Mark+R

Finding Oxygen

__Mark Ruf Short Story

Peter: And so it begins another day, another week, another month of my addiction. Just like yesterday sleep has temporarily taped my life back together. This is only possible because for the past sixteen hours I’ve been unconscious, unable to mess it up again. Luckily, I soon have a party of friends and family to look forward to, at least the ones I have left. I have the privilege of bringing them together for a sort of debriefing, after carrying out the solution to my addiction. The best part is Dr. Vice will not be attending.

Dr. Vice: Under enough pressure everything breaks. Twigs, pipes, or even a turtle shell and all, caught under a sizable rock. Everyone has a different breaking point. So. Just as it takes a bigger rock to shatter the shell then the twig; same goes for me compared to Peter. I didn’t always have peter around and we didn’t meet under the greatest circumstances. Decades ago third grade, mandatory counseling for student s with separated parents. Me sharing with the group that it was all, my fault. Peter the kid that would always break into tears before anyone else in the room. For some reason watching him slowly go through a box of tissues seemed to make me feel better. If he could live without his mom, I could survive without my dad, and that brought me comfort.

Peter: Humans are the greatest idiots of creation. We are the only animals in denial that we are part of the rest of the earth. So caught up in our conceitedness like tangled tape, we believe ourselves to be untouchable. Unlike in nature where animals avoid danger, our curiosity draws us to it. This same characteristic of human nature pulled me towards Dr. Vice despite my gut reaction of risk. Then sets in the irony of, while we believe ourselves to be untouchable our greatest threat is each other; the belief that we will cause our own destruction.

Dr. Vice: Today I will be graced with the presence of Peter, as I am almost every day. He is quite possibly my most interesting patient. Every time he walk through my door he has this crooked smile, as if he is superior to all else around him. He seems like he is holding back a joke that he knows would fly straight over your head. And so begins his mind games of persuasive verbal attacks, in an attempt to have you see things his way. In hatred of the very race he is apart of yet in need of its mental stimulation. He has become a slave of this and all hypocrisy. The most elegant part of all this is he isn’t far from the truth. His conversations are covered in trip lines and traps, but I have yet to fall on my face.__

__Peter: So today is one of those days where everything falls through the cracks. Every little thing that could be going right, is heading in the direction of wrong. Each shattered piece mocks you every second it can. The little things skim in between and past your fingertips. But none are caught or grasped in their race for the floor. Gravity seems to be laughing at you, as it pulls pieces to mother earth faster then you can feel, react, or even see. It all becomes one giant blur that consumes you. And even if you believe you have caught something, something that you can make right again. It only takes the opening of your palm to find the truth. Like a snowflake in the winter it’s gone leaving emptiness. So is the truth emptiness? Is that the philosophical truth that you wanted me to reach? Emptiness, it’s the same illness you struggle to survive isn’t it? Doctor, you preach mental health, as your dieing from you own mind’s corruption. You fucking hypocrite!

Dr. Vice: Bad session. I can’t see progress anymore; he is determined to get worse. And it didn’t help that today was Mother’s Day. I have yet to understand how we grew up together but turned out so different. He uses it as an excuse to pin his problems on me, which is common in his sort of disorder. After his mother’s death he was okay for a while until, we hit high school. He would strive for girl’s attention, getting chewed up and spit out by the drama of mixed signals. This was the spark that lit the fuse of his hatred of hypocrites. All the deception, just brought more loathing it changed something in him.

Peter: So today is the day, the second Sunday in May. A day set aside for those lucky ladies who have birthed a child and have stayed around long enough to receive the thanks. But somewhere out there, there is a mother that beats her kid and is still receiving breakfast in bed. Somewhere out there is a mother that woke up at 5a.m. for job one of three. So her kids could eat a breakfast of butter and toast in her absence. While right here there is me a kid that can’t keep his mind off his mother’s death. A truth taped to the back of my brain, I can’t reach the source. I wish it would just decay, and fall away.

Dr. Vice: I’ve consulted other Doctors about the condition of Peter, which are usually returned with empty answers. I’m often recommended to simply diagnose him with depression and be done with it. The problem is there is more going on with him then depression I know that I think even he knows that. Which brings up another point that bothers me, he like to be in control, to be dominant in verbal conversations. This is fine until he loses control like he did the other day, where he won’t let me regain control of the conversation. I know some people say words are cheap but to a patient like Peter they mean everything. Most people who commit suicide talk about it for days, weeks, months maybe even years before they carry out the act. The attention is part of the ritual, as if they are trying to secure guests at their funerals. I just don’t want to see Peter buried six feet under.

Peter: “A photograph tells a thousand words,” Have you ever tried writing them all down for one picture? I used to love photography back when it was real and factual. The media has fucked that up with celebrities and Photoshop. Everything can now be altered or changed from hair to eyes to height to weight; no one is who they claim to be. But that last part isn’t the fault of the photo or the program that changes it; it’s people these days. So many people would rather be someone else, somewhere else, doing something else. And it’s never going to end until they reach the phase I’m at where I would rather be nothing. Or they can be apart of the lucky few that die of natural causes before reaching that point.

Dr. Vice: Peter didn’t show up today or the day before. I would worry but their isn’t any point to it. If their was a nuclear war today Peter is the guy that would be standing on the last patch of green grass, cursing the fact that he wasn’t in the crater next to him. He was always sort of lucky that way but always a little twisted about it.

Peter: If someone’s liver stops filtering blood and allows the body to die it’s a natural death. If someone’s spleen ruptures and kills the person it’s a natural death. If the brain cuts off it’s source of oxygen it’s suicide. Why… because it’s a matter of control. It’s implied that we can control what happens in our brains. I can’t help how I feel anymore then I can stop my spleen from betraying me. But if it did, it would make everything else so much easier.

Dr. Vice: I should have considered this option a long time ago, but Peter needs to be put in a place that is safe for him and for everyone else. I have a friend that runs a ward up state that offered to take him on a couple years ago but I was always so protective of Peter. He was my project, my patient, my friend, and I thought that I could fix him but I can’t. I was blinded by denial but this is the best that I can do for him now.

Peter: Dr. Vice is going to die. It happens to everyone some day but his is coming sooner then intended. I can’t stand his existence anymore and I refuse to watch him breath. Knowing all that he is, while his is so ignorant in who I am and what a hypocrite that makes him for simply having a heart beat.__

Memoir

First lap is refocus, refreshment, and relief just before it all gets blurry. That is all my body has is that first 25 yards, to glide and relax before repetition sets in, and my mind sinks away. The rest is follow the leader which, muscle memory takes care of. Out of body, I look back up at it glide, stroke, flip, then glide, rinse and repeat.

“And if I could swim I’d swim out to you in the ocean, swim out to where you were floating in the dark. And if I was blessed I’d walk on the water your breathing, lend you some air for that heaving sunken chest” A Walk Through Hell- Say Anything Alright, so lucky for him I could swim, because he couldn’t. And he wasn’t floating so much as bobbing in a drowning like manner. Ohh… and to clear up a couple other things this was in broad daylight in a five foot swimming pool. I was minding my own business on my guard stand when the frigg’n genious came down the slide. He went under like everyone else does, he surfaced like everyone else does, then he went back under? Not so much like everyone else. Huston we have a problem, I was already off my chair. I grabbed and towed him over to the sidewall. He was coughing a little but otherwise okay, at least enough to answer my question.

“What happened?” “I can’t swim.” No shit Sherlock. “I didn’t read the signs, sorry” The nine year old walks away just short of defeated. I turn around and notice a man that was previously blended into the background of the fence. “Whoa that was just like Bay Watch! Except your not as attractive as Pam Anderson.” True story, I can’t make this shit up.

I look up and there I go again stroke, flip, glide, stroke.

“Sorrow drips into your heart through a pin hole. Just like a faucet that leaks and there is comfort in the sound, but while you debate half empty or half full. It slowly rises your love is gonna drown.” Marching Bands of Manhattan- Death Cab for Cutie

Lifeguard skills don’t count for shit when love is the drown victim. I had just got home from school and I had notice my mom’s car in the drive way, she must have came home sick. I walk in the door and she was pacing while on the phone. Something is up. It’s one of those situations where you’re not sure to ask because you might not want to hear the answer.

Jonathan Roth's review - hahaha. i really like this part of your memoir, especially the part with the old man saying you were like bay watch!!! that must've been pretty scary though to jump in and save the kid. what a retard. although, the 1st part of your story is confusing, i know its supposed to be a metaphor (i think), but i dont understand that. you need to make that more clear. otherwise, good job!