My Heaven

Part 1: A Mental Detour

"I'm tired." There was a time we'd use those two little words when coming home from the jaded cesspit, or in some cases, the office. There was a time when those words remained synonymous with no sleep or exercise. In recent years, it's become the go-to phrase for life; never to be taken lightly. 

Lucas Swanson's my name, and my life up until now has turned into a bad choice road, one filled with unsuspecting potholes. I guess you can say my parents and I moved around a lot. When it came to money, every penny went towards the illusion of a "better" life. As I grew up, the road made me experience job woes, lost genuine friends, and thereby lost myself. My parents tried. They did their best to help me see the world with gray tinted glasses. Well, my mom did anyway.

My old man, or Peter, and I could not accept each other; for reasons, I didn't find out until I was mature enough for the terrible truth. Mom did her best to keep the family together, given her southern roots. He saw my hometown of New Jersey and said if I don't "nut up" with the times, I'll get left behind. In essence, he wanted me to be some red-faced asshole who says, "It is what it is" all the time.

Too late. It felt like every day growing up was a new obstacle. I was one of those guys with his back against the wall. If I had a question, the world would tell me to fuck off. If I had a different opinion, any open debate would turn into an episode of that shit show on MTV. That reality crap turned Jersey into a joke.

It seemed everyone around me had some notion of who they were, what they wanted to be later in life, all the while I was still figuring it out. I found solace in playing volleyball, but that wasn't my purpose. There was just this... thing in my heart telling me there was a world out there that accepted people like me; a world that was patient. 

My teenage years was one emotional cyclone. In one instant, I thought I finally found my purpose in life, to be a fiction writer. The world always spins, but some part of me wanted to compel the world to look my way, even for a second, and see me as someone of worth. But the world resumed its slow and continuous rotation; nary a spark of interest in the stories I wrote. I couldn't even bring myself to show my writing to my work colleagues. Was I writing the wrong genre, I thought? Was it bad timing? 

My mind could not decide which. I had a knack for telling stories. It somehow made my heart feel good. When I was six living at a homeless shelter with my mom, I had endured paranoid episodes; a compilation of scenarios left on the cutting room floor. The disarray of self-doubt took the wheel. Then came social anxiety, depression, and isolation from my Admin job. Luckily, the isolation didn't last long. None of this is news, though. I've learned late that I am not the only one going through this, but with my setbacks, who other than me is going to tell my story?

Going on seven years, I have dealt with lazy co-workers and assholes. Most of them tore each other down to move up the ladder. It became popcorn entertainment for the higher-ups, like a bunch of roosters pecking at each other. However, there were a few "pearls in the muck" that made the 9-5 survivable.

Devon, Ava, my boy Taye... Priscilla; acquaintances once, but as we fought "in the trenches" a kinship was formed. We looked out for one another, went to bat when one's job was on the line, and for 'Cilla... God, how do I start? She changed the game in a big way, even some of the lazy humps stepped up their game. She possessed a strength to be a natural leader. Some of the corporate climbers saw her as a plus for the company while my boss had "other plans." It barely fazed her, though. 'Cilla was proud of the work we did. Currying favor from the higher-ups came naturally.

For a time, I thought a change really was coming. It did, but not in a way any of us expected. In my line of work, you have to leave your feelings in the breakroom fridge, or better, in your car. Those feelings came down on me like a tidal wave when Taye called me at 1 in the morning. "I dunno what happened, Luke," he panicked. "It's 'Cilla. She's dead, brother."

Gravity pinned me to my bed. My skin turned cold. Priscilla had a few enemies in the workplace, but not enough to get murdered. It took a few minutes, but I rushed over to where it happened. The police found her body outside a dive bar.

Her face was beaten into oblivion. This fuckery we call reality never ceases to amaze me. We see a shining light and instead of ensuring its warmth, it is snuffed out by the dark.

They never found who did it, but I had my theories. There was no gray that separated the black and white of the situation. This was unavenged cruelty, plain and simple.

As for the rest of us, Taye and the others they've... life lifted each of them from their trapped cubicles. 'Cilla's family buried her three days later. If you think you can move on from losing a co-worker and friend, you're kidding yourself. Carrying the loss is all any of us can do. Every fiber in me screamed to join the others on their new journeys. Even after I quit the admin grind, I was the last man standing.

We all lost touch, and I don't do social media really. I doubled down on writing. "Where did it all go wrong," I asked myself. "You coulda showed them one story. Make them believe there was a future brighter than some 9-5 hellhole. Shit, you could've reintroduced yourself in a compelling way."

A million variations of the same question live rent free in my head. The next few years were seldom calm. In a way, I have regressed myself into a defeatist; never was the plan. When I lost touch with Taye, Dev and Ava, I lost myself. When one is dropped in the deep end, what can you do? No one is going to throw you water wings, nor a lifeguard to save you.

The defeatist in me felt like I was meant to drown because the world also thrived on self-destruction. No manuscript or a dream was going to grind the natural order to a halt. In my case, I was fine with that. This life is a nightmare sometimes. People often say, "It is what it is" as a means to avoid change. Maybe I'll never find justice for Priscilla's death.

My only solution is diving into my numb subconscious, relive the good of time's past. It's become a ritual of mine. After all, what is New Jersey if not a battlefield of dissent, discontent, and deceit? What they can never take away is my ability to escape inward; a mental detour, if you will.

Yes... it is time to escape once more into the what-should-have-been. This is my heaven.