Truth be told there’s really no other way to put it right now: I’m not okay.

That is to say, physically, sure, I’ve got my health still and my youth (arguably). No known hindrances holding me back. Financially I’m doing enough to get by. Won’t ever be truly comfortable with my current income, but I’m meeting ends and staying fed. As far as personal relationships go, not much has changed in the last 6 months or so. Outside conditions in my life are, honestly, remarkably stable.

But for some reason I’ don’t share that stability. For some reason I’ve begun to feel empty. Hollowed out by my unfortunate brain chemistry and left as a walking shell of the person I know myself to be.

Not much lightens my mood. Rarely do I ponder deeply about anything. Few and far between are the instances that bring me a sense of satisfaction of self. Things I would normally find joy in don’t appeal to me. People I seek company from feel like uncomfortable situations to avoid. My mind is full of thoughts constantly, but none of them have any substance or context or relevance to the environment I’m in. My thoughts are a drivel of mumbling monologue with no basis and no purpose other than to occupy the silence.

I’m on the sidelines of life waiting for the coach to sub me back in to the game. Merely watching my existence tick away on the scoreboard as I try to catch my breath and regain my composure. Except that my teammates, my coach, the cheerleaders, the fans in the stands; they didn’t realize I left the field. Didn’t notice me shun the Friday night lights for the anonymity of a spot on the bench. The shadow of my presence seems to fool the average onlooker.

This has happened before. This very thing. In this very way. Where I just sort of drift away mentally little by little until there’s not much left of me that people would recognize if it weren’t for my appearance and voice. It’s happened quite a lot to be honest. More times than I’d probably admit.

I hate it. I feel like a proxy, a pathetic imitation of the man I strive to be. An imposter with just enough skill to pull off an illusion but none of the talent to live up to the name. But, it is so all-encompassing (this nothingness that I experience from time to time) so bearing down and impossible and unshakable, that I repeat my wrong and submissive behavior time and again.

I slither away from my reality and hide out. I shelter my fragile and burdened ego with isolation from the outside world. I retreat and surrender and accept that I’m no match for this overwhelming feeling of ineptitude and unworthiness. I stand elbow deep in the quicksand and observe in silence as my body, slowly but surely, descends unimpeded into the abyss. I don’t cry out, I don’t resist, I don’t search for something to break me free or even slow myself down. I just give up. And wait to be swallowed by my misery so entirely that the world (hopefully) just forgets I was ever even a part of it. I dream yearningly of nonexistence. I feel pathetic. My apathy cripples me into inaction. My idleness verifies my unworth. My value reciprocates my apathy.

Now, as I said, this has happened before. I know enough to realize that this is temporary. That in time I’ll bounce back and feel okay again. I know I’m in tunnel vision. I concede that the path ahead is dark and hard to predict, but I haven’t forgotten the light which the tunnel eventually gives way to. I’m far from being a lost cause. I’m just trying to make this make sense.

I caught it pretty early on. My slow and steady decline into this cyclical depression. I tried, at its onset, to fight back against it and maintain governance over my well being. I tried to wear my soldiers face and stand at the ready, poised for battle. But it’s not like fighting a battle. It’s more like withstanding a siege. Being surrounded by the enemy, cut off from reinforcements, and unable to signal for aid. Eventually my stores and my fortitude gave way.

I’m not proud of the person I’ve been for the last few weeks. I stopped trying. I lost hope. I let myself believe that I’m a victim of my situation, powerless to combat my affliction.

That train of thought ends right here. It has to. There’s too much potential left in me to allow myself to continue feeling I’m all used up. From this moment forward, come hell, high water, or what have you, I’m taking this head on. I can’t keep letting things I don’t control, control me. The reigns are mine. The path my own to choose.

I’m done with letting my destiny be drawn by my demons. I have to confront this, now, immediately, before any more of my life slips away from me in a foggy half miserable haze.

I’m not naive or dense. The world has been a much crueler place to billions of people than it has been to me. I’m not a victim, I’m not oppressed. Except by my own self.

This pattern of behavior, this seemingly insurmountable ebb and flow of ups and downs; this dangerous cycle which causes me to stride backwards twice for every forward movement I make? I’m over it.

It’s not who I am. It’s not what I want to be. And it’s not going to dictate the rest of my life.

It’s time to act.

And it’s time to make sure my actions align with my aspirations.

No excuses.

Man up.

I consider it likely against my best interests to wonder on

And often times, I make a concerted effort to keep it far from the front of my mind

But none of us has much control over which way our minds might wander

And when the night is long

And my thoughts are left to converse amongst themselves,

Recurrently you come to mind

And hold my attention hostage even from however far away

There are times when I'll resist it

Force you from my mind and make myself think of other things

Any arbitrary things, just to stop myself from wasting even one more fraction of a second in contemplation

But other times I'll let the memories and all the questions they bring with them run their course

There is joy in it, sure

Remembrance of a treasured time

When there was good in all things

And all things were good

A time of laughter and freshness

Of beginnings and smiles

Of late nights

Long walks

Great talks

And happiness beyond measure

The time of fireflies and shooting stars

The summer of dreams come true (or so it [then] seemed)

Yes it brings me great elation to revisit those times

But inevitably

What it leads to

What it concluded in and what could’ve been guessed from the start,

Is the memories of the next chapter

In which the joy had vanished

And left in its void was a pathetic mixture of sorrow and pity

Of confusion and longing

Of failure without fault

And a convoluted muddling of the wishes for that which never truly was

And that which, now, almost certainly can not be

An intense bitterness that even in all its overpowering enormity

Can't drown out the sweet

How long will I be condemned to regret entirely what all happened

Yet revel in it all the more

To hold on to a fools hope that history could repeat

Only this time with a better understanding of the stakes

And, resultingly, a different outcome

Deep down I know it not to be possible

Such a thing happens not even once in a blue moon

But rather an indigo sun

So rare that few of us have yet seen it once

And none twice

No, the past is in stone now

Cold, and without voice or life

And the future

Undoubtedly

Will bear no resemblance to that not so long ago time

We walked between the trees in the dark

Guided only by distant astrological bodies

And you

Entirely unexpectedly

Grabbed my hand into yours

And so doing

Sealed my fate

Walked across a pretty flower, thought I'd hold it in my hand

So I knelt down as to grab it, but the flower turned to sand

Tried to carve it as a castle, walls and towers, gates and moat

But the tide washed it away, I had to chase it down by boat

So I dove below the tide, to the bottom of the sea

To restore my pretty castle, try to quell its tragedy

But the castle was no more, and in its place a wooden chest

So I swam back to shore, inside I found a golden nest

Filled with golden little eggs, and so I bought a golden cage

With a golden little perch, just like a golden birdy stage

Though the eggs they never hatched, no they burst into a flame

And although there were no ashes, all the smoke I did contain

In a sky light blue balloon, but I think I'll save my string

Can't try to tie the flower down. Balloon. Flower. Same thing

And so it was that I would be the one to go

No drawing of straws

No names in a hat

No vote

Nothing so trivial

Someone had to do it

And I was the logical choice

It was unspoken

But well known

It's not like I was the only one capable

Sure, I knew the lay of things around the town

Had lived here most my life even

And, yes, as far as fitness went and my ability to defend myself,

I was well off enough in those regard

But there were others that equaled or surpassed me in each of these categories

Brenda, Mick, Stacey, hell even Oliver could have done it

But they all had children to look after

Or offspring rather

I'm not so sure that there was such a thing as a child left in this world

Destruction of everything around you makes for rapid ascendency into adulthood

But, the fact was that we were down to just over a weeks food

Three weeks on starvation rations

Maybe four

But come that fifth week, we would all start to die an agonizing death

I didn't plan to let that happen

Two months ago today we had sent out Bentley

Suited him up in whatever gear we could muster

With his protective mask we sent him into the godforsaken streets that he (we all) once called home

We all knew the danger

What limited radio contact we'd been able to make had made it clear

Outdoors, hell even above ground, was no place to be

We all were fortunate enough to have made it to what had previously been a private school

The concrete walls of the maze like basement were anything but cozy

And it seemed one was always ducking a water line or furnace duct

But it was our new reality

And we made do with what we had

Likely we were better off than most

The school had a kitchen

A nice one

And its stores held us over quite a while in the beginning

The library was a useful resource in countless different ways

Inexplicably the bombing had not managed to wipe out the grid

Or at least not entirely

From time to time we would hear the buzz of electricity flowing through the wires

And at such times we made the most of it

I, a carpenter by trade, spent my time in the wood shop

Making various items and utensils that seemed useful at this time or that

I'd even made a little cart, a wagon of sorts, for the kids to play in

Poor bastards, they never had a chance

Never knew anything of the world before it turned into a rotten death trap

It was for them, as much as myself that I now donned that same protective gear as Bentley had before me

Hopefully my fate would be better than his

It had to be

We had heard the stories over the radio

Rumors really is all they were as far as we knew

Of the wild and mutilated dogs that now ran rampant through the streets

Feasting on whichever unlucky prisoner of the underground who decided to peep his head out into the old world

Maybe for food and medicine, maybe out of curiosity

Maybe because they were tired of waiting to die

Most recently there were even accounts of wild men running in packs

Distorted and animalized

Cannibals, doing any brutal or bestial thing conceivable to survive

This on top of the toxic fumes still permeating the air

Poisoning plants

Infecting minds

Imprisoning what ever survived of the cruel joke that was humanity

He returned half mauled

Bentley, strongest and smartest among us

But even with his injuries he managed to carry on his back a months store of various foods

And quite a quantity of antibiotics, insulin (for Trina), and other bandages, disinfectants, and amenities

He lasted only eight hours upon his arrival

He begged us not to waste the bandages on him

Said he was a goner regardless

We should have listened

The man was a f!@*ing doctor after all

But once he'd lost consciousness we tried our best to mend him

All for naught

Yes the dogs had gotten to him

He spared us the hideous details

Telling us only that they were ferocious, persistent, and atrocious to look at

As if transformed into monsters by this equally ugly world

It was time

There could be no more delay

Daylight didn't seem to last quite as long anymore

And most of the time there was a grayish haze masking the sun anyhow

Before I made my way to the stairs I made it a point to look each man, each woman, each boy and girl in the eye

If ever came a moment I thought I couldn't make it back, I would use those eyes

Seared into my memory as a last motivation not to fail in my mission

As Bentley had

I would return

Even if it meant the death of me

There were no good byes

No good lucks

They helped me get my gear on

And I strode to the stairs without a second thought

As my foot hit the seventh stair I heard a voice from below

I turned and there was Trina

"We'll see you in a little while, ok?"

She said it as much for her as she did for me

"Few hours." I replied

She seemed satisfied with that

I couldn't tell whether I believed it or not

Far better men and women than I had tried to make similar voyages before me and never made it back

But now the situation was more dire

We had only two gas masks left from the vault of the chemistry lab

I was wearing one of them

If I did not return

There would be no more room for error

Stepping upstairs I shut the door behind me. I heard the "Snap Snap" of the double locks I'd installed as I walked towards the exit

Past the library

Past the teachers lounge

Past the gymnasium

And finally, to the double door

Reinforced by a half dozen horizontal iron post holding back a two thick wall of cinder block

This was it

It would be my first time stepping foot outside of this school in almost 8 and a half months now

There was no telling what was beyond that door

I knew not what to expect

Only that, according to Bentley, the grocery over on Hennipen had yet to be fully raided

I would start there

And then make my way to the pharmacy on Meadows

The insulin would soon run out

And I needed to replace those bandages we used up to do nothing but soak up so much death

As I moved aside the last of the block

I gripped my weapon

And flung open the door stepping out

Adjusting my eyes to the light I felt my heart rate increase

And that's when I glimpsed him in my periphery

I was not alone