A Great, Sorrowful Goodbye


The ocean breeze is so remarkably blissful, is it not? I believe the feeling is conjured by the pure innocence and lack of worry that encompasses the mental processes while walking along the coastal shore. Or perhaps, it is the youthful exuberance that accompanies the cool wind blowing your hair back, or the utter euphoria of bathing in the summer sun. It’s really all so joyous. Why can I not feel this way more? Why must I feel so hopeless as often as I do?
…

This is but one account of the life of a twenty-five-year-old man living in Worchester, Massachusetts. He stands at an average height of five feet and nine inches; his Irish heritage providing him with his fair skin and freckles. However, it is the German blood within him that gives him his Aryan-like blonde hair and blue eyes. His years as a college man have long since come to an end, and he now eagerly awaits a bright and glamorous future. Although, of course, no one has yet to inform him; bright and glamorous futures do not go running about giddily, only hoping to find a fortunate specimen to reward with themselves. Such paths in life are only provided to those who earn them and may not be the result of grace alone. Something so frequently said tends to be true: there is nothing in this life that is utterly free. Any economist worth his or her salt could certainly digress about it for many hours, opportunity cost and the like.
…

I have been spending a great deal of time with my mother, although she has been acting a bit erratic as of late. Actually, this is my chief motivation for constantly being with her. I fear the pressure of her tremendous responsibilities is weighing down on her too heavily. I fear she may not be doing very well at all, especially seeing as her life has not been entirely pleasant since the divorce. You see, my mother and father’s love for one another had begun to dissipate when I was very young. Then, when I was fifteen years old, the remnants of whatever love they shared were finally ridden from the earth, and they there stood apart from each other as enemies. My father quickly found another lover and has since lived happily-ever-after; the whole ordeal sending my mother spiraling down a path of anxiety and sorrow. It was not that she still wanted to be with him -I can’t imagine a single fiber of her wanting such a thing- as much as she was deeply saddened by how quickly he was able to move on without her, especially after 15 years of marriage and three children. I know she often wondered if she was truly that replaceable.
…

And as his mother did, our friend struggled tremendously with his emotional stability following the divorce. The end to the marriage of the parents of an adolescent is a genuinely tragic thing. You tend to subsequently become especially sentimental, constantly reminiscing, but it only causes more pain to ponder the glorious innocence of childhood. It’s that lack of worry, those moments of joy shared with those closest to you, and the greatest memories cause the greatest affliction when you come to realize that you will never create any more memories with those people, in that universe, the only one you knew existed at that time. Childhood is a fragile thing. Out of the blue, one day, your pen simply runs out of ink. You are not ready, nor prepared, to be finished writing that chapter in your life, but it’s over when it’s over, and there is nothing you can do about it.
…

I have been holding a lot of my own emotions inside me. Perhaps, I do this to protect my mother from feeling as though she has failed at raising me. She hasn’t, of course, but I cannot begin to surmise the reaction she might have if I expressed to her the types of feelings that I so, unwillingly, possess. Like I said, her behavior has been erratic lately.

While venturing home on foot from a light breakfast with my mother, I received a call on my cell phone from a foreign area code. Half-interested, half-concerned something was wrong, I took the call as I briskly continued down Claremont Boulevard.

“Hello? This is Terence.” I said this with a pang of confusion, seeing as the area code was one unfamiliar to me.
“Good morning, sir.” The man who replied had a harsh Sri Lankan accent. “I am calling to offer you a chance to win a free trip for two to the beautiful land of Somalia. I assume you’re interested.”
I frowned. Why, on Earth, would I ever travel to the disgraceful land of Somalia? Pirates are actually real there, and the conditions wouldn’t meet the standards of a deceased sewer rat.
“Um… well, I’m sorry to inform you that your assumption is incorrect. I haven’t much need to travel to such a place.” I hung up on the Sri-Lankan man, then, and I crossed the street to my apartment on Millwright Avenue. I had a little spot on the 2th floor of my building.
…
Enter Margaret. Our dapper, young lad has a serious involvement. She is beautiful. Absolutely, drop-dead, make you break your neck while doing a double-take as she passes by you, beautiful. She has long, elegant, brunette hair with blonde high-lights running through it and deep, wondrous eyes that are bluer than the gulf of some tropical island. They have a very happy, very mature relationship. They share their thoughts and feelings and do not keep anything from each other. Well, perhaps beautiful, little Margaret withholds a small bit of concealed information. Such is a secret that I am currently unwilling to reveal. This is, of course, out of respect for Terence. He needs to first hear this from Margaret, and I can’t risk letting him hear it any other way by enlightening the likes of you.
…
I took three steps backward before I fell. I was too horrified to have realized the staircase was directly south of my position. I fell backwards down the steps, which collided with tremendous force, against the back of my skull. A jolt of intense pain ripped through my brain before I passed out. I woke up in a rush. My head felt no pain. Glancing about the room, I noticed I was in a hospital; everything was so bright that I was squinting. Noting lack of damage inflicted upon my skull, I began to frantically wonder how long I had been there in the hospital. I tried to leap out of the bed but I was held down firmly by these straps, these thick, leather straps. I wondered why they were necessary. I took in my surroundings with greater detail and then, it occurred to me. I was dreaming. I had been being chased about my apartment when I must have suddenly passed out. Perhaps, I was struck by something. I’m not sure. But, I what I knew was that I was now within a dream. And here I was, for the first time in my life, aware of my own unconsciousness … I woke up again. This time on the loveseat located in the northwest corner of my living area. I couldn’t remember falling asleep there and decided to dismiss the entire situation as erroneous. The faint hooting of an owl could vaguely be heard from the window.
The day after next, my mother died. It was a stroke. It’s really that simple. Just two God damn days ago, she and I had sat on her porch, rocking in wooden arm chairs, talking about our favorite books and music and films. Those types of conversations are so innocent; they never ceased to calm us both down. And now she is gone. That night, I dreamt about nothing but her. In my dream, we were sitting down, having a dinner that I had prepared for the two of us. Angel hair –both our favorite- and meatballs that had been soaking in tomato sauce for several hours and fine, Italian garlic bread topped with melted mozzarella, which we dipped in the surfeit tomato sauce or “gravy”, as my father’s mother would call it. Not being Italian, she made a rather unnatural point of correcting you when you called her stuff “sauce.” We jokingly discussed this as we poked somewhat malicious fun at my father’s mother.
When I awoke, I found myself, once again, on the loveseat, this time swimming in a pool of my own sweat and drool. I pulled myself up and strolled over to the john to urinate. I flushed, unconsciously refused to wash my hands, and proceeded to peer deeply into the mirror located just north of the sink. To say I looked disheveled would be similar to calling Saint Nicholas “fairly generous.” My hair jutted off in several different directions and my beard was coming in all patchy, making it look as though I had attempted to shave in the dark with a pair scissors. My eyes were red from the immense crying I had done the night before.
I checked my messages to find seven new ones. The first half-dozen were close friends and beloved relatives, whom I frequently spoke to, giving their condolences via phone call. The modern age has made us all so inexplicably insensitive.
…
The seventh message was from Terence’s father. He briefly stated he regretted hearing about his son’s mother, but the true intention of the call was to inform our friend that he wouldn’t be able to attend the funeral. Terence leaned over and expectorated out the window, onto the world which he was beginning to resent. He hadn’t even set a date for the funeral. How the hell could his father already know whether or not he would be able to attend? Our injured comrade took a seat, as oppose to destroying every object in his apartment with ferocious, physical force.
A quiet rapping upon the door could be heard and Terence lifted his head, wondering who might possess the audacity to visit him whilst he was in such a state. Of course, whoever it was at the door could not have possibly known how upset our friend really was. Terence opened the door and waiting there was Margaret, her faint smile enough to inject some hope into the grim despair that engulfed Terence’s current mentality.
“Terence…” she stared at him through those blue eyes, which were now wet with tears that had overwhelmed her attempt to repress them. “I am so sorry. I don’t know what to say or do, I just know that I want to be with you. Help console you in any way that I possibly can.”
…
I dreamt I was in the hospital again. I made an effort to turn over in the bed onto my side, but I was restricted by thick, leather straps that staunchly disallowed any movement. However, I did not panic; for some reason, I was actually quite tranquil. An elderly nurse was now present, evidently there to assist me with whatever I needed, or to an extent, desired. I inquired about her name and our location.
“I am Barbara, and this is the Pinecroft Institute of Mental Health. We are in Room 923, John. Remember?” While I found it bizarre that she had called me “John” and had asked me if I “remembered” where I was, as if I had been there before, I, once more, did not feel frightened. A comforting feeling came over me like a warm blanket, and I realized I did seem to feel as though I had, in fact, known where I was.

It was immediately following that realization that I began to feel uneasy. I displayed my discomfort by wrestling with the leather straps that bound me. Barbara sighed and placed her clipboard upon the small, white desk that sat perpendicular to the wall opposite the bed… my bed. Barbara told me I needed to take my medicine, and she placed two small capsules in my mouth, one red and one blue, and forced me to swallow.

I woke up. This time sprawled out on the floor of my living area, more specifically, on the Persian carpet I had purchased some years ago. It was a fugazi, but I loved the design enough so that I didn’t mind it was a fake. Its colors were so diverse, and yet, they seemingly melted into each other like the ultimate blend of things divine. Staring at the carpet did much to ease my pain. It allowed me to forget sometimes. It almost held the power to transport me to an alternate universe of all my own, away from the tremendous grief that accompanies life on this earth.
…


“Terence…” she stared at him through those blue eyes, which were now wet with tears that had overwhelmed her attempt to repress them. “Oh.” He said mindlessly. “Margaret. C’mon in.” Terence had to fake a smile despite the fact that her presence made him giddier. They held hands as our young lad escorted her to the loveseat, the sweat and drool once residing there having since been ridden from it. They sat and John spoke of his mother and Margaret listened and Terence did some light crying, a highly rare occurrence as far as Margaret was concerned. That’s right about when she just blurted out her once well-kept secret. It may seem rather odd for someone to just say something of such magnitude amiss such an already somber conversation, but apparently, our friend was adapting to the medicine’s potent effect.
...
“I’m not real John, I’m dead! Who do you think I am, John?!” This time I panicked. Why the hell did she just call me “John?” It was one thing to be called by a different name in a dream, but to be called by that same false title while awake was surely something to be concerned about. I asked her what she was talking about; I sure as hell hadn’t the faintest idea. She responded with something that made me feel very dizzy. I felt nauseous and gained a searing and astonishingly sudden migraine. I just stared at her incredulously, my eyelids fluttering as I battled to retain consciousness.
“John… do you remember how you got here. I mean, where did you come from to get exactly where you are right now?” She looked at me with the most remorseful face I had ever witness another human being make. I felt extreme discomfort and tasted a sour taste on my tongue as I came to the bleak realization that I had not known where I was prior to my sulking. It was a clear way to tell if you were dreaming. Those attempting to experience lucidity within their dreams often trained their subconscious to ask itself this question while they were asleep. I had unconsciously done the same. I was dreaming, right then, I was asleep, dreaming, not within the confines of reality but within the realm of limitless possibilities that was my subconscious. Why, then, would you say that I am mad?
…

The year is 2025 and technological advances, while they have been continual, have become less the focal point of American ingenuity. Modern medicine, however, has been a flourishing industry for the past few years. John has been a specimen of a new brand of psychotherapy, injected orally rather than mentally. In the wake of the multiple tragedies that occurred in our friend’s life, he was subjected to severe depression and a lack of will to continue living. His therapy consisted of creating an alternate reality within his dreams. The red pill that John ingested allowed him to sleep more hours than he spent awake, and the blue pill allowed our friend to experience a longer than typical dream state while he slept. Therefore, his reoccurring dreams about lying in the hospital were actually not dreams, but reality. And in his new reality within his dreams, our friend unconsciously determined that his name was Terence, rather than John, in order to effectively alter his understanding of the events that surround his past. The irony is that even when presented with the opportunity to create a new life for himself, a life that he had the power to control, a life in which he wielded the power of God, he still lived in depression.

Now, here’s what happened to John. The first in a serious of unfortunate events to unfold, his mother tragically died giving birth to his brother. The child was to be named, of course, Terence, and John was going to instruct him in the many walks of boyhood. He was going to love his kid brother unconditionally, and they were going to be the greatest of friends. But Terence was stillborn and John lost his mother and his brother on the same day as his tenth birthday. And Margaret, her poor heart, may she rest with God in His kingdom for eternity. Margaret and John had been friends since they were small, small children. The same age, they did virtually everything in each other’s company. Alas, when our friend was merely seven years old, Margaret was abducted by a maniac. After several months, the search for her came to an end. It was not until eight years later, when John was fifteen, that Margaret’s body was discovered floating down the Darby Creek, an infamous stream deep in the woods of Worchester. Her body was that of a common fifteen-year-old, and an autopsy stated that she had died a week within the discovery of her corpse. To make matters dramatically worse, John’s father was a drunk who committed suicide the following year, laying his head along the tracks of train, when John was sixteen. Our friend was placed in a boy’s home, but was quickly transferred to Pinecroft after beating another boy nearly to death over a little harmless name calling.

We had been desperate with John. He was our last hope of success with this exceptionally new and controversial therapy, and yet, it has been an utter failure. John’s mind was too stable to subject itself to the induced dosage of schizophrenia for a period of time long enough for it to alter his values and beliefs and his understanding of his place in this world yet too unstable to create a better life for himself even within his dreams. It is almost as though John simply longs to suffer. Even in his dreams, John is lost. John has gone missing. He has left the hospital. I do not suspect he will return.
…

The ocean breeze is so remarkably blissful, is it not? I believe the feeling is conjured by the pure innocence and lack of worry that encompasses the mental processes while walking along the coastal shore. Or perhaps, it is the youthful exuberance that accompanies the cool wind blowing your hair back, or the utter euphoria of bathing in the summer sun. It’s really all so joyous. Why can I not feel this way more? Why must I feel so hopeless as often as I do? I tremble as take my first few strides into the frigid water. I spent many glorious moments with my beauty mother and my, then happy, father here. I wish to be here now, as I take my last breaths. I bid the world a great, sorrowful goodbye.
The End.