You Are Here

Everything was white. I couldn’t tell where the floor ended and where the ceiling began. If there was a ceiling. I had yet to encounter a wall. Or chair. Or another person. Or a speck of dirt. Everything was white, glowing white. Except for me. I’m still in the clothes I left for work in.

I stumbled around, occasionally calling out, “Hello?”. Until I got angry about being here, then I started with “Fuck you!”, and “This ain’t fucking funny you fucking shitheads!”. But the only thing that came from that was my own anger. Not even an echo.

I started to wonder if I was dead. If this was some kind of cosmic waiting room to the afterlife. Or my next life. I’d probably be reborn as a toad. I’d rather be a cat. Then I can be as evil as I want to be.

My legs were moving. I should be walking, but it felt like I was standing still. After some time (or was it a little while, or was it hours, I don’t know. I had no watch and my cellphone went dead.), I finally put myself in the standing tall position and asked the question I should have asked in the first place.

“Where am I?”

I felt a ripple move past me. And suddenly a sense of something existing where nothing had existed before. I turned around, to see the fragment of a door sign. As soon as I saw it though, it faded into the endless white around me. But I saw it just in time to see what was written on it.

I read the sign out loud. “You are here.” I blinked a few times as the afterimage in my eyes continued to taunt me before fading. “You are Here.” My scream of primal rage surprised me. I vented the shock with my next words. “Well then. Where the fuck is HERE?”

“Here is where ever you are. Of course.”

The sound of the voice stopped me in mid tantrum stomp. I froze, one leg slightly raised, fists over my head. Realizing I was now hearing the sound of someone other than me breathing, I stood up and slowly turned around.

He is dressed in a dark business suit. A small man, maybe mid 30’s. He is seated at a wooden business desk, the type featured in every stereotypical office skit. There are no papers on the desk, and no other chairs. There is just him, the desk, the chair he sits on, and the endless white expanse around him.

“Any other questions that I can help you with?” He was strangely cheery.

My words spilled out before I could control them. “Am I dead?”

He chuckled a bit. “No, dearie. You are not dead. You are Here. Nothing dead is Here.” My eye began twitching at the answer.

“Am I alive, then. In a hospital, deep in a coma?”

“No, dearie. You are not alive. You are Here. Nothing living is Here.” The eye twitch spread to my face as I wrinkled it preparing for another outburst. “You look confused, my dear. Please. Have a seat.” He gestured to my side of the desk where suddenly, another chair appeared.

I am confused. I took the chair and put my head down on the desk. “If I’m not dead, and I’m not alive, then what am I?”

He sounded sad in his reply. “I’m sorry, dearie, I can’t answer that question. I can only help you with Where you are. Not What you are.”

At that answer, I just broke down and cried. I cried until the tears cried for themselves. I cried unleashing many fractured dams of self pity. Finally giving in to the lack of control I had Here, where ever Here is, I cried until all the anger had worked its way out.

When I raised my head, I found a box of tissues in front of me. The business man was still in his original position. “Feel better, dearie?” I just nodded and wiped my face with a tissue. “People that come Here for the first time are often disoriented.”

“I’m sorry, Sir, I still don’t know where Here is?”

He waited for me to blow my nose before explaining. “Most people go through life never being Here. They never come Here, or when they do, they, like yourself, don’t recognize where Here is.” He straightened his tie, slightly smiling. “Here, is Where you are.”

I felt another crying spell starting, he raised his hand for patience. “Let me explain. Just now. You were crying, yes?” I nodded. “You were feeling very sorry for yourself and was full of self pity, yes?” I nodded, but a little angry. “While you were feeling that self pity, Where did you think you were?”

The question iced my anger back into confusion. I furrowed my brows, feeling I should know the answer. He gave me a few moments to think about it, then answered his own question. “You were Pitiful. That’s Where you were. All of your existance was poured into that moment of Pity. You breathed it, you cried it, you sat and wallowed in it. But now, you are not in Pity, anymore. You are Confused. You feel confused, you smell confused, you can taste it on your tongue because you have surrounded yourself with confusion. Your Here, right now, at this moment, is Confusion.”

He sat back in his chair, quite pleased with himself. As I turned the words over in my head, I realized he was quite right. I also realized I had a choice where to go after leaving Confusion.

I chose Curious.

“So, if I get angry. I mean really angry. Jump up and down, livid angry. That is where I am?”

He smiled and wiggled a little happy jig in his seat. “Yes! Precisely! You’re catching on fast!” A little childish clap of his hands before regaining his composure. “Most people assume that Here is determined by map points and landmarks. You ask them where they are, and they will say Wall Street, or The Ozarks, or Small Town in Cluster Fuck. But that is not where they are!” He points to his head. “They walk around, ignoring this!”

I found myself mesmerized by his explanation. I was thirsty after all the crying and wished I had something to drink. A little tink noise came from beside my hand. I looked down, and saw a clear glass of water.

“Ah, I had hoped I could finish my preamble first, but I see you’re learning faster than I thought. Drink up the water dearie, it is here for you. While you do, let me explain why that happened.” I obeyed his command. It was a little bitter, like lemon juice was dripped into it. It was the flavor I love. “See, once you know Where you are… Once you know where Here is, then you can make Here into anything you want. You was in Confusion, but once you realized this, you chose to be in Curious instead. You were Thirsty, and now you have chosen Sated.”

His hand were more and more expressive as he spoke. “You live in emotional states of awareness. If you are Angry, then everything else is filtered through that emotion. If you are Happy, just the same. A friend’s needling will be seen as malicious when you are Angry, and as camaraderie when you are Happy, yes?” He didn’t wait for me to nod. “When you start choosing where Here is, you’ll see that the world will start conforming to your expectation instead of determining your expectation.”

“But what about my shithead co-workers! They don’t do a damn thing but sit around and I wind up having to do all the work! How can I bend THEM to my world!” I slammed the glass down on the table. The sharp retort surprised me.

“Where are you now, dearie. Tell me. Before, you was Curious. But where are you, now?” He sat back in his chair and tried not to smile smugly.

I was angry at his smile. I almost stood up to slap it off of him, but then I realized what he meant. “Angry.”, I said softly. “I am Angry now.”

“Is that where you want to be?”

“No. I didn’t want to be Angry. I wanted…” I let the sound trail off. I didn’t know what I wanted. I only knew I was angry because that is the expected response from me. I turned the topic of conversation back to the beginning. “Where am I?”

“You are here.”

“Where is Here?”

“Where ever you want it to be.”

“So, if I want it to be Calm, to be Focused, to be Sure Of Myself…”

“Then you must place yourself in Calm, in Focus, and in Sure Of Yourself. Or the world will toss you around like your favorite pillow.” He smiled as he stood. He came around the desk to me and offered his hand. I took it. He pulled me to my feet.

“I think that’s enough of our conversation for today. You have things to think about. Your assignment, dearie, is to practice Where you want to be. And remember, if you ever get lost, you are always…”, he put a finger gently to my head, “Here.”

He pushed slightly and the gentle white of the world wrapped around me, darkening into downy black as it did so.

This post inspired by, and written for, Sunday Scribblings #289: “You Are Here“.