Searching for Purpose (Twenty One Pilots)

11. Panic Cookies

Tyler knocked on Josh's door at nine the next morning. He would've much rather stayed in his room all day and drown out everything in real life with his music, but after what had happened yesterday, Tyler knew that Josh would need someone today. Plus, his problems were all just made up anyway, Tyler thought. Josh had real problems. Tangible problems. Physical things to deal with. All Tyler had was an oppressing feeling of sadness and loneliness. Nothing too serious.

"How are you doing?" Tyler asked as soon as Josh opened the door. His hair was dripping wet and his eyes seemed brighter than they did yesterday.

"Better. A lot. I'm good," Josh smiled. "Oh, and thanks for the drumsticks. You didn't have to. I could've gone back or something. I can pay you back if you want."

"Don't worry about it," Tyler waved him off.

They spent the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon sitting in Josh's room and finishing up some readings they had for their classes. Josh had given up on his calculus work at one point, even after Tyler had tried to explain it to him, and moved onto reading for his art history class, which he also gave up on after only five minutes. Tyler, being too distracted by Josh aimlessly pacing the length of his room, put away his books as well and ended up agreeing to listening a new "thing", as Josh called it, that Josh had come up with on the drums the other day.

"That was pretty sick," Tyler said when silence took the place of drums.

"Really? Because like, I thought of it in a dream a while back."

"I felt it in my soul. Like the Drum Gods had graced me with their presence, grabbed ahold of my inner-most being, and shook it like they were at some sketchy concert for a rock band full of old people," Tyler elaborated.

"Specific," Josh mused as he looked at Tyler with great interest. "I like it."

"We're going over using strange things to relate stuff to, well, different ways. It's more fun if it's strange," Tyler explained.

Josh laughed a bit and stood up, shaking his head at his friend. He really didn't understand Tyler at all. He was the one who laughed the loudest at every single lame joke, but also the guy who locked himself in his room to cry, or at least that's what Josh assumed he was doing; Tyler could be having tea parties that happened to involve lots of tears for all Josh knew. Tyler was the person who cares the most about helping everyone else with their problems, but won't even think twice about helping themselves even every once in a while. The saddest person Josh had ever met, while simultaneously being the happiest. It didn't make sense; any of it.

Josh didn't really understand how that could be, but then again, not everything was black and white. Sometimes there were colors in between that were really hard to see, and once you saw them, everything changed and everything made sense. He couldn't see those colors right now, though. Josh guessed he would just have to look a bit closer.

At some point, neither was sure when, the two had decided to head over to the library to try and study in a place without any distractions. Tyler was a bit hesitant, as he and silence didn't really get along, but Josh reminded him that there were vending machines with "those really dry but really good" cookies in them. Tyler couldn't argue with the cookies.

When they got there, and after they had gotten their cookies, Josh had immediately gone in search of a book on some old dead painter guy, leaving Tyler alone at a table in front of a window. He didn't really want to be alone, and had hoped that Josh would've stayed behind with him, but he had work to finish, as did Josh, so Tyler sat all by himself, humming quietly to fill the suffocating silence of his corner and reading something about bugs.

Why do bugs have so many legs, Tyler wondered. How do they even live? Do they have blood? Lungs? Do they even breathe? How can a thing live it doesn't breathe? How do human live if they do breathe? How long can I hold my breath?

Tyler had only counted to ten when someone coughed behind him and broke his concentration.

After a few more minutes of Tyler staring blankly at the page he was supposed to be reading, which consisted of a diagram mapping out how electrical signals get passed into the brain, Josh wandered over to the table and sat down across from Tyler. With him he had three very large, very old looking books, all with a different painting on the cover. Tyler was suddenly insanely glad that he let his younger sister talk him out of taking art history.

But would he have enjoyed it? What if art history was the one class that would have changed Tyler's life? He would never know now. His purpose in life could be somewhere among those pages Josh was barely even glancing over now. He could have found a reason to live, and actually enjoy living, within the words that Josh's eyes were skimming over. His one true joy in the world could have been discovered in the lectures Josh's teacher gave, but Tyler would never know.

He could never find his purpose now. There were too many things that Tyler hadn't done or read or seen or heard and there was no way he would ever find something worth living for because there were too many places to look and he was doing it all alone because no matter how much he wanted to break down and cry for help no words would come out and voice in the back of his head would remind him that no one would ever help the worthless kid.

Nothing, Tyler Joseph.

You are nothing, his mind screamed.

You never have been and you never will.

The only thing you are good at is being sad, but you have no reason to be.

So many other people have it worse than you. Your problems don't matter. They aren't real. They don't count.

You're so pathetic.

You are nothing.

Nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing....

"Tyler, you okay?"

Tyler snapped out of his thoughts and looked up with wide eyes. His breath was coming out shakily, and he was sure that anyone looking at him right now would've thought he just ran a marathon through a haunted house, which in reality, wasn't too far off.

"Yeah," he eventually breathed out. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Okay, good. Don't want you passing out. There'd be no way I could carry you back to your room."

Tyler let out a small, humorless laugh as Josh went back to reading his book. Josh had no idea how close Tyler had been to a full on panic attack.

Tyler willed himself to forget what he had been thinking only moments ago. It was hard, well, more like nearly impossible since one doesn't just "get over" almost having a panic attack no matter how much one wants to, but he managed. Instead, Tyler tried to focus all of his energy on reading about bugs.

By the end of the day, after buying more of those really dry cookies and parting ways with Josh, Tyler knew two things.

One, he really didn't like bugs and the way they breathed was kind of weird.

And two, the voices in his head were right.