These Fading Days
Some days are worse than others. Yesterday was the worst.
Some days are worse than others. Yesterday was the worst. She says tomorrow will be better. But first they've said I need to survive today. Something had grown inside me, binding so tightly I couldn't name it, couldn’t distinguish it from my own thoughts or feelings...
I escape at walking pace into the dense woodland, feeling this last incarnation continuing to fade. If I swipe an arm at a tree’s trunk I’m sure my insubstantial flesh will pass through it. If I fling myself into the path of a car on the nearby road, I’m sure I’ll remain where I fall on the hard tarmac, head bowed in false anticipation, my body remaining unbroken. My thoughts are becoming as intangible as my barely felt flesh: wisps of inconsequence, immaterial to both my internal and their external worlds. The questions they ask reveal my inner self’s incoherence, my answers now fading streams of disjointed words, unconnected from their vain prompts.
I’ll soon become fully discorporate, I’ve told them. Only a husk will remain, an empty shell harbouring a mind disconnected – first from society and then from reality. All of this is voluntary, they’d said, their words masking the implicit subtext that only I could – should – stop it. I’d been forced to disagree. For something had grown inside me, becoming part of me, binding so tightly I couldn't name it, couldn’t distinguish it from my own thoughts or feelings. Pre-emptive persistence was its modus operandi; its stratagem one of stealth and subsumption. It tells me what I now know is true. It tells me what they say are lies.
I drag my body on, arms limp by my sides; feet scuffing the leaf litter; mind numb. It had become easier once the wars waging inside had ceased. But no longer fighting it meant repercussions: I could only display my crushing lassitude to those outside once my social mask was dissolved. Not forming opinions or expressing wishes had been construed as uncaring. Giving up on what never really mattered had led to diminishing love and affection on both sides. Physical expression of such had shrunk still further, from the habitual to unquestioned abstinence. Disembodiment had led to disconnection. If I no longer felt it, then why indulge in a pretence to entice it?
Even the voices I’d invented to cope with its victory have fallen silent. Fictional characters to share my fears, express my doubts, even argue with, I’d ignored what their creation had implied amongst my other obvious, incipient signs of mental retreat. But their comfort, criticisms and cajoling provided enough of what I couldn’t retrieve – or believe – from the real world. Reality had then blurred to the extent of erasing subjective doubt. Whatever I decided could – no, should - become real now grew to be so. The ability to wield such decisiveness provided a mocking pastiche of my faint memories of a former world, a frisson of self-direction amongst the retreating mundaneness of what others considered important.
Ahead of me, I hear her hurried footsteps crunching on the path’s gravel. She knows now not to call out when trying to help me. I know she’s confused, angry and often alone. I know she seeks an end to her pain, all other paths as exhausted as her. But I don’t know who will press our exit button first. Pride prevents the inexorable destruction of what still matters to the rest of the world; what props up their maddening semblance of normality. I once thought I wanted her to stop my progression towards a space emptied of life. But I believe what I’m told by what now lives inside. It’s best for me; for her; even for the children. I think she knows. I think she cares. More than them, at least.
The path narrows and I feel the leaves brush through me, slices of uncaring life carving me into timeless pieces. I emerge onto a cycle track adjoining the road. A cyclist veers past, staring back at me, through me. I’ve grown used to having my blankness visible to the outside. The first car approaches, its tyres a tempting swish on the wet road. I feel the latest urge to succumb, to test the ephemeral against raw physics, my body swaying with deadly potential. But I still differentiate between life and death, frustrating the final barrier to where I’m going, where we’ll all end up. Despite all my past pain and future fears, I’ve found a numb peace in existing only in the now. It’s where I can afford to be patient, waiting for the when.
The second car nears and my remaining volition is dissolved by what’s been awakened inside me, sensing an opportunity for its release. The last barrier and my body fall to the accompaniment of her running feet. I belatedly sprawl in a turbulent wake, zephyrs enveloping me, unruffled and uncaring. She can hold back no longer and a scream echoes from the trees, the resolute witnesses above me. It is louder than before.
My voices turn mute as this latest act of selfishness dissipates into farcical tragedy. The respite is broken when her hand takes mine with soft words. Tomorrow, maybe. Yes, there’s always tomorrow, as I fade back into today.