"1,913 - Tar (4)

*From my book "1,913

In a moment of weakness, I decided to carry out the ridiculous plan my heart formulated, only a modified version. Although, calling it an actual plan is a huge stretch. I sent Nathan his story.

“October 4, 2007 4:30 AM To: silence From: LUSH

As much as I’ll hate myself in the morning (or possibly even seconds from hitting send), here are 1,913 words all about you. Do you deserve to read it? Perhaps not. Will it finally end your chapter? Most likely. Do I think you’ll actually respond? No, but I haven’t lost all hope in humanity… Perhaps I have…

Ann”

I stared at the screen for what seemed like hours, waiting for the reply I knew would never come. It was done, it was over. Finally, I would be free. He would know the pain He caused; He would know the anguish and issues He brought to my head. Finally, I could hate him and put him away in my mind. Finally… There was a reply…

“Oct 4, 2007 10:10 PM To: LUSH From: silence

Dear Ann,
I don’t know what to say. I feel paralyzed after reading your 1,913 words. They are beyond vivid. Everything came back to my mind. It was like I was in your living room again, looking at the tattoo magazines. No one has ever written something so personal that has had anything to do with me, and so I feel like you threw a large boulder at me, and now I'm crushed below it. I have been so alone for so long, so alienated, that I have felt like I have been nothing to anyone. That I might mean anything to you, was never a thought, because I lost all faith in people. I lost all faith in relationships, love and the like. To me everything had become worthless and absurd. God died for me, the possibility for meaning flew out my window and relationships were, at most, fleeting.

After the split with my spouse, I had been alone in that apartment for almost a year, with only my books to keep me company. Thom was my first friend in a year. I felt like I betrayed my friendship, when I chose you over him. My guilt has gone unquenched the entire time.

I have thought a lot about you. I wondered why I just allowed things to end the way I did. The same pathetic reason I always do; I'm scared of getting hurt. My heart has been ripped out so many times. So much that I doubt I even have a heart anymore. If I do, it is merely for pumping blood. In being alone, I know what to expect. Loneliness I can deal with. I can sleep it off. But to be broken again, that is my greatest fear.

I agree with so many of the sentiments you laid out. I felt so alive with you that night. The experience was completely unique, not to be compared with any other experience. I wanted it to last forever. I felt completely vulnerable. I feel vulnerable, now, telling you this. That was why I could not handle it. If one night could feel like that, what would happen to me? I'm too weak, too sensitive to take anymore. In all honesty, I have no self confidence, although I do my best to hide it. You were and are what my heart wants, but I'm too much of a coward to go after you.

I'm not sorry that I met you. Nevertheless, I very much regret the state I was in when I met you. I hope that some day you can forgive me, for causing you any heartache, anger or pain. I feel foolish asking you that, because it doesn’t negate my actions. I hope you and Thom are doing well.

I have missed you.

Nathan”

I read it over and over. I interpreted it until it lost all meaning. I studied it until I was captive within its lines. My heart was clinched between its words, like a balloon being squeezed until it’s colorless and transparent. You were and are what my heart wants sat in the back of my throat and suffocated me. I wanted to reply but my hands had betrayed me and gone numb.

Any trace of distinction between me and that soft, purple couch I was sitting on slipped away without warning. I felt anesthetized. I became nothing more than a mass of human remains slowly decaying into the earth. There was no division between anything; everything was made of the same substance as that couch and I. I didn’t bother trying to move. I knew if I so much as tried to lift a finger, it would have already melded with the tar of existence. Nothing could be separated, and nothing was human. The atmosphere was nothing but a post-apocalyptic prison guard keeping his inmates alive by feeding them lies that there was something more than nothing.

Imprudently, there was still a part of me that anticipated meaning; perhaps if I could tear away from this abysmal tar, there would be something out there. When I finally came back to what I knew as reality, everything still appeared meaningless. I was able to think clearly, but still couldn’t form sense of things. I was disgusted by the objects around me; the couch I sat on, the coffee table I’d so carefully placed, the walls that were so perfectly painted, and, worst, the window my eyes couldn’t escape. I looked out and saw a world that didn’t know me, a world that didn’t know itself.

From that point forward, I functioned on pure instinct from a life otherwise gone. In this reality, I couldn’t have fathomed a more perfect response. The response was both great and terrible. It was everything I had wanted and everything I expected at the same time.