David Faden
July 6, 2002
What do you see?
I see three men.
What are they doing?
Talking.
About what?
One man has a buzz hair cut. The other two are kidding him about it. They're laughing. They mean for him to join in with them. His name is John. He stares at the tips of his shoes. He looks incredibly glum.
"What's the matter, John?" Kurt says.
John taps his right toe a few times. He closes his eyes and sighs. "I'm afraid everyone is out to help me," he says.
The third man snorts. He snickers. His name is Luke. "That's ridiculous!" he says.
"Yeah, I know it is," John says. "And yet what you said is just what I wanted to hear. A repudiation of this crazy idea. What are you two doing here anyway?"
John stands in a doorway, Kurt and Luke in the hall. They are at the entrance to John's apartment. Kurt looks over John's shoulder into the apartment. It is dark, illuminated only by the soft light that filters through the drawn tan curtains. The thin twisted shapes by the window are dead, dried out plants. The black stacks of rectangles are books. The bed is hidden from view.
Kurt opens his mouth to speak. Then he smiles, shakes his head, and looks at the ceiling. He can't think of anything to say that won't confirm John's crazy idea.
"We're just here to see how you are," Kurt says. "We were worried. Nobody's seen you in days. Your phone doesn't work. If you hadn't come out when we knocked, we were going to call the police. My theory was that you'd been crushed by a pile of books." He chuckles at his joke, then screws his smile into a line of worry when John doesn't take the invitation to laugh.
"You'd think it'd be a very comforting idea that everyone is out to help you, that everyone is aiming at your happiness," John says. He looks up from the floor. He is almost smiling. "It's not. Then no one can be trusted, everyone is a fake. I'm even starting to lose faith in reality. I punched a brick wall." He holds up his right hand in a fist. He smiles ironically. "I wanted to see if it would yield. It didn't. But then I realized that was exactly what I wanted to happen. I expected the pain; I wanted the pain because I expected it. I wanted the wall to be solid as I expected and that's how it was."
Luke gags when he sees the bloody scabs on John's knuckles. "What can we say? What can we possibly say to you to knock this silly idea out of your head? It's sheer insanity. You're nuts!"
A thin laugh rises from John. "That's exactly what I wanted to hear. Exactly! I'm insane! Tell me I'm insane! Convince me of it! But, no. You can't convince me! There's nothing you can do! Go away. Go away! Leave me alone!"
The door slams shut. The locks click.
There's an uncomfortable silence between the two in the hall. Kurt rubs his forehead. He raises his eyebrows and shrugs at Luke. Luke shakes his head. They leave.
John's eye is the only spot of light in the room. He watches the two through the spy hole. Finally, they walk away, exactly as he wanted!
He sits on the edge of the bed. "If the whole universe is aiming at my happiness, then how is that I am not happy?" he says. He looks where he believes his bloody hand to be in the darkness. But for his breathing, the room is silent. "No answer, just as I expected, just as I wanted. There's no escape."
"But of course there is no answer!" he shouts. "This idea is ridiculous! The whole world out to help me? Ha. Ha, ha, ha. I will laugh, and then I'll be free of this silliness." He forces himself to laugh.
"But, no, the universe fails to make me happy exactly because it aims at making me happy. It caters to my wants but I want to be frustrated. But it cannot frustrate me. It may succeed for a moment. Then I am delighted. But then I seize on my delight and realize that trickery is afoot."
Hello.
"Who the hell is that?"
This is God. You're right about the universe aiming at making you happy. But it's failed and can't succeed. So, now the universe is going to go out of existence.
"Why are you telling me this? Or, why didn't you tell me this sooner?"
Who knows? Anyway, good bye, John. Good bye, everyone else. Good bye, myself. Sorry it didn't work out better.