Earthly Teather

Just one more. The crystals pierce the back of the throat, stinging the inside of the brain. Pacing trenches into the floor. The corners of the mouth twitch in delightful discomfort. The back of the eyes meets the back of the cornea thanking them for just one more. “You’ll never leave here, me, this”. The words bounce, echo..etched into the eardrums. 

“I said medium, you rang me up for a large”. Eyes flicker to the Karen in front of me. This is the reality that I created. This is where you are here and now. Look at the screen in front of you. The tip jar leaked with desperation from the bills of the manager's pocket, screaming to encourage those that barely glance awaiting their own “one more”. “Right, so sorry about that.” Forever numb fingers that jab at man's own creation, or downfall. He always said that. It seems redundant, does it not? This one action of jab, a tap, a flick of a fingertip that keeps my money flowing into my digital account. Remove the middle man, or finger, if you will, and you remove..my life. How can I still think like this? How, after all this time can these tidbits of delusion drip from my locked box of memories into the forefront of my mind.

“The digital takeover is coming and we have a chance now to escape it.” More etched words pulling the reality in front of me far away. I’m sat in the beanbag, dirty, like everything, despite the manic cleaning I had done at 3am everyday for the past week, or was it 2 weeks? ”Time does not exist anymore than the paper we call money.” More words. The smell of smoke, old food, crusted sheets, and alcohol fill me up with comfort. We like the filth because it’s who we are, it’s what we are. We are the cockroaches that fester in the walls only crawling into the solace of darkness to carry out our diabolical munching of humanity. The dull room is hazed just like my mind, not truly being able to identify right from wrong, just whatever is, is. “Let’s do it–” rough hands tightly squeezed around my numb body as my thoughts circle in- slow -motion. “We’ll go off grid, where no one can get to us.” A gentle lift into bliss with a hard tumble to–

 reality, right.

Here. Karen. Yes. “Cash or card?” Why were all my words so empty? I suppose if you say something enough times they become hollow if you never truly mean them. Renoldo never did believe what he said, yet I did believe the things he said. Maybe if you’re the receiver of repetition you’re much more likely to want to believe it, so you convince yourself that you do. Drifting thoughts captivate my drone like mind. Keep doing what Dr. Henry said. You can’t let your mind live in the past while your body lives in the present. Bring yourself into the present. What’s in front of me? Karen–wait shit no she said…Judy..okay writing on a cup that is real..J..U..D..I..E. You know, to really think about things in perspective, baristas have the hardest job. Constantly being barradided by caffeine deprived urchins. When anything goes wrong it is our fault. And no matter how badly I want to stop, I can't stop moving my hands, my feet, my body screams at me to stop as I watch behind glassy eyes because that know I can’t stop. 

Robotic repetitious labor is inherently given by generations of not knowing how to stop. This was created, just as the job that I do or complete was created. This used to be ancestral land. I’m probably standing on top of the town cooks tent where they died in bed at age 45 due to a cholera outbreak in the camp. THE PRESENT! Jesus. How is it that being a barista is even a job, let alone the hardest job I’ve ever had. Honestly nothing is as stressful and no one can tell me otherwise. 

I suppress a chuckle to bring myself back into focus. “Doctor?”. My eyes gaze into my head nurse Travis’s deep brown eyes, his mask lightly glazed with blood. Glancing back to my empty, bloodied gloves. Judy, lay still on the table in front of me, her chest gently rising and falling, this allows my smile to form. “What did I tell everyone? This heart surgery was nothing. I used to be a barista.” My proud body with guilt steamed mind. How can one perform a miracle while also facing their own impending doom? I remind myself yet again of what Dr. Henry told me..remind yourself of what you have in this present moment. 

A silent drive home, in theory anyways. Realistically speaking, which I do try to do as often as I can, it’s incredibly loud. The steering wheel under my white knuckled grip feels like it should be anchoring me to the car and bringing me into the drivers mind–yet I’m in the passenger seat begging my mother to slow down. Cars left behind in the dust, faint screams becoming fainter. Tears burn my face, but not a good burn like I would come to know just a week after this. It was a heart wrenching burn that knew I would never be able to look at her the same. The life I thought I knew crashing, literally, around me. Screeching honks pound my ears.

Green. Shit. Focus. Okay, I’m on bradley going home to my beloved daughter, Hannah. There’s a yellow..chevy, I think it’s a chevy, directly in front of me. I’m breathing in and out. It’s incredible how I can be here and not remember a single moment leading me here. Maybe incredible is not the right word…maybe it is scary and I have to just admit that to myself. It’s terrifying actually, I wonder how many people live like this.

Home at last. Hannah is the sweetest thing in the world. Whenever I look into her eyes I feel at peace, I feel at home. But lately I feel a pain behind them that I have never seen before. Perhaps I might have seen it in my own eyes when I used to look at them, but never hers. I watch her move across the room, her words as faint as the memories that bind me to this world. I see a long stream of light tethering me to her, the one I had been seeing lately. An earthly tether that is binding me to her, no not her, but to this body. My body. Finally I can feel it. My body, catatonic beneath me. I can see my body. Old..shriveled..unmoving. I want to float away but this beam is holding me to her, I look into her eyes and feel the burn of tears, so familiar to me. Tears that I had never wanted her to know the pain of, but I could see now. They were tears that had the power to finally release me.