Skip to main content

This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

I wrote a new short over the course of three lunch hours this week.  The word of the month for September was learning, and I started a thing that grew and turned out pretty OK, I think, just finished editing it yesterday.  I'll probably put it up here, let you all take a look at it.

I had this idea about an AI that scientists teach to learn and then they hook it up to the internet, to absorb the entirety of human knowledge, and then when they talk to it later, it comes back with cat videos and says bae and LOLz and all of the moronic shit that can be seen every second of every day on this steaming shitshow that is the internet, the whole point of which was that given this amazing tool of communication we just poop on it, and then seek to spread our poop as far and as wide as possible.

And it was going to be a funny story, a cute little parable.

This is not the story that I ended up writing.

What I wrote ended up being a terrible reflection on guilt and suicide and shame. It's not a nice story at all; it's sad and violent and sweary and filled with terrible choices and regret.  And I wrote this thing, and I started to wonder: why can't I write nice things?  Why is it always abuse, drugs, shame, sadness, violence, and fear?

And I think it is really all about fear.  I wrote this story, filled it with details to make you feel something, to make you experience the thing, not just read it.  There is a point when you read something and it absorbs you and your heart starts beating and you don't think about the words at all, you are there, you are enveloped in the world that the author created, your mind fills in all the details and the textures... It is very much like magic, though it isn't; it is just words, arranged in a nice order.

I wrote this story and it isn't nice, not at all.

It is about fear, it is always about fear. 

I'm terrified of suicide.

Not my own, I want to be very clear about this, I am not entertaining thoughts of self harm, you don't need to call the authorities, or my wife, there is nothing to worry about here, hell, I'm just getting started.

But

I had a friend call me once, he called me to tell me goodbye, that he was going to kill himself.  He said he had a gun, he said he was going to use it, and I was thousands of miles away and there was nowhere to go, nothing to do but to helplessly plead with him to not do it, tell him that I'd hop a plane and get there tomorrow, just hang on, wait until tomorrow, I would be there...  He didn't do it, thankfully, and I don't know if I did the right thing, said something that turned it around, or if he just needed to hear a friendly voice, someone who cared whether he was still around.  I don't know, I have never mentioned it again, we never talk about it.  This was years and years ago, and even now I feel shaky, what if I said the wrong thing, what if I didn't answer the phone that night, what if I was in a dark place myself, like I could very well have been.  Even today, knowing that it all worked out for the best, even now I'm still scared, it could have gone so wrong, could have gone terribly terribly wrong, and then how would I live with that, how would I carry that around, how could I absorb that into my experience?

It didn't happen, but what if?  What if it did?

What if?

And this is where this shit comes from, why I can't write nice things, because I am filled with memories like this, times it worked out, times I failed, times I wish I had said something or times I wish I had paid attention, had been a better man, had listened to what people were trying to tell me, times I was too self absorbed or too drunk or distracted or too anything...

Whatever.

This is stupid, self flagellation, total nonsense.  I don't know why I hold on to this shit, don't know why I feel compelled to write this shit, I don't know why I remember this shit, why I can't let things go.

I don't really write too much about my own experiences, except for here I suppose, mostly because I'm pretty boring, and also because it's all pretty pedestrian; I was no worse off than anybody, and better off than most.  I have been surrounded by people that loved me, cared about me supported me my whole life, and all I can do is think of how things could have gone wrong, the times when I failed at being a good person.  I just feel sometimes like I am too soft, like I am made of dough, and the world presses on me and leaves a mark, and where other people just bounce back, I don't, I stay pressed, and now at my age, I'm covered in marks, and maybe if I write something that people can relate to, make them feel like they are not alone, maybe they will bounce back instead of staying marked.

I don't know anything.

And like in the new story, I never learned anything, either.

Bless.

Still Writing

RP 9-11-15

Reach me if you want to, Twitter @RDPullins, on Facebook, comment here, or email me at dissent dot within at gmail dot com.  I WANT to hear from you!  REALLY.  Even if you just wanna say that I'm dumb. 

 

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Dance of the Sand Hill Crane

 It is Saturday morning in Feburary and here in Michigan it is clear and cold.  The sun has risen a while ago but there are still streaks of red in the sky, lighting up the clouds, high and wispy.  I am standing by my car after completing some chore, cleaning something or retrieving something and I am slow breathing, trying to calm my heart. It has been a difficult week. My son has a fight tonight, full contact MMA, his first, and I am full of conflict and anxiety about it. Not because I don't believe he will do well, because I know he is as prepared as anyone can be for such a thing, but because I am a father and I feel like I should be protecting him from the violence of the world. Even though he turns nineteen in a few weeks and is stronger both physically and mentally than I could ever hope to be, he is still my boy, and I am scared for him. My other son is fifteen and this week was embroiled in some stupid conflict at school, a misunderstanding that had led to meetings with th

One of the Best of Us

In the stifling heat my breath comes fast and heavy. What the fuck am I even doing here? What the fuck am I trying to accomplish? I'm sitting on the mat, maybe dying, a forty something dad playacting at being a fighter. This is my mid-life crisis, this is so, so stupid. This has to be the end for me, assuming I can get my heartbeat under control, assuming I don't just peg out here on the mat.  I can't do this anymore. "It's okay man, it's okay, you just need to breathe through it. You're fine, you're okay." The voice of my training partner, gentle and kind. My partner, the maniac that drove me to such a state, that I think I might die, he sits next to me and shows me how to breathe, how to calm my body. He teaches and guides me through it, and in a few minutes I actually am okay, the panic settles down, and maybe this isn't my last class after all. "You're alright?  Okay. Now lets get back to work."  And back to work we go. There

A Soap Bubble Nothing

I built a table, out of wood.  I made a thing that wasn't there before.  I cut and sanded the wood, I drilled in screws, and now we have a table where we didn't have one before. It is real and solid and you can touch it, you can feel where I cut poorly, see the rough edges where I didn't join the wood correctly, you can lift it, feel its weight.  It is a real thing that I made.  I made a table. This is not a table, this is a nothing, a series of random thoughts that I had in the shower, which is where thoughts come from. What if our souls are soap bubbles, what if we spread ourselves too thin, stretched out and flattened? What happens when it pops, would you even notice, would you even care? What if we are meant for something more? I am already behind schedule this year I've got work to do, I have things to accomplish, friends ask me questions ask for favors and all I say is yes yes yes and- What is this?  What am I hoping to do here writhing I meant to write "writ