Being alone births fear.
Being scared births upset.
Being upset births strife.
And strife births innovation.
It's 3:00 in the morning, I'm still awake, as I usually am. I felt too restless to stay in my bed, so here I am in my car, parked on the edge of the road leading out of town. The long and late nights bring out the worst in me, and I sit there in the car, lamenting the face of the person I see in the rearview mirror, the person that life's story has forsaken, the loser kid, The Peasant.
The glow of the moon lights up the path ahead down the road, the way that I go down like I have all of the other nights, trying to find something that can make me worth it, something that will allow me to escape the pit that this life has put me in, something that can allow me to become The God in the story, rather than this pitiful person I see in the reflection. I am all too happy to slam my foot on the gas, go down that path again, keep the cycle going.
The car ride out of town and into the downtown city was as lonely as the hundreds of other nights I had taken the journey alone. The seats were empty, and there was nobody else to hear the sound of the music that I was oh-so-proud of being able to play for others. I kept the speed slow getting onto the highway, knowing I was nervous about people driving this late at night. Making it onto the highway and towards the city, the sound of the cars aggressively passing me seemed to fade into static and ringing as I began to feel that I was no longer alone in the car. Panicking, I looked around the car. I was surprised to see a shadowy figure casually lounging in the passenger seat, with several people, men and women, sitting in the backseat, appearing to be laughing, though I couldn't hear them.
I couldn't make out anything on the figure's face, yet I knew he was looking right at me, almost taunting me. This angered me, and I slammed on the accelerator, beginning to pass the other cars on the road. As the speed increased, the static in my ears and the figure started to fade, along with its posse.
Soon after I get off the highway, I see the parking lot of the place that the moon has illuminated the path to time and time again, an old hole-in-the-wall 24/7 pool hall down in the city. I go to open the door, but something in my mind forces me to pause, look down at my hands, and see them shaking from the self-hatred flowing through my head. Looking back up at the rearview mirror, I finally notice the heavy bags under my eyes and the wear and tear on my face from the countless sleepless nights. I clench my teeth at myself while a tear falls from my face as I realize. "Here I am again, in this cycle again, for the thousand-somethingth time, with still no progress towards myself." The thoughts quickly overwhelm my brain, and I slam my hands into the dashboard, screaming out in anger and sadness, wanting to be free from this search but knowing that the light to set me free is nowhere near. Finally exiting my car and walking through the front door and up the stairs, reality seems to become fuzzy again. My eyes begin to blur, and the touch of my hand against the cold metal of the rail starts to feel false.
I shake my head and walk through the door at the top of the stairs to properly enter the pool hall. Immediately, the person at the counter recognized me and put a rack of pool balls on the counter. "Same table, Tristan?" he says. "Yeah. Same table." I say as I hand him a $10 bill and grab the balls and a cue. Getting to the table, I waste no time setting up and beginning my lonesome game. The positioning and shots go by like a blur as the dark thoughts flood my mind, and I desperately try to come up with some kind of way to solve them and answer the questions I don't have the answers to. Eventually, I scratch what should have been an easy shot, and the self-hatred returns. I let out an audible sigh and slam my head on the table, keeping it there as I wonder where I went wrong. I eventually brought my head up to the sound of a pool ball being slammed into a rack, and I immediately set my gaze upon the exact hazy figure that was in the car with me earlier. I still cannot make out their face, but it feels familiar now, almost as though it were me. The figure is surrounded by men and women alike, watching in awe as the figure makes shot after shot after impressive shot, laughing and rejoicing with each other as each ball falls into the pocket. After the cheers and celebration die down from the crowd, the figure says something, not in English, but in a wispy, almost creepy shadowy whisper, but it feels familiar; it nearly feels like it is my voice talking to me. At that point, I had no idea how much time had passed since I left home, so I decided that that was enough pool for the night and left, thanking the man at the counter as I always had before.
I would be lying if I said that the feel of the engine roaring beneath my feet to the push of the accelerator didn't feel good, at least for a moment. The anxiety of my heart from going at high speeds could beat back the dark thoughts of imperfection, at least for as long as I could keep the speed up. In those moments, safety became a secondary item to that of feeling alive, just for a second, and I tried to maintain that feeling for as long as I could on the long road home, knowing that it would catch up with me the instant that I let off of the gas. I don't want it to come, but I know it will, and I can't stop it. I kept the speed and pace faster than when I drove down to the pool hall, and it kept the figure away from my vision, along with those people they were with, taunting my loneliness.
It's 6:00 in the morning, and I'm still awake, as I normally am. Standing in my room, I can see the lamp post across the street, gleaming bright as it always has, glowing like the sun without fail. I remember the days when I was a kid back in middle school. It would talk to me, and I enjoyed its company, for I had no other friends, no friends that wouldn't hurt me, anyway. "Anima Sola," I called it, Latin for "Lone Soul"; it liked to mention the chains of the then-trauma that grappled me to my lonesome position, that I was the Peasant in the story and then tell me that it was here to help me break those chains, one night at a time. Sometimes, I wish it would still talk to me; I would enjoy its company. It would make me happy to have someone to talk to during those long nights spent half-dissociated in my bed, during those long, late nights that brought out the worst in me. But I know it won't happen again. I'm too old for imaginary lamppost friends.
Eventually, I fall back into the bed that has seen so much of my life, taking a second to look at my phone to see how much time I had wasted staring at an inanimate object. The phone doesn't turn on, having died a few minutes before I pulled into the driveway. But in the reflection, I can see the face of The Peasant, the person I don't want to be. I hate it; I hate it so much that I let the shadows I've been keeping away all night finally take control of my head, and the feeling is immediate. I close my eyes as the folds of the blanket on my body turn into the warm, gentle curves of the skin of others. The hood over my head turns into the long, flowing, gentle hair that almost tickles as it brushes against my face and shoulders, and the weight from a weighted therapy blanket I had haphazardly thrown over myself turns into the moving, breathing rhythm of life. I exhale and open my eyes, looking at the phone's blank screen and seeing the face of someone else, someone I can so easily become, The God. The empty, desolate space of the bed turns into the image of beautiful men and women, the same ones from the pool hall, sprawled around me as if they all were there just for me, protecting me, willing to obey my every beck and call. The image is powerful, so powerful and inviting that the tears begin to flow from my eyes. I blink once to clear the river emerging from my face, and the image is gone.
I'm back laying in bed alone, by myself, the Peasant. At that moment, the Anima Sola began to speak again. It wasn't speaking English, but instead, it was talking in dark, incoherent, shadowy whispers, like how the figure was speaking. But despite this, I could understand it perfectly. I knew what it wanted me to do, and at that moment, I stopped caring about my own story. I looked over at the dresser on the other side of the room, which had all of the clothes, wigs, and makeup I needed to become someone else, not have to be myself anymore. Become The God.
Why try to rewrite and edit my own story to try and become The God that I know I can't be when I can just write a new story? A story where I am not myself, a story where I am not the Peasant. A story where I am The God. All of this power, just one switch and a dresser full of stuff away.
This world has given me no reason to be myself. So I won't be.
"Come back to me, Tristan."