Consumption of Joy || Paul Lahote

chapter two - the aftermath

It's perplexing when your world falls apart and shatters into tiny, indecipherable pieces, to the point where you can't even begin to comprehend your life before, yet everyone around you seems to eventually gain a sense of normality. You wonder how anyone can carry on with their lives; how birds can continue to sing;  people can continue to fall in love, flowers can continue to bloom, when it seems as if the world has stopped. Time has become frozen. There is no before, during or after. There's just pain. Constant, suffocating, isolating and interminable pain. I don't remember when this pain, so destructing in nature, became numb. When the intensity of it stilled. Maybe it didn't. Maybe I simply became accustomed to it. 

"They say time heals all. But how can that apply to one who has no perception of time? "

I don't know how I can continue to live. Breathing has become laborious  and now requires concentration. I think that's because after I have become so aware of  living. And dying. Yet, the equilibrium has ceased to be comprehensible. I don't believe that there ever was an equilibrium.    How can there be when the very act of breathing, allowing your heart to beat a steady rhythm, is so easily terminable? There's not even a fine line between living and dying. There's just living or dying. 

People are so afraid of dying because of the possibility of suffering in the afterlife as a consequence to their actions in life. Or even ceasing to exist all together. To simply become nothing, other than an unmemorable speck in history, if that.

How completely and utterly selfish. 

They should be more afraid of the grief, the destruction, the devastation their death has on their loved ones.  How impossible their death makes it for their loved ones to obtain the will to just survive. They don't comprehend the severity of their demise on the stability of those around them. They only think about its implications on themselves. How selfish, indeed. 

Of course, I don't blame my parents. I don't blame anyone. Not the drunk driver, nor the slippery roads. I physically cannot bring myself to feel anything, except pain and grief. Both emotions are so dominant and superior that they restrict any other emotions from being felt. 

A couple of days after, a therapist asked me to write down how I was feeling, as if that would fix my broken soul.

Despite my gruelling attempts, the paper remained empty. I could not have described it any better. 

♡

My fingernails dug into the palm of my hand as I gripped onto the telephone with the other. I have been dreading this phone call for over a month. Yet, of course, it was inevitable. After all, I am now seventeen years old orphan who's need a place to live. 

"So, I've booked you a flight for this Saturday at nine." My uncle, Charlie Swan, informed me, "I know it's a little early, but I don't want you spending any more time in that house than is completely necessary. God, I can only imagine..." 

A tense silence filled the room as Charlie trailed off. Though, he was right - it was like I was living with ghosts. 

"No, that's fine," I said hoarsely, my voice barely above a whisper. I cleared my throat, "Thanks."

"Anytime. I'll pick you up at the airport at one. Bye kiddo." 

I didn't bother responding, the monotone beep! of the receiver filled my desolate kitchen. I glanced past my already packed suitcase in the living room, to the vacant TV cabinet where our family photos used to sit. I tried not to think about how I will never be able to create any more memories with my parents. And even the memories I do have will fade out of existence when I inevitably forget them. I am solely responsible for the longevity of my parents intangible continuance. How inequitably overwhelming.

I tore my gaze away from the living room and focused on making myself some coffee. I had no intention of sleeping at all tonight, knowing that my dreams (or is the term 'nightmares' more fitting?)  will be plagued by it. I don't even know what to call it, there are no words suitable enough to depict the extent of what happened.  

The only time I'm able to sleep void of these nightmares is when I'm so fatigued and exhausted, that I can barely keep my eyes open. If I don't sleep tonight, then I'll certainly  be able to sleep peacefully on the plane ride. 

So, with my plan taking course, I grabbed my steaming cup of coffee, placed my headphones in, and turned the music up to its highest point, preventing myself from forming coherent thoughts. At least for a while, anyway.