DISCONCERTED


There is a saturation point when you will simply lose it.

When that moment is upon you, all talk becomes futile, well-meaning advise becomes intrusive, and logic is suddenly an off-season game. It's like when you're drowning and it dawns on you that you're beyond help... you see how everything becomes pointless, and you stop thrashing about, and you keep still.

It's not even profundity that will bring you back on track. No. It's the most banal things, like whipping up a meal, or loading up the washer, or breathing... slow, deliberate breaths... in and out, in and out.

And here's the biting wit... it's all relative.

Sometimes, when you think you can't take anymore, life, the old prankster, decides that it isn't done with you yet. And so it yanks your hair, and kicks your shin and calls you names to your face, right there where you've fallen. Or sometimes it's the manipulative bitch at play. It wheedles you on the palm of its hand, charms you till you can't but exonerate the brute, sometimes doing you a good turn, like saying, 'What, you think I'm so crass? I was only joking, my dear.'

And here's the farce.

Tonight, there will be company at dinner. I will probably do no more than listen and watch and let themselves be. But I will be seated, and I will be comfortable, and hope that I will be beyond reach of the old prankster. And when I lay me down to sleep, there will be one other form on the bed besides me and the pillows.

And tomorrow, I'll maybe smile again.