The cancer of the soul

I counted the days, something I did with alarming frequency lately, and noticed we had passed the three years mark. Three years since the Fissure.

The Fissure ignited a cancer, and it spread deep and wide, ravaged everything in its path. No one was spared. Presented with an undeniable fact, we were all living in some kind of blasted simulation, that our cold and stinky feet, our wrinkled fingers, our distorted mirror images, they were simply not real. This very fact got to everyone, sooner or later, and slowly eroded our souls. Till there was nothing left.

The suicides wouldn’t be contained. How could they be? However stigmatised they were in the media, most people considered them appropriate.  After the Fissure, people preferred to call them the Choice. Logically the least sane thing to do, however emotionally, the only logical thing to do. The choice to check out. The final protest against the nonsense of it all.

But the Fissure itself wasn’t the nail in the coffin. After all, some religions, some spritual movements and the most reverent of people, they still fought a valiant battle. Attempts were made to explain this away. Efforts to undermine the undeniable facts.  Make sense of the nonsense. And people clang onto that.  Yeah, it sure kept those poor souls going. For a while at least.

Maybe everything would have normalised, if left alone. But it wasn’t supposed to go that way.

The Think tanks, the Research facilities, the Silicon Valley hot-heads, they all had to push on, get to the bottom of this. If we were not real, then the Real Real had to exist sowmewhere. Surely.

Because somewhere deep inside, everyone still had hope this research would lead to uncovering what started it all. The question itself. If we were living in a simulated reality, where was this other place? What was its quality like? The promised Base Reality – the real reality. The supposed Nirvana.

And the break-through came alright. Only it came crushing down on our heads.  It presented a clinical and undeniable fact. Something no one had even dared to consider.

There was nowhere to escape to.

In afterthought, how could you blame the scientists? It was genuine curiosity and wonder for the mysteries of the universe which spurred them on.  Yet what we got was a blasted Pandora Box. And this time, the damned lid of disillusionment would never shut.

The final check out

I glanced at all the guests. Most of them were my friends, some even very close. They were all supportive, nurturing and sensitive to what I was going through. But the moment I let my guards down, and began to speak my mind, everyone scrambled for some other place. As far away from me as possible.

I couldn’t really blame them. My questions, my search for answers, I knew what it meant for them. It was a constant reminder of the Fissure. And no one had the strength to indulge in these kind of mindfucks.

Not any longer.

Nobody desired to be reminded their cars and houses strung out on credit were some kind of freaking illusions. Their families and the warmth they provided were just their neurons firing off figments in their heads. Everyone’s life goals, loving emotions and fulfilling moments, were yet another phony bout of the psychotropic drug called our World.

When Agatha vanished from our lives, it was met with a crushing silence – from everybody. Yes. There were some attempts at condolences, some more successful than others. But everyone fumbled. And with every fumble, it became more obvious, the epicentre of hope she represented, was torn away from us. Nobody could grasp this simple fact. She was gone. Checked out.

But it got worse. Evidence she left behind which no one was supposed to talk about. If nothing else then out of respect for the dead.

And so it spread like wildfire.

Agatha’s choice wasn’t a rash act. It was rather a delibarate and calculated preparation on her part. Done meticously and with the greatest of attention, many months before the actual event.

Her Choice was mysterious, her death was irreconcilable, but the delibarate preparation, concealed behind her compassionate smiles, that was inexplicable.

The questions of the past and the worries of the future

I got up. I knew my feet were supposed to carry me onto the podium. I was supposed to do my duty – deliver the Eulogy in memory of her.

I had prepared the speech many weeks prior to the event itself. I had gone by the book, even looked up how to write one. How did we meet? Check. What special moments did Agatha and I share together? Check. And that one special, funny moment that would make everyone laugh and cry, in tandem. Check.

Except, when I got up, and finally stepped into the limelight, my body froze, my mouth dried up, and the nervous system collapsed

I realised, I would never deliver that speech. No matter how pitch perfect and polished it was. It was a sham.

Everyone shot me concerned glances, eyed me with suspicion. Was the speech the last straw? A breakdown about to erupt into a mortifying scandal.

As the pause drew out into an uneasy silence, all of  a sudden, Agatha’s dog jumped up and began to lick my face. His eyes exploded with a familiar thirst for life – Agatha’s eyes. Agatha’s eyes.

Something chugged inside me. Something buried away a long time ago. And all of a sudden, I began to weep like an uncontrolled baby.

Everyone’s mouth choked on a gasp.

I din’t care. I kept on weeping without remorse.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, there was still noise. Questions about the past and worries about the future.  Were we a too heavy weight to carry on Agataha’s shoulders? Were we too much for her, with our fizzling joy of life. Was she unable to sustain us all? Did she feel responsible for all of us? Were we simply asking too much of her?  Would we make it without her? Were we strong enough?

But maybe these questions were the kind which were not supposed to be answered. Maybe the right answers were right in front of me, in those dog’s eyes.  Because when I stared into them, I felt happy, sad, elated. All of it at once.

So I hugged him even closer into me, he yelped, and exploded with joy. Did he sense me igniting back to life? Did he feel me letting go, resurfacing back to life? Maybe that’s what Agatha needed in her last moments. This joy, the present, the moment.

The Now.

If anything was real, maybe this was it.

God.

For someone who was supposed not to be real, I never felt so fucking real.

The funeral wake

I was transfixed by the dog’s onyx eyes. Somewhere buried deep behind those eyes was Agatha’s secret. It had to be. It was her dog after all.  And with that secret, the answers what happened with the love of my life.

Deep down inside me, I was certain Agatha was different. Tougher, more resilient, better than us all.  She was the one who  symbolised a new kind of faith, one hard to grasp in these times.

The times after the Fissure.

That’s why her presence was cherished and why people flocked to her. After all, she was the beacon which organised the support circles, she pulled the drowning ones back onto the surface, she took the near-suicide calls in the middle of the night. And nurtured them back to life. Ignited hope in us all. Repeated endlessly to us, we were repsonsible for our reality, despite the overwhelming facts of the Fissure.

She gave us a sense of momentum, and it spoke that however bad things got inside our souls, there was still a reason to push forward. To go on with life as usual. To have the courage to walk out the damned dog. To have that high cholerstorole barbecue and enjoy the hell out of it. To drink oneself into stupor.

Just so you could, at least for a moment, pretend it was all real. What a damned lie.

My hand cuddled Agatha’s dog’s ear. I glanced up and reminded myself where I was.

A funeral wake at my house.

I eyed the black draped guests as they slid listlessly around me. Their silence filled with reverence, just as one would expect at such an occasion. Yet this silence had an odd quality to itself. It drilled itself into my ear drums, punctured them with a painful, dull absence of sound.

Why was I sitting here, cuddling Agatha’s dog, shaking all these strangers’ hands, at Agatha’s own funeral? Why was I pretending her final check out was an accident? Was it just that? Or was it her last line of protest against the undeniable facts which the Fissure presented?

Why did she fail to give me an advanced warning? If she owed me anything for the twenty years together, wouldn’t that be it? A few words, a talk, even a hysterical cry for help. I would gladly embrace all of it.

Few simple words that she would vanish for good, from my life, from her family’s life, from the people that loved her. From the kid we never had, but which I longed for so deeply.

At least my dog was real

-You ok Jon?, one of the guests whispered to me and woke me up from my thoughts. I glanced up at her, but couldn’t remember her name. Someone on Agatha’s side, a dear and friendly face.

-As good as can be expected.

-Hang in there, huh…, she clapped my shoulder, gently enough to show her compassion, and was about to leave.

-Excuse me, I stopped her mid-stride.

-Yeah?

-Did Agatha talk about her dog? Did she…? You know..? her dog?, I stuttered out.

-What do you mean?

I was about to launch into an explanation but then I realized I was being downright silly. I shook my head and waved it away.  The woman nodded, sent me a reassuring smile, then left.

But I felt everything wrench inside me, about to spew up a volcano. My mind was thrown back to the moment when Agatha had sat with her dog in the kitchen. She had smiled into those beady eyes. She had whispered, he was real, he was real.

Over and over again.

Then her face had glowed with happinness. If there ever was a disconcerting sign, maybe that had been it. Had she been hanging onto the semblance of her sanity? Had she hidden her own breakage so deeply, that no one saw it festering away inside her. Had the undeniable facts about our reality reached her mind? Blinded her will to go on.

Had the dog’s eyes, his carefree nature, and ignorance of it all, been her only rescue line?

Or was this all in my head? And her talking to the dog, repeating he was real, this had just been a simple and playful moment in her life?

The dog nudged himself into me, and I felt an ache shoot through my body. Ever since Agatha made her exit, he wouldn’t leave me, even for a split second. And when I stared into his eyes, I could almost feel them begging me. Clinging to me, needy, hurt, terrified, and outright demanding that I wouldn’t abandon him, the way his mistress did so abruptly.

No. This was not in my head. These beady eyes held the truth to my Agatha. And given time, diligence and empathy, I would comprehend.

To learn what happened during the Fissure, and the secrets behind Agatha’s choice, read the second part of “Agatha Unravelled”. Storygeist next week.

If you are interested in the current technological events that inspired this short story, please read my article “Venture me out of the Matrix”