The Tower, and other pieces - 9. The Wish - version two

The Wish

Version Two

One eye opened, but only a slit's width. The object of its intent may have been a mere ten-inches away, but as of yet the crust of sleep held onto the man's vision, blurring all but the outer profile of what he believed to be a clock. The other eye, which had buried itself into the pillow in a bold dash of inspiration – to keep itself away from being forced fully awake – reluctantly roused its lid to an equal slip of openness. Together with an effort, they confirmed first the shape of the object, then its face, and finally the hands whose tips told them it was much too early for all this activity.

One clock hand was on the seven, the other, on the four. That meant it was twenty after seven. 'Shit…' he stumbled over his own groggy thoughts. 'That means I have to get up.' Wait. He looked again. "Damn, you moron. It says four-thirty-five. Oh well…might as well…get…up now; it's only…a few hours before…I have to…anyway…'

He rolled over, pressing the longer-exposed eye deep into the pillow with its already-shut mate, and where both could fall back into blissful oblivion.

˚˚˚˚˚

For him, nihility equaled pleasure. His value of oblivion was high, with the result that he habitually overslept his way through the nights, and awoke with headaches in the morning. These he would groan at, as if they and the morning sun were his biggest annoyances. He would take care of the headaches with coffee and aspirin, but the sun and all that it rose for, he had more difficulty diffusing into his system. For him to be awake, meant he was awake. The details that usually and effortlessly never made it into the normal person's conscious perception, assailed him all the hours his eyes were purposely open. When they looked with intent, he was doomed to feel emotional interpretations more easily than most people can make out the face of their alarm clocks.

˚˚˚˚˚

He awoke with a start. No alarm had sounded, as was usual, although he surrendered sleep with his typical fight. It was a struggle against the oppressively clear light sifting through his curtains, pitted in opposition to the knowledge of an aging day, and most fiendishly of all, against the dull-pounding pain burrowing deep under his right temple. In this conflict of senses, oblivion always lost to this last and strongest of opponents. Morning after morning, this same battle was fought for control of sight and temple; nothingness was vanquished, but only until night returned.

His eye re-opened that slit's width again. Blinking in unison, the other eye followed, and he was awake. He flung his arms over his face, covering his eyes from sun and putting pressure on his temples. This helped a little, but eventually, he had to get up and make his way for the aspirin. In quick succession, he caffeinated, showered, shampooed, and sighed goodbye to the worst of his fading head-throb.

'Well, now,' he thought. 'What am I going to do today..? Oh, yeah. Today I have to go meet Mark for lunch. Man, I don’t feel like doing that…'

He prepared to go, which took half as much time as he planned, so he looked out his window. While he observed it, his street began to teem with life, which exhibited a total disregard for him. He could see the park across the street, and that the joggers' lane was alight with runners in the latest exercising fashions, their motions un-pained, supported – apparently – by the bright sunlight rather than burden by it. Men and women, and an occasional golden retriever, would drift along the course of his thoroughfare and perceptions. Taxis and cars of size, and many a blue and white bus, would interrupt the sight of pines and maples, and the many mature oaks that grew in the park; they were stately trees that looked benevolently on both joggers below, and sun in the sky above.

These sights he saw and wondered what was wrong with him. Why wasn't he happy? It was a question he had asked himself often, and had broken up into its routine particulars many times. He was miserable because he saw these things, because none of them related to him, and saddened to know that no one can be happy out of context.

'No, not that worry.' He corrected himself in his mind. 'My problem is I'm too much in context, if only I could not see it so clearly, if I had to wonder why I don’t make more money, or why I don’t have someone special to hold onto, why I need all these things that I don’t? If I could only believe in a project, a home and kids, that these were the mark of all. God, a goal, but a goal needs belief, a belief in something. However, belief in something I don’t have, not in something I can get, can touch, that I…that I'm…late.'

He collected himself and his keys, left the apartment and locked the door from the hallway. The apartment was empty, as quiet as he wished himself to be, but like himself, reality found room to intrude as ever, and a few minutes later, the lock clicked and he came running back in, searched a further ten seconds for his wallet, and was gone again.

˚˚˚˚˚

As he scanned the crowded restaurant looking for him, he thought about how Mark had been his friend for many years. Since their first year of high school, they had struck off a fellowship that was difficult for either of them to explain. They didn't like exactly the same things, and Mark's sense of humor could actually provoke the worst side of Richard to emerge.

He plopped down, suspiciously eying his smiling lunch companion.

"Dear Lord!" Richard's friend called out in mock alarm. "What happened, you're late?!"

"I'm sorry. You know I'm usually early for everything."

"Yeah, I know. That's what I mean; you had me worried there for about, say, 30 seconds at least. I thought you'd had an accident or something."

"Gosh, thanks for your concern. That means so much coming from you, Mark the Master of Sarcasm."

"No, I pride myself as a master of irony. Don’t you know the difference between irony and sarcasm?"

"Sure I do, it's the same as 'comedy' and 'tragedy.' Comedy happens to others, and tragedy only to yourself."

Mark laughed. "Well then, don’t you think it's the same that people have or don’t have an accomplished sense of irony in the same way they can have a sense of humor?"

"Yeah, I guess so, but what do any of your accomplished senses tell you is good here?" Richard held up the flimsy menu.

"The blue cheese burger."

"That's weird."

"It's good though, in fact, that's what I'll get."

"Uh-huh. I guess I'll go for the regular, normal American cheese burger."

"Okay, suit yourself. They who never seek, will never find."

"I don’t want to seek any moldy blue cheese on my cheeseburger, thank you very much."

The waitress came over with a smile as broad as her hips.

Richard mentally noted this fact while he gave her his order, and felt a flash of resentment flushing over him. 'What on earth does she have to be so pleasant about?' The restaurant was packed, and here she was, bouncing all over the place, as a pinball might, hitting tables with drinks, food, and that never-diminishing smile of hers.

"Ya like her, Bob?"

"Where did you ever get that 'Bob' stuff at, anyway? You've called me that for years… You know, don’t you, that 'Dick' is the nickname for Richard."

"Sure, I do. But, I've always like Bob better, and besides, I thought you'd be happy that I've never considered you to be a dick."

"Ah-ha-ha. And which of my senses do I need to appreciate that – joke – was it? Irony or sarcasm, or my sense of the comic versus the just plain tragic?"

"Well, obviously it can't be your sense of sight, since your eyes are occupied with the waitress. She your type, Bob?"

"Man! Look at her go." Richard made a clicking noise of disgust with his tongue and roof of mouth. "What's she got to be so damn happy about?"

Mark glanced casually at her; he didn't see anything out of the ordinary. "I don’t know. Maybe she just wants to be happy. You wouldn't want to deprive her of that, would you?"

"I don’t want to deprive her of anything, I just want to know how – no, why – she's so cheery. Maybe she can teach me something."

"Something you don’t know on your own?"

Richard fixed a stare on Mark. "What do you mean by that?"

"Nothing, I just – "

"You mean, I'm unhappy 'cause I choose to be."

"Well, now that you bring it up..."

Richard restored his attention to the waitress. "She doesn't know why she's happy either, I bet. I guess after work she goes home, kicks off her shoes, and watches game shows like Wheel of Fortune on TV where she roots for the underdog, and then Jeopardy, where she knows one question out of twenty. So, why, Mark? Why is that enough for her to know about life so she can be happy throughout the day?"

"Don’t go projecting your concepts of what 'they are' onto other people. That's snobbery; you can't systematize people in general, and write her off in particular. Maybe she goes home at night and languishes tearfully in The Winter's Tale. You have no right to say – no, no right to judge – who you think is living and who is not."

"Oh yeah? How about me…? Do I have a right to judge whether or not I'm living?"

"Not by using others as the measure, you don’t."

In another moment, Mark continued in a more sympathetic manner.

"Look, man. I know lately things have been going bad for you. I know you are depressed, and I've tried to help, but can't you see the difference yet between other peoples' wants and your own? What people can give you, and what they can't..?"

"I've got the things you and I talked about in high school: the 'dream job,' money, a fast car…but… Oh, I don’t know. So, yeah, now I see that you don’t see the issue I'm facing at all. I know all that crap what being positive as the means and methods of making myself feel content, and that's what's got me; I see it all too clearly. Too much do I know that job, position, automobile do not mean anything. I should already be happy with what I've got, maybe even with much less. That's the crazy part. That's the part I can't deal with anymore…knowing that…that I don’t need to believe in anything anymore other than myself. God, I just wish I could forget it. It's like a curse, no it's got to be the worst curse to know 'the way' to be happy, and that the only hindrance to getting there is you. I rue the day I realized it; I just wish I could wipe my mental slate clean and go back to a time before I became self-aware. Then I'd be content, and have no desires for understand 'who I am.'"

"What time would you go back to..? You've always – "

"Oh well. Look, here she comes."

The waitress' hips bumped the table as she deposited two plates, a bunch of affection, and a "Hope you enjoy it, boys!" And with that, she was gone.

"Hey, Bob, you wanna try my blue cheese?"

"No, 'cause that's weird…"

He shrugged his shoulders with feigned elaborateness. "Suit yourself, non-seeker!" He laughed before taking his first bite.

˚˚˚˚˚

The elevator door opened, and he stepped into his hall. 'His hall,' he thought; only this one was his hall, and he could identify its unique signature by it's scent alone – the other floors in his building did not greet his nose in the same way. It wasn't a bad smell, or a good one either, but simply a smell as distinctive as any could be.

His mind was busy chewing this thought over, together with his lunchtime chat with Mark, and found he was in fact very occupied in them. If not, he would have noticed his mistake, or rather his lack of mistake. For when he came to his door, he turned the knob and went in.

Inside his apartment, he threw his keys down on the table. That was followed by his wallet and watch. He bent over to untie his shoes, still thinking about the minutia of odors and the public corridor, when a thought hit him. He hadn't unlocked the door. As he stood and began to turn around, another something hit him, this time a physical thing. Such was his final thought as he fell heavily to the floor.

˚˚˚˚˚

"With a what?!" Mark could hardly believe it.

"A book. The Complete Shakespeare," the doctor repeated.

"Nobody tries to kill a person with a book, not even one as impressive as that."

"The police speculate that the robber wasn't trying to kill him, just get away. Your friend's TV and stereo were missing when the officers arrived and called an ambulance."

"But, how is he now?"

"You can go in and see him. He's stable, and generally appears to have a minor concussion. We'll keep him a couple of days for observation."

"Thanks, doc. I'll go now, but are you sure about the other thing..?"

"You mean the amnesia. It's probably temporary, as most cases like these are; it may simply take some time for his memories to come back. But for right now, I don’t envy his head, or that hell-of-a headache he's got – the blow broke the book in two, you know!"

˚˚˚˚˚

The sheets on Richard's hospital bed were white; he liked cool white, and crisp sheets, that much he knew, but almost everything else was missing. As he lay there, wide-awake, he only stared at the white ceiling, for any other movement caused him increased pain. So, he lay still and tried not to feel his brain being slowly ripped apart by his heart, which despite his protest, still insisted blood should course through it.

He thought carefully, reviewing what he'd been told.

'Okay. My name is Richard Lerner; I'm 28 years old; I live at 701 South Skinker Boulevard, apartment 3G; and…I… I…'

Partially turning himself on his side, he stared at the dark TV mounted high on the wall.

'I don’t know who I am, or anything about what it means to be Richard Lerner. In fact, I don’t know anything at all.'

Great sadness stalked into his room, crawled between the covers with him, and slid into his nearly empty mind.

'How can I be happy not knowing anything?'

Very quietly, and very gently, the tears rolled off his face and stained the pillowcase.

~