MALICE

“You feel like dying?” Sarah’s angelic voice makes me regret my confession.

“I feel there’s a knot growing in my gut and I’m barely breathing. I’m tired of gasping for air.” I mean I cannot explain it any simpler. “I’m tired of the pain. This constant pain in my stomach. I want to go home,” and I swing my eyes to her disgruntled face. That look she always gives of discontentment and malice. “Nothing ever gets resolved,” I add with empty air. It’s the same old, day-in and day-out. The same monotone, monochromatic passing of time, and I bury my face into the pillow. My refuge. The constant friend that gets me through the bleak and bleeding days of discomfort, restlessness, and fatigue.

As my cheeks burn, I release the loudest scream my muscles can muster and for a moment it eases my unrest. All the energy and focus becomes dedicated to my throat and my ears. The sound of my voice and the sense of hearing are the two things that linger in the room because even Sarah’s presence becomes irrelevant. After all, my thoughts of death are not about her. I mean, dying in a prolonged kind of a way, not an immediate bulldoze of action. A haste act of pulling the trigger or poisoning. Rather, I’m in bed twenty-two hours of the day awaiting the inevitable. The other two, I’m either forced to eat, or move around, or talk. None of which leaves me satisfied at the end. But there’s comfort in knowing that I can switch my mind off and sleep, and with that thought my bout of screaming extinguishes.

“You’re just displaced.” Is that Sarah’s conclusion? I mean, it’s a little frugal to sum me up with one word. Displaced, although it does sound clever. I have displaced myself as if I were two things. One owning another. The self and the self I own. The ‘I’ and the ‘myself’. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I did indeed lose myself. The ‘I’ as the body that exists, breaths, and eats; and the ‘self’, the identity, the mind that thrives on thought and purpose. The mind displaced from her body. Two entities, one tangible, the other giving the tangible its purpose. “Where are the socks that grandma gave you?” And that is the extent of Sarah’s concern about my ‘self’. Her screeching voice penetrates through my pillow and the blanket that’s covering my body and my head.

“What socks?” I ask.

“The green ones with a red reindeer in the middle. I thought you gonna wear them today.”

“They’re in the drawer,” and I wave my hand pointing to the drawer, more displeased with Sarah’s attendance and annoyed by the interruption. I was perfectly fine wallowing in my spit and sadness. Now I got to deal with Sarah’s expectations and entertain her. Might as well, most of my acquittances got used to the self that I am; sleeping my life away. Sarah’s dismissal demonstrated earlier of how little they care to understand.

She pouts her lips and gently sighs, “What do you want me to say? It must be dreadful. I hope my visits help.” That obnoxious half-smile that I want to punch off her face. That caring but yet ‘do you get me’ kind of a smile. The one that states that Sarah’s resolution is simply her presence. As if simply her existence should cheer me up. As if her dedication of time to come should leave a bright spot where thunder clouds usually roll.

I hate them all. I hate them all for coming. They don’t understand and it seems that no one truly wants to.

© Jacob Greb — 2020

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