Three Choices

“So. I hear you really fucked things up.” I open my eyes to see a glass set before me, slowly being filled with a strong scented liquor. “Your lackadaisical attitude finally roasted your ass this time.” He continued speaking as he filled a second glass and placed it beside the first.

“Do you know who gets to run around with smouldering fags with impunity? Children. And you, girl, ain’t no child. Not no more.” He opened two small vials of clear liquid. The first gave a sweet aroma. He poured it into the first glass. The second was pungent. He poured it into the second glass. Putting the empty vials away, he picked up the glasses and swirled them around, gently mixing the concoctions.

“I also hear, you’ve been wanting a different life. A different way of seeing, and being seen.” He places the glasses back on the table. “I like you. You’re fun. So, for you, I’ll give you the chance to remake yourself while you’re still living.” He sits back down across from me, crossing his arms and leaning in slightly. “I’ll even give you the chance to walk away.”

I said nothing. Just stared at him with still weeping eyes. “I tried to fix it.” He nods. “I made it worse.” He nods again. “Was it really so broke that it needed fixing?” He chuckles and leans back but says nothing.

“You trying to justify yourself?” I nod. “You fucked up. Where and when you fucked up, is not for me to tell you. If you’re trying to gain my approval of your actions, then you haven’t learned a damn thing.”

I wince at the accusal and barely stop from trembling. The violent mood swings that accompanied me since Friday have lessened greatly, but they are still vicious. If only…

He reads my face clearly. “Ah, now we get to why you’re here.” He taps the table, gaining my attention and focus. “You say, ‘If only…’. I say ‘Why not?’.” He pushes the sweetened drink forward.

“Drink this, and your catastrophic swings will be lessened. Mistakes will no longer crush you. Disapproval, even by friends, will no longer disembowel you. The self-flagellating rages that cripple you will cease, and your enemies will get on your nerves a little less.” He pushes it a little further, encouraging me to take it. But I know such a boon has to have a price. It doesn’t take me long to figure it out.

“If I drink that, I won’t find delight in the buzzing of a bee. The impermanence of flowing water won’t catch my fancy. If I drink that, my joys will be eclipsed and my wonder at the fascinations of the world will be muddled. I won’t be able to transcribe the things I see into words that other people can understand.” I keep my hands in my lap.

“Well, of course. I told you, your swings will be lessened. But, after a little while, you won’t remember what it was like before. The sweetness, after all, masks the anesthetic of the soul. You’ll settle into a nice, quiet, mundane life. Just like what you say you’ve always wanted.”

I can’t tell if he’s encouraging me or mocking me. I nod towards the other glass. The amber fluid has a distinct blue tint to it, even though the vial’s contents were clear. He looks at it in disdain for a moment, as if he was regretting preparing it.

“This, will make things worse. Possibly. Most likely. This will strip away the lies you’ve told yourself all these years. The assumptions you’ve carried, the social conditioning you relied on, the mental padding you’ve placed between you and the truths of the matter will be dissolved. You’ll come face to face with the ugliness of yourself.” He fingers the glass, and pulls it back slightly.

“To be honest with you, girl, I don’t think you can handle this. I think this will kill you. I offer it, only to give you something to compare against the anesthetic.” He pulls it back a little more. “Take the first glass, girl. You don’t need these extremes to do what you need to do.”

“You said you’ll give me the chance to walk away.” He nods. “Since I usually am wishing for the extremes to be lessened when I’m in the depths of the troughs, it can be said I’m not in my right mind. So instead of taking the wish literally, you’re giving me a chance to work this all out on my own.” He nods again.

I stare at him. Past the cigar smoke, past the painted face, into the eyes that are both vacant and sparked.

“If I walk away, I die.” He tilted his head in curiosity. “I’ve been walking away my whole life. Encouraged to, actually. Told to go away, that such and such doesn’t concern me because I’m too dim, too weak, too innocent, too confused, too hormonal, too sheltered, and too broken to understand the forces that shaped me. The forces that still ride my ass. If I walk away, I will be ignorant of the dangers that soak me through to memory and blood and DNA. I will find myself in the Pit again, and I will not survive it.”

He pushes the sweet glass forward, almost shoving it into my lap. I grab it out of reaction. “Then drink, girl. And put this torment to rest. I will admit, you won’t be as much fun as you are now, but you’ll survive.”

I smell the glass and recognize rum as the carrier liquor. “Will I see you? And Snake? And the fields and the Tree and…” He shakes his head.

“It will all fade. But you’ve done enough. The rest can take care of itself. In a few years, you’ll look back on these days and remark how mad you were. And how glad you’ve become, ‘normal’.”

He nods as I hold the glass to my lips. Inhaling deeply, I can feel the anesthetic numbing my nose by scent alone. A scent, I briefly recognize, as lotus flower. I hold the glass up in front of me, as if to toast him. He nods. Quickly, I pour the sweet glass out on the ground beside me, and place the now empty glass on the table upside down. With deliberate motion, I reach for the bitter glass. His eyes widen and he grips it tightly.

“Walk away, girl! Walk away! You don’t want this!” I manage to get two fingers on the glass before he can pull it out of my reach.

“Why do you call me, ‘girl’, if I am no longer a child?” Without fear, I stare him in the face again. He looks at me curiously, and starts chuckling.

“Because, while you know your title, you have yet to earn the right to wear it.”

“How can I earn it, if I am not allowed to prove myself worthy to wear it?” My voice was steady and almost quiet, but I had a resolve that surprised even me. “Or am I too simple, even here?”

“You’re not simple, girl. You’re naive. Which is far more dangerous.” He returned my stare with equal severity. “Walk away, girl. You’ve committed to living this out now. Walk away.”

“You offered me a choice between three options. Two of them, you have explained to me. The third I have explained to you. Are you changing the nature of the choice?”

His face twisted in a mix of anger and frustration. “You don’t understand, girl.”

“Then explain it to me! Tell me in words this naive, innocent, ignorant, CHILD can understand! Tell me how remaining wrapped in self-delusion and false assumptions can continue to work in my favor! Tell me how living in fear of hurting everyone around me to the point I allow myself to be abused in false sacrifice is working in my favor! I am my own! And I will not be toyed with any further!”

I force my hand under his so that he is gripping both me and the glass. I don’t know when I stood before the table to gain leverage to do so. I have a faint awareness of who I am yelling at, and the knowledge that no matter how upset I am, I must not lose my temper. But I’m on the knife’s edge, and the rage is rising faster than I can speak it away.

“I have wounded someone with a mortal wound, that will likely never heal in this lifetime. And I don’t know if he deserved it or not. I don’t know if I set him up or not. I don’t know if I was being played like a cheap music player, or if I was playing him. And that’s just one person. JUST ONE! Everyone that touches me burns. I would light the world on fire with the thrust of my hip!”

“Am I still leashed? Whose dog am I, then? I get… glimpses… of someone greater than the me that I know. Of someone that I should have been, but was smothered by circumstance and neglect into this whimpering beast that I am now. And I see enough of her, to know that there is still time for me to be what I should have been! But only… only… if the me that I am… dies.”

I don’t know when I started crying. Only that my free arm suddenly buckles and I lean onto the table. But my grip on the bitter glass doesn’t weaken. “I would not wish my circumstance on my worst enemy. To have deep personal knowledge, that I should be… that I am… something more than what I appear to be. To know this, and yet, not know it. I know enough to know, that I am a miserable thing. A corruption of what I should have been. My molester should have pulled the knife true, that night, and slit my throat instead of scratching it. My skull should have been burning in Ravenwoman’s pyres 30 years ago.”

I pull on the bitter glass, and it moves towards me by an inch. “I die in ignorance, consumed by the Pit. Or I die in knowledge, letting this corrupted facade finally decay. Don’t let me die in ignorance. I beg of you. I live there, daily, and it consumes my soul by degrees. It is Hell and Gehenna. It is the Devouring Worm That Doesn’t Die. I am eaten from within, just enough that I don’t die. Just enough, that I wish I could.”

My anger finally spent, I found myself with no more words to say. I was exhausted, but I kept my grip on the bitter glass. I laid my head on the table, and cried. Surprisingly, I felt a hand stroking my head.

“It will kill you, girl. You won’t be the person you are now.” I nod. “Very well, then. I did offer it to you, but I did not expect you to take it. I did offer it, and I can not take that offer back.” I feel his hand lift off mine. “But I want to watch you drink it.”

I did not release the glass, but slid back to my chair. I wiped my face dry on my clothes, and faced him squarely. I held up the tainted glass of rum, and noted the blue swirl inside the glass appeared as a blue wyrm. I knew there would be no sipping of it.

“For knowledge, Eve was sentenced to death. For knowledge, I slay myself that my self will live. Let the dead, stay dead.” My toast complete, I threw the contents of the glass in my mouth and swallowed it quickly. The potion seared my throat as it went. Not the usual pain of strong liquor, this was acidic and heated. I kept myself from retching the contents, and slammed the empty glass upside down on the table.

The searing pain expanded inside of me, until even my bones felt under assault. But still I remained seated upright in the chair. I sat, as if I were on a throne, rather than in a smoke filled back room. I kept my stare on him, even as he stared at me.

After a long while, he finally spoke. “You know, dear, you may surprise me yet.” He chuckled slightly. “I have underestimated you. I will not do so again.” He dons his hat and bows in his seat slightly. “May I take my leave?”

I found it strange that he would ask that of me. I meant to speak, but the fluid was still searing my mouth. So I nodded my assent. As he quit the chair and walked away, whistling, I finally leaned back and closed my eyes from the pain.

I felt a jerk, much like falling, and snapped forward. Only to find, I was in my room, at my computer table. There was no rum, no glasses, no lingering scent of rich cigars. It was all just another dream, right?

No. It is another step forward.

Make of that, what you may.