It’s December, and I’m losing my mind a little bit. I’m sitting in my room, trying to write a paper, and when the words don’t come naturally, I get a little crazy. I put on my dark green jacket with the big pockets. I get in the car and start driving North.
It’s dark and snowing hard. I drive fast and loose, like maybe I don’t care if I crash or not. I send some texts to the people who love me. I start scaring them real bad. I say stuff like “y’all I’m going 80 down Easton,” I stick my head out the window, I scream, I send videos of me trying to lovetap tractor trailers on the freeway.
I decide maybe God can help me. It’s getting real late, but I want to talk to a pastor or a priest or someone. My parents never took me to church, so I don’t know what I’m missing. So I’m doing 90 in the left lane, windshield wipers off, asking Siri to find me a 24 hour church. Everything I know about Christianity comes from books, so I’ve got this image of the church as a sanctuary for the wretched and downtrodden, open day or night, like I’m a peasant in 17th century Europe knocking on a big wooden door and being greeted by an old, hunched-over little friar who will hold my hand, no matter what time of night, because God doesn’t work by any kind of clock.
But I guess at some point priests and pastors and bishops all stopped actually living at the church. Like any other business, they lock the doors at night. So I’m driving through all these suburban towns, knocking on random church doors like a reverse Jehovah’s witness, begging someone to let me in and tell me about the Good Word.
No one answers. I pick a new plan. I text my friends and say, “Have you ever seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? I’m gonna drive to Montauk tn. Maybe I’ll sleep on the beach.” And then I do it. I drive hard and blind for three fucking hours, and by the time I get to Montauk, it’s not snowing anymore. My friends are just about to tell my parents, they’re so nervous and scared. They don’t know where I am, and the manic goofiness has turned into something real sinister and quiet. I tell them, “Don’t worry guys, I went home. I’m sitting in bed, don’t worry. I’m safe and sound.”
But I’m standing on the beach. The wind is sharp and cold, pulling the skin tight against my bones. The strangest part is I can’t even explain what’s wrong. I just know everything is extremely hard for me. That this isn’t normal. I feel my brain writhing and screaming down the highways of suffering, and I’m staring at the water and it looks so bright blue and cool. I want to taste it, I want to feel the cool water filling my body. My spine shivers and tingles, and I want to be stuffed full with the blue cool cock of the ocean. There is construction happening by the beach; bricks. I pick up three. I fill my big green pockets. I stare at the ocean, and I cry and I cry and I cry.
I drive home.
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The author of this piece wishes to remain anonymous.