Dave made time to see Billy again. They sat outside as they had before; this time it was a little colder. The two men looked tired in a way coffee couldn’t help.
“So, what are your plans for Thanksgiving?” asked Dave.
“Work. You?”
“Hey! Same thing! It’s like we’ll be celebrating the holiday together, right?”
“Yeah, kind of. I just don’t see why anyone leaves the house on Thanksgiving. Why is any business open?”
“Well, the hospitals still need to run, so some folks do have to work. I don’t get why businesses are open though; I can’t figure out why anyone would be bothered enough to visit one. It’s never made much sense to me. Last year was the first time I ever left the house on Black Friday, and the only reason I did so was because I had work. If I could help it, I’d never do it again,” said Dave.
“Whenever I have an optimistic thought as to the state of humanity, I always remember Black Friday, and then the idea that the majority of people are anything other than stupid goes right out the window.”
“Yep. And, we are a part of that stupidity monster. None of us is perfect; may as well embrace it, am I right?”
“I guess. You mean you don’t think you should try and do anything to make the world a more hospitable place?”
“I don’t think there’s anything I can do,” said Dave. “Nothing’s presented itself yet.”
“Well, you’re married; you can always raise your kids right.”
“Yeah, there is that…” Dave looked down at his coffee, suddenly feeling a little more sleepy.
“Poor parenting is the biggest problem in the world,” said Billy. “We’re a nation of idiots raised by idiots, and we’re raising idiots. It’s awful. It’s like, come on people, tell your kids not to be jerks.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s that easy. I think idiocy is a symptom. Our schools have failed, our churches have failed, our artists have failed; no wonder our parents couldn’t teach us how to be compassionate. No one remembers how. We praise it and celebrate it, but at the end of the day, we don’t know it, all because we don’t teach it. What did school teach us about treating people right? ‘If you’re going to be a dick, do so from a large group when authority isn’t looking.’ If you’re going to squash radical free will, make sure you have an army behind you. Justice is defined by those with power, and numbers are power in a democracy just like money is power in a plutocracy. Our lives have been made to consist of a constant worship of conflict, but I have to believe there’s something more. I have to believe peace exists. I’m having trouble finding it here.”
“Wow. You’ve thought about this.”
“I think about a lot of things. I don’t do anything though.”
“Why not?”
“Pessimism. When every fight is a losing battle, why fight at all. I am dominated by irrational Nihilism.” Because I don’t have control. Because I am alone. Because I don’t know where I am. I can’t find my way out from the forest. “You need Jesus!” says the preacher. “You don’t need anything!” says the atheist. “You need to bulk!” says the gym rat. “You need to work more!” says the entrepreneur. Why? What difference will any of this make, God?
At the end of the day, this is Your game, not mine. I can’t comprehend why I’m playing. Did You bury my purpose in my heart or my future? Is purpose equivalent to worth? What is the value of life? I have to learn. I have to learn. There’s just so much caught in the smoke. Eyes burning. Can’t describe what I’m seeing. I don’t know what ‘faith’ means. I guess it means ‘just keep going.’ What happens next, God?
“You in there?” asked Billy.
“Yeah…” said Dave. “I was just lost in thought.”
Billy had left; Dave sat alone now, resenting the idea of being at the store on his day off. He looked outside at the gray, late autumn sky. Drooping brown leaves shivered on branches. The trees went their natural course without question, fulfilling purpose with no will other than that patterned in their cells. They were driven to live and driven to die by the very shape of their construct, be this structure design or happenstance. Dave looked down at his cup.
All it feels like I can do is ask questions. All the ‘answers’ I’ve found seem more like ways to ignore the problem. There’s a small part of me that can’t stand the idea that I’m being beaten. There’s a larger part of me that knows I can’t win. What happens next?
Building and progress seem to be the only options I have left, but I’m afraid of their futility. Everything just feels futile, and that can’t possibly be true. I should be chasing dreams, but why on earth should I have dreams in the first place? This feeling of futility does not disprove the existence of meaning; it only obscures it like smog on a landscape.
Every day, I see one clear choice: do I keep sitting in the audience, watching the stage, or do I get up and walk out that door to the right? Sometimes those red letters taunt me; sometimes they beckon. Sometimes they comfort me; I always know I have the chance to leave if I need to, but I’m committed to knowing what happens next. Where will the actors go? What did the playwright have in mind?
One would think that the stage is the place to be, but even the actors don’t have much control over what’s going on; they follow the instructions of the director, for better or for worse, and he’s following the instructions of a playwright. The playwright could be dead. These players all promote one thing at least: the show must go on. We must see what happens next. What happens next: this is life; life is this. Every day, there is a choice between this show and the door, life and death. This is the first choice I make: will I live or will I die. Either way, I’m blind to what they mean.
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Dave’s feet were clammy. He had shuffled through his head for hours now, occasionally looking up to watch his co-workers hustling like ants. They were working hard together for a common cause, and that cause certainly wasn’t paltry wages or meager tips; no, if anyone of us slacks off it just leaves more weight for the rest of the team. We work together to make each other’s lives more bearable. We are lightening the burden of being on stage, making the show more captivating, several dancers jeté-ing and chassé-ing between each other in spectacle. We forget for the moment that the door exists. We don’t talk about it, at least. Are we distracted by compassion or compelled by it? When I’m distracted with compassion, compassion becomes compulsory. Still, it feels and seems like I’m just entertaining myself.
I’ll imagine it this way: to what ends do these two roads lead? Those who choose the extremes of death are serial killers or suiciders. As for the first option, I don’t think I like the idea of killing things, much less people. I mean, killing an animal for sustenance serves a purpose. Killing animals for population control serves a purpose. Killing people in cold blood for the rush, catharsis, and feeling of dominance is nothing more than saying ‘my moment of thrills is worth more than each and every moment of your life.’ I don’t think myself so grand. I don’t think of others as so paltry.
Of course, if it were true that eating animals were unnecessary for human sustenance, then we would have thinned predator populations in vain protection of our animals we have no purpose in keeping. We would be eating to say ‘my moment of flavor is worth more than each and every moment of this animal's life.’ If this is the case, then we kill mean animals to justify killing nice animals to justify killing ourselves slowly. But, that’s only if meat is unhealthy.
There is a callous irony to the killer; he or she endures the stage by embodying the door. This must be one factor adding to their profuse utilization in drama. I’ve always felt unwell with such an aspect of our culture. Anyway...
So, the other choice is suicide. I must say, I’m glad I have some freedom with which to follow this path; it wouldn’t be fair if I had no control over my involvement in this experience. I appreciate the option to leave at any time, but I don’t think escaping the theatre is the answer. I am often lured forward by the idea of learning what happens next, and while I can’t see a reason why I should follow the lure, I also can’t see a reason why I should abandon it entirely. Not yet at least.
I think the philosophers accept this apparent absence of reason as a factual quality of life, and I don’t blame them. They build their worldviews with the materials they have, but the inability to find something is not equivalent to a lack of existence on its part. Just because I don’t know why I’m rolling the boulder up the hill doesn’t mean there isn’t a reason. Just because Camus doesn’t know why I leave the house doesn’t mean there isn’t a reason, he just does a better job accepting that which he doesn’t understand. Of course, I’m not saying I’m smarter than the esteemed thinkers, but I don’t think their esteem completely invalidates my perception. We’re all just trying to understand.
If the killer and the suicider exemplify death, who exemplifies life? The martyr? The parent? The devout? The nonbeliever? The old man? The college kid? The homeless person? The workaholic? The thespian? The writer? The painter? The martial artist? The poet? The teacher? The traveler? The lover?
Perhaps, the attraction of death, death’s comfort, stems from its apparent simplicity when compared to its contrary: life, action, willfulness, etc. Everything I’ve tried so far has coupled itself with failure. Schooling brought me nothing but debt. Sales brought me little more than just barely getting by, and look at all the problems I made for people who changed their service, something I had no control over other than convincing them to do so. Running a business cost me someone I thought of as a dear friend; Cliff will never speak to me again. What have I accomplished by trying to be alive? Is there nothing I can do to cease this pattern? Are failure and destruction life’s exemplars? I don’t want to destroy anything else.
Dave got up, put on his coat, and took a deep breath. This feeling is only getting worse he thought. He started to feel like he was swimming. No. Sinking. The world went sable; he searched for the comfort of the exit sign. Even its light had gone dark in the theatre. A gun burst into the vision of his mind. I should shoot myself it hissed with the flicker and speed of thought.
Everything around him was there and absent all at once as the anxious flurry in his head consumed his total focus. He stumbled out of the store in a stupor at some loss for awareness of his actions. The only tangible things were Dave, the ground he pounded with heavy feet, and the car that would get him out of here. It would get him somewhere at least. A wound now ripped across his mind, soaking every thought with red anguish and black grief.
The wound ripped back open at every quiet moment. Silence’s respite was gone, obliterated by the gun’s explosive hiss and whisper. I should shoot myself I should end it I should kill myself I should die I should die. The stage was gone. The lights were out. An audience was nowhere to be found. Dave stumbled through the black aisles of the theatre. He tripped past empty seats and stumbled up and down unlit stairs of varying shape and size. The hard angle bashed against his shins. His fingers ran frantically across smooth walls looking for a light switch or railing or anything. Behind him, the sign flared on. He felt its red light gently sear the back of his neck. He refused to acknowledge it, refused to accept it is the only way forward.
Why do I let feelings rule my existence? I have more freedom than the effective entirety of humanity from dawn to present, but my will is dying, fading into a choking numbness. Why am I not grateful? I am a despicable, selfish piece of consciousness.
He was late. He was early. Dave walked like a zombie. Get over yourself he thought. Quit feeling so ungrateful. He did what was required, nothing more. Lethargy wore him like a glove. He was empty from that point on.
Why? Why is life so special. Happiness is vanity. Everything is vanity. The wound festered, making the world a blur. His stomach sloshed and turned lightly. He wanted to be sick; a dry heave would be real, something worth feeling sorry for. He called his current affliction the product of a selfish imagination. Keep going he said, but he still couldn’t tell himself why. He shuffled about more from a sense of perpetuity than anything.
What’s kept me here to begin with? Habit. Customs. Curiosity. What will keep me here now? I have nothing to give. There is nothing I can do for anyone. I can’t even help myself.
The gun shoved itself in his mouth. Is that my hand? asked Dave. Squeeze, don’t pull. He handed a drink out the window. Not yet. He put the money in the register. Some day. He handed the woman her change. Maybe… when things get bad enough. He gasped and sputtered; his lungs were the only two things taking him seriously. I wish I could just be undone, unmade. I feel so selfish. I loathe my existence. I loathe my thanklessness. He took the next order. He handed out the next drink. He took the next order. He handed out the next drink. The clock counted. Engines hummed. The steam wand hissed, and the ovens beeped. Dave resigned himself to just keep going; it was the only way he knew how to quit.