On the First Day of the Year – Two Coffins, One Darby and One Kleese

3 things that were inconsequential to my present predicament: Immobility. Apnea. Darkness. For the majority of my existence, I loathed suffering from depression. The days of senseless intermittent paralysis introduced a whole new narrative, wherein the illogical reason of laying in my own feces and urine became much more logical as I slept in my bathtub for months. Dr. Mordel configured some random psychiatric therapy, which spawned an alternative treatment to obliterate my thoughts of feeling suffocated. Trellis Tribbet. The only job given to Trellis Tribbet, Mordel’s 16-year-old intern, was to dump 12-gallon buckets of snow in my bath, 3x a day and place Apple Airpods over my ears. The times that I did come out of my depression coma, I remember Mordel saying that his well-renowned therapy would solve my depression by using cold water to detour pain signals from reaching their destination-my prefrontal cortex. “Depression is pain. That’s all it is,” Mordel explained, in between his intractable hiccups and Irish speech impediment. The Mordel Lisp. The brutality of listening to his pre-recorded messages from Tribbet’s cell phone made me feel guilty for feeling like he was an apathetic schlock for subjecting the world to his agonizing speech disorder, and not being able to cure his own demons, for that matter, which left me even more shattered.  “Eventually (lisp), you (hiccup) will (lisp) wash (lisp) yourself (lisp) off (hiccup) and (lisp) remove (hiccup) yourself (hiccup) from (lisp) the (lisp) bathtub (lisp) Darby (hiccup).” Tribbet never allowed me to get to the end of Mordel’s debilitating messages. He’d snatch the headphones from my head and mumble about Mordel the Miser, his ungrateful Uber customers, and something about me getting duped. “Duped and dumb,” Tribbet twittered.  

“National Geographic. . .watch Episode 2 of Hemsworth’s Limitless. . .when you discard your laxative boxes in the kitchen. . .turn on the 85-inch Smart TV above the refrigerator and stream Disney Plus. Whether you poop in your bathtub or on the kitchen floor, it’s all the same, right?” I wasn’t sure which should have embarrassed me more: the fact that Tribbet found my empty laxative boxes, which I securely placed inside my empty tampon boxes, or, that I had no clue that I owned an 85-inch television, or that it was in my kitchen, or that it reclined above my mini forest-green refrigerator. 2 million dollars. I still cannot fathom how my dead father believed that 2 million dollars of therapy from Dr. Mordel would be the resolve to my dysfunction. Father was a patient of the Mordel Psychurgy & Clairvoyance Institute for 12 years. At 12pm, he traveled the elevator to the 12^th floor of Dr. Mordel’s office and shot 12 people before killing himself. Inside the left inner pocket of his suit was a 12-page will, leaving Dr. Mordel 12 million dollars to give psychiatric therapy to me for 12 years. Felix Thaddeus Cobbs believed in the power of even numbers and tried to convince everyone about the prophetic significance of 12. The quack almost had me convinced. But after he insisted that his private dentist remove 12 of his teeth, I knew that my father had crossed into the multiverse of kooky.  KLEESE HADASSAH COBBS. Kleese Hadassah Cobbs inherited all of my father’s wealth and all of his insanity, which explains the behemoth over my refrigerator. It also let me know that the year was coming to an end. NEW YEAR’S DAY. KC’s extravagant gestures to coddle me into accepting her end-of-year extravaganza invites had reached the pinnacle of ludicrousness. Last year, she gifted me an island in Thailand. The year before, a custom painted, zebra print, Bugatti La Voiture Noire. And the year before, she bought a hockey team in Belgium. Every year, 12 days before January 1^st to be exact, KC enters my apartment, as penned in my father’s will, and places ownership papers, inside the top shelf of my refrigerator, beside my MiraLAX packs and Kotex boxes. However, the TV was a bit of a grim gift all things considering. I grabbed a nearby towel and dragged myself into the kitchen. Yup. There it stood, the 85-Inch King Kong, in all of its glory. I opened my refrigerator to see if King Kong brought along legal documents that gave me sole proprietorship to the Taj Mahal. “Don’t bother Darby,” the voice announced from the obnoxiously loud television speakers. I knew it. I knew that King Kong was just another Kleese-Mordel intervention.

“This is not an intervention. I respect your choice and I sincerely apologize for not taking your mental health more seriously.”

I gazed into KC’s emerald-green eyes through the screen, and for the first time, I noticed that there was a hint of blue. If this is not an intervention, then what is it?

“Please Darby, walk downstairs to your basement, I promise you will not be disappointed. I pray to see you soon.” I quickly unplugged the television, just in case Mordel decided to lisp and hiccup an algorithm from walking through the kitchen to the front of the basement door. I PRAY? I haven’t laughed in over 2 years, so hearing Kleese Hadassah Cobbs mention the word prayer, deserved, at best, a smirk. In fact, the only time KC becomes remotely religious is on the sidewalk of Rodeo Drive, when she walks into the House of Bijan, stacked with 12 rosary beads around her neck, chanting 12 Hail Mary’s. This religious gesture authorizes KC to thank the mother of Jesus Christ for the blessing of being part of the 1% of the population that is able to shop at the most expensive store on the planet, and to show extreme pity for 99% of the masses that can’t. THE BASEMENT. I disconnected my refrigerator cord, which was plugged into an old extension cord, hanging from the dated electrical outlet beside my kitchen sink. I secured the extension cord around my waist to keep my towel from falling off. As I walked out of the kitchen and turned the corner, I could see the Happy New Year’s sign, typed in black Roman font, on silver metallic printer paper, scotch taped to the basement door. Grim. . .very grim, considering KC’s standards. The make-shift MacGyver rusted chandelier was hanging from the top of the stairs when I opened the door. I could see Kleese at the bottom of the stairs. And in the back of her, were two 6-foot-long coffins made of fresh unfinished pinewood.

 “I know that this is not the Koh-I-Noor diamond. . .or Necker Island. . . or a round-trip to the moon. . . but with everything you have been through, and every insulting foolish gesture I have made over the years. . . to prove that I love you, and mostly to make me feel good about me. . .I just. . .I just. . .I just wanted you to know what the world is missing without you in it, and what you are missing without being a part of this world,” Kleese cried.

Slowly, I walked past KC and laid in the coffin to the right. Slowly, Kleese laid in the coffin to the left. For the first time, in a very long time, I hated silence.

“Okay, the silence is killing me,” KC whispered. She inhales slowly. “I have to ask Darby, what do you think?”

“Why are we whispering?” I asked giggling.

“Well, I don’t know.” KC yelled nervously.

“Theoretically, these things don’t come with a manual for people that are still living.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

“Well?”

“Well, I definitely need a bath. I definitely need to burn my bathroom with a flame thrower. I definitely need to sell this place. And I definitely need to be a lot nicer to Dr. Mordel. And Tribett, definitely needs to resign from Uber and tell Dr. Mordel to go to hell. He’s way too qualified for either of them.”

“And?” KC asked anxiously, like a child waiting to get the approval from a disgruntled parent that never likes any of her gifts.

“Moving forward, this will be our holiday tradition. You did good Kleese, really good.”

“Finally.” Kleese exhaled a sigh of relief, as if my words were the last thing, which she needed, to make the final checkmark on her bucket list.

“Kleese?”

“Yes?”

“Happy New Year.”