For Someone Who Needs Relief

I want to fall to my knees and sob at the bus stop. I want to curl up in my duvet coat on the steps of the glittering hotel across the street, in the sun, and sleep. The only sun I've seen for days has been from the inside of one of my jobs. Weakly piercing the heavy grey clouds. I ache to just turn and run down to the beach and hurl myself into the rocky sand. I want to fill myself with sunlight, I want to let all the frustration and pain and anger tear itself free from my throat and I want to replace it with this warmth and light that has been a rarity for months.

A construction worker waiting at the crosswalk parallel to me tilts her chin skyward. She shakes her sandy blonde hair and it bounces around the neon shoulders of her reflective orange vest. She drinks in the sunshine, eyes closed, a small smile blooming on her round lips. The bus stop is in the shade, so gratefully, I drink in her beauty instead. I take my joy where I can get it. I take it in the moments in-between. Sugar licked from greedy fingers, beautiful cashmere sweaters that I cannot really afford rubbed between pointer finger and thumb for comfort, and gulping down the loveliness of strangers like cold water after awakening from a nightmare.

There isn't just darkness inside of me. It's a great yawning mouth lodged in behind my diaphragm somewhere. It hungers endlessly, it demands freedom, adventure, love, joy, it demands me to exercise power that I do not have. If I cannot provide, it wants to rend me to pieces. It wants my blood. Depression locks my jaw with frustration and impotent inexpressible rage, yet a quiet click and a wince is the only outward evidence of that fire. Either that, or it paints the world a sickly beige and steals the flavour from any bite that passes my lips.

My life isn’t all that horrible externally, the days blend together, I struggle to afford both luxuries and basics but I do not face starvation or trafficking or any number of other human horrors. Securing Insulin each month is the biggest gnawing worry. Coming up with the extra eighty-eight dollars a month to buy a bus pass is another. I am educated but underemployed, full-time hours are hard to come by, most jobs aim to be add-ons, side-gigs. So I have a mad dash life rushing from one side-gig to the next, three jobs, spread out all over the city. I feel guilty for feeling so emptied out and angry. Yet I still do. I’m angry that I own so little of my own time, hours of my life slipping away into some corporate abyss. I’m angry knowing most of my smiles are fake, they are paid for, part of the product of customer service. The bus rolls up and I enter and take my usual seat on the upper deck, second from the front, left side, barely registering that I have. It’s robotic. I am a robot with a violent spark of life trapped inside of cold metal.

After a few stops some people board, I don’t pay attention to who or how many, I’m too busy mourning the possibility of some time in the sun. Soon, I feel a slight pull at the back of my scalp and slowly turn to see an old man, mandatory face mask pulled down under his chin, aquiline nose tilted towards an outstretched finger. A finger, from which one of my auburn curls unfurls itself and falls back to hang over the back of my seat. A cinder block drops into my stomach and settles into the bowl of my pelvis, scraping bone as it goes. There is a bold moment of eye contact as he re-positions the mandatory mask over his face. His mouth curls up into a self-satisfied grin on one side and then it is blessedly obscured. The bus crawls to a stop and he whips himself up from his seat and shambles down the stairs and out onto the street.

"You don't deserve to feel secure in public spaces." my depression whispers. "If you weren't so irresponsible and broke you'd have your own car and these things wouldn't happen so often." Tears prick my eyes and I whip my head around to find that I am now alone on the upper deck. Butter yellow sunlight swims with the tears in my eyes. I wish I could scream. Instinctively, I gather the hair off of my shoulders and stuff it into the front of my hoodie and then I put my head between my knees and soak my jeans with tears. After a while that same voice snarls "oh grow up baby, you should be used to this shit by now." The numbness creeps in then, like a drop of dye in a glass of water, swirling and spreading within me. I feel my face turn to stone. I hang there exhausted for a moment and then the sunlight flitting across the floor catches on something gold under the seat I front of me.

I grope under the seat, breathless when my fingers brush against something flat and cool, rectangular, it's a book. It's duct-taped pretty securely to the underside of the seat and it takes me a moment to wrestle it free. The bus stops again and somebody begins to ascend the stairs. I hastily tear the tape off of the cover and place it casually on my lap, the tape balled up in my fist. A mother with two little boys herds them into their seats, offering a friendly nod as they pass. I turn over the book in my hands. It's a beautiful black Moleskine notebook with gold embossed lettering on the front which reads “For Someone Who Needs Relief."

It looks neat aside from a few scuffs at the corners and some leftover tape residue. It doesn't appear to be some kind of criminal financial ledger and nothing seems to be stuffed in between the pages. I slowly slide the elastic cord off and open the cover. "This is a game for those who are down and out. This is a challenge of growth for the individual and their community. Play the game properly and you will escape the cycle of poverty. If you do not need a hand up, kindly leave the notebook where you found it. If you are dishonest, we will find out.” Confusion and an odd sense of hope tumble into my head, which is floating somewhere above the bus, a balloon on a string. The astringent feeling of tears on dry eyes hits me as I realize I haven’t been blinking. I turn the page, at the top is labelled “Resources:” with a list of finance books, books about cryptocurrency, books about mindfulness, marketing, yoga, and stoicism. There are ten pages like this, labelled by subject.

The next title page is “Rules of the Game:” This has to be a twisted joke to mess with desperate people. My body prickles with heat. “Log in to the online document written below to get in contact with your game master and receive the secure key, using this key you can access your starting funds. The previous player will have left at least twenty thousand dollars worth of BTC in the wallet, whether this sum has gone up or down since it was deposited is up to fate. As the new player it is your responsibility to use this money to improve your life, perhaps the lives of those in your community, and to return at least twenty thousand dollars to the account before your play period of two years, to this day, has elapsed. If you fail, you may have made some improvements to your life but you will forfeit your admittance to the Master Mind Society and all of the valuable benefits that come with our mentorship and connections. You hold in your hands the key to the life of your wildest dreams. If you share this information with anyone it will all be taken from you. Infer whatever meaning you like from this statement but keep in mind that the consequences are severe for willfully flouting the rules of this game. You tell NO ONE, you guard this notebook with your life, and you put forth genuine effort to win, or the privilege of playing is no longer yours. How resourceful are you when you are given the resources you need? We look forward to finding out, we will be watching you.”

The day crawls by, details blurring together, anticipation and dread and hope all pricking at my nerves as I work. Every single minute until I am at home, in front of my laptop, learning whether or not this game is real, is simply in the way. Ideas bloom inside of me like flowers straining for sunlight. The empty lot down the street from my apartment becomes a community garden in my mind’s eye.

I can buy myself a professional DSLR camera and start a blog, or photography business. I can seek therapy, I can quit one job, maybe even two, and give myself time to heal and build a business that is mine. I can learn to invest, and I can learn a new language, and I will never have to worry about my insulin supply again if I play it smart! Stubborn hope worms its way through my defences little by little. As if on cue, the nagging voice of my illness whispers to me in scraping acidic tones. “Will you ever have the energy to do all that? You are a lazy piece of shit and no amount of money will change that.” The old wound festers. Until I am finally home, staring at the screen feeling open and raw, and somebody is typing into the document in real-time.

Sarah is encouraging, but realistic, most importantly she seems real. Human and real and excited to watch me grow and build a life for myself. She is my “game master” and mentor, mentor for life provided I win the game. I do seek therapy and I am taught to change the voice of my illness into someone I won’t take seriously. The demon slowly transforms into a nagging cartoon duck, tripping over its acidic words and squawking in frustration when it is ignored. Sometimes I still listen, but existing in my own mind becomes more manageable. The money gives me space to breathe and room to learn. I make a small investment and it grows, and so do the vegetables in the community garden I am able to found.

Sarah calls me her “little seedling” in the correspondences she sends from a mysterious email address. I get braces, and I struggle to concoct an explanation for my family as to how I was able to afford them. Their questions slow when they see my photography blog flourish, there are brand deals. My creativity is allowed to nourish every aspect of my life. I do freelance work, work that doesn’t add to the heavy fatigue I’m so accustomed to. I quit two of my jobs and my life unfurls like the petals of a rose. I build a tiny home out of an old school bus, I quit my last job and I chase the sun across North America. The beige blur of days speeds by in vibrant colour now.

One year and seven months. That’s how long it takes me to deposit the money back into the wallet. Sarah meets me at that same bus stop with a crushing hug. Her cheeks flush with pride; the colour of a bitten plum. Together, we tape the book back under that same seat on the bus. Now I wait to see somebody typing into the document. Now I am someone’s mentor.