The World is Full of Apathy

I always keep my boots untied. Letting the laces swing freely. Reminds me of my childhood playing with my sister by the lake, naming clouds, and always running around barefoot in the sun. Feeling the loose comforting rub of the boots’ soles as my feet rock around inside of them; the feeling has always been a cathartic reminder of those brighter days. I cling to the compassion of the loose boots now more than ever. These darker days I feel more like I am looking up at my emotions and my life from below the death-cold barrier of a lake that has been frozen over. I can still see me, still watch how I feel. But it’s all so distant, like it’s happening to someone else.

One block away I see Despiro in the distance, polluting the city air one breath at a time. I reach down and tie my boots, pulling the laces tighter, I make them into steel cords, binding me to reality. Something deep inside me changes; a pressure, a quickening. It’s like a train and all my cars are filled with steel. A part of me would stop it if I knew how, but I am bearing down on him. He has no idea, he stands there with his chest out and shoulders back and tall. He can’t hear the pounding coming down the rails, the whistle blowing, or the crash before the fall. With so much steam and steel behind me, he won’t slow me down at all. The train whistle must be escaping through my brain because Despiro turns to look at me a dark yellow sneer on his face.

“Well, look who is back from playing soldier! How’s your sister, I tell ya man she sucks a go-” Lightning strikes the tracks and the engine steams into the storm. Striking him reminds me of the first time my hands moved faster than my eyes could track. I’m only vaguely aware I’m hurting him, watching distantly from below my ice. I rip this poor boy apart with all the interest and passion of ordering a pizza. Mundane. Boring. And over.

Bright flashes of pain slam into my brain and the train jumps the tracks. Something thick, red, and wet drips down the back on my head. I spin, arms out, to see his friend re-cocking his fist. In that moment, the white-hot pain breaks the ice. I raise my head above the surface and breathe in glorious air for the first time in recent memory. I exhale; my arms move and twist like sinister starving snakes, my elbow striking his ribs. One. Two. Three. He doubles over in pain and my elbow comes down one more time on the back of his ear…mirroring the spot of pain I feel on my own head.

Breathing still, slowly, deeply, peacefully I stalk over to Despiro. Crouch down in front of him, his eyes wild and afraid.

“I’m leaving again, D. I don’t know for how long. But if I get a single phone call from my baby sister about you again…” leaving the sentence hanging.

I find threats like classic horror movies. The less you show, the scarier it is. See it makes your mind fill in the blanks; forces your imagination, the world’s greatest special effect, to do all the work. It’s the kind of fear that sticks with you so when you wake up in the middle of the night to go use the bathroom at 3 am, you’re left wondering if it’s waiting for you right behind the shower curtain. I can see it in his shattered eyes. That this little Hitchcock-ian display will live rent-free is his mind till his dying days.

Three blocks later I kneel down and untie my boots. The world is full of apathy, but I don’t care.