Only Time Will Tell
Sometimes I think about what my life would?ve been like if I hadn?t run to catch that bus five months ago. It?s doors were closing, but I ran to reach it before it pulled away. The driver motioned for me to hurry, and I slipped through the doors just before they closed, almost getting caught in their rubbery grip in the process. After paying my fare, I found an empty seat, and began to wipe the rainwater from my eyes. After two hot, dusty summer months a deluge of deluvian proportions had arrived, dumping what felt like an entire lake on the greater Toronto area.
Even then, I couldn?t read anything on the bus ? the vibration of the engine and the road always made me feel sick if I tried, so I sat instead, letting the gentle rhythm of huge pistons and carburetors lull me into a sort of half-sleep.
That?s the way I was when the bus driver failed to negotiate a sharp bend and the bus screamed through a barrier and onto the fast lane of the highway next to the small service road it had been traveling on.
Most of the people on the left of the bus died instantly when it rolled over onto it?s side and a half-dozen cars slammed into it, and I was jarred awake, finding myself hurtling helplessly across my seat towards the front of the bus, where I hit a bulkhead and blacked out.
I woke up two weeks later in a hospital. Initially I didn?t know where I was or remember the crash, but the nurses gently explained to me what had happened, and my mother spent hours crying at my bedside. My head felt like a lump of hot lead had been poured into it. My forehead ached almost constantly, a dull, penetrating pain that traveled all the way down my spine.
?He has frontal lobe brain damage,? the doctors whispered to her, when they thought I was sleeping. I was really just in too much pain to care ? there was a lot of pressure on my brain, which had swollen a great deal, and I blacked out almost constantly while it was healing and returning to it?s normal size during those first five months.
The Elders visited me once, at the beginning of my recuperation process, a few days after I woke up. When they came into my room, they were all cheerful, gently punching my shoulders and telling me how they expected to see me back in the field as soon as I could walk, things like that. Underneath their cheery exteriors, I could sense that they knew I might never leave the bed I was in.
But I proved them all wrong. Three months later, I was walking, albeit with the help of a stick, and even managed to go to the shops every few days to buy a loaf of bread or a pint of milk.
Of course, I was far too ill to attend meetings, and was still occasionally blacking out, so the only thing that gave me even a slight sense of normality was going to the store and buying things for my mother.
Every few nights, she would ask if I wanted to go with her to the meeting, and I?d say no. I was simply too scared of blacking out and causing a scene, so I stayed home.
The Elders didn?t visit me again.
It was during one of my liberating shopping trips, talking with a greengrocer who was one of the few people who didn?t treat me like an invalid all the time, that I had my first episode.
He was helping me bag up some tomatoes when I suddenly felt a strange sensation, something I?d never felt before. I felt like it would be the nicest possible thing in the world to stick the glistening knife lying next to his counter into his throat.
And I did.
And after, I sat down suddenly, my back sending a bolt of lightning-bright pain up my spine as I did so, my heart and mind at a complete standstill. He stood for quite a while, gargling and keening like a wolf cub, finally collapsing on the counter, his blood contrasting beautifully with the tomatoes it spattered on. I remember how it pumped out of the hole I?d made in his neck, squirt, squirt, squirt, as regular as a clock?s second hand ticking.
Luckily there was nobody in the shop at the time, so, as the terror began to clamp my entire chest in it?s titanium grip, I pulled the knife out of his throat gingerly, hating the way the warm blood felt on my fingers, then I put it into my bag and made my way out of the back door, leaving him there on his counter.
There were no cameras inside, so nobody knew who had murdered the friendly greengrocer. The papers had a field day with it, GREENGROCER STABBED TO DEATH, but nobody could figure out why the murderer hadn?t taken any money or anything else from the store.
And I sat on my bed, rocking back and forth, trying my hardest not to cry or scream because of what I?d done. It?d seemed like I?d been a different person for a moment, someone so unspeakably evil that they didn?t even consider themselves to be bad.
I knew Jehovah was going to kill me, after what I?d done.
So I prayed and prayed, begging His forgiveness, but I didn?t feel any better.
Later that week, I was sitting on the couch, watching some afternoon television, and there was nobody home. It was just the cat and me. The cat?s name was Felix, a dumb name for a cat, but my mother had chosen it, and it was her cat, although he seemed to like me, curling up on my lap as often as possible.
Today, at that precise moment, I thought that it might feel really good if I could break his neck, and so I did.
Felix?s neck made this funny clicking sound when it snapped, but it was surprisingly tough, like a birch twig. He snarled when I wrapped my hands around his furry shoulders, then yowled briefly until his head flopped loosely between my hands, just like a warm, fluffy ragdoll.
When I was finished, I wiped a little bit of his drool from my hand, then I buried him in the backyard.
And then I cried again.
?What?s happening to me?? I asked Jehovah that night, tears coursing down my face.
?Why am I doing these things? This isn?t me. I?m a Witness,? I whispered loudly, my subvocalized prayer suddenly becoming a real, tangible thing.
I needed something to fix this problem.
Two days later I talked with Sergei, a Russian guy who lived in my mom?s apartment block. He stayed by himself, and everybody said he was a drug-dealer. Once I?d walked past his apartment and seen a lot of expensive furniture as well as a very big plasma-screen TV in his lounge, so I guessed the rumours were true.
So I knocked on his door late in the afternoon. A moment later, he opened it, his face falling when he saw who it was. It looked like he?d been expecting someone else, not me.
?Can I help you?? he said, his voice gruff. He?d once said hi to me in the corridor, and it was the same voice.
?Maybe you can. You?re the only person I know who can, maybe, maybe help me. See, I need some medicine, something to help me with a problem I have. Sometimes I get really angry, and then?? I started saying, but he interrupted me, gesturing for me to come inside.
?Please, have a seat,? he said, motioning me to one of his leather couches. ?I?m sorry, but I didn?t catch your name??
?Henry. It?s Henry,? I said.
?So, Henry,? he said, closing his front door, ?what exactly is the problem??
?Sometimes I get really angry, and I hurt people, and animals. Maybe. Sort of injure them, you know? It?s like I can?t control myself. I was hoping you had something that could, uh, calm me down a bit.?
He looked at me for a long time.
?You?re not a cop, right?? he finally said.
?No, no. I?m living at home with my mom. I just needing some sort of relaxing thing. Something to help me ease up,? I replied hastily. The last thing I needed was for some Russian drug dealer to think I was a narc.
?Well, Henry, I think I?ve got exactly what you want, which is not exactly the same as what you say you want, but it?s gonna cost you. Two hundred, to be precise.?
?Okay, okay, I can do that.?
?Wait here for a moment,? he said, getting up and returning after spending several silent minutes in his room. He was holding a plastic container that looked like a headache tablet bottle.
?Use one of these each time you?re feeling angry. Careful with them ? they?re pretty strong. Penalty for possession of more than twenty if five to ten, so I gave you nineteen. If you like them, I can always get you more,? he said, handing me the bottle.
I paid and I left.
For the next two weeks, every time I got that funny feeling that had preceded my murdering the greengrocer, I would quickly swallow one of the small red tablets with the little doves stamped into them, and for about the rest of the day I would feel okay, like nothing was really that bad.
The pills always made me feel like everything around me was a movie, something interesting, but not necessarily significant or crucial to my life. I would talk with people and they would talk back, but while the pills dissolved in my stomach and spread their chemical messages through my bloodstream, nothing felt real to me.
I was happy, and was quickly getting better. I even went to a meeting, popping one of the pills beforehand as a precaution, and the whole meeting I spent in a pleasant state somewhere between sleep and waking, where absolutely nothing mattered except getting another pill.
Brothers and Sisters welcomed me back to the Hall, their faces twisted caricatures of caring, but I didn?t give a shit about any of it, about any of their obvious superficiality. They just didn?t matter to me.
Then I began to find that I had a small problem.
Every time I took one of the little red pills, I had one less red pill. They were almost finished. Another thing happened when I used them that was even worse ? I lost Jehovah.
When I?d had a dose, I simply couldn?t think about Jehovah. Every time I tried, there was simply nothing there. It was like there was this hole in my head where God was supposed to go, and it was empty. The pills made it empty.
At first I dismissed it as a minor matter, but it became increasingly bothersome, until I realized that every time I was using the pills, I could remember less and less about Jehovah and his Organization.
I desperately tried reading Watchtowers, any Society publication, but it didn?t help.
And I didn?t like being numb.
But I had no option ? when I tried to stop taking the pills, I felt my hands beginning to tremble again, the way they did before I picked up the greengrocer?s knife, and I would quickly gulp down two or three pills just to be sure.
I can?t go out in Field Service anymore, because I can never remember what to tell people. Who do I worship?
I?ve almost completely forgotten who it is.
So now people at the Hall whisper about me when they think I?m not listening, saying things like, ?He?s becoming inactive,? and ?The brain damage was quite severe,? stuff like that.
I just couldn?t stand it anymore, so I went back to Sergei with six hundred dollars in my pocket, and he gave me a container filled with enough little red pills (he called them ?Alligators?) to keep me sane and stable for months.
And then I took six pills, just in case I lost my nerve.
When I take them, everything becomes calm and crystal-clear, like seeing the whole damn world through ice. Nothing matters, but everything is laid out before you, like a big jigsaw puzzle where you can see the pieces all linked up together. People say things, things happen, causality is maintained.
But Jehovah?s gone.
I try to pray, but the words seem incredibly hollow. He used to be my Father, my Lord, my Sheperd, but now He?s simply gone, upped and left, and I can?t find him anymore.
Sometimes I cry, when the pills wear off for a few hours, because then I can sort of feel Him again, in all His glory, and I cry and ask Him why he?s put me in this situation. To experience His presence, I have to take the risk of killing.
Why does He want me to shed blood just to be closer to Him?
And why does the world seem to brilliantly clear and lucid when I?m not with Him? Why does He cloud my eyes like this?
I didn?t understand it at all, despite studying hundreds of Watchtowers.
That?s why I?m sitting in this car now. I carefully glued a hosepipe onto the exhaust using some silicon glue, leaving it to dry for a few hours, and then I put the hosepipe in the back window, rolling it up so that it clamped it firmly in the gap between the windowpane and the door.
I took six pills to help me not to lose my nerve.
Didn?t I just say that? Yeah, I did.
So the engine?s burbling softly, slowly filling the car?s interior with carbon dioxide. My head aches, but it?s all clear, the way it?s gonna be.
My memory of the next few seconds, what happened after that, it?s all gone.
All I know is I must?ve opened the door. My toe hurts ? I probably kicked the hosepipe out of the exhaust with that foot.
And my car is rolling down a long, lonely road, my foot pushing down harder and harder onto the pedal as sunlight gently warms my face.
Almost dusk, and I took all of the pills. There?s a big, empty water bottle lying next to me.
It must?ve taken ages to get all those tiny red pills down.
And the walls of reality are crumbling, dissolving away under the onslaught of the ice. I think Jehovah?s gone forever, and the world is a lonely, beautiful, and cruel place to be without Him.
Hey, at least my hands aren?t trembling anymore.
Postamble: This is a story. Yours Truly really doesn't know any Russian Drug Dealers, and is firmly convinced that athiesm is obtainable through purely non-pharmaceutical means.