Within Thyself

Within Thyself






The bottle felt hollow in his hand. He tested it by shaking it, and once proven, he tossed the empty onto the country highway, and watched it shatter into a thousand sharp edged pieces. The destruction happened in a slow motion, an effect probably stemming from what had been the contents of the now shattered bottle.
With eyes still trained on the broken glass, he wiped the sweat off his brow, and breathed deep. He no longer knew whether the night had been warm to begin with, but there was no doubt that it felt like it was. The white-hot flames of a fifth of vodka forked unpleasantly through him, and the world queasily shook around him. He knew he wouldn’t throw up, but he wasn’t sure whether he should care if he did.
Why should he anyway? Who was here to laugh at him, or leave him feeling ashamed for being unable to hold his liquor? Who was here to tell him that he had too much, that maybe he should not be driving? Nothing but the trees, who were hidden by the darkness at any rate. Besides, if there were light he might have had trouble picking out the trees anyway.
As he tried to peer past night’s curtain, he thought back to how he came to be in this position, hopelessly drunk in the absolute middle of nowhere. And it was the absolute middle of nowhere. Even more so perhaps than Nebraska. Perhaps.
How had he gotten to the point where the only thing that could temper the pain was hard liquor? How had he started to lose such hope where it seems like a good idea to drive into the middle of a desolate country field and drink until the throat burns from intoxication?
Too many things to list, the man thought. Too many things to put on paper, and too many things to deal with right now. That’s why there’s liquor.
He laughed noiselessly, his head bobbing almost unconsciously. It had begun when he had lost that essential ability to feel, not to touch things physically but emotionally. The tentacles of our emotions are how we touch things and grow outside ourselves, but when he had lost that ability he had all his life, his heart felt empty and cruel. What he had once found abhorrent and wrong and cruel he had now found amusing, good for a quick laugh. He no longer cared. He could not bear to live a senseless, purposeless life, so he used his firewater to fill the cracks, and this was where that had taken him.
He was tired of thinking and had given up searching for solutions a long time ago. Now all there was left to do was drive until he passed out, and then find his way back to somewhere.
He fingered the keys tentatively and eventually jabbed the key into the ignition. Turning the key, the roar of the engine drowned out his heavy breathing. He had turned off the radio long ago, not finding any station worth listening to, so the background music remained silence and extraneous car noise for the time being.
The car purred happily but the man waited several moments before actually putting the car into gear. He tried to concentrate on the white line of the headlight-illuminated highway, but the world still shook alcoholically. He knew there might be trouble, but it took him a long moment to realize that he doesn’t care. Whenever someone’s drinking heavily by himself in the middle of nowhere, odds are they really don’t care about anything.
Pulling the car into drive, he thanked god it was an automatic. He had always had trouble driving stick for some reason or another, and he was glad something would be a little easier than it had to be. Besides concentration was not his strong suit at the moment.
The featureless highway stretched ahead of him, nothing to either side except expansive black. If one looked hard one might be able to see a hill, a scattering of trees, but more likely than not, one would catch sight of nothing but black. This was the true darkness, the type of darkness that surrounded you until you felt as much a part of it as everything you could not see was.
This sort of desolation fit his mood perfectly. Too many things had happened to him in the past year or so for him to want anything more than the comfort of drunken loneliness.
He accelerated, and soon he was going well past sixty-five miles an hour, which might have been the speed limit. He jerked back and forth aggressively as the turns came, because he rarely saw when they came until he was right upon them. He could feel the stars staring blankly down at him, and he wished he could drive faster, faster and faster until the car lifted off the earth and he would be gone among the stars. He didn’t exactly care if there weren’t oxygen, because he knew it would be worth it, to get away from a mess he had created, even if most of the debris hadn’t materialized as anything more than misperceptions within his head.
It was around this point, when he had passed an intersection with another barren highway that he slowed down, to a more manageable forty miles an hour. His gaze shifted introspectively, inevitable considering he had been drinking, and most thoughts turn inward when everything around shakes and shudders violently with alcoholic intentions. He couldn’t help thinking about what had happened, even if he had promised himself he wouldn’t. He was completely lost in thought.
“Don’t worry about it.”
The man jumped and checked the rear-view mirror, but he could not make out the figure that had hidden himself in the back seat. Given this lack of information, he angrily demanded who this person was.
“You know who it is.”
“What?”
“You know who I am.”
“How the hell am I supposed to know who you are?! Tell me, now!”
“I’m telling you, you know who I am.”
It was very strange at that moment, because the man felt a jagged infestation of truth in the man’s words. His gut writhed with a feeling that he did indeed know who this person is, and he attempted to reach through his mind to find it, but like a movie or name that eludes the mind from time to time, so did the image or name of this man.
“I’m sorry, but I’m having trouble remembering who you are,” he said drunkenly. “Can you help me out? Because it’s a little fucking weird to be driving alone, by myself no less, and hear someone answer something I wasn’t even thinking out loud.”
The figure laughed, and the man joined with a couple nervous chuckles.
“Do not worry, the answer will come to you. Until then just talk, and the truth will rise to the surface.”
The man scratched the top of his head in frustration. Uncontrollably, he had slowed the car down to fifteen miles per hour, and he slowly accelerated again at a speed conducive for deep thoughts and a plunging of memories.
“So tell me then, if you want to help me out, where’d I know you from?”
“You’ve known me all your life.”
“What you telling me you’re some childhood friend or somethin’. Because I didn’t know anybody that would stowaway in the backseat of my car for one long-ass drive and pop up in the middle of nowhere for a conversation.”
The figure paused to laugh again, but this time the man did not join him. “Yes, I am someone you knew when you were a child. But perhaps not in the way you kne-”
“-Listen bro, I can already tell you’re the type that loves all these riddles and paradoxes, but I ain’t gonna lie to you. I’m tired, and insanely drunk. It’s everything I can do to drive in a straight line right now, so needless to say, I couldn’t solve a child’s crossword puzzle right now. So you can make this a whole lot easier on the both of us if you quit with the charades, came out of the shadows, and either kill me or leave me the fuck alone.”
After a pause the figure answered, “Please with the language.”
“Sorry, I’m just a teensy bit irritated. And if you know my thoughts like it seems you do, maybe got an inkling why.”
“It’s all right. But I cannot tell you who I am. You must figure this out for yourself, or else I would be betraying you.”
“Goddamn it! Sorry for the goddamn language, but this had got to stop man!” He slowed the car to a manageable twenty miles per hour. “Come on now, how long does this have to go on.”
“As long as it takes.” The man muttered angrily under his breath. “Just talk, and eventually, you will see.”
Still muttering curses under his breath, he started talking. “Well, if you’re gonna sit there and be all cryptic like a psychologist and whatnot, I guess you’re as good as any to talk to.” The other man hummed his assent. “Well, I guess my main trouble is I’ve been in a bit of a rut.” He stopped, so the figure asked him why. “Just your regular ol’ rut. Except this one’s deep, so I guess it’s not so regular. I can’t find anyway to get out of it, so I figured why not dig it so deep, hell, so deep I might end up in China or somethin’. Thus why I’m drinking a hell of a lot in a hell of a lot of nothing.”
“But you didn’t answer my question. Why are you in a rut?”
The man shrugged. “I don’t know man. God, how does anything happen.” He looked down, apparently pulling deep. “I don’t know. Seems to me it started with that stupid marriage of mine.” He shook his head, slowly but angrily. “There was no reason either of us should have gotten married, none whatsoever. We were only kids trying on adult suits, children playing at adult games, and if it wasn’t for her getting pregnant we would’ve never even thought about it.” He felt the figure stiffen uncomfortably. “Don’t think that I regret having the kid, she’s a good daughter, but,” he said, sighing objectively, “we weren’t right for each other, and we weren’t right for even the idea of marriage at that point. Maybe it would have been better to just stop the whole thing before it started, and I’d help her out-, or we’d share custody, “ his hands fluttered around in ignorance. “I don’t know, that’s all. It was just a mistake that’s set in stone now.
“It’s not only that now. My job didn’t help matters any. I was a detective. A homicide and violent crimes detective in Area four in Chicago. I’m tellin’ you, some of the worse shit,” he stopped to apologize for the language, “some of the worst crap the world’s ever seen has happened in Area four. And it doesn’t stop! Everyday I come in and there’d be a murder or an armed robbery, or something like that. And everybody whose ever had a high opinion of humanity, man, give ‘em two days workin’ there and their high opinion breaks down all the way to the ground. I had a high opinion, I always tried to be a good cop. You know? Serve the people, and all that good stuff. But, it all kinda changed when I became a detective.” The man paused, somewhat overtaken by the enormity of what he was revealing to what seemed like a total stranger, even though he had an odd feeling he had actually known him all his life. He had actually pulled the car over to the side of the road, concentrating fully on what he was saying. He took a couple moments before he started again.
“We came up with euphemisms to blind ourselves to what we were actually dealing with, like calling burn victims ‘crispy critters’, or people that had been shot to pieces ‘swiss cheese’. Just like they did in ‘Nam.
“But it didn’t matter, we still knew, we still knew what we were doin’, what we were seein’. In the backs of our minds, they sat there, all the dead, all the murderers, sitting in there cutting us apart. I still remember the first dead man I saw workin’ detective.
“His throat, it had been cut open, something about a drug deal gone wrong, and they wanted him to suffer maybe. I don’t know, we didn’t even try to catch ‘em, we didn’t care about them gangbangers unless they were killing good, honest citizens. I don’t know if many of these citizens lived in Area four, but that’s pretty much what we did, we let them tear themselves apart, policing themselves in a way, I guess. But yeah, his throat was slit, pretty much from ear to ear.” He laughed quietly, and it was obvious he was sobering up a bit. “Say, you’re awfully quiet back there, you didn’t leave me or nothin’ did you?”
“No, I’m just listening.”
“Still not gonna tell me who you are, huh?”
“You will figure it out.”
The man shrugged. This was enough for him now.
“Ok, have it your way.” He sat back and leaned his head back. “Anyways, this guy’s throat was slit. And I don’t know if you ever seen how much blood’s in a guy, but I can tell you it’s a hell of a lot. It coated the kitchen, all clotted up on the tiles. You had to hose off your shoes before you even left the apartment. Man, it was some rough shit, gross and unbearably hideous. I don’t even know how I kept from puking. Always had a strong stomach, so maybe that’s how I guess.
“But anyway, I get up close to the guy examining him. And it’s the damndest thing. But I could see, frozen on his face was a smile. The fucker was smiling! Odds are he had a knife held to his throat, knew he was gonna die, and he still was smiling! I couldn’t believe it. And all I could think about was what was going through his mind, what he was thinkin’ about. How he may have decided that, if he’s going to die, how he’d like to stick it to these assholes one more time, smile at Death and tell him he’s not scared, just for the hell of it. And why not?
“But yeah, I looked into his face, though, and I saw a thousand faces, hell, he looked a lot like a childhood friend of mine. I could see the child he had been, how good he probably was to his mother, every time he asked her for a bedtime story, and how sad she would be to see her little boy defiled like this. I could see how he played with his friends, how innocent he had been, and how that city had sullied him. Everything was kinda raging inside of me, a river that couldn’t be stopped, and too much of me was being lost through the torrent. And each time I saw a dead person after that, I felt this less and less. The river, I guess, was being dammed up, bit by bit, busy little beavers, stemming the flow. And yeah, this made my job more manageable, but I didn’t care anymore. And I’m the type of guy who can’t live existentially,” paused and laughed sadly. “Hell I guess I am living existentially, thrown all the way out in the middle of nowhere like this, drinking the time away. I don’t know. I guess that’s it. Whaddya think?”
“It doesn’t really matter what I think…but if you want to know-
“-it would really help man.”
“All right then. If you would really like to know-”
“-No wait. I think I know what you were gonna say. You were gonna say to go back and break down that dam, get in touch with that river, and mend my past failures. Or something like that.”
“Actually,” the figure paused for what seemed like a dramatic pause, “I was going to say you should do what you deep down already know. Because I know you know that this is not right. You can feel it, and you just need to find your direction again to get back to where you need to go.”
“Isn’t that kinda the same thing as I said though, doc?”
“If that’s what you feel deep down then-”
The man interrupted with a chuckle. “Of course it is. I’m just scared that’s all.” His eyes took on a serious tone, and he looked down. “Scared it’s shut off forever.” Tears had begun misting slightly over his irises. “Scared it’s all gone, gone forever, never to return,” he pronouncedly sighed, “and that’s why I drink, because if I drink, I might kill enough brain cells, where I won’t even care about not caring.”
The both held a moment of silence, until the figure interrupted it with a fervent whisper. “Exactly. I knew you knew.”
The man couldn’t help feeling like he did when he was little, confessing to the priest, unfurling all his earthly sins in front of him like a tapestry of guilt. He remembered how good it felt to get it all out, and then to be told that it was all right. That God still loved him, that he couldn’t ever make God stop loving him. He even loved saying the repetitive prayers, the thirty Hail Maries or whatever they told him to say, especially if he had done something especially bad. He loved the filling in his chest when he recited these prayers, and he always fancied that this was God giving him form, pushing him to new heights of goodness and greatness.
It was about here that he came to a realization.
A calmness struck him, but this was quickly followed by sweat, leaking out of pores, and after a few minutes, he could feel the sweat cling his back to the car seat. His hand shook, and his voice quavered.
“I know who you are.” He could feel the figure smile. “I know who you are. Sonofabitch, I know who you are.” He paused, and finally asked, “You’re IT aren’t you.”
He could feel the figure nod positively. “Yes. Yes, I am.”
“But it can’t be. You can’t b-, why me, why save me? I’m nothing. I’m a speck on the globe. Shit, I’m barely known in my own station, my own town, why me?”
“Because you needed my help.”
“But, you made everything. You’re God.” He paused importantly. “Right?” Even though the figure had already answered him, the figure answered yes again, just to humor him.
“But why-, how? What-, geez, I’m so confused right now. I’ve got so much to ask, please don’t leave me-”
“-I won’t leave you.”
He breathed a couple of tearful gasps, then stuttered, “Oh geez, oh my geez. Okay, how do-”
It was then that he turned around.
Incidentally, he had not turned around once during the entire conversation, because he had not been able to see him in the rear-view mirror, so he figured it would do him little good to look in the figure’s direction. Then he was a shadowy, murky, distant figure, with nothing tangible beside the voice and discreet motions and sounds of his movements.
Not only could he see clearer now because the effects of the alcohol had wandered off, his serious talk chasing it away, but now, now the moon had risen high, and the clouds had parted for it’s light to enter the plain. Now everything was visible. The trees, the road, everything on the plain. More importantly, the figure in the back was now coolly illumined by the full moon.
He was a simple looking man, dressed in a dirty t-shirt, and unwashed jeans. He looked like he had not showered in a day or two, and his unshaven face embalmed this look. His face was unspectacular, yet strewn with character in various creases, dimples and pockmarks. He was a well-built, thick sort of man, and his eyes hinted at an intelligence his face didn’t seem to know he had.
In short, the man was looking at himself.
He couldn’t move, what he was seeing paralyzed him so completely, he could see God in this man’s eyes, could see God rushing through him. He knew, he knew for a fact, that God was filling him in the same way, every day, waiting for him to see it, to feel it, to acknowledge that no matter what he did, he would never be alone, and he would never be unloved.
God didn’t say anything, and neither did the man. Unable to turn back around, and unable to ask any questions (not that it really mattered, there were no more answers he needed now), he sat there staring, letting the realization wash over him like the sunshine of the just arrived dawn.
He could barely control himself, when God reached over and touched his cheek, his form had transfigured itself into the one he had always dreamed him as, a man with a white beard and flowing robes, who glowed like glitter in daylight. The man hugged him hard and before he knew it, he had fallen into a deep, blissful, sleep…

…He woke up, and the world shone in front of him in unison. He saw everything, the green-leafed trees, laced with natural beauty, he saw the rolling green plains, fields of bountiful, luscious green. He saw all this. More importantly, he felt all of this too. No longer did he just see things, but he could feel all of it, bustling around him with some sort of indescribable energy flowing through the cracks of everything. He could feel God, his handiwork littering his consciousness, fueling the planet, making all of it worthwhile.
He cared again.
He cared about what happened to him, about what happened to each of those people he had seen dead, about each drug-dealer, about every little thing that happened. He cared about everything, and he could see and feel everything that made everything special, different, and altogether worthwhile.
He knew now, more than he had every unconsciously known before in life, that he himself was worthwhile. That God is not some far-off, uncaring figure in some fictional unbelievable heaven, but that God is him. God is everything, cut apart into an infinite amount of pieces, strewn throughout the universe, making everything beautiful, making every person special.
He was crying now, but these were not the same tears he had shed over the previous couple of years. Those were tears of frustration, anger, humilation, pain, and suffering. These tears were completely different. These were tears of happiness, exultation, and understanding. He knew himself, all of himself, now. He knew that it was ok to feel bad, to feel depressed, to feel angry, to feel sad, because he would only end up on top in the end.
All the pain he had felt he knew was also impossibly important. He needed to feel that way, to push everything away, because when everything had left him, that was when he understood how important it all was.
Now, his whole life, he could see where God had been guiding him, pushing him through the hard times, steering him past the obstacles. He had always known the right way, and now he knew it was God telling him through gut feeling what to do, what was right. Everything was going according to plan, and he didn’t even care that he never got to ask him more questions. He knew everything he needed to know, and he bathed in its brilliance.
His emotions, underdeveloped as they had been, flowed out of him, flooding the world, until he could feel everything within his grasp, how everything was connected, everything undoubtedly important.
He cried for another two hours, and then he turned on the car, and drove back home. He knew now, that wherever he looked, wherever he was, God was with him, and God would never leave him again. He was determined to set things right, and the hardest work had already been done.