―Terence McKenna
In the Inferno
I have a bleak outlook on things. I expect the worst, so when it happens, I'm not disappointed. This jaded outlook has preserved me from many a heartache, Brooke Henderson included, but it's also prevented me from other relationships that might have succeeded and perhaps even fulfilled me.
It's the oxymoron of my existence and it's not just clever wordplay I'm indulging in here—my dark humour and natural cynicism are my armour so much so my default responses are yeah-no and seriously funny —but truth is, I'm conflicted and a dangling man.
I'm a contradiction in terms and as Hamlet says—it's pure wormwood.
So, riddle me this—Ben Church, my assignment editor, who even more than me, despises metaphysics, sends me on the errand of interviewing a clairvoyant—and not just any medium, as it turns out, but this long-lost love I spent only one night with in Spain. And what do we do, but revive a long dead flame?
Any sane person would get the picture—this is theatre of the absurd and a complete upending of the rational order in which we all move and live out our existence. In all probability if Angelica had stayed with me in Ibiza, I would have seen the madness of her outlook and rejected her 'vibes' and we both could have moved on to other people. But no, she had to be the one that got away and that endowed her somehow with an air of mystery that's endured in my dreams, punctuated by her haunting beauty.
But I don't need this mystical element complicating my mind—I have trouble enough now with nightmares and depression without adding to my angst with Angelica's portentous premonitions. I'd chuck the whole thing but I'd be out of a job. This assignment itself has turned into a nightmare.
There's only one thing to do—default to Art Tucker and pray the has the wisdom to deliver me from this inferno.
If this Pandora myth contains any wisdom it’s this—some doors are not meant to be opened.
”I think you’re conflating several things, Zach.”
Art wasn’t sitting behind his ‘resolute’ desk like last time, nodding assent and steepling his fingers—no he was pacing like a caged animal, picking up on my angst.
“I thought you guys were trained to avoid patient-doctor transference.” I know, it was a childish taunt, but I expected more from him.
“You want me to give you permission to walk away from this situation, and frankly, I’m not going to do it.”
“And why the hell not?” I spat out, exasperated at his refusal.
Art slumped wearily behind his desk, apparently resigned to the futility of arguing with me.
“You need to work through this yourself,” he sighed, “I’m not your guru—and for that matter, neither is Angelica.”
“What about this feeling of doom oppressing me?”
“I can write you a script for an anti-depressant, but what you really need to do is take yourself by the ear and confront what you’re avoiding.”
He was right—I was avoiding a lot of things in my life—had put them on the shelf, so to speak, and now the weight of them was causing the shelf to sag under the weight.
I hated being wrong, but worse than that, I hated Art being right about my desire to run away.
Maybe Armageddon wasn’t just around the corner; maybe it was my past, haunting me in dreams.