It's been a long time gone and even now... I have no idea.
Tuesdays are meant for dreamers yet I don't dream. Who the fuck knows?
Let's make something of it even if it is a total mess.
And here I ramble and it occurred to me that I speak in broken quotes.
And what the hell... I rhymed that... Whatever man.
I'm far beyond uninspired. This story is like... a complete disaster. I have no direction nor do I have any drive. Ya know... I think I'm going to say fuck it all and just... go with it. Maybe Brice isn't that good after all... Sorry for it being so damn something.
This story can almost make me cry... if I ever cried, that is. Dr. Barry – knew someone like him once. I hated him, too.
And... Join me and crash at the forum. COME ON. We're talking to ourselves, now.
Side note: Is IS even set in Toronto? I guess I've just always assumed...
Chapter 6 / Like Children Often Do
What have they done to her? Tommy drove aimlessly around downtown Toronto, soaking in the skyscrapers ravaging the skyline and the swift changing traffic lights. He barely took notice of the colors, garnering a few honks and screamed obscenities his way. He shrugged it off, mindlessly slipping in Jude's CD for old time's sake. He drowned himself in the sorrows and triumphs hidden behind every chord change, vibrato, and song he matched to pasts gone so far by. It felt like a bad fairy tale read before an evening spent with nightmares. So many of those songs spoke to him on so many levels; good, bad, somewhere in the land of blues and greys.
Just to hear her sing to me one more time...
He tried but couldn't make sense of their visitation. Her whirlwind emotions and rapid shifting from high to low to grappling to hold straws confused him. None of it seemed to follow a pattern or fit into any mould he could conjure to squeeze it into. And again, the words taunted him in playground fashion. You're so fucking beautiful, Quincy. Loving you hurts. He winced at the recollection, smiling nonetheless. She thought he was good. The brightest and most shimmering person in his entire existence thought he was good, even if it tore her up.
He couldn't stand knowing that he was destroying her by way of her own love for him. The dichotomy was much more than a compare and contrast between x and y. It summed them up perfectly. Live to love and love to live, feeling hate yet hate the feeling – all so much good wrapped and captured in the opposing bad. It was the point of the game, meeting somewhere in the middle. He wanted her in his middle and wanted to find hers.
He paused the CD, pulling into the parking lot just above the pier he'd worked his way to. He exited the car and slowly made his way down to the edge of the dock. He turned to look at the now lonely and cold bench, feeling the clichéd abundance of joy remembering the two of them sitting there and working on her first professional song. It all seemed too storybook to even imagine now, everything folding and unfolding with the worn edges of an ancient note passed between class bells and locker slams.
Check yes or no, Tom.
He wanted his girl back. He wanted her with him on the weekdays and daring him on the weekends. He wanted her to smile, to laugh, to stare at things in the weathered exuberance that made her look so lovely at dawn. He needed to feel her hands exploring his face. He needed to hear her talking for no other reason than she could. He needed his synapses scorched by the fire that raged when she said his name. Brice wasn't making her better. Brice was teaching her to be animalistic and to fear everything she couldn't see. Brice was making her cold and zonal. Brice was killing her and all that she wanted to be. Brice was the antichrist to her deified existence.
Tommy pulled his phone from his pocket, praying to let the caged bird sing not for freedom but to sing within it.
"Yes, I need to know what I have to do to check out Jude Harrison."
Tired and trembling trepidation brought Jude to the unseen wearing of Doctor Barry's heavy oak door. She rapped silently against its matte finish, hoping he didn't hear her or was busy with someone else. He swung open the door in anxious fervency, clearly shocked by the frail girl's presence.
"Jude, can I help you?"
She pushed her way past him, finally taking in the surroundings she'd seen seven times since her admittance. The walls hung in dark draperies, a muted mix and match of cold caramel and chocolate taupe. His formidable desk of ebonized cherry sat precariously amongst white cardboard boxes with nondescript black magic marker written on the sides to give some coded peek at what laid just beyond their loose lids. A steaming cup of something was placed on the edge of a manila folder splayed out in their disrupted file system. A bright teal swash of color was the only brightener to the dark space she hated and dreaded seeing every time she whispered the conversations she had with herself.
She sat herself straight backed in the patients' chair, motioning for him to follow suit. He did as was instructed, looking over the two fingers that tapped along his upper lip. She hated his arms. The way they seemed so big and lumpy and how they made all of his shirts not meet his wrists. She hated his fat, angular face, and the unfriendly blue eyes that stared at her in silent contempt. She hated his lazily pieced together hair, and how it fell over his oily forehead semi-masking the deep creases that settled in when she cursed or brought up things she wouldn't discuss. She hated him, but he was the only bearer of knowledge within miles of her confinement.
Jude coughed slightly, brushing her fingers along the white marks where her rings used to rest for her playing. She stared at the doctor, already full of venom but swallowing the poisons she wanted to unleash.
"What's wrong with me, Doc?"
"What do you mean?"
"Just what I said. What is wrong with me? Am I just 'crazy' and that's it? Why am I like this? There has to be a name for it. I mean... I..."
"Where is this coming from, this anxiety?"
"Don't start with the questions, ok? I have to know. I'm here for a reason, right? You've doped me up for a reason. There's a reason I'm angry but empty yet still wanting to die. What the fuck is wrong with me?"
The doctor took in the sight of his frantic patient, the anger an over gloss for the tears that glazed over every paled feature. He leaned back farther in his char, resting his hands across his stomach.
"Borderline and schizotypal."
Jude's shoulders sagged at the final diagnosis and labeling of everything she'd struggled with for so long. Not that it clarified the matter at hand or even made it easier to process; it just finally gave her something to call it. She again looked around the room, seeing how unorganized it looked compared to the organization she was trying to give her mind set. He'd given her such a short, clear cut answer that it seemed that it should be that simple to sort out his papers and trite collections of picture frames and coffee cups.
She stared at her wizard of psychological mastery, still not knowing what her labels were.
"What does that mean?"
"The borderline part explains the mood shifts and distinct attachments and detachments. The schizotypal part explains your delusions and affect."
"Oh." She didn't feel any better with the explanation. She took his words at underlying value, confirmation that she really was crazy and deserved to be there. She hated him for making it all seem so simple, so black and white. It wasn't what she'd hoped for. Some part of her wished it would have explained all of the darkness and troubles she ran at and through. She wanted it to explain why rather than what. She wanted it to fix her.
Too little, too late Monsieur.
"Are you ok, Jude?"
"Of course. I'm going to go now. Sorry for coming by like this." She stood to leave, taking one last look around. She shook her head to the sad little man with his sad little office in such disarray. She closed the door soundly behind her, letting the labels get the best of her. Crazy, crazy Jude...