How to confront your resentment

A piece of bread had stabbed the inside of my mouth. The irony that the corner of a burnt piece of bread could cause me such pain wasn’t lost on me. Not when Holly was sending raging dark clouds across the pale sky – all the way from Texas. I shifted my creaky office chair forward and dropped my head to brace for the impact of her next assault.

“Elmer, this is the fifth time you have messed this up. WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO TELL GRANT – I JUST CAN’T BELIEVE...” The first couple of seconds were always hard. Teeth grinding and clenching hands. But I knew I got this – before I could count to five, my body fell into a trance-like state. My subconsciousness stabilized Holly’s screechy voice into a stream of white noise – much better. Breath in, breathe out. I blocked out the undercurrent of icy wind that was trying to creep up the dirty window next to me.

“For god’s sake WHAT is that noise? Elmer?” I caught the word ‘noise’ in my haze. Had I been snoring? Drooling? I lifted my head in a trance. “What noise?” I cupped my ear in slow-motion and made a quick assessment of the ugly office room. There it was, a howling sound that had penetrated the building. The weather was terrible outside, a violent dance of clouds all in dreadful tones of grey. A sharp contrast to the illusion of white innocence of snowy burden on the landscape. Just like me, I thought. Me, the white sheep caught in a greyhounds trap. The day couldn’t get any better.

I snapped out of my listless misery when I refocused on the penetrant beeping of the phone. The line must have been cut off. Was it that bad outside? I pulled out my mobile phone, a hand-me-down from my uncle since I couldn’t afford to buy it new. A quick swipe through my messages told me that there was a blizzard alarm for the Colorado region and surrounding areas. Holly’s frantic messages kept popping up engaging me into a minute-long swipe-away-notifications battle. Just when I thought I had won, another one popped up:

Elmer, I think you should check my office, just in case.

May have left an important envelope on my desk. Make sure to put it away before the cleaning lady comes in next time. Right cupboard.

We’ll talk later. DON’T forget to call me! Stay safe.

xx Holly

Me in Holly’s office? Given permission to invade her space? Something didn’t feel right. But then again what went ever right? For a split second, I thought I could get away with ignoring the message, then I remembered that she could see that I’d read the message. Damn this crappy phone and its default WhatsApp settings.

I sighed heavily and got up from my chair. Rubbing my aching shoulders, I slowly moved into the direction of Holly’s office. I felt sluggish and tired and I hadn’t had enough sugar to get me through the day. Suddenly the image of a candy bowl popped up in my head. I was pretty sure I’d seen it in Holly’s office. At least some incentive reward for such a gruelling task.

I stopped in front of Holly’s door, catching the scent of something sweet and disturbing. Must be that disgusting perfume she wore. I took a deep breath and entered the room. As I closed the door behind me, I couldn’t stop taking a wonky 180 around the room. No bigger than fifteen square meters it was only illuminated by a square window behind the long desk placed in the centre of the room. Some shelves filled to the brink with papers and a giant printer next to them covered the left side of the room. She had a couple of chairs and some weird shopping bags clustered together on the right side. If it weren’t for the pink accents in the room – the penetrating flower-shaped clock next to the window for example, or the desk lamp that screamed eye-cancer-trigger, everything appeared pretty normal. After all, Holly was a pretty normal woman, right?

She was not alright. I’d caught her smoking weed in the office for some weeks now. Before that, I saw her speaking to random items in her room while bawling her eyes out. But as usual, I just shrugged it off as long as she left me alone. Must be menopause or something.

Sure, she used to deliver verbal beatings long before this. But something had been off for a while now…maybe the past six months? It was weird. Shaking my head, I stepped around the desk to search for the envelope. There it was, neatly placed in front of her monitor. I could see that the opening was only secured halfway. It was bulky, filled to the brim and the paper surface had some deep crinkles. She must have been recycling it for usage. Not like Holly at all. Snatching a treat from the said candy bowl next to it, I stuffed the sugary ball into my mouth and reached towards the envelope. Damn, I didn’t like that burst of artificial strawberry flavour in my mouth. On top of it, I ended up having to use both of my hands to lift the meaty envelope. What a pain. Lifting my right knee to pull out the desk cupboard I realized my mistake only milliseconds before I lost my footing and fell backward. Too much force for an empty cupboard, crap. Thankfully, the chair caught my butt - quite literally. But as I lost grip on the envelope, its contents could not withstand gravity. Neatly folded letters were now scattered around the floor. More than I could count.

Sliding down from the chair I crouched down to gather the papers. Some of them were not folded, so I could see her handwriting on them. I blinked once, twice. Wait, these weren’t some bills or work-related documents? To whom was Holly writing handwritten letters? Curiosity had gotten hold of me at that point. I picked up one of the many letters and started to read:

Dear Anna,

today is your 12th birthday. Congratulations my love! I am so happy for you and wish you a long year of happiness and lots of amazing gifts. My little girl is growing up and I am so proud of you.

(…..)

Please take care of your dad for me. Tell him I love him.

I love you so much. More than words could ever tell.

Holly

I frowned. I knew that Anna was Holly’s daughter but damn wasn’t she born just a couple of years ago? Did she grow up that quickly or was my brain just getting mushy. I scanned the letter again and my eyes suddenly zoomed in. There it was in the right hand-corner, something I’d missed earlier: Date 1th May 2035. Wait, what? What the heck was Holly doing pre-writing her letters in 2021? It didn’t feel right. Something was seriously off here. Did Holly have some mental issues that she’d kept secret from us?

I started to go through a couple of more letters. What I found was that not a single of them was addressed to anyone else than Anna. Yet every single of them was dated for a time in the future. She had pre-written birthday cards, congratulation cards even went as far as congratulating her for her future graduation and marriage. I scratched my head, utterly confused and feeling deeply disturbed. Nothing made sense to me. My head started to hurt. That's my cue – let's pack up this shit and pretend it never happened. I never saw it. I grabbed the envelope one last time.

What happened afterward, I can only remember in a state of semi-consciousness.

As I was recollecting the pile of papers, a more distinct letter dropped out. I paused, then unfolding it slowly, I quickly scanned the head of the document:

Patient: Holly Sanderson

Diagnosis: Colon Cancer

Date of Diagnosis: 01.08.20

Stage: 3

I lowered my arm very slowly. I felt weird sensations on my body, like ants were crawling all over my skin. Holly had stage four cancer? And no one knew of this? I felt so many emotions at once but my thoughts were a garbled mess. My hands started shaking and my jaw felt numb. I stood still for minutes, maybe half an hour. I couldn’t remember. Everything had hit pause just as the day was signaling towards its end, slowly engulfing the room in dim lighting. The pink clock was ticking. When I regained some coherent line of thought, I could not contain my suppressed emotions any longer.

Here I was embracing my resentment, letting it consume me to a limp and listless mess. Blaming others, blaming everyone around me but myself for my misery. Meanwhile, Holly with her screechy voice was pushing her last energy reservoirs to make sure that her daughter received loving letters from her in the future, even if she was not guaranteed to have one herself. All the while having to put up with my sorry ass. Yes, I’ll admit to it, there you have it. I’d been slacking on this project for a while now. Explicit laziness and tardiness. Why? Because I hated my job, my life. Nothing good could come out of it anyway. This was a decision, that I had made. Me, Elmer Hunter who barely hit his 30s and succumbed willingly to his shadow.

Some things just dawn on you through contemplation – if you are exceptionally lucky. Other times, it can be just a slap in the face that gets you back to reality. Who went wallowing and came back reborn without landing facefirst in the mud? No one ever. Probably never. Not that I know of.

Now is the time to get out of here Elmer, my resentment whispered to me. Embracing me means that you want to keep torturing yourself and the people around you. But I no longer feel that intention within you. So if I’m going to leave you now, confront me and tell me why you want me to go. I just want to be sure I don’t have to return anytime soon.

I took a deep breath. “Because,”, I whispered back “deep down I’ve felt ashamed and weak. I did not trust myself, nor could I stand myself.”

Well, Elmer, that's right. Embracing is comfort, but confrontation is progress. I’m the lazy type and prefer to stay in the shadows. Do you want to be like me?

“No”, I said, almost shouting. “Damn it, no. Not ever again!” For all of my bravery, I did bang the corner of the desk while performing my dramatic storming through the office-scene but that is something I didn’t feel the need to confront. I went to work immediately and I didn’t leave the office until I had placed a signed copy of my resignment on Holly’s desk.

I’m sorry Holly.