Heaven, will you not let me go?
My neighbor stands silhouetted against the white of her house. I am being asked for help, which I am happy to provide. I make eye contact with the shape of her mouth, then the blink of her eyes, then her stooped posture; a bit nervous, preoccupied, maybe, fretful. Her mouth is upturned, indicating a mild smile. I respond that I am happy to help her. I ask her for the details. She responds that I am being requested to assist in carrying a chair across the road, from one side to the other, from another neighbor’s house to hers. I assent, and she thanks me. I am happy.
The chair is a massively built thing. It is a primeval-looking lump of wood, metal, and fabric, and will be a great inconvenience to move; it is a heavy load. The three of us all pick up a side, and we heave. My other neighbor yelps and drops it; the chair lands on my foot, which is only a little hurt. He apologizes profusely; I say that it isn’t a problem, as I flex my foot to make sure that my toes are all still in place. We heave it again, in concert this time. I feel sunlight on the crown of my head as I help carry the heavy chair across the road. My neighbors thank me, and I respond that it isn’t a problem. We part ways politely.
Sometimes I hate them so much that I cannot breathe.
I love society and I hate people. Manners and etiquette are the only things that protect me from those human beings, the jaws that bite, the hands that touch. Human nature is a natural disaster. But, nevertheless, they have invented so many things that elevate them; politeness, manners, the little social formulas that make life better for everyone. I cannot love human beings; they disgust me so much. They do things for no reason, at least that I can see; they wish to annoy you, and that is the only reason that they do something. Sometimes I break down and cry, alone, in private, from the sheer horror of it all; no matter what I do, no matter how I protect myself, one of these people might do something to me, and I could never see it coming; because I can’t, you know, even though all the others can, it seems. They don’t think it bothers me; of course, I’ve seen how they act when they know that someone doesn’t like something, and it’s even worse than doing something to someone who only mildly dislikes something. I hate them all so much, I hate them hate them hate them, but I’m never going to do anything about it, never going to say
help me help me help me
but I am not going to do anything about it, and you know why? Let me tell you why, you person that does not exist, oh most beautiful and wonderful kind of person! I’m not going to do anything about it because I am a good person, and good people follow their manners and say yes to everything and never complain and they never say
help
but this is fine, this is fine, life is going to be fine as soon as I get out of here and I can get out of here in, lets see, I can leave society in (Heaven, will you not let me go?) more than a thousand days, I’m not going to last that long but I will last that long because I am a good person and good people are going to last that long I am a good person and I can and will keep myself on this earth.
I’m not a very good neighbor, I say when seated at his table, in response to his question. My neighbor has invited me over for supper, likely as an apology for my hurt foot. He has thanked me for being neighborly. I was just doing what is polite, I insist. Nothing more, nothing less. He thanks me anyway. He is polite. I think I might enjoy his company, a little bit. I nibble at the porkchop he has prepared; it is good, but I am not that hungry. I am mostly being polite, which is only fair. It is very important.
I am very good at hiding what is going on in my head, so much that neighbors don’t see it when I carry the heavy world across the road and politely help them and do not ask for help. I wish that they could see it, but I can’t let them do that because I am a good person and besides, all that would happen is the descent of doves like vultures upon myself. Instead, I carry heavy chairs across roads and I do such things because I am a good person and that is what one does. I have society to thank for protecting me from the human beings that make it up, because so long as other people are good people then they will not hurt me except to get me to be a good person which they don’t need to do that often because I am a good person and they don’t need to do it to people like me, it is quite rude, and I am not rude, and I do not want to be rude because then people start to look at me and talk to me and yell at me and things like that should not happen to a good person.
My other neighbor politely waves to me as I get out of my house in the morning. I like it quite a bit. It reassures me, though of what I am not sure. It makes me feel alright.
Her jaw chewed her words as I swallowed them (unwillingly) with the teeth of my ears which do not filter feed, and I am suffering in a multitude of ways.
Who is she? I am not her neighbor.
Who is she? I do not know. I do not want to know, I mean, because I know her more than I would like to and such and such and she is such as that, to the point that I almost liked her (for a little bit) but I couldn’t do it because she bit a little bit, a bitter bite with a sardonic sarcastic smile of such satirical, no, that implies wit, it was a stupid little smug hole in her face and it lacked all signs of a higher creature/animal/soul/mind.
Who is she? She is someone who politeness dictates I consider a friend. Politeness dictates nothing about her, however. She is an animal and that is all that this two-legged animal in front of me is. No, she is worse than an animal; she is needlessly cruel, and that’s how I know she is a human. I remember when I was very young, when everyone smiled at me all the time, (and they had such teeth! Such teeth! I shudder at the thought of such) smiles and smiles for miles and miles until I hit the end of the road at an age I did not know but in any case I was young, but now I am far away from my naive land. People were nicer and softer back then, and I think that
I did not mind
a hug or two but those days are long past and I will not suffer them to lay a hand on me like that
animal
did on my neck and I am going to remove that finger and crush it into a pulp the one she used and
I cannot do that because it is impolite but before even that
she spoiled a book for me which I cannot stand and then she touched my neck and I cannot stand someone who does not respect the bodily envelope and the belles lettres and my envelope and that horrid stamp of her hand which have sullied (sue me, tsumi) and I do not know what to do because I am a good person.
But she is not.
But she is not.
Because the worst thing wasn’t the touch or the spoiled book (how I despise her for it) but the complete
and total
lack of an apology, I mean seriously, it isn’t that hard! I demanded, I made it clear to her, that she ought to say sorry and more importantly be sorry which I don’t get how she isn’t already, I am perpetually apologetic for every little thing I have ever done but
She was not sorry. She grinned a stupid little annelid grin, that pathetic worm, and she was not sorry. I am so sorry for everything that I have ever done that I physically cannot stand someone unwilling to apologize. I hate her, I hate her so much, and I would be sorry for hating her but there is no reason to be. I realize that now. She is the most pathetic, stupid, vicious and petty little tyrant of her immediate surroundings that I have ever met. I want to bash her skull in. I want to do it so much. I’ve never felt like this before, I thought I was a good person I am a good person but it is fine, and do you, dear non-existent reader, know why it is fine? Because unlike you or I, she is not a good person. I realize that now, and it puts everything into perspective. If someone offends you to the point of madness, it is to be surmised that your morality-sensing organs are supercharged and more sensitive than those of those ordinary human beings and I know what I am going to do, I am going to be a moral person. My moral compass points a knife at her; I know what manners, my blessed blessed manners, bid me to do; I will listen to myself.
I feel horrible while walking up to her house. It is the middle of the night, after all; it is very rude to wake someone up at this hour. Of course, she is also rude, so once this is over the total rudeness in the world will have decreased. People say revenge only makes things worse, but that is only if it is executed poorly. That will not happen to her.
I steady my nerves and knock. I wait. I am being polite, of course. I knock once more. I do not wish to be overly insistent, and thus I have resolved to turn back around if the third knock fails. I cannot stand rude people who knock incessantly. I do not want to disturb her; I only wish to deal with things, and thus I will have a gentle touch.
I knock for the third and final time, ready to turn back around. I can come back tomorrow.
I turn around, expecting the door to open. Nothing happens.
I walk back home, knuckles white around something.
Later, I see her. I smile politely and wave at her; she starts to walk over to me. She looks tired. She speaks and it sounds like grunts from a pig. A pig, yes. She keeps talking. Something about someone knocking at her door in the middle of the night. She calls it rude and I wince, and open my mouth to apologize.
She eyes me strangely.
I say that I hate when things like that happen.
I have to restrain myself from apologizing to her. My mind and heart wish to do so. My face stays passive and expressionless. I do not tip myself off. I do not say that I am sorry.
I’m sorry that happened to you, I say. And I almost feel better.
She walks off.
I’m sorry, I whisper under my breath. I whisper it to myself for the rest of the day.
It is night and I walk back to the house. I am carrying a newspaper to hide my face should she shine a light down to reveal me. I feel very sorry for both of us, but I have to do this.
I knock once.
I knock a second time.
I turn to leave, and the door opens. I whirl and we see each other. I am almost as surprised as she is, but I have a knife and she doesn’t and now she is dead and how did it happen but I don’t know and I didn’t think it would go like this and I don’t know but suddenly
I feel a chill on the back of my neck as I carry, alone, the heavy body across the road. I shy away from a sun-bright streetlight, hugging shadows and dark, dark places. I fear not when I walk into the valley of the shadow, for I will fear no evil when I am a good person. I will fear no evil when I walk into the valley of the shadow of the shadow of the shadow and I will walk out of the valley and everything will be good and I will stand upright in bright pastures and I will stand up by the lamb to the slaughter and I will stand up and I will stand and I will not lie down by the and I will stand upright by the unbroken lamb in the thickets and I feel a chill on the back of my neck.
I stop dragging the body for a moment; I cannot understand what just happened; I have the feeling that I just had been oppressed by some kind of heavy weight, but I feel fine now, twenty-one grams lighter.
I deposit it on the other side of the road. I stand, for a moment, silhouetted against the darkness of the night sky.
Let me talk about something to myself to remind myself of myself and I will remind myself that myself, that me, myself, (and I want to leave but I have to stay on this earth with all these other people and either I’m going or the curtain will) and I, that I have thinks to thing about in deep thoughts of drowning shallowness like six inches under the blood in the water and I can stay above this earth. I will talk about love! I do not have a heart (to break) of course, and a missing heart is better than a missing limb in the same way that it’s better to have a broken heart than a broken limb, it is so much better to not have a heart (to break) and yet maybe (to break) it is not so bad? I wouldn’t know (no) and besides it is far too late for the leper to change her spots and be dunked seven times but I’m only coming up six times and then (I will be a good person?) yes, yes, I will be in this earth.
Imagine, for a moment, being in love. I wouldn’t no know no but what I would do is ring “ a present!” and drop to one knee and then the other and then another and
and then I would say, “Cielo, I will not let you go!?” and I confuse myself, I would never do that, but I don’t know what I would do, because I would never do it. Romance is fascinating!
I just killed someone.
Romance is like a far away land, where they speak some kind of language (a Romance language?) no a love language, and
everything
is
very
nice.
I just killed someone.
But no matter.
I wake up the next day, in bed. I go outside and feel sunlight crown my head, and it hurts. It hurts so much, like a crown of golden rays flipped upside down and piercing through my skull but you know what? I don’t care about the manners anymore. They have driven me to confusion and suffering and I do not know what. It is the fault of my manners, my manner of being, holding me to standards I have no reason to hold to, and so I let them go from my mind.
One down, eight billion more to go.