Nothing Is Revealed

“Would you mind stepping this way.”

“Are you sure it’s safe? I remember reading this article in the paper about this guy who thought he was getting into an elevator, but the floor of the elevator was missing. Does that happen often here?”

Oh God, not another one of those days. Pretending to understand, be engaged, empathetic to a cause that I know will one day end, in me looking for the elevator with no floor.

Fritz has taught me one thing, don’t take anything for granted, or at face value. Things are not always what they seem.

Sound familiar? It does to me. Half the people in here believe that reality is a perception of perception. I know that doesn’t make any sense, on face value, but think about it. Assumptions are little more than expectations not realized. Suppose you lived in a world of uncertainty, not because of what you saw, but what you couldn’t see, but knew most assuredly was there.

That beam with a crack in it. The reasons the doors won’t close without dragging on the floor, the windows won’t open, you drop your glass eye on the floor, and it rolls to the center of the room on its own power. Things like that get you to thinking something isn’t right, even if you don’t know why.

I had never thought much about that sort of thing until Fritz showed up. He doesn’t talk much, and it’s probably a good thing. He has a way of making you feel like Chicken Little had it right, the sky is getting ready to fall, it’s just that we can’t see it for all the clouds. 

To be honest, I thought he was nuts at first. I know that isn’t an appropriate term, but then I don’t mind, so why should he? 

He got me to believing in faith again, and I am not much for religion; too incongruous and illusive. Can’t find the foundation or the roof of it. It’s like being on a road that never ends, and yet there are signs every few miles telling me it's just ahead. What is just a head, I have no idea, but they keep telling me it’s up there, so I got no choice but to believe them. 

Fritz says the reason we have so many problems in the world, particularly with other people, is that we are trusting souls by nature. We believe what we think we see, not what we actually see. He’s the one that told me about, how that is how the concept of hell was born. "They, somebody, needed a Emoji type thing to keep focused on the evil, so the good guys could rob the banks and take off for heaven un-noticed." I have no idea what he means by half the stuff he talks about. Something to do with symbolism I think, but can’t be sure. He tells me, "when in doubt, think about pelicans." It seems to work. Once you start thinking about pelicans it’s hard to think of much else. He asked me if I "ever met a pelican I didn’t like?" I think he says stuff like that to keep me from thinking about that crack in the ceiling that is getting bigger every day. Either that, or light is getting brighter.

I think we are getting to be what are called friends. He asked me just this morning if I trusted him. I thought at first he was going to make a break for it, but then he says, “try one of these.” He hands me a purple pill that has the letter P on it. I am not much for pills, they give me gas. But needing a friend, I thought what the hell. So I take the pill and pretend to swallow it. Kind of my way of killing two pelicans with one stone. I asked what it was supposed to do, and he says, “I have no idea. Didn’t think you’d take it, but had to find out. You are a real friend, you trust.”

I felt so ashamed, I swallowed the pill. It didn’t seem to have any immediate effect. I noticed he’d a whole bottle of them by his bed, so when he went for our morning pudding I looked at the bottle just in case, my trust wasn’t what it once was. Something on the label about it improving memory. I can’t see any reason for doing that, but then it left a pleasant after taste like blueberry, or those purple M & M’s that are so rare I’ve only heard about them.

Then it got me to thinking about what trust really is, and I had to decide it was little more than believing your eyes, and for no good reason. When I was a kid I fell down a lot. Always had bandages everywhere, and it turns out when I went to join up in the army cause I was supposed to, patriotic fervor or fever, they told me to go home and find some kind of ophthalmologist type who would make my life easier. Didn’t know what they meant, but I went, after all it was the army.

So this guy he tells me I’m far sighted, but have glaucoma. Born with it apparently, and if he corrects the cloudiness, which I thought had something to do with the new weather they are always talking about, everything is going to look like I’m looking at life from the inside of a fish bowl. I never cared much for fish, allergic I’d been told, so couldn’t see any reason I shouldn’t keep believing what I see, isn’t what it is. But I’m used to it by this time in my life. Can see no reason to change. 

Fritz also says that “seeing is believing,” is why the advertising industry is fighting so hard to get phrases like that taken out of the dictionary, and other places that support that point of view. He says they claim, “if everyone believed what they saw it would put them out of business, and that isn’t American or capitalistic.” They say we should all be free to make our own mistakes. I guess I can see their point.

Anyway, Fritz has finished his pudding and mine, and we have begun to make plans on how to get people to be concerned with what they believe to be the truth, and what is actually the truth about the truth. It all gets pretty confusing, but Fritz says he’ll help me figure it out when he gets back from eating Jerry’s pudding. Jerry isn’t much for pudding, so I don’t think he’ll mind. Jerry has a way of appreciating the jelly you can’t see in the donut. I like that about Jerry. He says, “optimism is nine-tenths of the law.” How can you not like someone like that.

I asked Jerry what the other tenth was, but he had to go see if Isabel was going to finish her Jell-O. 

Sometimes being able to see things others can’t, is a heavy responsibility. But if you don’t look, who will?