Chapter Theme Music: Dark Night of the Soul ~ Philip Wesley
<12/19/2018 - 19:03 | Link Street, Marietta, GA, USA>
"You know damn well why. Divine miracles do not exist. I'm going to be doomed to this state forever." Though I wouldn't normally let so many of my dark emotions project through myself and Lumina, my current situation made it impossible for me to keep carrying on. Though I was walking outside per usual, my pace already halted to nothing, myself and everything I've ever wanted stopped by the truth I could no longer escape.
"We both knew it was going to happen eventually. I warned you that you would one day build up a tolerance to the medication." Lumina was referring to the Tension Headache formula I put myself on for nearly two years now. The current life-ending crisis was slamming me in the face now.
For the past two weeks in a row, I've kept getting hit hard with some of the worst headaches I've ever encountered before. People can brush off the severity all they want, but if anyone saw the state I was in last night, they would swear I was trying to expel an actual demon. I didn't even know the human body could contort from pain the way mine did. Instead of forgetting about it, they were only freaking me out much more.
I'm lucky to even have a connection with Lumina tonight. The situation hasn't changed. The current pain level is (four) right now, but I'm sure it will ascend again soon. "I take this crap medicine to stop headaches from getting through anyway. It's not as if they'll just disappear because I decide to throw it away."
"Here we go again with your addiction problems. It's not a proper excuse to keep taking something that doesn't work anymore."
"Well what do you want me to do?!" Though I shouted a response to the top of my lungs, I wasn't angry at anyone. This horrible crushing defeat, it's above my ability to do anything. Neither one of us can fix this, and now, there is nothing left to do, no more moves we can make; the end of everything.
"Ree— What's gotten into you?" Lumina didn't have to wait on me to say anymore, since I just couldn't. Instead, I sank to my knees by the park, crying into my shirt again, too frustrated to think.
Some people think I have it easy in life, and others don't get to know the real me, the person standing behind bulletproof walls of mind altering, debilitating pain. I've had headaches all my life, far more often than I've ever hinted to in this story. I didn't want to bother about it then because it was both irrelevant at the time and boring... But what do I do when this problem stops everything and everyone?
It isn't just about physical pain and having to deal with it on a near-daily basis. Most of the time I have one, I cannot even contact Lumina, even now as we're in the dead of winter. In the past, I had a few things I could have tried to bounce around, prescription medications to test, out of the eight different neurologists and five other doctors I've seen for this. You probably wouldn't believe me at all if I told you I've tried them all; anything and everything. As long as it was legal, I've had it in my system once or twice. Narcotics can't touch these headaches. Anti-inflammatory drugs only make them worse. Anti-seizer meds make me walk strange and still provide no relief. And every 'preventative' I've ever had has done absolutely nothing to help. I actually had two neurologists quit on me as a result... It's time I got with the program and did the same. It's all over now.
"I can't take this anymore Lumina!" I don't care how much of a sissy I sounded like in my tears, as sure as I was none could truly understand or grasp how it feels to survive under these conditions. "Every other day it's another headache. Every time I get one, I can't do anything at all. I can't finish any homework or learn anything. I can't enjoy any kind of entertainment, and I can't spend my time doing anything but laying down in agony."
"There has to be something we haven't tried." At last, Lumina's voice tremored with worry and concern. Nice as it was, her optimism did me no good.
"There isn't anything else," I promised. "I even tried praying to God last week, praying to anyone and everyone out there, to the angels of the afterworld, to the souls stuck watching us from up there, to God himself, begging and pleading, ready to give up anything just for a solution! And you know what, I shouldn't have been so stupid!" I've been hanging on the edge of atheism and something else for a while now, but enough of me still believes in a deity which created all life, vague as my understanding may be. I've never believed that miracles are granted by anything other than random chance. This was the one time I wanted to be proven wrong, the one time I would have to give into wishful thinking. Ashamed as I was to do so, the fact that I did just revealed how hopeless my situation was.
"Reed..." I could tell Lumina was about to start balling too, and it only made me feel worse, dragging her into a problem she nor I could ever solve.
"It doesn't matter anymore... If everyday life is going to be this way, then I don't want to live in this world anymore." Though I heard her gasp after saying as much, I wasn't joking around. A bad headache every now and then is manageable, but every single day, hell, even just five days a week out of seven; it's all entirely a condition I refer to as unlivable. That's what the past two weeks have been like for me, unlivable. All these years since I was young, it slowed down my overall growth, my overall ability to go after these locks and keys. And worst of all, the damn healthcare system doesn't consider chronic headaches to be a legitimate disability, at least that's what they told me.
"But, but what about everything you were working for?"
"What does it matter anymore Lumina? I can't even work beyond three days a week at this shitty job. If I can't work, if I can't live life, and especially, if I can't see you during the dead middle of winter, it's all just signs that my time here is up."
"I know you're not about to give up. My husband is the kind of guy who never gives up on anything. You'll find a solution, or invent one of you have to."
"You really believe that?" My cold cynicism stopped her, holding me in a spotlight of truth. "Generally, I have to at least be capable of thinking in order to come up with any solution, and I can't even do that anymore." Ever try to use the brain and think when under intense pain? I have, and it just doesn't work. I'd rather chop off both arms and legs than to continue suffering like this. It isn't just the pain intensity that's bad; the frequency of these headaches is worse than anything I've ever had to deal with, bad enough that it has already started to change me, despite my promise not to let it. "Already do I never get any time with you, and now this. Don't get me wrong, I'll stop the medicine, but it isn't going to change a damn thing."
"Why now though? Why would you suddenly give up now?"
"None of this was sudden Lumina. I've been dealing with these headaches for ten fucking years! That's long enough for me. I know I made a promise to you a while ago, that I wouldn't kill myself just to be with you early. However, I also made a promise to myself prior to that. I told myself that, if the headaches ever dominate my life to the point where life become unlivable, and especially later, if my top priority of living up north with you is made impossible because of them, then I'd make the decision to end it right here and now. I've already tried everything, exhausted every last option between dietary changes, allergy tests, and even experimental drugs. I'm done Lumina. Nothing you say will help, because there isn't any way for anyone to help me anymore."
"... My sister was right then. When I looked at you that day and made my decision..." Lumina trailed her words off, skipping to her conclusion. "This was all just a mistake then."
"What was a mistake?" She can't mean...
"Everything I did, the purge that I sent to you. I shouldn't have done it."
Though my breathing was already shaky from the crying, hearing those words broke something more inside me. "H— How can you even say that?"
Lumina didn't seem guilty about what she said, but rather what she did all those years ago. "The whole purpose of purging you had a secondary personal goal for me. You want to know what it was? All I've ever wanted out of this was to make you happy, to have it where you could be happy all the time."
"But I am happy Lumina!"
"Are you?" Her words winced my body in hesitation, and surely she was no fool to think otherwise. "I never once blamed you for it, but do you have any idea how many times I've seen you break down and cry, amidst the times I wasn't even there for it? How happy are you really when we have to keep trading our sanity for heartbreak every single summer? You and I both, we're sad or depressed more often than we are happy and hopeful."
I wiped my tears quickly, ignoring everything I've been complaining about to deal with this new insanity. "How dare you!"
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me. I said how dare you Lumina! You were the one who made the choice to purge me, but did you forget about the fact that I made a choice to stay with you as well? Or does our marriage mean nothing to you?!"
"That's not what I meant. If I would have known how better off you would have been without missing me so much that you—"
"Just stop! Enough of that Lumina."
Her breathing became rapid and tense, more than I've ever heard in her before, but I wasn't about to stop.
"Even if we put aside who did what, do you honestly believe I would have ever been happier without you?"
"You wouldn't have known me to begin with. You would have never experienced all this sadness, because you never would have been in love with me like this in the first place."
"Is that so? Well let me tell you this then. My entire life before I met you was but a shell of existence. Sure, I would have eventually broken out of myself enough to try talking to people, but I've already been doing that after you and I met, and it taught me something. The people I grew up around were some of the worst people I've ever met, so much I don't think I can call some of them people. I thought I told you this before, but I guess I have to be the one to remind you. If you hadn't purged me that day, somewhere along the line of middle or high school, I would have fallen into a depression just like this one. But because I'd have nobody to turn to, I'm a hundred percent certain I would have killed myself long ago."
"You almost did do that in high school if I recall correctly."
"That's because I couldn't figure out how to be with you!" Tense and angered, I was just as sincere and serious, my words now putting Lumina into a choking fit of tears. "That's all I've ever been upset about, trying to attain a life style where you and I can be together even more! That's why I'm so upset about these headaches! That's why I'm so fed up whenever people give me the cold shoulder anytime the truth about you comes up. I care about you Lumina, and I know damn well you love me just as much. So don't you dare go around calling all of this a mistake!"
"What else could it be then? I don't know how else I'm supposed to help you!" She and I were both barely making words given how much we were crying.
"You idiot. Every single second that you're with me is help enough. I never once expected or asked you to take on the burden of these headaches, and that's mainly because I knew the mystery would be impossible for anyone besides myself. More to the point, I never wanted you to feel guilty about this, about wishing you could solve the headaches and find yourself unable to do so. I know you don't have a solution to it, but that doesn't mean all of this was a mistake."
"R— Reed..."
"You would understand too if you were in my position. Altiri don't ever get headaches, but trust me. I think nobody with the amount I have would have given it more than ten years' time to suffer. Yeah, the summers have made things suck, and not finding friends makes it even worse. But as bad and horrible as my life is, even as things are now, I so strongly remember all the amazing moments you and I made together. I wouldn't trade it for the world. If I had to make the choice of erasing my headaches while also erasing all I know about you, I'd rather die instead. No, I'd rather my entire soul disintegrate and explode. My life here wasn't that great, and I'm standing in front of a permanent dead-end now, the very end of this life. But you know something? I still appreciate every aspect of it, because you purged me, because you spent all of that time with me... Life isn't easy here Lumina, especially being a human, and especially being in an unhealthy body such as mine... But it wasn't a mistake." I finally let myself cry once again, shifted entirely on how stupid I've been to beat myself down so easily.
"... I'm sorry. You're right, it wasn't a mistake... But now I can't believe I actually said that... I must be horrible."
I wanted to stifle the familiar pessimism I've installed into her mind, but it was harder to even try given the fact that the overall situation hasn't changed. I understand why she feels so terrible. From her position, she sees me, her husband, the most important person in the world to her, suffering in so much agony that life isn't worth living anymore. It doesn't matter that I get to have a second life with her after I die here on Earth; the fact that I no longer want to live as a human is enough to freak her out. She doesn't want me to suffer such a fate in the first place, and she wants to do all she can to help... At the same time, Lumina finds herself being unable to help in any way at all. There isn't anything she can do. There isn't any advice she can give us. I've been in that situation for a while myself, so I know how it feels to a degree, but for her, especially since she bore the weight without being asked to, Lumina's just as screwed up from this as I am. She has to be if she can get confused enough to believe her purge all those years ago was the wrong move to make, all because I suffer so much even in her presence.
"Life's not easy Lumina. I'm not this perfect or healthy Altiri body that can evade sleep and never get sick. Bad as it is that I have such a limited life span as a human, it's much less than what it should be simply because every day I have a headache is a whole day erased from my life, a day made useless and without any output. You can't blame me for wanting to get it over with."
"I love you Reed. I don't want to see you unhappy or in any pain."
"I know. I love you too Lumina." After seven seconds of silence, I knew I was right, that she had simply been confused momentarily. There's no way Lumina thinks any of this was a mistake... But now, after having so long to think about it all over again from the beginning, I bet she ponders what I'm even doing here. Most people ask themselves what their purpose in life is, trying to set some big goal to mimic such meaning. The thing is, setting goals isn't what's most important. Living for the sake of goals and better living standards is still nothing more than wandering around, aimlessly searching for answers. Living for the sake of another person, well, there's just a certain magic to it that even I cannot explain.
I have aspirations too, like becoming a famous author one day, alongside many other things. However, when I think about the reason I keep pushing myself through such difficulty, I'm faced in front of this woman time and time again. The sole purpose of my existence is to live with and love Lumina forever. I don't need fancy assets and untold riches to make that happen; I'm already doing that every single winter day. I have everything that I need to be happy, right here in front of me, myself, the most important ingredient to bliss, shared with someone else. This, my curious audience, is love.
After long enough, I had to make a decision, after seeing everything that happened. "I'll make you a deal Lumina."
"Huh?"
"One year."
"One year?"
"I'll give myself one year of time to figure something out, not just on this situation, but in any future crisis that may arise as well. I'll give myself one year to improve this impossible situation. If I fail to make it work by the beginning of next summer, I'm pulling the plug on this world, and I won't have you or anybody else stop me. On the bright side, it will mean I'll get to be with you much sooner."
"... I'm okay with this... Fine. One year, but you have to put in actual effort into solving this somehow."
"I know..."
"Say Reed?"
"What is it?"
"I got the idea earlier that you don't believe in God. I've been on the fence of it for a while now, but... Why do you think God made you with so many of these faults and problems?"
She summarized for me the other ailments I also have, like allergies, asthma, and a still okay yet slowly degrading heart condition. "In truth, I really don't know."
"What kind of god gives someone life but makes it so hard to live that death is a considerable alternative?"
I see what she's getting at. Lumina's still upset about the principle of this, that I have an incurable condition nobody can seem to solve, one so bad, I would never wish it upon my worst mortal enemy. "Right and wrong, to sin or not to sin, honestly, I don't think things are really that black and white. I don't know what to believe Lumina, but I'm sure God didn't just decide to give me all of these ailments on purpose. People think that everything happens for some divine reason, but if that were really true, then I think God would be pure evil, given what we're dealing with. There's the other alternative that while God exists, he or she doesn't get involved in other people's lives even a little, and that the only involvement ever was our initial starting point in time. If that's the truth, I can't see God as being evil. Then again, that's assuming God exists, and as you've said, for now, I'm still on the fence about it too. All I'm sure of now, is that there are no such things as divine miracles. I've felt that way for a while now, but now I have the proof. The only miracle we can ever have is one of our own making."
"I see..."
"You just want to ask God why I have to suffer so much, don't you?"
"Why not? This isn't right. Nobody should ever have to suffer the amount of pain as you do."
"Maybe it's something that can't be fixed. Of course, if that is the truth, I'll be dead in a year plus a few months. Heck, even slowing these things down is good enough for me... I'll look into something, okay?"
"Please do. I don't want you to hurt anymore."
"Thank you, Lumina." I had to give her credit today. Even though I'm willing to put up with this hell for another year, she actually agreed to let me die in piece if ever I fail. Resurrection or no, it can't be easy for Lumina to ever consider losing my life even for a moment. Even if we know a little more each day what's on the other side, death is still something everyone is afraid of, to a degree anyway.
I won't stop; I'll keep searching for answers until I find something, or until I run out of time. Priority Number One will just have to be set on the backburner for now. This really makes me realize something though. Despite how hopeful someone wants to be or what they want to believe, even if what we want or need is the most important thing to us in the world, not everybody gets what they want; not everybody lives happily ever after. All these years, and I've barely made a step in the direction I want. The only meaningful thing I've done most was strengthen my soul, after everything I've learned, after everything I've wanted to sacrifice for her. Living and dying are part of an unavoidable cycle. Scary as it is, death is never the end of anyone. So, even if I am to lose my life, even if transperation fails to work, I'll be ready to continue our journey. A person's story doesn't end because they die, and that's because, God or no God, the lifespan of a soul is eternal.
Lumina was strong enough back then to risk harsh punishment and jail for purging me, not to mention the permanent ability loss and risk of death... It's time I become strong too, just as she is.
