Escaping Insanity

When I listen to music, it's usually as a means to escape. I yearn to be transported to a different reality than the one I currently reside in. Most of the time that means listening to upbeat pop music, if it's in another language then it's bonus points because I can only focus on the melody. But as I'm writing this, I realize that for the first time I have a song that has rooted me in the center of my reality. CG5 is a YouTuber and the creator behind the popular song Absolutely Anything and the genius behind the song Sepiatoned that keeps me trapped.

It is an original fan song for the very suspenseful and popular game Bendy & The Ink Machine. Sepiatoned gives off a very spooky, chilling atmosphere that puts me in a small space where I have to confront not only things about myself, but of people close to me as well. Even though the message is about the content within the game, where it speaks of a little devil and the psychotic characters such as Alice Angel...I personally felt like it was putting me in front of a mirror and in it I saw myself and my mother.

At all sides it feels like I am trapped by the memories and the ghosts of my past. "Don't be scared /She's so heartless /Always there in the darkness /If I don't sing with psychos /Why do I write this musical haiku?" These exact lines put me in a moment when I was so willing to do any and everything my mother asked of me. In the end though, nothing was ever good enough for her and she always demanded more. When she wasn't using me for money she was ignoring me. The first time I listened to the song I was on the subway coming home from an interview I waited three hours to have.

It was January 23rd, 2020 and it was awfully cold, I listened to the song on repeat during those three agonizing hours and I watched as other potential candidates leave through the door, sick of having their time wasted. I couldn't afford to go back so I dance and sang to their tune. I was hired on the spot and went into training for three days. During those three days I put Sepiatoned to rest, convinced that I could escape the box of my anxiety and not torture myself with past memories. I was horribly wrong.

On my last day of training, the manager I was dealing with told me to “figure out” my own schedule and ask one of the hosts to take a day off and hope for the best. After about a week and a half, I tried calling and got only tepid responses. I sent various emails to HR and you don't even have to imagine what was playing in the background as I typed furiously--it was Sepiatoned.

"I'll be kind to everyone on the way up /'Cause I'll meet them again on the way down." When I was dealing with HR about my lack of a schedule, these lines from the song swirled in my mind. After all it's not their fault the managers I was trying to work for kept me from working. Even as I got what I wanted, I tried to keep in rhythm with them despite the fact that they wanted nothing to do with me.

It was then that I asked myself the following question: Why the hell am I trying to work with these psychos? So I politely made my exit and even released my shifts to someone more seasoned than myself. I realized at the end of it that I didn't want to become the character singing a Sepiatoned nightmare. I listen to the song every now and then, mostly to appreciate it for what it is--a wake up call.