A Sense of Shame

Thwack.

The night was in its deepest phase; the sun had long retired over the horizon and it was one of those nights where only the slightest sliver of moon could be seen. Thick darkness spread over everything like a sheet, only disrupted by the sharp lights that hung over the forest and cut through the comforting black with an unforgiving glare.

Thwack.

“Joey, you know you won’t be able to keep this up. You’ve been at it for weeks, man. When are you gonna stop?”

  Thwack.

Joey lowered the axe and let it fall into the soft grass, crushing a few dandelions. He walked over to a tree and plopped down, sharp bits of bark cutting into his back. He glanced menacingly at one of the many street lights that stood over him.

“Yea, sucker. You can talk now, but jus’ wait. Jus’ wait.”

The tall street light shook its head disapprovingly. 

“Look, by the rate this is going, you’ll die of old age before you finish this stupid mission of yours. You know just as well as I do that this vindictive state of yours can only last so long. Just give it up now, man, it’s so easy. Drop the axe and walk away, before one of us ends up getting hurt!”

“Nah, nah, ain’t no one gettin hurt round here. ‘Cept for you, that is.”

Joey stuck a thick hand into a pocket of his plaid shorts and rummaged around for a bit. After a minute, he came up with a brown-ish handkerchief that may have been white in the far past. He brandished it like a weapon, taking quick, jerky motions to wipe beads of sweat from his wrinkled forehead while casting a glare at the light that bespoke clear murderous intent.

“Joey. I know that I’ve supported you and pushed you on thus far, but honestly, I might have to side with him on this one. This can’t be healthy for you, my man.”

This time the words came from not the tall metal one that was the most talkative, but from one of the short, squat, brushed metal antique ones that stood like tree stubs by the cement path that wormed its way through the wood into the clearing. These kinds of lanterns all glowed an orangish hue, and they were also subsequently the ones that offended Joey the least. They didn’t have the sharp, needle-like voice that some of the others did, and Joey usually saved his insults when talking with them. 

This time, however, when Joey jerked his head towards the words to see who had questioned him, he kept nothing from his voice when he saw that it was the shortest and the stubbiest of the antique ones, one that he had dubbed Dim from the fact that his glow flickered constantly and otherwise rested barely visible. The name Dim had been given out of affection, but now it was used alongside a string of curses that came from Joey’s mouth. 

Joey pushed himself up with a vigor that seemed to come from nowhere, stumbled over to where the axe lay, and yanked it up with one arm. He looked at it for a second, considering something, and then he dropped it back down, walked over to Dim, and spit on the rusted base of the neglected lamp.

“Hey! What the heck, man,” Dim said in a small voice.

Joey only smirked and picked up the axe. He gripped it with both hands, brought it back, and sent the red tip sailing into the white flesh of the tree.

Thwack .

“I like, really just can’t believe you did that,” a tall, metal streetlight said in an unusually high and tinny voice, “like, using rude words is one thing, but, like literally defaming a lamp is another. Right, guys?”

“Yeah, right on,” one agreed.

“Yup, totally,” another concurred. 

“Yea, man. That was kind of mean,” Dim responded.

Thwack.

There was a second of silence among everyone. And then, a cacophony of voices:

“Shut up, Dim!”

“Yeah, stupid Dim!”

“No one cares about you, Dim.”

Thwack.

Joey showed no response to any of this, only continued with his metronomic movements, back and forth and back and forth, each time his axe hitting the tree with a satisfying rattle that shook his bones. Although his swings were even, they were anything but accurate, for every time the axe finished its long arc it would end up hitting some place that Joey hadn’t been aiming for, either above or below the intended mark, and when Joey would correct himself and swing a little higher or lower, the axe would then subsequently hit too high or too low, and Joey would correct himself and miss again, and this consistent failure to maintain consistency had first lasted hours, and then days, and then weeks, until eventually Joey had spent more than three weeks like that just on this single tree.

He was getting close, though, as by this point he had made so many swings that he had taken less a slice out of the tree than a large, rectangular chunk, and this chunk had grown and grown until now it would take only one accurate swing to topple the whole thing. He could feel he was close as well, as in recent days his drunken swings had been getting faster and faster and he had spent more time in the long hours of the night working on his project.

Thwack.

He looked at his progress (which wasn’t much, to be fair) and let the axe drop to his side. He looked up through the gaps in the leaves at the sky. The sky was completely clear, as if some cosmic entity had turned off the lights in a practical joke; a jet black. A sheet had been pulled over the world, letting nothing through, and to ninety percent of people it would have been immensely suffocating, but to Joey it only gave him comfort; a sweet reprieve that settled in his chest and warmed his body. The city was near, it was only maybe a half a mile down the thin cement path that wormed its way through the woods to reach it. The city, with its sickly smell of thousands of sweaty people canned in the streets like sardines; the city, with its blinding noises that pounded in your head; the city, with its deafening white glow that pervaded everything and made everything a blur. But here, it was quiet, here Joey could let his guard down, here Joey could soak himself in the sweet suffocating silence and lose himself in the dark, here Joey could-

“Joey.”

But they just wouldn’t shut up.

“Joey, please, just help me understand, why are you even doing this?”

Thwack.

“It isn’t going to help you in the long run, Joey. Come on. You know this.”

Thwack.

“Joey. Listen to me.”

“Jus’ wait, you little bitch. Jus’ wait.”

Thwack.

The clearing was small, but Joey was ok with that, it only served one purpose anyways. In the center, surrounded by tall lights, was a raised cement platform surrounded by an imposing fence topped with barbed wire, and past the fence was the real prize. Joey had stared at it for weeks and weeks before he had formally begun his project: a neat little assortment of large metal boxes, and in the center of them, a tall silvery structure that twisted into the clouds and held little thin black wires that Joey knew made their way straight to the city. This was it: the source of it all, the source of those blinding lights and sickly smells, the source of those pounding noises and sweaty bodies.

Thwack.

Joey could hardly wait. 

“Joey, you have to listen to me,” a small voice rang out. “The second that tree falls, you’re in for a world of hurt. You know what I’m talking about. It’s not worth it man, please, just come on.”

Joey looked down at his axe. A thick wooden handle that had given him more splinters than he could count, a red axehead marred with thousands of little scratches and dents. His most loyal friend, most dedicated follower. This axe had been with him through hell with him, and it had gotten him there too. If he concentrated, Joey could just about imagine how it had felt, how it had felt all those years ago, how it had felt to heft that axe up, to swing it down, to see it covered in that sticky- Well, reminiscing was for another day. Right now, he had work to do.

Thwack.

As he swung, things came back to him. He was so close to his goal, and yet he could not stop his mind from rummaging in the past and coming up with the most useless of memories. 

“Look, man, I’m like, really scared,” a tinny voice said, “alright? Just- can you just like, leave this for another day? I’m not telling you to stop, or- or anything, just- just resume this another day, ok?”

One time, in the 25 year stint that had taken up so much of his life, they had thrown him in a cement room with hardly anything, only a flickering white light and a wooden plate they called a bed. This was probably the first time a light had bothered speaking to Joey. He spent a lot of time in that room, a day once or twice a week, and there was hardly any company. He had struck up a conversation with the flickering then, and he was surprised to know there was actually a whole lot they had in common.

After a month, Joey had hated the flickering with a passion. He still did.

Thwack.

“Joey.” It was the tallest one now, the one who had first spoken to him today. “Joey. Use your common sense here. You’re pretty rational right? Follow the chain of events.”

“Y'alls common sense don’t mean a damn thing.”

“Joey.”

“You heard what I said. Not a damn thing.”

Thwack.

Joey had used those words before. He remembered bringing it up, telling his psychiatrist about the conversations he had with the flickering. Of course, they didn’t tell him he was a psychiatrist, no, they only told him he was ‘someone to make you feel better’, but Joey knew better. He knew they all thought he wasn’t right in the head, that he was crazy. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t no kook.

So Joey had told his psychiatrist about the flickering, and the man had squinted and asked if he could meet Joey for a few more days each week, and he also wanted Joey to start taking a strange medicine from now on, and he wanted Joey to wear an ankle monitor from now on as well.

“It don’t mean a damn thing,” Joey had yelled, spittle flying from his mouth, “not one damn thing! I’ll show you! I’ll show you, jus’ wait! Jus’ wait!”

Thwack.

And look how close Joey was to showing them now.

“Joey, I’m sorry. I’m sorry about turning my back on you. I’m sorry about getting mad at you about the spit. I really don’t care, honestly. I swear.” The voice was barely audible.

Thwack.

He remembered that after the flickering, the lights just wouldn’t stop talking to him. Everywhere he turned, every step he took, the lights would be there. Forcing their way into his brain, feeding him strange words and phrases, distracting him. He had almost preferred prison. But not anymore. This would change that.

Thwack.

Maybe after this, the lights would finally shut up.

“This won’t solve anything, Joey. You know it won’t.”

Shut up.

Thump.

Joey froze. There it was, the axe, sunken into the tree, in the center, directly on the mark. Lodged into the flesh. Joey let go of it and it stayed stuck there. Something watery filled his lungs. He felt something claw its way up his spine, opening up his ribcage and sitting on his chest. 

The tree wobbled, back and forth and back and forth, swaying in nonexistent wind, almost tempting Joey. He stumbled backwards drunkenly. He saw his axe fall from the tree and thud into the ground. The tree let out a sickening groan and followed the path Joey had imagined so many times in his head before this moment: down, down, down, a dangerous parabola. He looked at the lights. They had all become silent. 

The tree took no more leisure. In the blink of an eye it made contact with the tower, ripping its beams apart in a roar, twisting its thin black wires into balls, as if they were yarn, sending sparks flying up into the sky, clearly visible against the black sheet. The tree broke, half remaining suspended in the wires while half tore its way into the barbed wire, crumpling it like a piece of paper. Jagged pieces of wood flew everywhere, some as large as Joey and some as small as his finger, and they lodged themselves in everything: in Joey’s exposed skin, in the squat metal boxes, in the lights. There was a thunderous boom, and then it was over. 

And, as fast as it had happened, there was silence.

Not a single light was on. Joey could not see his own hands. Not a single voice in his head. A silence that cleared his ears and opened his eyes.

Joey was silent for a moment. And then he screamed out into the forest.

He had done it. They were gone. He was alone. He had shown them.

He let out another cry of triumph. He fell onto his knees. He could barely keep himself steady. The widest smile spread across his face, and it hurt, as tiny little wooden knives had lodged themselves in every inch of his skin, but he could not keep from elation.

He had done it. He had done it. Joey could not help a small laugh from escaping his mouth, and this hurt more than the smiling, but he did it anyways. Huge, choking laughs that resembled coughs in some way, laughs that hurt his chest and rang out into the empty air with an ugly timbre.

He looked down at the ground, then over to where his axe lay, then he closed his eyes. He brought his face up, tears from the laughing tracing their way down his cheeks, and looked out into the black.

And he saw billions of tiny little pinpricks of light in the sky.

The laughing stopped abruptly. His eyes went wide. He looked out into the starry sky.

There was a moment where everything was silent. And then, they came back. 

But not one or two or ten. But billions, billions of tiny little voices in his head, billions of tiny little needles pricking holes in his head and filling his lungs, billions of words and phrases clamoring over each other until they were nothing but noiseless din, billions of bright dots bouncing around his skull and pounding through his head, billions of sharp lights slicing into him every second.

Joey curled into a ball and put his hands over his ears, but the stars only became louder.