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Lessons in Suffocation Part 1
By William Alexander | February 4, 2009
Thumbing through my posts will tell you a great deal about me. It’s strange, though, since I seem to be completely contextless sometimes. I feel as though I have a great deal to offer the universe as far as advice and positivity goes, but why? Why does it incapacitate me sometimes when I know that any single human being is not feeling as completely lovable as they actually are? Why do I urge everyone I meet so stronlgy to follow their hearts regardless of what their minds say? Let’s pretend for a moment that my thoughts of life philosophies and my theories on making onesself happy are valid. If I DO have any amount of wisdom, when did I get it and where did it come from?
I am under the impression that wisdom comes from experiences. I speak at length to my friends about happiness and unhappiness — what they are defined as and things that ensure one or the other’s existence. I wrote a piece about my past that I’d like to copy and paste up here. This piece of non-fiction deals with a particular time in my life when I experienced a great deal of unhappiness.
The purpose of me retelling this story is threefold. You are getting to know me, you are getting to know WHY I have a blog, why I strive to make everyone in the world happy, etc, and hopefully, maybe, someone out there somewhere may somehow benefit from this. I will write about the whole night in probably three posts in total, and then a separate post for a debrief.
Here is the first installment. The players in this scene are myself and the girl I dated from my freshman year of high school to my freshman year of college. The date is Monday, October 16th 2006. We are in Arlington, VA.
I’ve tried my best to keep as accurate as possible. Beyond what you read here, I did have a head injury (and resulting trip to the ER), and spent much of the night in shock. Since this is a traumatic experience, it may very well be exaggerated by my memory in places. I’ve tried my best to be true to the real events.
Lessons in Suffocation
Imagine for a second you are lying on the floor. Everything is black, the only thing your ears sense is the crescendo of your pulse growing louder and louder; you feel as though your head may burst. You are now experiencing heaven sent relief in the form of sleepiness. You want to sleep. Sleep will help you forget the sore throat you feel in the back of your consciousness. The carpet feels like it has turned into an endless sea of pillows, you are more capable of relaxing than ever before. As you relax your muscles and allow unconsciousness to take over, she screams at you. “Stop doing that! Stop it stop it stop it!” With an environment shock comparable to that through which a newborn goes when leaving her mother’s warmth, you are aware of exactly where you are.
She removes her hands from your throat to slap you across the face. Forehand. Backhand. Forehand. Backhand. Her left hand is there to prop up your head by your hair. Aware that every time you try removing yourself from hold, she always ends up with a fistful of your hair, you pull your head away and curl up in the tightest form of the fetal position humanly possible. Your hands are laced across the back of your neck like they taught you in those useless tornado drills in high school. You feel sick as you note the irony of you protecting yourself from harm while simultaneously measuring the distance to the window across the room. How fast do I have to run to break the glass? Is a 6 story fall a guaranteed death? Will I be able to make it there before she catches me?
She tells you to be a man as she claws at your back and ribs. You pray to a god you wish were real enough to remove you from this place; a god who loved you. What have I done to deserve this? I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You pray the words to this deity your spirit wants you to believe in, and cry the apology to appease the angry dragon attacking you. Neither show any pity, as it apparently doesn’t make a difference.
Something snaps in your mind. You explode out of your defensive position and run to the bathroom door. She manages to grab your arm right before you make it to relative safety. Somewhere while flailing your arm to remove her hand and slamming the door, she ends up hurt.
“You hurt me! You’re so abusive!” She hisses through the locked bathroom door. She’s right, you think. When both your god and the only human with whom you have any sort of connection both hate you, you naturally hate yourself, too. I can’t believe the monster I have become!. You imagine all the possible and serious ways you could have hurt her and you begin to wish yourself dead. It doesn’t take long for you to remember the scissors stored in the drawer below the sink.
(Click here for part two)
Topics: Nonfiction, Philosophy |
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November 1st, 2009 at 3:43 pm
[...] I am going to wrap up and reflect on the previous two posts (post one) (post two) in a different voice / tense than before. This post will make more sense if [...]