Where Is My Mind?

The boy woke up from yet another nightmare in the hospital and found the sun was shining outside. It was early enough for the first tea of the day that the inmates were served. He grabbed his book and headed out for chai which was served to him hot and sweet and milky.

It has been four years since this incident and so much has changed in the boy's life, but for some reason he frequently visits this place in his dreams, before the dreams turn darker and darker and like the Cohen song, its like a million candles are burning but there's no help coming. He knew he had to get out of that hospital but he came back to an empty house. The spirit of the person who occupied his thoughts and motivated him to undergo haloperidol withdrawal had long since gone. Truth be told, she was gone in 2002 and what was left was a diseased mind in a plump shell, addicted to Xanax and cigarettes. Next came the blame games, the ones where she lied to his friends.

It should have ended the day he burnt her corpse and did his duty by her, but somehow the next segment was waiting for him behind the hallway door. Unlike most exorcisms, this demon was going to take a while to erode out of his psyche. His medicines were changed and he could not hold down jobs for very long. However, every time he tried to stop fighting, a Terry Pratchett quote kept staring at him out of the corner of the wall of his room. 

"It was sad music, but it waved its sadness like a battle flag. It said the universe had done all it could, but you were still alive."

A few months on, more quotes joined that one on the wall such as this one from a Roald Dahl short story:

"I think the reason I do not want to die is because of the things I hope will happen."

Finally, Liam Gallagher came to his rescue, and the lines from his song, Too Good for Giving Up adorned the space above his desk. 

"Tomorrow's waiting down the line \

It's getting late but there's still time 

You're too good for giving up 

Look how far you've come 

Stronger than the damage done"

It is not an easy task to eradicate your primary caregiver from your life, my dear friend, and many have told him to try and move on, to put it behind him. Most nights however, the daemon of hatred rears its ugly head. He tells himself it is just a dream, but then he is reminded of how when the soul reaches the banks of the river Styx, the boatman Charon will ferry them across to the Underworld and he knows she left to go on that journey, but it is as if the spirits of her pollute the air he breathes.

He told me the other day over drinks, that he wishes to move on. I told him he has made strides in that direction, that the posters in his room are proof of that and that in time, although the wounds may never heal, he will find a way to accommodate both she who is dead, he who is alive and himself wh ohas all his life ahead in the same mind.

It's like the Rise Against song,

"We've all been sorry 

We've all been hurt 

But how we survive is what makes us who we are"

The Bilge Master