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Her voice broke the absolute stillness in the apartment, startling me.

I wasn’t expecting to hear her and the sound shook me out of my deep state of disconnect. My mind had been both wandering and empty at the same time. That neurological plane where one straddles conscious thought and subconscious existence, two planes intersecting, as if taking a page from water as it become ice and then returns simultaneously to liquid form. 

If you had asked me what I was thinking about, there’s not way I could tell you. If you asked me what I wasn’t thinking about, I couldn’t tell you either, because by asking that question, I’d have to think about it, thereby putting myself squarely in a paradox. 

It was a quiet holiday Monday and I was in the midst of preparing my morning coffee, initiating the ritual which has now become an automatic action.

Add freshly drawn cold water to the electric kettle, even though I know hot water will boil faster. Because it’s what I’ve always done. Clean out the soggy dregs of yesterday’s elixir from the French press, making sure to disassemble the various pieces to make sure no hidden crumbs of old coffee grounds are clinging to their mesh prison, with the ability to contaminate today’s brew. While the caramel flavoured coffee is brewing for the requisite time, I use this opportunity to prepare my Ursula mug to receive the freshly pressed fluid, which mostly involves adding the cocoa and sugar into the bottom.

Stop judging me, I know you are.

Then I wait for the timer, and pour, filling the dark brown liquid against the sweet crystalline granules, watching them dissolve and intermix, where three become one, a new hit single, stirring slowly, mindlessly, the clink of the metal spoon against the heavy ceramic mug, my brain in that state between everything and nothing.

And then her voice.

Piercing. Shrill. Breaking through all planes. All universes. A ripple. I felt a surge of adrenaline. Igniting those primal responses deep within my medulla oblongata. I knew it wasn’t the caffeine as it still remained ensconced in Ursula’s tentacled embrace.

It was the tone of her voice that demanded action. It was not as I remembered her. There was an urgency, an entreaty that couldn’t be ignored. Something was wrong. She needed my help. Not later. Not in a minute. Right now.

So I leapt.. Into that emergency state that takes charge. Where time slows and clarity grows. Focused vision. My hearing, more acute, able to hear her now constant cries. I rushed, nay stumbled, to the living room in my full decaffeinated state, following her plaintive cries. Rushing. Rushing. Rushing.

I was going to be her hero. Her saviour.

I pulled her down from the ceiling, opened her up and put in a new 9V battery, ending her incessant, plaintive cries.

Low battery, no more.

In saving her, I saved myself. My own hero. My own saviour.

Goaded into action.

I can’t hold it in any longer – I have a serious disclosure to make. One that doesn’t put me in a good light. One that may even permanently besmirch my good name.

For every moment it stays within me, the shame grows, gnawing at my insides like a rabid squirrel trapped in a closed organic peanut butter jar. Letting this story out and facing the resultant repercussions is the risk I take to find inner peace.

One time, I used the small spoon for my French onion soup.

That is my admission to the world. My confession.

I don’t think anyone noticed at the time; my embarrassing yet thankfully secret faux-pas, hidden from prying eyes.

Or if they did, their silence remained golden, allowing me to continue unaware of my social and moral depravity, the errors of my ways. Allowing me to save face.

Narrowly avoiding dinning room pariah status.

My uncouthness dawned on me upon completion of the last slurp. It’s always the last slurp that gives it away, isn’t it?

The soft white cheese, trailing from my beard to the erroneous coffee spoon, a lonely strand, like Capilano, a bridge to my error, swaying to and fro – a dead giveaway.

My dinning room blunder of epic proportions.

With furtive glances strewn about, I quickly licked my little spoon clean and tucked it deftly back on the table from whence it came. My esteemed table-mates none the wiser, ensconced in their animated conversations.

You can’t hide from yourself. You can’t lie to yourself.

I knew it. I’ve known it for a while. I didn’t want it face it.

But as sure as you’ll always see a reflection staring back at you from the bathroom mirror the Truth will always find a way.

And it was staring right back at me.

I knew I needed to watch Pretty Woman again.

While avoiding a collision today on the road, I managed to suffer an excruciating injury.

It was my right of way. An advanced green on a street allowing u-turns. The car ahead was already slow to begin it’s turn. It was making a regular left-handy.

I began my u-turn. As I always do. By turning.

When suddenly my Spidey-senses started to tingle. Down there.

I noticed a van, stopped facing a red light, begin a right turn into my lane, not realizing I was whipping a shitty. A legal one.

Our eyes met as our cars were about to collide.

I could sense our pupils dilated. As if we were bathed in the soft glow of candlelight. But we weren’t. It was harsh headlights.

In a deft, reflexive motion, I both swerved and honked my horn at the same time. In warning. In anger. In hope.

Collision avoided.

He understood the error of his ways. His rolling stop. And how quick he shot out.

Into my lane.

He waved. Palm up. In embarrassment. In shame. In apology.

In that instant, I felt the pain. Electric. Intense.

There was a deep throbbing in my thumb.

Somehow I had bent my nail back. Smashed it against the steering wheel. Leaving me as damaged goods. Broken. With no recourse.

I could feel the blood rushing out of me. I could see it glisten in the pale glow of the street lights as they illuminated my humanity escaping.

Pure animal instinct kicked in. I had to survive. I would not end this way. I put my thumb in my mouth. The metallic taste. I had no other choice.

It’s been about 30 minutes since this all unfolded. I have overcome. I have survived and adapted to my injury.

I wrote this all with my left thumb.

Recently I had hit the gym for a quick session. You know how it is…the need for that luscious pump.

While there, a young lad in his early 20s strode by and his countenance broke through my awareness. I did a double take. I couldn’t look away. You know how it is with some people. They catch your attention. I was transfixed. Riveted.

In the entire 20 minutes I’d been there, there was no one with purer, more unblemished skin.

No one.

Now you’re probably thinking that he was the only person I saw there. That was not the case. There were others. Plenty. But none with that skin. His skin. The smoothness. The evenness. I was awestruck. It was a challenge to avert my gaze for even a few minutes at a time. I haven’t ever seen skin like that before.

Even the harshness of the flickering fluorescent lights cascading down from overhead couldn’t diminish his radiance. His skin glowed. Clear. Youthful. This is what I’d imagine photoshop in real life would be like.

I had to know…How did he do it?

So like any normal, creepy gym-goer, I just made sure my next exercise was always conveniently right next to his next exercise. Calf raises, check. Forearm curls, check again. Wide leg abductor and adductor machines, why yes of course, those were on my plan today!

I had to find out. Nothing was going to stop me in my quest for everlasting youth.

I figured eventually I’d find a way to strike up conversation and, obviously, through natural gym-bro discourse, I’d ask about his skin care secrets. Korean products, I suspected, but wanted to know for certain. Cleansers. Toners. Exfoliating hyaluronic acids washes. Hydrating mists and serums. Sun milk sunscreens of extraordinary SPFs. It had to be a ritual. Daily. Morning and nightly. Perhaps even mid-day moisturizings and clarifications.

He was obviously in a league of his own. A legend.

And in time, without even forcing the issue, as all secrets do, it came out. We didn’t exchange a word. We didn’t need to.

After wiping down his bench, he returned to the disinfectant wipe dispenser, casually pulled out a couple more sheets and fastidiously wiped his face.

I am become death, the destroyer of worlds

It is, as Oppenheimer realized all those years ago, a heavy burden to bear. A weight unlike any other. Enveloping. Encompassing. Crushing.

It doesn’t always start out that way. I didn’t start that way. A small decision here. A flippant, careless choice there. Insignificant in its execution, almost callous. Thoughtless. The summation of all that came before leading to the now.

It seeps into my everyday, the mundane. That slippery slope. Cajoling a memory from the hidden recesses of my slumbering mind, lighting the synapses which we prefer unlit, igniting that chest-gripping feeling of remorse. Of regret.

Questioning of self. Of morality.

To know that lives, thousands of them, were impacted by me. That I could have saved them.

Spared them. But I didn’t.

My own grand fortune displayed for all to see. For me to see. Health. Happiness. Life. I sit here, basking in sunshine, yet I am a man troubled by the past few weeks. That vice gripping within my chest wall.

Guilt. Shame.

The visions assault me. Over and over. Again and again. Stuck on repeat. The endless loop of life and death laid bare for all to see. For me to see. For us to see.

Who gets to decide? Who is the grand arbiter of life?

I had asked quietly, softly: “Are you sure?”

The instant, edged response was, as expected, “yes”.

Cold. Callous. Certain. Devoid of emotion. It was firm. It was decided.

She didn’t know. And how could she? She hadn’t seen the devastation of such action before. The fallout.

Life can be a cruel teacher. Within days, she too felt the same burden. Surrounded by death. Stillness.

But it was done. There was no going back. There is no going back.

We have committed Antacide.

While I cannot take credit for the incredible anti-intrusion defence system described below, I can attest to its effectiveness, based on the article I was reading at the time I came across the description of said system.

I heard about this guy who broke into a lion’s den at the zoo and got mauled. People were talking about how there should have been better defences put up to prevent people getting into the cage. A friend of mine suggested putting some sort of fierce animal in the cage, which would attack anybody who climbed in.

Unknown Comment Writer, c. Nov 2011

 

[Photo Credit: AbZahri AbAzizis from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2010-01-30 – Outing – ZooUploaded by Snowmanradio) [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons]

I was reminded earlier by a Facebook memory that I don’t have a high tolerance for pain.

That soul-crushing weakness is woven in the fabric of who I am, my identity, my being. That hurt is palpable. Visceral. And it can appear almost anywhere at any time.

I’ve come to terms with that and have learned to re-frame it within my humanity.

From the post, I was reminded how my body responded to grievous harm after I accidentally poured copious amounts of boiling, fastidiously-crafted, small-batch home made delicious Chai over my left index and ring fingers as I was decanting it from the creation pot into an ornate serving vessel.

While I’m not averse to cussing or crass language, I don’t use it often. But sometimes, there is no other way. An F-bomb slipped out.

Fuuuuuuuuuuck.

It was loud and forceful. Escaped like a toot in a crowded, silent elevator.