A meeting with Death

Ok, now I am seriously wondering.

What’s wrong with me? Have I become so skilled at suppressing my feelings I fully lost contact with them?

(And more importantly, who cares? A little voice adds here. It’s really convenient that most of the time I am numb to, well, everything.)

It’s really convenient that I care about no-one save for myself. But I don’t care even about myself that much as it seems. Well, I don’t care about anything. The feelings switch is stuck to 'off' with permanent glue and six inch nails to make it more secure. Instead of feeling, I go through the motions. Half-assed at best. I am expected to feel sadness and pretend I feel it, or happy about something and I pretend about that, too. In reality don’t feel anything. I expect nothing, hope nothing, fear so much.

Funny how I am listening to Anathema now and the lyrics say:

“Today I introduced myself/ to my own feelings./ In silent agony, after all these years,/ they spoke to me…/ After all these years.”

I dread the day the feelings will speak to me again “after all these years”.

It will be similar to a handshake with a tornado. It will rip off my hand and then my head. And that’s probably what I deserve for denying my inner voice for so long.

But you see, I somehow have to preserve my sanity. I somehow have to keep functioning, keep working 75 hours a week only to watch the mountain of bills grow bigger with each passing month. To work from day to night in order to sink more and more in debt. To deal with the fact that if I want to do something creative or simply different than eating and dropping dead on my bed I need to sleep less. To somehow deal with the loneliness that always lunges and bites me at the jugular when I am least expecting it. To deal with everything. If I let my feelings run amok the way I used to in the past I’ll resort to breaking things, screaming at people, screaming at mirrors, hurting myself, hurting others. I have been there and I don’t want to revisit that place. It’s not constructive in any way to cry about where you are. In the long run it always makes me a lot more depressed and desperate. And I can’t afford desperate and depressed right now. I have to keep my wits about me somehow, in some way, and I’ll do anything it takes to do that. Anything needs be done. I have to stay focused, sharp and NUMB.

And then something slips by. Something slips through my guard. It may be a picture on the net, or a song, or an article in the newspaper. Feelings are represented by the element of water. And you cannot imprison water. Sooner or later, water will find a way, as a friend always says. It may be a single drop, but that drop falls on my heart and burns it like acid, like boiling oil, it runs through it like a barbed spear. The pain is so intense that it gives a whole new dimension to the entire concept. It’s brilliant. It’s magnificent. It’s almost beautiful in the way anything final or lethal is beautiful as much as devastating. It cannot be ignored, suppressed or escaped in any way. It’s similar to ending a life, taking the wrong turn in a way that cannot be undone and it will always and forever live with you from that point onward. That’s the pain I experience. It’s so deep the night seems transparent in comparison, the red of blood looks pale yellow beige standing by its side. And I want to stay away from it. I want to keep it at a safe distance. I am not sure if I should blame myself for it. It’s not a passing notion; it’s not a fleeting sensation. It’s nebulae and supernovas and the end of the world distilled in one single moment. The moment the pain switch breaks the glue, spits out the nails and clicks back to the 'on' indication. Then a multitude of other feelings stampede in, and they use me as a pogo stick, with my head down, before kicking seven shades of blue and red and purple out of me. It’s not fun. Desire is the first to rush in and wrap me in its arms, kiss me in the mouth with its breath smelling of chocolate and honey and summer and run its nimble fingers all over me, setting me on fire.

“Remember me?” Desire asks. “Now look at him. Isn’t he beautiful? Wouldn’t you want to smell his hair? Wouldn’t you want to touch the back of his palms, oh, look at how beautiful his hands are, wouldn’t you want to see him with fewer clothes on? Wouldn’t you want him to look at you and feel the same, wouldn’t you want him to inhale your scent as he bites you during lovemaking? Now, don’t lie to me, because I know you want to.” And I want to, I burn with the need to. But I manage to kick Desire's groin and wring the necks of those needs fast and effectively, as if I was dealing with poisonous snakes. And run, while muttering lists with things I need to do in order to distract myself from the urgent demands of sexuality.

Then Creativity steps in. “Hello", it says. "Remember me? Don’t you want more people to read what you write? Don’t you want to speak out loud? Don’t you want to sing when so many others screech and whisper and croak when they write, while you sing? Don’t you want to free every child you have made out there, and see how they fare away from your hands?” 
I smack Creativity in the face, take my whip and force it to put that down on paper instead of yelling it into my ear. And that’s the point I manage to escape that threat. Creativity writes furiously while muttering to itself, one eye blackened, its attention diverted from me. And I run like hell only to stumble upon Death, who gives me the look he has patented and copyrighted and trademarked.

“Hello Elizabeth” Death says. “Remember me? We used to be friends.”

“That was in the past. When I thought I had plenty of time. Now I am running out of time,” I mutter nervously.

“Well, you can always pick reproduction as a means to gain immortality,” Death says with a shrug. “You know, pass on your genes et cetera.”

“What the hell?!? What are my genes to pass them on, a second hand T-shirt?” I yell at Death. “I am not falling for that!”

“And what do you think time is?” Death asks. “You cannot run out of time. There is time enough for your needs. Time is not coffee, or the Herald Tribune in order to run out of it,” he observes. He seems amused, but I am not.

“It’s a trick. Sexuality is a trick to force us reproduce because we fear you!” I shout at him while pointing with my finger. 
Death shrugs.

“First of all, I’d like you to stop pointing. It’s not polite, and you would not want me pointing at you.” I gulp and immediately stop pointing. “Now, you sound like a Cosmopolitan article gone existential Freud. I did not even know such a thing existed before now.” He makes a face as if someone added curry instead of cinnamon and salt instead of sugar to his cappuccino. “I believe you need to sleep and you need to get laid. Not simultaneously, it will be a failure from both aspects. And I cannot bother about any of those, they are your responsibility. And I suggest you sleep now, since getting laid requires company that you presently lack.”

What a perfectly wise idea. Let’s be practical and realistic. Off to bed. NOW.

PS: Damn you. You are good looking, interesting, funny, have similar political views to mine and live a few thousand miles away. This is not very helpful, you know. Or practical.