A Midnight Encounter
There was a girl, and when she smiled, I found myself smiling. And when she cried, I didn’t feel her crying. The tears, like lukewarm waves, washed under me. We knew it couldn’t get better. This room, it feels so empty now.
I always liked the smell of coffee in a moonlit diner. A cup, a couple. It was all one needed to start the day. Maybe an omelette as well, if I’m feeling peckish. I’ve been eating a lot of them lately. Diners have an auspicious air, like cool-lit havens. The waitress, Aria, she's always here. She always smiles. Sometimes I wonder about the smile. Is it an expression like mine? Would she smile if I told her a joke, would she laugh? At least we have a report. She knows I don’t like to get familiar, she understands how I view her. She always asks me what I want to order, and I almost always say the same thing. Today when she came over, I ordered a side of scrapple. She didn’t smile. She told me not to worry about the bill, but I insisted, gave her a tip like I always do. You’ve got to keep decorum, even during hard times.
I saw Aria at the supermarket today. I didn’t say anything. She didn’t say anything. But we acknowledged each other. An eye for an eye. To an eye. I stopped going to that diner.
Jeff called me.
“Hey Nihl what's up?” I heard a voice tell me.
“Hey.”
Hey.
“Hows it goin, everything good? You sound tired.”
I didn’t have any coffee this morning.
“I’m fine.”
Honest.
“You wanna go out for a drink or something? Maybe come over and watch a game?”
Do I?
“I don’t know. I’m not feeling so great, maybe another time.”
“That's alright. We’ll talk soon, ok?”
“Cool.”
He hung up.
I don’t think… I didn’t go to work this morning. I called in sick. Then the next day I was still sick. After awhile I stopped calling.
The delivery guy became my only contact, and hes was being paid to visit. I ordered, every night at the same time. Same instructions. Doors unlocked, leave it on the table. I dragged myself over to grab it before retreating back to bed. Sleep, it cures all illness. Time mends all wounds, sometimes it's not quick enough.
§
Kay told me something the today at work. It was around 7, right before I normally make my daily delivery to 26th and Clairmont. We barely get to talk in between calls, so these were always cherished moments
“I’ve been thinking about leaves recently.” she opened. Kay always began conversations with statements.
“Leaves? Tree leaves?”
“Yea, I always look at the colors during fall. It's just that, I was sitting on a park bench the other day, watching the trees. After a while, I found myself looking closely at a single, gold leaf. Amongst all the leaves in the entire park, this one was certainly the most stunning, enigmatic, and beautiful. But, just as soon as I noticed it, it fell. Slowly, gracefully, to the ground.”
“Huh.”
“Well it's just interesting because no one ever cares for fallen leaves. We pile them up, and throw them out. The moment it is whisked away by whatever wind happens to breeze through its stem, we no longer pay them any mind. But it's as if each step in the process of its growth, led only to this moment, to its ultimate end. So why does the leaf bud, or the flower bloom, just to die?”
I couldn’t answer her at the time, but these sort of rhetorical question were common in our terse dialogues. I didn’t get a call, but of course he didn’t always call, sometimes he forgot. I delivered anyway, and never received a complaint. The man is a recluse, I’ve only ever heard his voice, and never seen his face.
The sun had already begun her descent as I was driving over. The birds flew by, the winds waled. I thought about the question Kayare asked both me and herself. Life, just by virtue of beginning, has an end. A biological due date. But so to are all things that begin. No push can move an object forever, just as no birth can create immortality. Why do we cry when death happens if we know it will, or is it every moment leading up to death that matters. Not knowing when, gives every experience until meaning. Every moment, waking or asleep, is just as important as each preceding and proceeding it. The building's main door was always unlocked, the apartment as well. I held a natural ambivalence towards the lost and wayward souls who crept and shuffled around me. In every sidelong street corner and dark alley there was a story to be told. For every sanssouci there are a million shattered homes which deserve the name more. So why care about the homeless man who only asks for spare change? The leper who grunts a barely audible and unintentionally unintelligible request to hold the door? These people have their own issues. God quartered each his own quandary, and I alone am meant to solve my own problems. I suffer to live, and I live to suffer. And we should all, lest the world come to a crashing, lovey dovey, care-bare end. I knocked on the doorframe as a common courtesy, but today I got an answer.
“I didn’t order a goddamn pizza! Now get out of my apartment!”
I was too stunned to move.
“Just leave me alone, ok.”
“Sir, um..”
I stood in disbelief. For the first time in weeks of delivering pizza I saw his apartment. It was clean. Spotless. Like a freshly sucked spoon. I peered around the corner of the vestibule and there he was in the living room, sitting with his right fingers daintily pressed against the rim of a whiskey tumbler, crying softly. He looked over, sorrowfully, with a glint of desperation. He wore a fine suit, whose price I could not ordain. He was surrounded by precious things. A new, spacious, barely used kitchen; a large television, a fine black leather couch; and an old, well preserved, mastercrafted square mahogany wood table, at which he was sitting. I approached him.
“What.”
“I um, I bought a pizza.”
“I don’t want it.”
“Ok, sorry for bothering you.”
I turned around to leave.
“Wait!”
I looked back over.
“What is it?”
“I’m about to make a very important decision,” he said looking into the light violet shot as he swished it around his glass, “I need your advice.”
I set the pizza down on the table.
“What is it?
“Please sit down, you’ll want to before hearing this.”
I pulled out a chair and sat down atangent to him.
“I want to kill myself.”
“What?”
He chuckled lightly.
“Yes, this liquid in my glass is a slow acting poison. Deadens my limbs from the bottom up. I have yet to drink any, but I was just about to. Would you care to have a sip? I’ve heard it's very tasty.”
I was slightly mortified.
“No thanks.”
“Well it's your loss.”
There was an uncomfortably long pause.
“So you want to kill yourself?”
“Yes.”
“But why?”
“Why not? Do I need a reason?” he replied.
“Well if one has a reason to live, then certainly they must also have a reason to not live.”
“But what about those who do not choose death? They don’t necessarily have a reason to die.”
“So what? If we take the inverse of that argument ‘Those who have no reason to live should just die.’ you’re suggesting that everyone who lacks a goal, a purpose, should just kill themselves?”
“Exactly.”
“Well, before I attack this notion I’d like to hear a more in depth explanation.”
“We are slaves… what was your name?”
“Frank, yours?”
“Nihl.”
He cleared his throat.
“Yes, as I was about to say, we are slaves, Frank. We who were born into this world without a choice, bound to the will of time, slaves of the universe. I spend my entire life doing nothing but converting energy into heat. That is my true biological purpose, to revert the universe to another permanent state of nothingness, to create a new lasting balance. There is no purpose in perpetuating this nonsensical tale full of misery, tragedy, and deceit. Sure, there are the happy moments, but just as our lives are to space, they are like sparks in an endless night, leaving behind shadows in smoke, a sublime near-nothingness.”
“Well what about beauty?”
“What of it? It's just a simple, biological response.”
“To what exactly? There is no scientific explanation. I see a mountain, I want to climb it.”
“Well biological might not be the right way to put it. Think of it more like a natural function of the mind. We are recursive: we see something new and apply it to the pattern which we call our memory. A mountain, for instance, can take many forms, but just by its mention you already recall one. Although this mountain in your head probably doesn’t exist, you just have the general idea of a mountain at your disposal. But the process of creating this mental image is rather simple. It begins with the first intimation, and each consecutive item applies itself to the figure, affecting all future interpretations. Like a croissant, it has many layers, but only the entirety can be appreciated.”
He pronounced croissant incorrectly.
“Beauty, awe, astoundment, they are all born from this process. Every time you witness an example so extreme, yet still plausible, you feel it. So what is beauty but another joke in the comedy of life; myself like a caged monkey, heckled by the universe.”
“Yea.”
He looked at me with apprehension.
“Well, sorry you hit a bad spot, but um, I gotta get going, so enjoy your pizza I guess.”
He stared a thousand yards into his glass. I heard a distant plea, a child's whine as I got up.
“Please.”
“Sorry, I’ve got a girl waiting for me.”
“Whats her name? I’m just curious.”
“Kayare.”
“Huh, a lovely title. I’m sure it fits.”
I never got another call from Nihl.
§
“Frank?”
No immediate response.
“Frank!”
“What!”
He was drunk again. I walked into the kitchen and saw him half-naked with a bottle of rum.
“I’m a piece of shit, Kayare. I’ve never been nice to anyone but myself. Just a selfish asshole.”
“No your not, at least not to me.” he could get like this at times.
“No you don’t fucking understand the half of it. I let the guy die, I let him kill himself. I didn’t even attempt to stop him.”
“What are you talking about? Who?”
“One of the customers back when we used to work at the pizzeria. I met him at a delivery once, and he pleaded with me to convince him against suicide. I barely tried, I let him die, Kay, it was my fault.”
“It's not exactly your fault.”
“No I knew what I was getting into when I went into his apartment. I knew something was up, but I abandoned him at his weakest point, just so I could talk to you. The guilt crept up on me, slowly invading my everyday thoughts, until all I could think about was Nihl. I didn’t save him, I never could. But maybe you can save me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Nihl was right. I should’ve taken the shot with him and ended my putrid life right then and there, but my mind was on you. I love you, Kayare, I still do. But it's not enough anymore.”
I watched his cool, tear-stricken eyes in the dark, streetlight lit room. The windows were open, wind blew through the curtains. His shirt was wet with sorrow and regret. I tried to hug him but he pushed me away.
“I don’t want to be cared for, I want to be expostulated. Treat me like Nihl, but get it right this time.”
“Well what did Nihl do?”
“He sat calmly and accepted his fate. He was truly noble in the face of death.”
Frank wiped away his tears, got up and turned the lights on. He began to sober up and make some coffee.
We sat across from eachother, mug-a-mug. I was scared, more afraid than I’d ever been.
“Now before we begin, I want you to know something. This is not about you, not about us, and certainly not about me. I will be attacking the very concept of life. If you expect me to live, you better make a good case for it.”
“Alright, what's your opening statement, Frank Williams, Attorney at law.”
“Kay,” he said as he chuckled, “even in the face of death, standing ahead death's door, you can still make me laugh. That's what I always loved about you. But death waits for no man, especially not one running towards.it.” he brought out a small decanter full of light violet liquid.
“What is that?”
“A bit of water from the river styx. Same stuff Nihl used on himself, or at least I assume. Wasn’t easy to get, I had to travel all the way to the banks of hell to pick it up. Unfortunately, if you don’t save me, it won’t be long before I return.” He began
“It's the small things Kay, that normally save a life. Like a good glass of wine, a tasty pizza, or even a decent cup of coffee that might convince a languid and wayward soul to remain. But I’m a little more fleeting. This fleshy cocoon which you call a body, and I call a prison, has been my greatest burden. Its sentimental tendrils have drilled deep into my pure mind, infected it, corrupted it. Love, what is love, Kayare?”
“A form of beauty?”
He gave me a disapproving look.
“Baby don’t hurt me. I don’t care for maudlin theatrics or milquetoast sympathies. You were always good at asking the right questions, but today I want a good answer. I don’t want to hear about beauty, it's nothing more than an effect of memory. Awe, it's just acknowledgement of something greater, a mark of something new.”
“But I don’t understand, you’re saying memory is meaningless? But then how could you have come to that conclusion without using it yourself?”
“Honey, I never claimed to know anything, right now I’m nothing but a plain plagiarizer, a peruser and pilferer of dead thoughts. It was Nihl’s idea, and so far it's been irrefutable. But what of memory, can I really ascribe meaning to something which cannot be trusted, an apparatus which continually fails? There's nothing to life but the moment, and right now I don’t desire another. Maybe you aren’t the right person for this job, maybe I needed a better midwife for my labours.”
“But, Frank, what of meaning? What is the meaning to life?”
“Honestly, Kayare, if it wasn’t you holding that undisturbed cup of coffee, I may have already ended it. I’m too weak to kill myself right in front of you, those trying, desperate eyes like a guiding moonlight in my endless black sea. But believe me, once the clouds cover your silver disk I’ll be riding full sail into the abyss. You're my lifeline, the last thread that connects me to this ambivalent world. Please don’t fail me now.”
I knew what he meant, that there was no meaning, and no point in inventing your own.
“So Frank, you insist that without meaning, there is nothing, no purpose to life?”
“Correct.”
“But you said it yourself, you just told me you couldn’t kill yourself in front of me. If you truly believed in your own words you would’ve already drunk that poison. You waited here for me, dulled yourself to stall your own terminal desire, just so I could save you. Your weak, Frank, you always were. You use me as a salve for your own wounds instead of trying to heal yourself first, never giving anything back in return. I cared about you when I walked in but now I realize you're a selfish prick, just like you said. So go ahead, kill yourself, see what I care.”
It was a rather cold way to say goodbye.
§
It was 1am. The beer garden had died down, and there was no one left aside from two men, sitting across from one another, each taking turns filling up there wineglass with a pale violet rosé, of a luster and color I’d never seen before. The blood moon hung idly in the starless sky. I approached them.
“Whats up?” I broke in.
“The sky?” answered one of them quizzically.
“I’m Nihl” said one.
“Frank.” Said the other.
The wrought iron gates of the garden looked hellish in moonlight.
“You know, we were just having a very interesting conversation, I’m wondering if you could add anything to it.” said Frank.
“Well what was the topic?”
“Death, or rather those who leap to it.”
“That's a little disconcerting.”
“Well only to the ones who've never experienced it.” replied Nihl.
I sat there still and imbraceable.
“Lets lighten up the mood a little bit. Here, follow me.”
Frank got up and entreated us to get up with him. He walked towards the closed diner, the windows dead with the night, the silence of cool winds blowing by, fall leaves scattering in its path. He went behind the bar and opened the back door. I could hear soft jazz music playing, glasses clinking, the sound of light conversation and laughter, a soft glow emanating from inside. Frank held the door open and gestured for us to come in. Nihl sat down in a booth and we followed suit.
“Where are we?”
“The better question is, where were we?”
They looked at each other and chuckled.
“It looks like you're relatively new here, when’d you get in?”
“I don’t.... know. How long do you think?”
“Who can say? Maybe a moment ago, maybe a millenia. It seems like you just realized now, though. What's your name?” asked Nihl.
“I, um.” I couldn’t remember
“Looks like you forgot, happens to the best of us. We actually had to remind each other of our names. Say Nihl, what should we call him?”
“How about Lock? As in interlocutor?”
“I couldn’t make a more fitting title myself.”
Just then a waitress came over.
“Aria?”
“Nihl?”
“It's been awhile, this place has a way of attracting lost souls, don’t you think?”
“This is the first time we’ve talked you know.”
“What, ever?”
“Outside of an order.”
“Well you know what I want already.”
“Always with your handsome charm.”
“Hey, if only I knew that's what you thought back then, things might be different.”
“Well there's no use reminiscing on the past now.”
Alright, what about you guys?”
“Just water.” Said Frank.
“Uhh, I guess I’ll have some water too.”
“Great, I’ll be right back.” She said smiling.
Frank and Nihl looked over as she walked away, then turned to me.
“So… Death. You guys seem especially interested in it.”
“You could say we have a predilection. Life’s greatest mystery, yet one we all find an answer to eventually.” said Nihl
“What do you think happens after death?”
“Oh my, like a puppy who doesn’t realize he's been released from the pound.” he replied.
“Listen bud,” began Frank, “We’re not really interested in the post-mortem, we want to establish a motive first.”
“What do you mean, like a purpose?”
“Exactly, what's the point of living?”
Aria came back with our orders. For Frank: an omelette and some hash browns with a cup of black coffee; for Nihl and myself: a large glass bottle filled with the same Violet liquid they were drinking before. Aria set two martini glasses down in front of us.
“Aww, honey, you shouldn’t have.” Piped Frank.
“You seemed like you were having a pretty morbid conversation, I wanted to keep you from getting too down in the dumps.”
Frank was a little happier with his service than I was.
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude but, I ordered water.”
“Yes you did.” She replied stupefied, “And you were served water. Am I missing something?” she laughed.
“That's all you can get down here. Try it.” replied Nihl as he poured me a glass.
I sipped the liquid. It was thick going in, like an aperitif, but once in the mouth it sloshed into a thin vodka-like texture. Flavorless otherwise. And not like water is flavorless. It had no discernable taste. If I hadn’t felt its cool flow I wouldn’t have noticed anything at all.
“You asked what the point of living was?” I began, “But I would say before thinking about that, we should talk about why living is so great. My body is a piece of crap. It has to constantly be maintained, whether through food, warmth, sex, sleep, whatever. I’m always under threat of being silenced forever, of being shut out from life's infinite mysteries that I have yet to solve.”
“So you’re positing that the body is a worthless, fragile sack which holds the mind, and that the purpose of life is to solve ‘life’s infinite mysteries’.” replied Nihl with complimentary air quotes.
“I guess.”
“What do you think, Frank. Of the first point?”
“About the body? Well, to be honest I have to agree. My body never helped me, it was always a sordid burden, did nothing but sully my pure mind with thoughts of quenched love and sacerdotal diligence for pitiable discourse.”
“I concur. So we are all in agreement in our thoughts of the body. But of the second point, that's where I depart. Let me ask you a question, Lock, what time is it?”
“The time, well,” I checked my watch, but it was impossible for the dead of night, “I couldn’t tell you, appears that my watch is broken.” I replied
“Humour me.” he answered
“3:26pm, why do you ask?”
“What if I were to tell you that if we went outside right now, it would seem to be an appropriate time of day compared to your watches reading?”
“I don’t even know anymore, you led me to a dead diner in the darkest hour of the night, I come in here and it's more alive than a just-caught fish. I believe you, alright, but that doesn’t substantiate anything of pure reason, it still means nothing without a quality of truth.”
“So, in essence, you are telling me it is not what exists that forms truth, or even what you believe, but something deeper. Tell me, exactly how deep is this truth, how far down the rabbit hole do I have to fall to catch it? At this juncture you’re logic contradicts its position. You’re saying that the purpose of life is to solve its infinite mysteries, but how would one do so if the entire act is a dream in an illusion. So far from anything tangible, if the senses mean nothing then what does? And furthermore, if there is truth, then there may only be a finite amount of it, infinite meaning is as good as none at all.” Nihl rebutted
“Wait a sec, Lock, before you answer, I’m gonna add my two cents. Nihl, you claim that even experience has no meaning if it cannot be corroborated. That even if it does exist, we would never be able to find the true source of our stimulations with the senses themselves.”
“An extrapolation, but yes.”
“But Nihl, wouldn’t you say that, among all other functions of the human mind, its primary use is in this corroboration of senses, creating a common language between them, to rationalize each in terms of the other?”
“That's a bit off the cuff, Frank, before I agree I’d like to hear a better explanation.”
“Think about it like this. You have pot of tomato sauce. Which ingredients would you say generally constitute a tomato sauce, Nihl?”
“Tomatoes, obviously, garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, basil.”
“Sure, that sounds like a decent sauce. Now Nihl, say you walked into a house, and someone was cooking up some tomato sauce, would you know immediately upon entering.”
“Probably, yes.”
“And Nihl what would you be using to detect this tomato sauce?”
“My sense of smell, of course.”
“And as we both know, traditional basil sauce has a very distinct odour. But, Nihl, could you really say for certain, that what you were smelling was tomato sauce, and not some sort of strange, tomato sauce air freshener?”
“Well I would go into the kitchen and check, I suppose.”
“Exactly, and upon seeing the pot set to a low simmer, filled with that characterizing thick red liquid, you would know that it was tomato sauce, indisputably. That is what I mean by corroboration.”
I was starting to crave pasta.
“But Frank, I believe that you’ve been a bit over-confident in your argument, glossing over a few key fatal errors.”
“By all means, Nihl, list them out.”
“Well you say that truth may be revealed through the corroboration of the senses, but I believe that a sense can still be incorrect. Yes I could smell tomato sauce, I could see a pot, but upon tasting the delectable, savory condiment, I am overcome with disgust at the unexpected flavor of licorice. Would you be able to say at that moment, beyond a reasonable doubt, that what I was eating was in fact tomato sauce? And before you answer to the question of the minority report, consider a state in which all your senses detect different things. What would you call that, Frank?”
“Well, Nihl, I think it's pretty obvious what I’d call it. Licorice sauce. You say that to come upon the unexpected or unknown means that you have deterred even farther from truth, but I gotta be honest, Nihl, I don’t just believe this, but I know it's the other way around. In fact, I would even go as far as to say that the only way to go about finding the truth is apprehend the new.”
“But what of language itself, this is the apparatus by which you corroborate? Wouldn’t you say language itself has no bearing on reality?”
“Don’t be so quick in your supposition. Nihl, let me ask you another question, where does language come from?”
“Well, your parents, I suppose.”
“But of their tongue, where did they acquire it?”
“From their parents?”
“Yes Nihl, how far back do I have to go to prove my point. The first words made by humans, like paintings are to reality, are representative of the things around them. Even if it be a partially faulty representation, you cannot deny that the word itself is the connection between reality and the psyche. And this connection, however twisted and destroyed and corrupted it became, still had to be accepted by the community and on the lowest level, the subject. This connection, this faint bridge still extant in as the core of our minds, is truth itself.”
“So you posit that language is truth, the effect of corroboration, and its product, that on the lowest level, what I see is real.”
“And Nihl, it only took me you're untouched cup of coffee to make my point. With that, I conclude that the only purpose of life is to find its truth, a truth which may be easily accessible in any library. It's too bad we missed our chance, but you, Lock, you still got time. Stop drinking that purple shit and get the hell out of here, else I’ll push you out myself. Oh, and by the way, I hope you’ve learned something today. I gave you a better answer than either of us got.”
I was just about to order some spaghetti too.
I walked out, but when I pushed open those twin doors, a sudden flash of light came over me, I rose from the dark place where I once rested, and found myself in my bedroom. I checked the clock, 3:26pm. I got up and went into the kitchen, feeling a little peckish. That's when I saw it, my liquor bottle full of that violet liquid, Uisce Bháis. I remembered what I was going to do today.
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