Avalanche of Feelings
The spoon that bent my mind. I wish I can take my brain through a spin cycle and rinse it with mouth wash. Maybe then the whistling would stop. Jenna's smile is a reassuring comedic moment that everything will be all right and she tosses another egg. The shell cracks and the insides splatters on Dr. Kent's windshield like blood in a murder scene. "Pass me another," and I obediently hand her another proportionally uniformed white ovoid grenade. But, truly is this the best way of murdering baby chicks? For personal vengeance?
A gasp and an ecstatic exclaim and how can I deny Jenna her bliss? Although, I've been Dr. Kent's patient for the last two months. Jenna's been his for seven on and off. She said, once ever so often she needs a mental break from therapy.
It's a life of its own. Eating, breathing vermin. Were her exact words.
But, I don’t even know if her intentions from therapy were to get better or whether Dr. Kent is just a friend for hire who listens to her nonstop jabber about the metaphysics of existence and of course relentless problems with a current boyfriend.
And then, there are the outbursts of energy where she's wild and unpredictable, such as, now, vandalizing Dr. Kent's car because he has finally fired Jenna. Cut her off because they have constructed an unhealthy relationship between patient and doctor. His words and Jenna scoffed them with feelings of absurdity and hurt. It's more like she has developed an unhealthy attachment to her captor. Well, Dr. Kent's not really a captor, but therapy can be captivating and become destructive if it runs out of its use.
Another man who has taken advantage of her fragile kindness. She said, but I'm not sure if she's truly kind. Maybe self-absorbed would be a better characterization. But, at least she's true to her feelings, all encapsulated in this tiny explosive yet harmless weapon. With the last egg in her hand, she starts to scream like a warrior before running into the battle. The roar of madness. A possessed host to blind the reality and consequences.
Rather than hurdling the egg, Jenna stops and turns to me. "Here," she says. "You have a go."
"But, I'm not angry," I object.
"Everyone's angry."
The build-up to master all my anger; well, first I have to find it. My compartmentalized feelings to fend off mental discomfort but here I am presented with a resolution to the constant clash of my opposing emotions. Be nice and keep everyone calm. Be angry and destroy. Do right. Do wrong. Be good. Be bad. All shouting at once.
Ahhhhhhh!
I fling the egg, missing the mark and smashing it on the pavement. But, what an exhilaration it is. Freedom and Jenna pulls at me to run and we run screaming with maddening eyes and intoxicated minds before we stop in the middle of the courtyard salivating and drooling. At this point, all the excitement turns to paranoia and Jenna stars to reconcile our testimony in case. But, I'm not ready to hear it. I need more movement to wane the avalanche of noise inside my body. My body turned from a spectator to participant and now I'm hungry for more.
Everyone's angry. Give it a chance. Don't get consumed.
"Noah! Snap out of it!" Jenna screams, shaking me mercilessly. "It's over. We won."
*
By the next morning, I knew what was going to happen.
Dr. Kent sitting in his chair waiting for me. Waiting for the explanation. "Who's game?" He asks. "Who keeps the score?"
Sitting on the pins, I cannot be still. Consequences of action or inaction, of feelings and numbness. Everything needs to be measured. Calculated even if in the end it has been miscalculated. But, for a brief second, none of it mattered.
"I'm the keeper of the score," I answer mildly entrapped in my thought.
"Don't. It'll be better that way."
"What's my sentence?"
"One car wash," and with that, he smiles. "Good. Good. Let's talk about that. Loss of control and the overwhelming flood of emotions."
One instinctive act. Fling an egg and resurrect the automatic innate response of my animal self. Don't overthink. Don't over feel. Let go and go with my guts because when I bundle it up, an explosion is inevitable. After all, that's how I ended up in therapy. The snap of the last of my thread and I lost all of my senses and that's dangerous. The world blurred and an innocent man's blood ended on my firmly gripped fists. The hush of the snow as it barricaded all of my thought under it and I had only one mission. Inflict pain.
So instead of speaking in the language of fists, I throw the small rocks to the ground, shouts, scream, and breathe out… and most importantly talk through my anguish.
"I liked it, even if I didn't want to," I say.
"But, why my car?"
"It was there and Jenna…"
"Is a bad influence."
That, however, is very true. For every step I take forward, she takes back two, or at least with her I take two back. Then I'm left with a deficit and owing reward points.
This morning, her room became empty. A vacancy awaiting another lost soul. Find a new friend. Jenna's words before she rolled her luggage out to the lobby. Be brave! She shouted and disappeared.
Once again, the ground beneath me vanished and I couldn't assign my self to the moment because everything always becomes nothing. Every creeping emotion becomes one unflattering master. Loss turns to pain. Pain turns to numbness. Numbness turns to anger. Anger turns to destruction.
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