“The clouds were so damn dark...  It was black off by the horizon.  It was black like everything disappeared.  It was getting dark up by the house.”

Continued.....  

Blow It

      “The clouds were so damn dark...  It was black off by the horizon.  It was black like everything disappeared.  It was getting dark up by the house.”

      He paused.  It was hard.

      “Go on,” I told him.

      “It was getting dark.  Fast.  And it was windy, blowing up across the fields and on towards the house...  It was blowing real hard and making all kinds of noise and kept getting darker.  Like it would never be light.  Like everything would disappear.  Everyone was screaming.  It started to rain.  Then it hailed and it was pitch black.  The thunder started to roll.  There was lightening.  It all got so damn loud and everyone was screaming.  There was nothing I could do...  No one could do a god damn thing...”

      He was quiet again.  He looked like he would start crying.

      “It gets worse every year,” he said then.  “Every year everything gets darker, louder, faster.  It’s always worse than it was.”

      “Except when the storm ends,” I put in.

      “One ends, the other is coming somewhere.  Even when it’s sunny and calm, there’s one coming somewhere.  Waiting.  And we can’t do ANYTHING!”

      Again, quiet.

      “That’s it doc,” he tells me.  “It’s late and I need to go.  I feel better.”

      “Good.  Do you still panic?”

      “Yeah,” he says real quiet, looking at the floor.  I write a prescription and he leaves.  Goes outside and ducks under the clouds, running for his car.  Then it’s on through the city, looking up the whole time, out into the country where the wind is faster and you can see all the clouds for miles.  All of them different, moving.  High up there where no one can reach them.  No, we can’t do anything. 

      “And that’s why we shouldn’t worry,” I wish I could just say.  “We can’t help it so there’s no use thinking about it and freaking yourself out so bad you need to pop pills and become some zombie mother-fucker, sitting in his living room scared to go outside, but happy enough just sitting on his ass doing nothing.  Meanwhile, the sun is out...

      “Global warming,” he said in one of his first visits.  “Heat this bitch up so bad in all boils over.  What the hell do we do then?  They say there’ll be more hurricanes and tornadoes...  More storms, worse storms.  And not a damn thing we can do to make it better.  To put it all back where it was before...  I can still remember how it all was...  It’s so bad now.  Everything just keeps getting worse.”

      And by now he was probably opening that pill bottle and taking a seat on the couch, flipping on the tv and sitting down for hours.  He probably had all the curtains drawn and all the lights out except for the tv, and that think blaring so loud that he can’t hear anything outside.  There’s only the voices talking into the dark room where he sits alone.  And he’s probably buck-ass naked, probably doesn’t have any furniture, just sits there on the floor staring at the tv on the floor and letting every word drift in through his ears and settle somewhere in his brain where he can ignore it as it chips away at the once great mind.  All those words fly in and pic it all apart until his head’s pretty much worthless and the only thing he’ll ever be good for again is popping my pills and sitting down to listen to the voices, their words inside him now, stuck there forever, always getting worse.

      But at least I can go home calmly, walking the street and smelling the air, even looking up at the clear sky and loving it.  And I can get upstairs, crack a beer and flip on the tv to watch the news and sports, crack another beer and let it all sink in as I forget about the crazies and crack another beer.  A few more down and I’m ready to sleep.  Ready to see the crazies again tomorrow.  They’d be there, waiting for me.  There was nothing I could do to stop it, so I let it be.  Let it go ahead and get a little worse every day.

      That’s how some of us act: we see something that won’t change and we forget it.  We operate smoothly, without anxiety, totally free.  And those who want to change everything, make everything better, they end up like my patients, chasing around the weather, then running when it sneaks up behind them and screams.  “Just let it be,” is what I should tell them.  “Just drift.  Just lay still and ride the wind straight into hell.  At least you don’t have to walk.”

Last update : 14-12-2007 06:49

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