You know who you are.
Please, be wise with your precious energy.
You matter more than any tedious, dysfunctional drama.
Freedom
There is a moat.
It surrounds me.
They cannot cross.
All runnels leading have been dammed.
I am safe.
It is a boundary. It is mine.
They shall not pass.
The bridge shall only draw upon my judgment, upon my command.
I no longer have an obligation to engage within the inherent presentiments of dysfunction, derision and delusion.
They ring the bell, but the bridge does not lower.
I control the counterweight.
Impatient, they ring for the ferry.
Blinking. The boat of Charon does not appear.
Universal: them and us.
And so, upon these banks they are inclined to leave us handmade baskets brimming with fresh fruit—messages—: persuasion. Anemic at first, and so we are inclined to pick through them at our leisure.
Hours. Days. Slumber.
They ring two, three times more and beckon for attention.
No.
They ring repeatedly and begin to leave patronizing messages, ripe with urgency and concern, as their arrogance will not allow them to consider that our silence has a greater meaning: not now: no.
No.
They give up quickly.
Time intervenes.
Everyday. Progression. The New Normal.
They Reform, restructure and begin to ring again.
The hypervigilant moat begins to leak; rust begins to form around our recollection. A formidable fog of nostalgic memory rolls in: a photograph-- Tribe surrounded and smiling.
An olive branch is extended and we contemplate acceptance.
Subtle. Pavlovian.
No.
Weakness. We assess the caller's identity and wager: perhaps I have overreacted. Perhaps I am part of the problem. Perhaps I am able—this time.
No.
No? But...
And so we gamble.
Hello…
We abandon our hypervigilant, detail-oriented condition for real-time interaction. There is no need for conditional division; for boundary, for there is no harm: we are of the same tribe.
Yes.
And so I would argue with the fine doctor.
* * *
They are Traitors.
Traitors who are literally teeming with derision, negativity, disconnected outrage and delusions of grandeur.
Traitors who commiserate and conspire.
Exponentiation. Virulence.
How have you been?
This is not a question: it is a code for contempt.
They emerge from their histrionic dens not to listen: no.
Vapid inquires, for they are vampires whose self-centered mission remains: to suck and to spew: to suck our spirit and to spew their sanctimonious rhetoric.
Blathering on and on.
Sucking. Exsanguination.
What have we done? They are vampires and we have knowingly invited them in.
Echoes.
Ringing.
Repeat.
Awareness.
NO.
Recollection returns.
A fleeting specter where time has stood still.
The formidable fog of nostalgic memory lifts: a photograph—tribe surrounded and smiling. It is propaganda. I see it. We see it.
Present.
No.
We did not respond, the bridge is still intact and our feet remain dry.
Escalation.
Ringing.
Not now.
Live. Life. Living.
Baskets. Piled, they begin to fray; the fruit begins to seep and rot but still, they sow the seeds.
Sunshine. Friends. Contentment.
A heaping, putrid landfill forms along the bank, the soil tinged with their pestilence.
It is a plague. They are a plague.
Persistence. Insistence.
More messages.
They ornament their disdain and hunger for this emotional ambush with concern for our well-being. It is circuitous. It is a lie. It is a trap.
It becomes about the why are you, the where are you and the what's going on?
It becomes about their graciousness and our silence.
It builds.
It becomes about our immaturity and our capricious temperament.
Our silence simmers within them.
It becomes about our self-absorption, our audacity and our impassivity; our inability for functional communication within the company of pure righteousness.
We are a predicament: their predicament.
The silence begins to boil.
It becomes about our disrespect, our disobedience, our ungratefulness, and three baskets later, our more than obvious defiance.
Yes, it is a Defiance. It is a Precedent.
It is our Recollection that they are vampires and we must not knowingly invite them in.
No.
* * * I would argue that when one makes a concerted effort to negotiate with one’s detail-oriented condition, one risks the unrestricted access of one’s own foolish, Pollyanna judgment and the consequential invasion to be dawned upon by the traitors in our tribe.
Illustration: Gustave Doré Charon from The Divine Comedy
