It was the only thing I could do.
The street was very dark -- clouds covered whatever sliver of moon remained -- and streetlights were few and far between, illuminating only small pockets of the quiet street. It was that unkind, worthless temperature outside, the kind that melts the snow but leaves puddles of water on the ground, and is unable to conjure any kind of real heat, so I still wore a jacket and pants. Off to the south, a busy street thundered with cars even at such a late hour. I had been walking home, trying to come to terms with what had happened, but now I stood ramrod-straight and glaring at the car in front of me.
It was a black sedan with tinted windows, very clean even with all the salt on the roads, and parked unassumingly along the side of the road like the dozen cars on either side of it.
Keeping my eyes on it, I bent down slowly and grabbed a fistful of wet snow from the grass. It was mostly slush now, but I packed it into a harder ball with syncopated pats. Eventually I realized my hands were moving back and forth, but the ball of snow wasn't changing.
I wound up and hammered the side of the car with the snowball. It did nothing -- not a dent, not a mark or scar, barely even a sound. It splashed the snow around and some of it got on the side mirror. The impact spot was wet, but other than that, the car hadn't changed in the slightest.
It was the only thing I could do.
"No, don't take ten, you'll end up on the other side of the lake," Shawn said, watching the sun drop from his apartment. "You need to take a right onto Buster Drive. I know, but it's faster. What, you think I don't know how to get to my own home? That way is faster!"
I glanced at him from the TV as he listened. "Yeah, okay. I'll come get you if that happens, but it won't happen, because I know what's gonna happen. You're gonna get here with time to spare because the way I told you is faster. Whatever, see you soon." He hung up and dropped on the couch next to me. "How you been?"
"Good," I answered. "They're getting here soon?"
"Sooner than they think," Shawn answered. "Taking ten." He shook his head, and we began playing the paused video game. "What a doofus. I could hear Amy trying to tell him I was right, but he wouldn't believe either of us. Boom, headshot!"
"Ech." I dropped my controller. "Weak."
"Why couldn't Julie come?" Shawn asked me as my video man reappeared on the playing field. He was immediately blown up. "Ha!"
"She had a bunch of things to do for her next conference," I said, watching Shawn's screen as he attempted to maneuver around me. "Plus her throat is acting up again."
"That's too bad." Shawn spun his character around and pegged mine between the eyes. "Nice try."
"Yeah, I feel really bad for her. She's had it for so long I think she's just starting to accept it."
"Is that why she married you?" Shawn laughed. I joined him.
"Maybe! That was probably more of a conscious decision, though."
"Sure it was." Shawn, once more, killed my character in the video game. "Boy, you can't do anything here, can you?"
"So it goes." I put my controller down and laid back against the couch.
"Something up? You got that look," Shawn said, continuing to wage violence against my unprotesting character.
"A friend of mine from high school, her husband cheated on her."
"So?"
"So, it made her really upset. And that made me upset."
"Oh, right, that thing. You don't have to worry about them, you know. It's not your problem."
"It isn't something I can just switch off," I said, leaning forward and placing my elbows on my knees. Outside, melted snow trickled over the awning. It was very hot in the apartment. "Even though I'd like to sometimes."
"So her husband cheated on her. Maybe she deserved it!"
"She didn't. I knew her well enough to see that, anybody did. He's just a jerk, but that's not the point. She loved him and she ended up feeling hurt because of it."
"So why do you have to be hurt?"
"Just feel it. I feel so sorry for her. Another friend got in a car accident and shattered his leg, and when he described it I felt like I could feel the pain. Another friend had a miscarraige, and I got dizzy after reading about it."
"Sounds like you're just trying to make it about yourself," Shawn said.
"No! I ache for them; I can't even imagine what I would be like to feel that kind of pain!" I stood up and got a drink from his fridge. "I want to help them feel better so badly." I cracked it open. "But there's nothing I can do. I don't know how to help people like that. If I could I would, without a doubt . . . without hesitation. Earthquakes in third world countries, disasters in other states."
"I remember from college," Shawn said. "You had trouble sleeping after the earthquake in Japan."
"All those people dead, others displaced. I thought about how I would feel if it had happened to me or someone I loved and I wanted to help them so badly. But what was I supposed to do?"
"You donated money! That helps, right?"
"Less than I want. Did you know that some charities end up spending less than one percent of money donated to actually help people? If I could have given money directly to people who needed it, I would have . . . but I couldn't."
"Stop getting so upset man! You did what you could. What are you going to do, start your own charity? Don't give me that look."
"I don't know what else to do."
The apartment was quiet apart from the sounds of the nearby road. I sat back on the couch and tried to relax; I felt stuffed full of unrecognized energy that had nowhere to go. We stayed there for almost ten minutes, waiting for our friends to show up. "They shouldn't be taking this long. I bet Ne took ten anyway to try and prove me wrong." I shrugged. Eventually Shawn's phone chimed, and he pressed a button on his remote to unlock the apartment building's outer door. A few minutes later our friend Ne'igalomeatiga -- whom we called Ne for simplicity's sake -- and his wife Amy -- whom we sometimes jokingly called Am'igalomeatiga -- entered the apartment.
"We took Buster," Ne said after greetings had been exchanged, "but there was an accident in one lane so traffic was bad."
"It was awful," Amy said. "The whole front of the car was smashed up. There was an ambulance there and-"
"Don't say anymore, or this guy's going to have a fit," Shawn said, jerking a thumb in my direction. "He was just telling me how any little tragedy makes him feel sorry for people."
"Somehow you made it into a bad thing," I said, displeased.
"It's not a bad thing," Shawn said, "but it practically controls you sometimes. You gotta learn to let it go every once in a while."
"I try," I said. "It's not as easy as you think."
"That's in no way a bad thing," Amy said. "Some people would call being able to sympathize with people you've never even met a gift."
"It's like a compulsion," I said. "Almost like I have OCD but I have no idea what little ritual will satisfy it."
"All right, come on," Shawn suddenly said. "We're here to have fun, so let's have fun. The person in the car accident was probably fine," Shawn said. "We can be sad and mopey later on, when we get good and drunk."
I didn't drink much -- I never have -- but a few hours later our discussion had long faded away. We watched a movie and chatted and played a board game, and nobody could deny we all enjoyed ourselves. The hours passed. The sun went down, and the road outside became noisier with evening traffic. The apartment finally cooled down.
Our informal gathering was dwindling when I got a phone call from Julie. I answered, expecting a simple when-will-you-be-home line of questioning. Instead:
"Hey, what's up?"
On the other end was a wet gasp.
"Hon?"
"I just got a call," Julie finally said, breathing heavily and clearly saying each word as it was placed in front of her mentally. "My mom's in the hospital with something."
The other three in the room must have seen my expression change; the room went quiet.
"Do you know what it is? Is she okay?" Pressure built in my chest.
"They don't think she's going to make the night," my wife said, and the words -- difficult, as if they were being scratched on a stone tablet -- struck me. "The family's going to see her. I'm driving down right now."
"Okay," I said. My words, if visible, would have been drained of color. I couldn't think straight. "Be safe. Call me when you get there."
"Okay. Bye," she said, and the call ended.
I placed my phone down on the table and watched its screen, wondering if something else would happen. I looked at the others. "Her mom," I said at the questioning faces. "She's come down with something and isn't expected to make the night."
They watched as I tried to fight back tears.
"It will be all right," Ne said, sitting next to me. He patted his thick hand down on my shoulder. "She will survive." I nodded; we both knew the words were meaningless.
"I'm sure she will," Amy said. "Julie's mom is so energetic, nothing will be able to get her."
Shawn got up and fetched a cider for me. "This'll help." I took the drink wordlessly and opened it. The bitter taste almost kept me from drinking, but I did. I don't remember much else of the night, but I left less than an hour later, stating that I wanted to get home before it was too late. I knew I wasn't being the most cheerful guest. I went over the phone call in my head, hoping that Julie would be careful driving to where her parents lived, and praying that her mother would survive.
I lived a little over a mile away, and I started walking home in the dark, late winter night.
What could I do?
I asked myself that question as I walked. I might have been able to enjoy the walk back had events not transpired the way they did. There was wind, and lingering piles of dirty snow, and the sweetness of growth. I couldn't think about anything except what had happened. I hated the fact that in light of such tragedy, something that hurt the person closest to me, I could only think about how terrible I felt. I had drunken energy, a desire to lash out and do something to keep myself from feeling pain that I hadn't even experienced.
That's when I saw the car.
And now I'd thrown a hard-packed and wet snowball at the car's side panel, doing nothing. The only thing I could do did nothing at all. I thought about continuing the display of anger, but then decided if someone saw me doing so, they would call the police, or something similar. I kicked one of the dwindling piles of snow on the ground, putting little specks across the grass.
People were hurting. Evil things, tragedies, disasters, accidents; they happened all over the world every day and whenever I heard about one I thought I could feel it. I couldn't do anything about it; not even the tiny thing that I allowed myself to do made any difference other than making my hands cold and getting snow everywhere.
I wanted to rage. I wanted to cry. I wanted to shake my fists and go stomping through the neighborhood shouting endless threats at nothing and everything. I wanted to destroy things, I wanted to fix things, I wanted to keep people safe. I wanted to roam the world and keep terrible things from happening to people, forever going to where the next tragedy would hit and keep it from happening. I wanted to save lives -- give photographers that find horrible sights nothing to do. I wanted to put charities out of business. I wanted to . . . I don't know. I wanted to help people.
I wanted to make it so nobody could feel the pain that went through them and into me. I wanted my wife's mother to live, to live forever. I wanted car accidents to result in nothing more than shouting matches and an exchange of insurance info. I wanted earthquakes to mix salads. I wanted pregnancies to only create children, never a weeping mother. I wanted relationships to end with happiness.
It sank away eventually, as adrenaline does. I thought I heard small bells ring somewhere. I came to and realized I had been staring at the car for ten minutes. I must have looked like a freak.
I couldn't do any of those things, the things that I wanted. I had no such power.
I felt empty and tired -- useless. What could I do? How could I help the people that each seemed to have a string tied to me? And every one of them wrapped around a finger, or an arm, or leg, or around my torso or head. And when that string shook thanks to a mugging, or a layoff, or a tsunami, or a broken bone, I shook in response. Billions of them; I was trapped at the center.
I had no idea how to cut them off, and I didn't want to. I didn't want to stop the feelings from getting to me -- I wanted to stop them at the source. At the tragedy that caused them.
I went home, slowly, taking my time. Julie would be gone anyway, with her mother as she breathed her last. I wanted to be with someone so badly but would have denied it. I fell asleep.
It's a few years later as I write this. There was . . . some change. I wasn't a hero, or a vigilante. I didn't know how to start a charity, and we didn't have enough money to give as much as I wanted.
It's taken some time to understand -- and I hope this grows with time -- but feeling the things that happen around you is just part of living. I felt stuck in the center of a multi-billion large net of emotions, and I still do. I understand it's a good thing. Some people have told me they pity me for feeling so strongly, others have said they envy me.
Albert Schweitzer said "The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others." Anne Morrow Lindberg said "Grief can't be shared. Everyone carries it alone. His own burden in his own way." The first I believe, the second . . . I understand, but do not agree with. I thought it quite difficult to let other people know how I felt, but Julie knows, and thinks the world of me. My father is the same way, and he has helped.
It isn't always something that can be pushed back. Finally, Confucious said: "We should feel sorrow, but not sink under its oppression."
It's difficult, Confucious, but learning to accept it is a life-long battle. Many things are.
I must help others. I know this is true. I won't ever hesitate to assist someone if they ask -- even if they don't, often. I will not change that.
Perhaps, by doing so, I can take the strings from my body. Have the other end placed in my hand, so it will not shake. The person that once held it I will keep still, and make the string worthless.
The street was very dark -- clouds covered whatever sliver of moon remained -- and streetlights were few and far between, illuminating only small pockets of the quiet street. It was that unkind, worthless temperature outside, the kind that melts the snow but leaves puddles of water on the ground, and is unable to conjure any kind of real heat, so I still wore a jacket and pants. Off to the south, a busy street thundered with cars even at such a late hour. I had been walking home, trying to come to terms with what had happened, but now I stood ramrod-straight and glaring at the car in front of me.
It was a black sedan with tinted windows, very clean even with all the salt on the roads, and parked unassumingly along the side of the road like the dozen cars on either side of it.
Keeping my eyes on it, I bent down slowly and grabbed a fistful of wet snow from the grass. It was mostly slush now, but I packed it into a harder ball with syncopated pats. Eventually I realized my hands were moving back and forth, but the ball of snow wasn't changing.
I wound up and hammered the side of the car with the snowball. It did nothing -- not a dent, not a mark or scar, barely even a sound. It splashed the snow around and some of it got on the side mirror. The impact spot was wet, but other than that, the car hadn't changed in the slightest.
It was the only thing I could do.
"No, don't take ten, you'll end up on the other side of the lake," Shawn said, watching the sun drop from his apartment. "You need to take a right onto Buster Drive. I know, but it's faster. What, you think I don't know how to get to my own home? That way is faster!"
I glanced at him from the TV as he listened. "Yeah, okay. I'll come get you if that happens, but it won't happen, because I know what's gonna happen. You're gonna get here with time to spare because the way I told you is faster. Whatever, see you soon." He hung up and dropped on the couch next to me. "How you been?"
"Good," I answered. "They're getting here soon?"
"Sooner than they think," Shawn answered. "Taking ten." He shook his head, and we began playing the paused video game. "What a doofus. I could hear Amy trying to tell him I was right, but he wouldn't believe either of us. Boom, headshot!"
"Ech." I dropped my controller. "Weak."
"Why couldn't Julie come?" Shawn asked me as my video man reappeared on the playing field. He was immediately blown up. "Ha!"
"She had a bunch of things to do for her next conference," I said, watching Shawn's screen as he attempted to maneuver around me. "Plus her throat is acting up again."
"That's too bad." Shawn spun his character around and pegged mine between the eyes. "Nice try."
"Yeah, I feel really bad for her. She's had it for so long I think she's just starting to accept it."
"Is that why she married you?" Shawn laughed. I joined him.
"Maybe! That was probably more of a conscious decision, though."
"Sure it was." Shawn, once more, killed my character in the video game. "Boy, you can't do anything here, can you?"
"So it goes." I put my controller down and laid back against the couch.
"Something up? You got that look," Shawn said, continuing to wage violence against my unprotesting character.
"A friend of mine from high school, her husband cheated on her."
"So?"
"So, it made her really upset. And that made me upset."
"Oh, right, that thing. You don't have to worry about them, you know. It's not your problem."
"It isn't something I can just switch off," I said, leaning forward and placing my elbows on my knees. Outside, melted snow trickled over the awning. It was very hot in the apartment. "Even though I'd like to sometimes."
"So her husband cheated on her. Maybe she deserved it!"
"She didn't. I knew her well enough to see that, anybody did. He's just a jerk, but that's not the point. She loved him and she ended up feeling hurt because of it."
"So why do you have to be hurt?"
"Just feel it. I feel so sorry for her. Another friend got in a car accident and shattered his leg, and when he described it I felt like I could feel the pain. Another friend had a miscarraige, and I got dizzy after reading about it."
"Sounds like you're just trying to make it about yourself," Shawn said.
"No! I ache for them; I can't even imagine what I would be like to feel that kind of pain!" I stood up and got a drink from his fridge. "I want to help them feel better so badly." I cracked it open. "But there's nothing I can do. I don't know how to help people like that. If I could I would, without a doubt . . . without hesitation. Earthquakes in third world countries, disasters in other states."
"I remember from college," Shawn said. "You had trouble sleeping after the earthquake in Japan."
"All those people dead, others displaced. I thought about how I would feel if it had happened to me or someone I loved and I wanted to help them so badly. But what was I supposed to do?"
"You donated money! That helps, right?"
"Less than I want. Did you know that some charities end up spending less than one percent of money donated to actually help people? If I could have given money directly to people who needed it, I would have . . . but I couldn't."
"Stop getting so upset man! You did what you could. What are you going to do, start your own charity? Don't give me that look."
"I don't know what else to do."
The apartment was quiet apart from the sounds of the nearby road. I sat back on the couch and tried to relax; I felt stuffed full of unrecognized energy that had nowhere to go. We stayed there for almost ten minutes, waiting for our friends to show up. "They shouldn't be taking this long. I bet Ne took ten anyway to try and prove me wrong." I shrugged. Eventually Shawn's phone chimed, and he pressed a button on his remote to unlock the apartment building's outer door. A few minutes later our friend Ne'igalomeatiga -- whom we called Ne for simplicity's sake -- and his wife Amy -- whom we sometimes jokingly called Am'igalomeatiga -- entered the apartment.
"We took Buster," Ne said after greetings had been exchanged, "but there was an accident in one lane so traffic was bad."
"It was awful," Amy said. "The whole front of the car was smashed up. There was an ambulance there and-"
"Don't say anymore, or this guy's going to have a fit," Shawn said, jerking a thumb in my direction. "He was just telling me how any little tragedy makes him feel sorry for people."
"Somehow you made it into a bad thing," I said, displeased.
"It's not a bad thing," Shawn said, "but it practically controls you sometimes. You gotta learn to let it go every once in a while."
"I try," I said. "It's not as easy as you think."
"That's in no way a bad thing," Amy said. "Some people would call being able to sympathize with people you've never even met a gift."
"It's like a compulsion," I said. "Almost like I have OCD but I have no idea what little ritual will satisfy it."
"All right, come on," Shawn suddenly said. "We're here to have fun, so let's have fun. The person in the car accident was probably fine," Shawn said. "We can be sad and mopey later on, when we get good and drunk."
I didn't drink much -- I never have -- but a few hours later our discussion had long faded away. We watched a movie and chatted and played a board game, and nobody could deny we all enjoyed ourselves. The hours passed. The sun went down, and the road outside became noisier with evening traffic. The apartment finally cooled down.
Our informal gathering was dwindling when I got a phone call from Julie. I answered, expecting a simple when-will-you-be-home line of questioning. Instead:
"Hey, what's up?"
On the other end was a wet gasp.
"Hon?"
"I just got a call," Julie finally said, breathing heavily and clearly saying each word as it was placed in front of her mentally. "My mom's in the hospital with something."
The other three in the room must have seen my expression change; the room went quiet.
"Do you know what it is? Is she okay?" Pressure built in my chest.
"They don't think she's going to make the night," my wife said, and the words -- difficult, as if they were being scratched on a stone tablet -- struck me. "The family's going to see her. I'm driving down right now."
"Okay," I said. My words, if visible, would have been drained of color. I couldn't think straight. "Be safe. Call me when you get there."
"Okay. Bye," she said, and the call ended.
I placed my phone down on the table and watched its screen, wondering if something else would happen. I looked at the others. "Her mom," I said at the questioning faces. "She's come down with something and isn't expected to make the night."
They watched as I tried to fight back tears.
"It will be all right," Ne said, sitting next to me. He patted his thick hand down on my shoulder. "She will survive." I nodded; we both knew the words were meaningless.
"I'm sure she will," Amy said. "Julie's mom is so energetic, nothing will be able to get her."
Shawn got up and fetched a cider for me. "This'll help." I took the drink wordlessly and opened it. The bitter taste almost kept me from drinking, but I did. I don't remember much else of the night, but I left less than an hour later, stating that I wanted to get home before it was too late. I knew I wasn't being the most cheerful guest. I went over the phone call in my head, hoping that Julie would be careful driving to where her parents lived, and praying that her mother would survive.
I lived a little over a mile away, and I started walking home in the dark, late winter night.
What could I do?
I asked myself that question as I walked. I might have been able to enjoy the walk back had events not transpired the way they did. There was wind, and lingering piles of dirty snow, and the sweetness of growth. I couldn't think about anything except what had happened. I hated the fact that in light of such tragedy, something that hurt the person closest to me, I could only think about how terrible I felt. I had drunken energy, a desire to lash out and do something to keep myself from feeling pain that I hadn't even experienced.
That's when I saw the car.
And now I'd thrown a hard-packed and wet snowball at the car's side panel, doing nothing. The only thing I could do did nothing at all. I thought about continuing the display of anger, but then decided if someone saw me doing so, they would call the police, or something similar. I kicked one of the dwindling piles of snow on the ground, putting little specks across the grass.
People were hurting. Evil things, tragedies, disasters, accidents; they happened all over the world every day and whenever I heard about one I thought I could feel it. I couldn't do anything about it; not even the tiny thing that I allowed myself to do made any difference other than making my hands cold and getting snow everywhere.
I wanted to rage. I wanted to cry. I wanted to shake my fists and go stomping through the neighborhood shouting endless threats at nothing and everything. I wanted to destroy things, I wanted to fix things, I wanted to keep people safe. I wanted to roam the world and keep terrible things from happening to people, forever going to where the next tragedy would hit and keep it from happening. I wanted to save lives -- give photographers that find horrible sights nothing to do. I wanted to put charities out of business. I wanted to . . . I don't know. I wanted to help people.
I wanted to make it so nobody could feel the pain that went through them and into me. I wanted my wife's mother to live, to live forever. I wanted car accidents to result in nothing more than shouting matches and an exchange of insurance info. I wanted earthquakes to mix salads. I wanted pregnancies to only create children, never a weeping mother. I wanted relationships to end with happiness.
It sank away eventually, as adrenaline does. I thought I heard small bells ring somewhere. I came to and realized I had been staring at the car for ten minutes. I must have looked like a freak.
I couldn't do any of those things, the things that I wanted. I had no such power.
I felt empty and tired -- useless. What could I do? How could I help the people that each seemed to have a string tied to me? And every one of them wrapped around a finger, or an arm, or leg, or around my torso or head. And when that string shook thanks to a mugging, or a layoff, or a tsunami, or a broken bone, I shook in response. Billions of them; I was trapped at the center.
I had no idea how to cut them off, and I didn't want to. I didn't want to stop the feelings from getting to me -- I wanted to stop them at the source. At the tragedy that caused them.
I went home, slowly, taking my time. Julie would be gone anyway, with her mother as she breathed her last. I wanted to be with someone so badly but would have denied it. I fell asleep.
It's a few years later as I write this. There was . . . some change. I wasn't a hero, or a vigilante. I didn't know how to start a charity, and we didn't have enough money to give as much as I wanted.
It's taken some time to understand -- and I hope this grows with time -- but feeling the things that happen around you is just part of living. I felt stuck in the center of a multi-billion large net of emotions, and I still do. I understand it's a good thing. Some people have told me they pity me for feeling so strongly, others have said they envy me.
Albert Schweitzer said "The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others." Anne Morrow Lindberg said "Grief can't be shared. Everyone carries it alone. His own burden in his own way." The first I believe, the second . . . I understand, but do not agree with. I thought it quite difficult to let other people know how I felt, but Julie knows, and thinks the world of me. My father is the same way, and he has helped.
It isn't always something that can be pushed back. Finally, Confucious said: "We should feel sorrow, but not sink under its oppression."
It's difficult, Confucious, but learning to accept it is a life-long battle. Many things are.
I must help others. I know this is true. I won't ever hesitate to assist someone if they ask -- even if they don't, often. I will not change that.
Perhaps, by doing so, I can take the strings from my body. Have the other end placed in my hand, so it will not shake. The person that once held it I will keep still, and make the string worthless.