An Tale of Exquisite Desperation

We stand on the corner facing out to the street. We have been standing, waiting just like that for what seems like hours. I glance over at Mario and notice his finger tapping the rhythm of passing cars onto his sleeve. He is probably counting to some meaningless number for no real reason. Mario has a touch of OCD, and it gets worse when he is nervous. Silently, I turn back to watching my side of the street corner. The wind picks up, and I feel my nose begin to run. I sniffle, wipe my nose on my shoulder, hunch my neck deeper into my collar.

“Time’s it?” Mario asks, without turning his head.

I ignore him. I know the question doesn’t really require an answer. I gaze upwards and follow a leaf as it makes its brave descent down towards the road. The wind teases it, batting it around, like a kitten with a balled-up sock. When the wind grows bored, it drops the leaf against a grate, where the rising steam is eager to caress its lifeless body.

A dented, puke-yellow car floats into my vision and into my conscious mind, coaxing me back into the moment at hand. I reach my elbow back to nudge Mario. The passenger side of the car opens, and violently slams into a metal newspaper box. I feel an unreasonable urge to laugh. I hear a curse, and then the door clicks shut and the car moves forward a few feet. This time no door opens. I try to assume my very best disinterested expression as my pulse burns rubber through my blood. Be cool. Time reliably keeps moving forward.

“Fuck,” I quietly tell the inside of my collar. “What the fuck are they doing?”

Time is a mysterious thing. Why have I never noticed this before? I mean, our entire lives are structured around time. Time. A second just passed, and it will never be back. And another. And another. Where did it go? I panic a little as I think about how easy it is to lose something that, even though there is possibly an infinite supply of it, will never return - and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. What would living feel like if there were no such thing as time? Would I still feel this hollow sense of aimlessness, of uselessness, of idleness?

The car slowly moves away down the street. I notice myself feeling disappointed. That’s interesting. Mario moves to my side, and we both watch the car as its brake lights glow, and then it makes a wide turn and comes back towards us. There is no backing out now, no hiding behind anonymity; nobody would feign such interest in this indistinguishable car for no reason. The car saunters to the curb that I have been guarding for the better part of the morning, and the window rolls down half way. This is it.

“Whenever you’re ready,” offers the man sitting in the passenger seat. His voice is far from friendly, but gentle enough.

I look at Mario.

“I love you,” he tells me. His eyes are raw, and I believe him.

I say nothing. God, what a pussy. Mario. He is merely one of six billion people on this planet, and it shows. He numbly observes each day pass by, encompassed in a placid fog. He is lucky and I hate him for it. For an instant I feel sorry for him. He wants so badly to give me something, anything, but he can’t. He doesn’t know how. I am acutely aware that he will never know how. I look at his familiar, stunned face, and I know why I am leaving.

“I’ll see ya.” Mario looks ill. I can’t give him what he needs either, I notice, but it’s from lack of desire rather than from lack of ability. I soften a little, and squeeze his hand. “Take care of yourself.” He’s better off without me.

Unfriendly Voice opens the door and leans the seat forward so I can slide in behind him. I hesitate for a moment as I consider being trapped in the back seat of this two door car with no way out, but I rationalize that the greatest danger facing me likely lies in whatever is that I have agreed to. I wiggle my body in through the small opening behind the front seat, and unfold myself so I am sitting right on the hump. I can see the driver’s face in the rearview mirror. He is concentrating on pulling away from the curb, and edges the car into the curb lane so he can join the traffic coursing down Hastings Street. I reflexively open my mouth to introduce myself, and then I promptly stop and relax back into the seat. Forget manners. I don’t know what is expected of me, but I do know that I am not in a normal situation and normal social rules do not apply. I feel strangely relieved. This is exactly why I signed up for the Fresh Start program.

“Am I allowed to ask questions?” I direct towards neither of the men in particular. Nervousness is vying with curiosity for emotional right-of-way in my brain.

Without moving his head, the driver moves his eyes to look at me. He laughs. His gaze offends me and I feel stupid and bare.

Unfriendly Voice interrupts my discomfort to ask, “what do you want to know?”

I shrug. What do I want to know? I want to know where you are taking me. I want to know how I am going to get there. I want to know how many times you have done this before. I want to know what exactly this is. How many other lonely, frightened people have turned to you and desperately asked you to save their lives? Forget all that; I just want to know what is wrong with me. “Just… nothing. I was just wondering if I could ask questions.” I can feel my cheeks heat and glow crimson like an element.

I try to concentrate on staring out the window. For an ostensibly simple task, it is proving to be exceptionally difficult. I want to settle my thoughts into a warm memory, or a casual daydream, but my Frantic/Erratic/Anxious thinking is too powerful. My brain has a hegemonic grip on my mind. It is exhausting to try to redirect my thoughts to the pockets of my imagination or memory that are the mildest, the safest. No, it is impossible. I know this because I have been trying for years, and like Sisyphus, I am desperately aware of the futility of my situation. Like Sisyphus, I have no choice. Like Sisyphus, I persist. I distract myself by pretending I am a normal person going to a meeting with my boss and maybe some colleagues. I try to concentrate on staring out the window.

The traffic is thinning now, and nature begins to present itself to the grey city, demanding increasingly more area. It occurs to me that I might never see Vancouver again, and in a pulse of sentimentality, I turn to look out the back window. Feel something. Feel something. I feel nothing. I allow myself to hope that whatever it is that I am on the verge of will change me in the inexplicable way that I so crave being changed. I know this is an ambitious thing to hope.