justprompts: he who promises more than he is able to perform...
He who promises more than he is able to perform, is false to himself; and he who does not perform what he has promised, is a traitor to his friend. -George Shelley
You wonder if this is something you learned about in University. All those classes. The human mind. Things like fear and death and things that seem so interesting. They aren’t so interesting when they are happening outside a classroom.
Except they might be, just a little bit.
But not when they’re happening. Not now.
Delusions and suicidal ideation and things like that always seem so vague and complex and like something you sit around debating with your mates. Well, your university mates. There’s no one at work you would have those sort of discussions with. Well there is one person. But he would be the last person you would talk to about things like that.
And anyway, they don’t seem so vague and complex when you’re standing on a roof with sand on your hands and a man ready to jump to prove reality is all in his head. He would make an amazing case study of some sort, maybe. If he wasn’t real. You know he’s real because of the way his coat fits and the way his eyes smile and the way he always smells like soap and water and shaving cream, except that one time he didn’t. You noticed that, too. You know he’s real because of the way your stomach seems to twist so easy with a certain smile or eye roll or that look he has that makes you think of a little boy lost in a shop trying to find his mum.
Tyler!
Fear and panic and other things. You can’t quite remember them all. You try to think of classes. Of facts and figures you can rattle off. You wonder why you bothered learning these things, when all it seems to do is make things more difficult. Knowing more than they do, but always being treated like knowledge might be cute or annoying or useless. Except for him. It’s how you know he’s real, because you’d never dream up someone like him to believe in you. Who would want a case study to be their reinforcement?
Sam! Don’t leave us!
You remember a class where you learned about instincts and near death experiences and things of that sort. How you’re supposed to feel outside of yourself. How you flash back on things. It’s all a bit of a jumble right now, and you wonder if this is useful or useless knowledge. You think you’d maybe like to ask Sam about it. But he’s not here right now. He’s not here because you’re lying on the ground and there are gunshots ringing out and he’s gone. Because he wasn’t real. He was just an illusion. Some personality created to destroy your world. Your small little world of oranges and browns and yellows and reds.
The Guv said you wouldn’t die here. Sam said he would come back. You always thought they didn’t lie. Not knowingly. There was something in a text book somewhere out there about things like that, too. About perspectives and points of view and something of that sort. You can’t quite remember. Not right now, at least. You’re thinking of other things. You can feel the gravel underneath you. You can hear yelling. You can see Chris and Ray and the Guv all falling down like dominoes. You can see Sam walking away. Somewhere. And it’s real. It’s all real. Except for Sam, because he can’t be real. He promised he would come back. The Sam you thought you knew wouldn’t break his promise. There’s a man standing there, and he looks like Sam. He also looks like he’s on the line between leaving and coming back. Whichever way he crosses will be your answer. Real. Not real.
Bang! Bang!
Some philosophy class, you think it was. A professor, you wish you could remember his name. It was a large class, and everything was buried in the massiveness of it all. People coming and going, but nothing close to connecting. A requirement your first year of university. Nothing more, nothing less. Nothing worth remembering. But the professor, one day he was talking about what happens when you die. Something about how that last second of death can feel like an eternity. An entire life lived during that moment of crossing over. From one place into the next. A second turning into a night out at a Roxy Music concert or a long train journey or an entire life lived. You think he might be partially right. It feels like an eternity. But it’s a second that feels like an hour or a year or a decade, but with nothing happening. Nothing but watching and waiting and being so scared and your mind racing and wondering if maybe your mum was right and police work was no sort of work for a woman.
And it’s all down to this. This one moment. He disappears down the tunnel and he’s not real and you’ll be lost forever. Lost in a mad parade of bullets and villains and the Guv lying. He said you wouldn’t die today.
Or he comes back out into the light of day where you can see him. He saves the day. He comes back for you. He’s real and you’ll still be here and the Guv will have been right, because he never lies. Not really. Well sometimes, but not about things like this.
It’s all between real and not real. It feels like forever. All you wish is that he would make up his mind so this second would be over.
That’s not real though.
All you wish is that he would come back like he promised and realize the difference between real and not real. Although, right now, you’re starting to realize why it’s so hard to tell the difference, too.