― May Sarton
Hello, Darkness
What's worse―waking from a nightmare or waking to one? Visiting Breton both encouraged and depressed me. He gave me hope and urged me to hold fast through the next nine months of Tribulation... and I thank him for that.
But being on campus filled me with nostalgia for a simpler time when the future stretched out before me like a land of dreams filled with hope and promise. I missed that. I missed me.
And for the first time in my sheltered life I felt real, black, suffocating despair that kept repeating the same mantra over and over in my brain―the world is never, ever, going to be the same.
If the world does change irreparably it will be a real trauma that will leave deep scars on my psyche, like Ley lines connecting events that haven't happened yet, but I'll have known in advance that they will and will have foreseen their ultimate pattern.
Please, give me peace, Life, let me just survive this.
I'm not prone to depression but I recognized the signs.
I decided to reach out to Art Tucker. After all, he is my friend besides being a Jungian therapist.
At the very least he could prescribe me meds and besides, I owed him the courtesy of telling him my plans so he wouldn't have to worry.
Yeah, I could have done better by him―kept him in the loop so he'd have a chance to make his own arrangements. Somehow though I suspect he'll do well because of all his connections.
I caught Art just before he left for the day and we sat in the dusk before his picture windows overlooking the lake. It was a sober moment.
"Power's off again," he muttered. "How did did you get up here?"
"Took the stairs―we'll have to do the same going down."
He nodded. "Could be worse―could have taken the penthouse suite. What the hell would I do then―install a helicopter pad?"
We both smiled bleakly at the prospect.
"So you're hunkering down in your cabin for nine months with two beautiful women? I don't know whether to envy or pity you. Can't see how it'll work based on what I know of them."
"I hear you," I said, "but like I told you, it's going to last nine months and I couldn't just abandon them in the city."
He smiled ruefully and shook his head. "You always had this thing for rescuing broken birds."
"I'm not trying to fix them, Art―can't even fix myself. Just want to try to protect them."
"You better lie low, yourself, Guy―you know too much, thanks to Tom Faraday and it could get you killed."
"I know," I whispered, "it's not the best of all possible worlds, is it? What about you―what are you going to do?"
"Nance and I are going to enjoy the creature comforts of Therafields. Damn retreat centre was supposed to be a rehab facility but it's more like a spa with an 18 hole golf course and club house and the best stocked bar outside Toronto. We'll sit around the bonfire at night with our cab sav and trade war stories―it's the dysfunctional life of shrinks, most working on their fifth divorce. Yeah, they know how to handle marriage therapy...Not!"
We both laughed but I didn't envy Art his upscale angst―I felt sorry for him and Nancy―decent folk caught up in a sweet life abyss of their own making, trapped in lifestyles of the rich and famous.
Me? I was going home to a dark house and a sleepless night of preventing despair while fighting off the oppressive attacks of a basilisk.
Art gave me nine months supply of anti-depressive meds he emptied from his drawer of promotional samples sent to him by drug companies.
It was a glorious mess for all of us. I almost wished Art were an exorcist and could cast out the Beast that made my nights hideous. But those were vain desires because as Breton said, spiritual things are spiritually discerned and my demon is untouched by meds.
Perhaps my fiend was The Fallen Angel himself, come to thwart and torment me—the very demiurge and architect of the storm now swelling and breaking above me.
If so, I'm doomed. But once again into the breech, once again, into the pouring rain.
No contest... trust me, waking to a nightmare is by far worse!