You ever been outside yourself? It’s like you’re walking along, going about your business, and all of a sudden you’re two places instead of one. Like, there’s still the you doing your normal thing, but now also a you somewhere completely different, living another life . . . being someone else.

I walk the halls of this big building I’ve come to so many times before. Honestly, I’m usually just here to take a shit in their exquisite bathroom complete with fucking fountains and classical music, fancy wallpaper . . . the works. Wherever I might be headed, even now in COVID times, this building and its promise of a safe, comfy place to do my business and look at my phone or whatever, is like a fixture in my world I’ve come to rely on. It fits that I’d choose this place to die.

I come to the place in the center where there’s elevators and a big board with the names of all the businesses. At first, I stare at the board (really for the first time ever), and see a short list of psychiatrists up on the seventh floor. I start to wonder what they’d feel if I barged in and unloaded my whole plan on them about going all the way up their building then falling all the way down. Probably not too pissed off, or even annoyed, I don’t think . . . not the way normal people get when you burden them with your shit. Probably fascinated in some kind of detached, clinical, academic way. 

As I roll the prospect of being studied by science around in my buzzed, beleaguered mind, I start to conclude it might not have been such a bad idea if I’d tried it before . . . maybe before COVID, or before I kissed Jolene. But then, or now, it’d just be prolonging the inevitable. Nothing can stop what I’m about to do.

That’s when I leave myself.

I actually wish I could leave this part out of the story. I mean, it’s so airy-fairy, and maybe hard to understand. But it is part of what happens, so here we go…

Staring at that board, daydreaming about having some syndrome named after me by researchers, I jump back to decades ago with my first girlfriend, Kathy, walking around this rocky area by the ocean where we always used to go. But it’s not just Kathy, and not just that long ago. It’s also Jolene in some alternate world, and even my wife back when we first started dating. All three women are somehow one, and I feel myself falling in love with her the same as it actually was with Kathy. We’re climbing carefully to avoid sharp jags, but we’re also floating like balloons off the ground. We talk all about our whole future together and how special it’ll be. We can’t help but laugh, filled with genuine joy.

We stop for a moment on a flat plateau on top of the rocks, and peer out to sea. Waves in the distance pass barges before they crest right next to us. The sky is a greyish white. It’s the only weather where I can actually say I like living in California.

But I know, even as I float along in the purity and innocence of young love, I’m not just this person here with this strangely unstrange amalgamation girl. I’m also that wolf-moster fuck who should get put down quick for everyone’s benefit. Yes, the love is here, but it’s just a beginning, and that other me knows the ending only too well. Whoever this girl is . . . no, I won’t call her Jolene, since I already went through why I’m not about to run away with Jolene . . . yeah, whoever she is, I’m still ultimately destined to…

I’m in the building by the elevators, about to press the button to go up. I instantly think of my wife, since nothing about the life I just imagined or escaped to makes any sense unless the girl is really her. I haven’t thought of sweet Kathy in years. And I’m ok with how things are with Jolene . . . like, I’m glad she’ll be the one to get my note. But my wife’s the one I actually had the life with between falling in love and winding up the crazy suicidal fuck I am today.

My wife’s name is Caylee, by the way.

I never show it, but I was in love with Caylee once. Na, sex was never easy, or smooth. But it turns out I don’t even need hours with those shrinks up on the seventh to jog my memory so I can recall actually getting excited to see Caylee’s ever-cheerful face back whenever I showed up in my schlubby car to take her out.

I haven’t remembered until this moment how proud I fucking was that one time when I saw Caylee’s huge, stupid grin amidst a giant crowd. 

I fucked everything up. I’m an asshole. I’m a dirty piece of shit destined to ruin even the greatest love story I might find myself a part of because all I’ve shown for however long is I’d trade pure joy, innocence, devotion, happiness . . . all of it . . . for a glimpse or taste of ass in a second.

I can’t be both things.

I feel terrible for Caylee. But she’s still way better off without me. It’s better she never even knows how truly depraved I am beyond just the basic shit I left in that recording.

The building is already really quiet, but now the whole world goes dead silent and still as I step into an open elevator and push the button for the twelfth floor.

I have no more thoughts. No feelings. No confusion. No last minute need to go through what’s coming next. I’m a programmed robot set to complete a single task in a closed, uncontaminable test environment. 

In a flash, I’m up a ladder I discovered when I was seventeen, and out on the roof beneath a long red setting sun. 

I wish I’d told you my wife’s name was Caylee before. She deserves that. She deserves so much better.

Well, this is all for the best.