Don't Patronize Me-Part 1

I awoke in a cold sweat, like many other nights. Always unaware of when I might be able to defeat overbearing insomnia, I chose to slip my shoes on and walk out to the patio and gaze at the moonlight. It was then I realized how many times I had stared at that moon, wondering if sleep were just for the dead. Maybe I’d never needed it at all. I took a seat on the bench and placed my hands next to my thighs and began tapping them against the rough and splinter filled wood, in a way which seemed rather annoying to everyone but myself. With this overwhelming rhythm in my head, it seemed like the thump of my heart was piercing through, ready to take my every thought on, with each passing second. It was then I realized, that night was different. My nightmare was reality.1

I had gotten up for a moment, disoriented. My mind went blank. Had I been sleeping the entire time? Had my eyes never forgiven my nightmares for the torment they had caused me? Was I alive and more importantly, was I still breathing? A familiar voice woke me. Indeed, I was not dead.2

“Fred, can you hear me...he’s not responding,” a young gentleman said.3

I then heard the voice of a woman speak, “he’s out cold.”4

I had wanted to speak, but my mouth could not move. My brain was locked into place, frozen in a cold still moment. My eyes were so tired, so I rested them for a while. I went numb each time the ambulance slowed down or hit a bump. My spine chilled, and my heart stopped. I was losing my grip. I always kept a firm grip, it is what a man does in times of need. It is just what a man does when he’s lost in the world.5

The world crept up on me. All at once I heard voices and then saw my life. I saw myself being continually humiliated. My psychologist said I was agoraphobic, whatever that means. I saw myself experience death. I saw myself die in the arms of fate and no one else. I saw people telling stupid jokes at my funeral. I watched my eulogy last for no more than three minutes and nobody shed a single tear. There was never anyone else that cared. My friends were all gone. We were the ones who swore we’d go down together. We swore we’d also throw flowers at each other’s funerals.6

My friends and I ran through the city streets, we burnt down buildings, we made ourselves known. It was there I wasn’t alone. In the streets I was at home, because I had found God. My friends had found Him before me. It was there I was taught how to be a real man. I never cried after that first day. 7

“Go in there and do it,” Benny said. 8

“But,” I muttered.9

“Listen, don’t mess this up,” Ben replied. 10

I ran into a grocery store and stole handfuls of the cheapest candy I could find. We were nine. It was all I could think of to steal. I was young. It had never occurred to me that what I was doing then would lead to what I am going through now. 11

My mom had always had me on antidepressants. I had not seen my mother in two years, since my twentieth birthday. My father was dead, I hardly cried. My brother had moved to Los Angeles six years ago, he was an actor. Well, he had thought he was an actor. I thought he was nothing more than a drug addict with no common sense. It turns out he’s on television. I had enough sense never to dream. That’s a joke.12

I had enough sense to know that I should have left my home a lot earlier than I did. It takes a man to realize that. My father always told me that it takes a man to realize when to walk away. My mother never needed me and I didn’t need her either. My brother Harry had not spoken to me since he became a “Holly-weirdo” in that big city of broken dreams. It was since then I had realized not to count on anybody for any single thing. And then the weirdest thing happened one day, I stopped living. If you close yourself off enough, you’ll stop breathing. Everything in the world begins to slow down. You can effectively watch yourself die and do very little about it.