Retreating [Short Story]

Flopping onto my bed, I curled up into a little ball, giving up for today.

I swear, my stress and anxiety had gotten to the point that it was now a tangible substance. It felt gross and heavy. It was a sticky black goo that was clogging up the wheels of the machinery in my life, making everything function either sub-par or not at all.

I considered getting a shower to cleanse myself, but I had already showered two days ago and need to save water. So I had to bear it.

I rolled around in my bedsheets, trying to wipe off this invisible stress-substance, but it wouldn’t come off. I closed my eyes. It was late. Mom and Dad were already in bed and asleep. They don’t know what happened. They’ve suspected that’s somethings been wrong for days, but they’re too busy to really take notice or offer advice. Besides, what help could they offer anyway? They wouldn’t understand. They think I’m with my best friend Jim or my girlfriend Alexandria. Yeah, as if that’d ever happen again.

So much can change in one day. Not even one day, just a couple of hours. One hour you’re at the house of your only friend, and the next minute your girlfriend comes over. You get a sour feeling in your stomach because you know something bad is about to happen, even though you don’t know why. But like a prophecy of doom you ignore it’s forewarnings to make yourself feel better. Sure enough within the next hour your friend and your girlfriend are now dating. What better way to announce it than for her to kiss him right in front of you?

I’ll never forget that feeling. Being betrayed and dumped all at once by my two favourite people who ever lived. Guess the feeling wasn’t mutual.

It was all so surreal and so lightning-fast, it was like a nightmare. The gross, heavy substance became thicker and more plentiful the more I reflected on this situation. Like I was drowning in black goo.

All the people sleeping in this house are so lucky. When people sleep they can effortlessly make the whole world dissolve, retreating into nothingness. I wish I could do that right now.

Ah, nothingness! Sometimes I wished I could go into nothingness forever. That would mean not feeling any of this black goo. That would mean no unenriched past, or burdensome present, or doubtful future. It would mean no aching body, speedy mind or tormented heart. It would mean never having possessed any consciousness of anything that ever was at all or ever having to. Zilch. Zero.

The ultimate escape. It would be like sleeping and never coming back. What could be better? I don’t see any problems with wanting to do that. I mean, I never asked to be born.

I turned over in my bed and started to tear up. Plus, I’m going to die anyway. I may as well hasten the process… but I know I’m too weak to do that. It was an action that will forever remain a thought. So there was really no escape. The consequences of my actions will always be real, the trials I face will remain real… I’ll wake up tomorrow and I’ll still be alone and friendless.

I remained motionless in bed, slowly crying. Depressed enough to wish I could just fall asleep but too restless to do it. Almost every night for weeks since the incident has ended like this. I spent my days not talking to anyone or doing anything, like a turtle that had retreated into his shell so that he couldn’t get hurt or affected in any particular way, but as a consequence couldn’t really live. It was a fair-trade off, though, I thought.

I found that I lived my life like it was a dream. Not the kind where you become lucid, or the kind of dream that gives you a huge revelation about yourself. Not that exciting kind of dream. I lived my life like the dreams that you forgot because they were unimportant and confusing. It had all the same trappings: It was something I merely reacted to as opposed to acted upon, it was something that I stumbled through in a daze while witnessing scenes passing by ranging from joy, to boredom, to agony…

But the worst part about this dream-like life was that at the end of the day, it wasn’t a dream. That’s what I hoped it was. When I got home and was going to bed the night of the incident, I still couldn’t really believe it.. So I went to bed thinking that when I woke up the next morning everything will be back to normal: I’d still be joking around with Jim, then I’ll get a call from the adorable Alexandria and our hearts will be beaming together on the phone… but no. Why?

Because life was actually real. That’s what made me want to retreat into nothingness. Life was so overwhelmingly real and I just couldn’t handle it. My past could never be restored or improved, no matter how hard I try to remember it. The future could never be predicted, no matter how hard I try to imagine it. No, the future could only be made, and I didn’t have the strength to make it any particular way.

That’s not true, I thought, darkly. I’ve proved to myself that I have the ability to make it average or even downright crappy. Well, that’s not totally true… I’ve been happier before. Memories of happier days emerged from the swirling chaos of my mind.

I can do better. Had some part of me yet to give up?

I felt this part of me temporarily overcome my sense of “I”, so that I became the person in me who hasn’t given up as opposed to the person in me who has. I looked at my life with a different set of eyes than before, and thought: “This is absurd. Here you are, lying in bed, hoping the world will go away when you acknowledge the impossibility of that. Come on! You’re alive, so you may as well live, and what is life without struggle, without acts of will, without ambition and fulfillment and loss?”. My crying halted.

I felt like an inner fire was burning inside me, and it made me feel more awake. I could feel it coursing through my veins. It was like my life force. It wanted to lift me up. I could feel this new inner fire and the black goo competing with each other.

“But what if there really is no point?” my more pessimistic side retorted. My optimistic side thought it over and responded,“It’s your choice”. It was right! It really was all up to me.

I could feel myself become decisively disgusted with the attitude I’ve had these last few weeks. I opened my eyes, with intensity. The fiery substance became stronger. I consciously whispered to myself: “I can do it. Yes! I can actually do it!!”.

My inner fire started to burn through all that black goo, replacing feelings of apathy and despair with enthusiasm and exertion.

I actually leapt out of my bed and stood in my bedroom, spine upright. Like a king. I swear, this distinctly physical gesture threw off the remaining bits of stress that were left in me, and I could feel my inner fire burning brightly.

Screw Jim and Alexandria!!! I can make new friends! Did I really just say that to myself? That was pretty bold. I felt like running to the top of a hill and yelling that out to the world as loud as I could. Even if I couldn’t actually do that since, y’know, it’s kinda dark out and I don’t know of any hills nearby. But I was doing it in my head and it got my point across to myself.

What should I do? I’ll try and put a smile on someone else’s face for once. Everyone wants to smile. Yeah, that’s right. Everyone wants happiness and nobody wants suffering, so I can make new friends by trying to make people happy. Oooooh, I was really on fire now!

Tomorrow was a new day. It doesn’t matter that it’s the middle of the week and the middle of the month. I don’t need to wait until something like New Years or some other big occasion to change my life. I can do it right now, just because I want to.

With all that, I at last began to feel sleepy. But I had a different attitude towards sleep now. I didn’t approach sleep with wanting to disappear, but with wanting to rejuvenate myself. For the first time in a while, I was so excited and happy.