will always be a society, and no matter what, you will always be a part of it. Ultimately, you have to just�"

Play the game?

Well... basically. But the point is this: because there will always be an environment which you are a part of, you will always need to find a way to bring the bread home. Your music is a hobby, something you strive for while you’re not bringing home the bread.

He’s still talking and I’ve tuned out. I’ve already heard this before. I begin thinking that “no, they’re very well could be an end to this society. Every socioeconomic system has had its end. We used to live as hunter/gatherers for the majority of our early existence. Then slave labour begat the classifying of peoples which bore the feudal system and created more and more hierarchies. We live in a relatively young society that’s grown old fast because, as socioeconomic systems have evolved, evolution itself has evolved. We’re moving quicker as we learn more, and the capitalist system is finite and could easily collapse within my lifetime. And every species that have ever existed on this planet has had some kind of population control. Usually it’s disease, but humans are probably too technologically advanced to let a stupid disease wipe them out. But then what? There’s got to be something to keep us under control. Like us! It’s going to be us that control our population, probably with war! And besides, ninety-nine percent of species that once inhabited the earth are extinct. As a matter of fact, since the earth began teaming with living creatures, there have been three mass extinctions. So, what the f**k, dude?” I had so much to tell him but I couldn’t get it out in time. I couldn’t even articulate correctly. Even now, on this page, I’m sure I’ve left you confused and unfulfilled in some way.

At the end of the session, he is pleased with himself. Even I am elated. His charisma and kindness permeated me. I totally forgot about all the things I wanted to say, the things I needed to say, like the pharmacies I would frequent to buy bottles of T-1’s.

Tylenol one’s, you see, are an under- the-counter drug that doesn’t require a prescription. They contain 350 mg of acetaminophen (which is extremely bad for your liver), 15 mg of caffeine (which is one tenth the amount in coffee) and 8 mg of codeine (which is a minute quantity, compared to the 30mg’s of codeine in T-3’s). So after purchasing two hundred of these suckers I run back to my house and crush about thirty of them into a powder. Then I add a little water and throw it in the fridge to settle. I do this because acetaminophen doesn’t really dissolve well in water, especially in cold water; so as the codeine and the caffeine get absorbed by the water, the acetaminophen crystallizes as it cools and falls to the bottom of the glass. Then I pour it through a tight-knit cloth and into another cup. The leftover white glob of liver destroying s**t gets washed down the sink and all that’s left is a mixture of codeine, caffeine and water �" which is the most atrocious, bitter, disgusting, heinous, offensive, and revoltingly wretched thing in existence. But�"nevertheless�"I hold my nose and chug it back, gagging once or twice as my stupefied stomach tries desperately to stop this s**t from coming in. But I won’t let it, because I know that once the codeine conjugates in my liver to make morphine molecules that the warmth will come. How I crave that f*****g warmth. I need to tell him how stupid it is that something with relatively weak addictive properties, no negative side-effects, and severely mild withdrawal symptoms (much milder then the violent symptoms of alcohol withdrawal) is a controlled substance. If I can’t feel happy, I should at least be able to feel pleasure and serenity. I should be able to control my irritable bowls without waiting weeks or months for a doctor’s hesitant permission. I should be able to be functionally addicted to something that enables me to be comfortable without being inebriated.

But that isn’t the way the world works. My logic does not prevail. Free will is just an idea. We have all these laws governing actions and behaviours that don’t pertain to anybody but the people involved. I could rant about how I think legalizing all drugs would provide a safer environment for users while lowering crime rates and gang wars and allowing for more accessible and empathetic facilities that could serve the needs of addicts �" because there will always be addicts, no matter what government is in power or law is in place, but... it’s all been said before, and it isn’t going to change because some fucked up kid says so. 

So would you like to walk away from this with some clonazepam?

I hesitate, to give him the impression I’m thinking about it.

Yeah, I guess…

Alright. I’ll give you a prescription for 100 pills for… every 40 days? It seems odd that he said it like a question. Six refills. That’s enough for a year.

I was shocked. What the f**k was this guy thinking? He’s giving away that amount of pills to someone who just told him he wants to be a junky, and maybe kill himself while he’s at it.

That’s two-and-a-half a day. Of course, some days you shouldn’t take any at all. They’re only to help you cope with the anxiety you feel in large crowds, and at night when those thoughts haunt you.

I was shocked and I nodded. Okay.

He wrote the prescription and ripped it into my hand.

Is there any way I get to see you again? Or is this�"

Nope, one time deal. Did you find me helpful or attentive?

Nah, you were an a*****e, I joked[4]

We both laughed, I’m just kidding, of course.

I know, He said, Well, I wish you the best, and keep bringing the bread home.

I shook his hand and went directly to the pharmacy with my prescription. I handed it to the pharmacist and waited fifteen minutes before the bottle was finally in my hand. 100 tiny pieces of mind-numbing, memory daunting, chemical composites lied in my hesitantly eager and dangerously unreliable hands.

I take 20 and

Then I can finally hear them talking. Why did it take this long for me to hear them? The brown buildings that look the same at night as in the day light talk. The wind makes them roar resentfully in rebellion to their static state of existence. I place one foot in front of another, trying to make out the words as they bellow behind me. I hear nothing but an occasional high pitched e or a �" integral to most words, but without an accompanying consonant, they just echoed listlessly, never to find repose �" I searched for a place to rest. I lay my head down on the grass and listen to the music nature provided me.

And when I’m finished trying to sleep, I go back out into the streets. I try to listen. I hear nothing that means anything from the walking structures that surrounded me. They stop to communicate sounds that were lost in the ringing of ears. The forceful manipulation of air in my hands warms me, if only for a second, and that, too, made  vowels that echo listlessly. Yet, as the buildings bellowed, or as a whisper undulated from a trembling tree, no one stopped to listen. No one stopped to look.

No one saw a thing.

 

---

[1] Hard to build, I suppose. Not to mention impractical. Chairs couldn’t stand up. They’d have to be glued to the floor, even then, you wouldn’t be able to sit on it without holding on for dear life.

[2] I’ve learnt from past experiences that one never tells their doctor the truth about drugs. Like any person, they’re likely to make stereotypical judgements about you based on what mind-altering substances you’ve ingested.

[3] Every Doctor or psychologist has told me this before. Apparently it’s not the most effective thing a professional can say. It’s kind of like “duh!” Everyone probably feels that way, but it isn’t always the root issue.

[4] Kinda, sorta. 

Reviews

[Stephen grettum]

Thank you for this, beautifully written horrifyingly true amazingly intimate. I hope you get the recognition that you more than deserve. A chance meeting brought me here and am very glad to have met you, this is the first of your works I've read and am very excited to read more.I've also had a chance to listen to your rendition of The weight, what truly blew me away was the passion and pain your vocals brought to this song, I also thoroughly enjoyed your song Anything I Want(instant fan) . Please continue to touch people in any and every medium you can. I believe you can achieve anything you desire. (This will be the second time I've wote this review the first one must have got lost somewhere in hyperspace may it have been more heartfelt although I think I got most of what I had the first time) thank you again.