When The Darkness Takes Us: Jess's Story

Gum

The room is small, smaller than anything since my college dorm. Although, to be fair, my dorm room was slightly larger than average. It was one of the nicer dorms, smack dab next to the student center. That was back when I still talked to my family so of course they footed the bill for one of the nicer dorms. Only lived on campus for one year, because I met Travis after that and moved into his place. That's when he started footing the bill for everything. That's when I didn't need my family anymore and started my slow fade away from them. And now I've completely faded out and there's nobody but me to foot the bill and I've always been irresponsible. I glance around at the dirty dark blue walls. Who paints a room dark blue? No matter....I'm responsible for this now.

"When are you moving the rest of your stuff in?" the older woman asks listlessly. Her voice is flat, not at all the bubbly wine aunt vibe she had the times we spoke over Zoom.

"This is all of my stuff," I tell her.

She eyes my three bags with skepticism. "Guess that's a good thing," she mutters. "Not a lot of room here."

I shrug. "Told you I wouldn't need much space."

She sighs heavily. "Honey, I have to go have a drink. These past two days have been a lot. Can't get my mind off it all. How you coping?"

Coping? At first I think she must mean with the divorce-how am I coping with moving away from my husband-but that can't be what she means because she's saying it like it's been hard on her....

I stare at her and she must be able to read the confusion on my face because her own brow crinkles and very slowly she asks, "You...have heard the news haven't you?"

"News?" My thoughts are so slow. It's like they're slogging through wet cement. "What about the news?"

Her eyes widen, two rows of spider-leg clumpy eyelashes flaring apart. But I realize what she's talking about before she has to say anything else.

"Oh!" I exclaim. "The black hole? Yes, I heard the world is ending."

Something unreadable is on her face. The lines around her eyes seem suddenly deeper. "And...how is it hitting you?"

I don't know how to respond to this question. I feel a lot of things. For one, I don't really believe it. People are always saying the world is going to end. Back in 2012 a lot of people said the world would end. And while I feel like if the world really is ending, then I'm going through all the trouble of setting out on my own for no reason, I also feel....I feel...

"I feel like it's too good to be true," I mutter.

The older woman....Linda, I remember her name now, she gives me another appraising look and says, "Why don't you come have a drink with me?"

I know I shouldn't. I wouldn't exactly say I'm a recovering alcoholic, but I did use to binge drink a lot. I'd down as much vodka as I could stomach and then sob until I was dry heaving. One night in particular comes to mind, a group of people I barely knew half carrying me home from a bar. First I was laughing, then crying. We walked past a group of black people, a rare occurrence in New Hampshire. The guy holding me by the waist giggled and urged me to shout a racial slur. The worst racial slur. You know the one I mean. I didn't. Even near-blackout-drunk me isn't that awful. So somebody else in the group did it instead and right before I vomited I remember thinking that I was drunk and incoherent and about to blackout and the group of people currently responsible for me were bad people.

Still, now I'm nodding and saying, "A drink would be good. Do you have vodka?"

I'm feeling better by the halfway point in my favorite drink: Shirley Temple with vodka. Linda used too much grenadine, but I'll live. Ah, the feeling of being drunk. Light and floaty and everything is funny. Linda is telling me some story about her ex-husband and I'm not really listening, but I can tell it's meant to be funny so I laugh. That's good enough for her. She keeps talking.