Nescience's Coda

This weekend. My mind is still trying to recover from the news and events that made up this weekend. It was only a matter of time before I found myself in the position I did. The greater majority of us experience such a thing at one point or another. But the way it happened, and the events leading up to that event, I will never forget.

Saturday morning. I woke up extra early, and started work on my new wacom tablet. I'm still trying to get the hang of it, and do neat things with it. Probably the neatest trick I'm yet to find out is the elusive secret of drawing something without it sucking. Overcoming that hurdle is the toughest. So I've been working the wacom as of recent, trying to get a feel for it, and I love it. However, it will be a long time before I submit something that's worth the upload, because most of my doodles aren't that marvelous to begin with.

Regardless, I work all Saturday morning on it, and I then decide right after 12 I'm going to call a friend of mine. For privacy's sake, let's just call her Jane. And let's call her boyfriend John. I call up Jane, just to see what's up. She's hesitant to say much, but after a quick conversation, we decide to meet up that day and hang out like we usually do on Saturdays. While I'm driving up, just before hitting the 605 Freeway, she calls me up again.

"I'm glad you called," Jane says. "Things have been going on between me and John. Crappy things."

Jane explains that it has been a tough week between them, with John throwing the occassional tantrumous rage, and threatening to leave her. It's important at this point in the story to note that John would just as easily pack up and leave, if it weren't for the fact that Jane was carrying his child. They're just barely getting by financially, hanging by the skin of their teeth, and now that a baby is in the mix, they're both uppity regarding just about anything. Jane continues to tell me more about what John has done, his most recent odd behavior being going to the Orange County Fair without her. Now, John's dad wanted to meet Jane, so Jane was supposed to go with him to meet the folks, but John left her behind at home and drove himself to the OC Fair.

It's the typical drama you'd expect to see out of high school students. Seeing John exhibit it was a tad unnerving. "So..." I say to Jane, "does this mean that I'm going to be taking you instead?"

"Yep."

I arrive thirty minutes later, we quickly prep up, and then head out again. It's a short hop down the 5 to 405 to the fairgrounds. While heading over there, John's dad calls us up. "Hey, you guys meet me here, I'll pay for your entry." John's dad is one hell of a great guy. Let's call him Skeletor for the remainder of the story, because Skeletor also kicks ass. "However, John has disappeared. I gave him a thorough yelling at for not bringing you here, and now he's skipped off. We can't find him anywhere."

So it gets weirder.

We meet up with Skeletor and John's Aunt at the gates, and head into the fair. It's mostly a "meeting the family" affair between Jane and Skeletor, but I also come along to watch the fair's festivities. Pig racing in particular. Yes. Pig racing. Also, the OC Fair is host to a booth that sells what has to be the most obnoxiously wonderful bacon burger I have ever had. If I had more money, I would have also bought a keg of the barbeque sauce I put on it. It's special made, and goodness, if I wasn't a trained barbeque sauce efficianado, I would have passed out from the very goodness of the combination. And Skeletor told me to put my wallet away when I motioned to paying for it, and he dropped a twenty in place of my own currency.

We discuss Jane's pregnancy, and Skeletor opts to pitch in however he can for it. He doesn't support the idea, obviously, but at the point in the relationship between John and Jane, and considering that John's own irresponsibility is known, Skeletor feels semi-obliged to help out. So God bless him for it. The Aunt also tells us of how she wanted kids of her own, and Jane felt that it would be great if she could fulfill this desire, and at the same time provide Jane with some much-needed spare help for raising the kid.

The time at the OC Fair was very fun, though due to Jane's pregnancy, we didn't do any rides. I did get a number of shots though on the way out, and some of them turned out far better than I thought they did. But the events looking ahead are what cause me to look again at these images, and recall my own mindset of how I was before that fateful evening, and what became of me the day after. There's a point in all our lives when we undergo a certain epiphany, where we find the value in our own lives, and see that there's just so much more to living than what we normally perceive. It takes extreme circumstances to make us realize what has always been there, and it takes the worst case scenario to bring out the best in all of us.

Jane and I begin to drive back home. We were both glad to have met Skeletor, and see just how much he's willing to pitch in for raising her child. Jane's cellphone rings. It's John. He's finally shown up from the woodwork. Jane tries talking to him, but all I hear through the earpiece is John shouting. I'm sitting next to her on a bus, and through a tiny cellphone, I can hear John screaming with unspeakable intensity at her. "It's been like this all week," Jane tells me. "I don't think we should go home just quite yet."

We try alternate plans, finding places to stay the night, and other people to call just in case. But we end up back at her place, staring up into the facade of their apartment. We can see the bathroom light is on. John's home. We think about just going in, getting it over with, and if it's too tough we'll both turn around and book it. Hearing him over Jane's cellphone on the bus was enough to make me NOT curious about his current state. She seemed to share the same sentiment. We both went to a nearby Starbuck's, and I treated her to a mocha frappuccino. We devised a back-up plan, where if things were too hectic, we would take off again and just spend some time at a Denny's, just as an excuse to get out. We conclude on that plan, finding it a casual escape route in case things get hairy, and return to her apartment. We call ahead of time. Nobody picks up. We call again. Nothing. John's just been acting stranger and stranger. We get a call from Skeletor, and he says that he's been trying all night to get a hold of John, but can't.

Jane and I look at the apartment. The bathroom light is still on. We look for motion, but we don't see any. The air is still, the world hushed, as Jane and I stood in trembling uncertainty at her own home. I'll admit it. I was scared. Jane will never admit it, but I wouldn't hold it against her if she was. We both knew there was an irrational human being in that room, and we both knew that the very act of approaching it would be dangerous to both of us. But we continued to walk, unfeeling to the wisps of cold air, just counting our steps. A hundred yards to the front steps. Fifty yards. Thirty yards.

Rounding the corner, I see a police vehicle. Behind it, an ambulance lurches to a stop. Men are jumping out, and running towards the front door. "Oh. My. God. Jane, Jane, I think John has finally snapped! Jane!" I run ahead, following the men in uniform up the stairs to the front door. Sheriff's units stop me, but after insisting on being a close friend, they let me through.

"John! What happened!? The hell is going on!?"
"We got a call," explains an officer. "Apparently, it has hit the fan, and he's ingested a large quantity of pills."

Slam the panic button. "Jane! We've got a problem! John!?" I see him. Oh, heavens. Sweet Jesus. Of all things sanctimonious in the world, preserve me. His arms wrapped over two paramedics' shoulders, John is being hoisted out of the small apartment. His feet are weak, hardly holding himself up. He's pale, except his face, with is glowing flush with red. His neck couldn't even support his own head. It was slunk over like a rag doll. Jane runs up to him, "my baby" she cries. The way she said it, the heartfelt feeling behind it, the combination of countless emotions, fear, worry, anger, and most of all, love. "My baby." She tries to kiss him, tries to embrace him, but he's being carried off so quickly, she can't get an arm around his body.

These five seconds ran in slow motion, a very painful pace, and left behind a series of images that still haunt my psyche as I try to sleep these last few nights. His face. Her words. The crowding of officers and paramedics. The fear of what would happen if we went in there, the fear of what he could have done to us instead, and above all, the irony. We delayed, intentionally, just to find a way to put off confrontation. We tried to find a way to secure him, to sedate him, to get us into that front door hoping that he wouldn't try to abuse her. We got what we wanted. But we didn't want it this way.

We walk inside. The computer is still on. AIM is still open. John had left his AIM name open, with one chat window.
"I'm sorry. I am going now."
He explained his plans to a coworker.
"John? U cant B serius."
"Ar kfld"
"Wut?"
(ten minutes pass)
"John, UR relly startign 2 worrym e."
"Seriusly."

I begin typing.
"Hey, this is David. John's friend. John has just taken an overdose pills, and has attempted to commit suicide. He is currently being taken to Mission Hospital. He was conscious when we got here, and I'm guessing will recover. Were you the one who dialed 911?"
A minute passes before the box comes alive. "Yes, I was."
"I don't care if you're religious or not, but God is smiling on you. I mean it." I gave him a phone number to call, just in case he needed to be updated.

Half an hour later, I see John again. He is hooked up to a heart monitor, and laying down in a bed in what appeared to be a renovated broom closet. It was dark, featureless, windowless, and very narrow. We brought him a spare change of clothes, and a couple stuffed animals, and offered something to eat. He refused the food, but took the stuffed frog pillow. Jane is holding his head close to hers, whispering to him. I've taken his hand, just to see if he's had any strength, and gave a firm grip.

He clenched tightly. It's like a silent message. It's like me saying "I'm here for you, I love you, and I'm glad that I can at least grab a warm hand instead of a cold one." And he responds with "I believe you." John and I frequently joke when in eachother's company, usually about the most inappropriate of things, and this time, all seriousness aside, wasn't any different.

He said "look at this," and started squirming in his bed, showing me that it makes his heartrate go up and confuse the machine. I laughed about it, and so did he, but his laughter subsided back into sobbing. I've never seen a man so frantic. I really felt bad for him. I understood here that even though he survived, at this point he still wanted to end it all. We were in the presence of somebody who had failed at suicide, but wished it succeeded. "Just hang tough," I tell him, "we'll be right outside."

For the next five hours, Jane and I whittle away the time in the hospital emergency ward's waiting room. The room has a dozen people in it, all of various ages and influences. But over the hours, it begins thinning out, as people check out and more check in but leave after staying for an hour or so. At 2:30 am, Jane and I are the only people in there. The activity in the hospital has slowed down to a dull roar. We ask to see John again. "He's asleep," the nurse says. "He's resting, so we mustn't disturb him."

We depart the hospital, stop by a grocery store, find a sympathy card and some frozen pizzas for ourselves. We hadn't had dinner yet. To think, that bacon burger lasted me so long. What luck it was just so fulfilling. We freshen up, and decide to get some sleep ourselves, but return to the hospital around 9. Jane makes one last phonecall, responding to a voice message she got, and finds out through John's cousin that he is awake again, and asked to see us. Fantastic timing we have.

No sleep for us. We get back on the road, swing by a 7/11 for what I call "artificial energy", which is a large Coke slurpee with roughly nine cherry flavor shots in it. It's a real kick in the ass, one that gets the endorphins pumping. Stepping out of the 7/11, I see the crest of dawn. A dull sliver of cerulean is stretching across the east horizon.

"So, Jane, here comes the sun."
"It's a new day, new beginnings."
"A symbol that we are bearing witness to a new future, and through this darkness, light. Excuse me. I'm going to go back a minute in the symbolism."

At 5:30, we come back into the emergency ward. The same security guy is there manning the front door, and he looks tired as well. To think, he does this many nights a week. We ask to see John, he looks at a checklist, and disappears down the hall. He comes back. "He's under psychoanalysis. But he knows you're here now. You may see him soon."

Jane and I hang back, talking more. I'm bundled up in hospital blankets, trying to get a lick of sleep, but even in the current state of mind, the memories of watching him being carried out of the apartment, Jane saying "my baby," the whole pandemonium, it's a life changing event that can't be described as anything short of influential. It's the realization of our own mortality. It's an understanding that people do have the ability to die, and they can when we least expect it. It's like the purity of mind is wiped away, and even moreso amplified by the events at the OC Fair. I look at the photos I took, and think "how different I was thinking then." The fair was the calm before the storm. It was the last bout of innocent thinking. It was the end to the belief that everything happens the way we want it to...

Naivete's end. A revelation that I was to undergo a time where I couldn't act like a child, and needed to be a grown up. Nescience's Coda. Purity's swan song.

John slowly walked into the waiting room. He was standing on his own two feet. He was holding his stomach, his eyes closed, his voice groaning, but for the most part, psychologically stable. "I'm done. I'm going home. I was a good boy, so I get to go home." He said this a lot. "I was a good boy." I swung my car to the front, packed up our stuff, and then went back inside to take him in our arms, and help him walk to the car. It meant so much, the very representation of that. No matter what, we will always take you with us, support you, help you, and love you. I'm your friend, and you're like family. And family is supposed to stand up on its own. Where one rafter falls weak, another will bear twice the weight, all out of necessity to keep the family from collapsing.

The drive home was fairly quiet. The silence was pushed aside for a good minute when John joked about them taking enough of his blood to clone an army. I of course cut in, saying to not be ridiculous, and that if they were smart they probably took enough to clone two armies, just to stay ahead. It hurt to laugh, but he did. Driving home, the sun had peaked above the hills, and was illuminating the clouds from overhead, their arrangements like long strings of pearls. Maybe I was fatigued. Maybe my mind was still racing. Maybe I was just feeling a new admiration towards the spectacles our world delivers.

Maybe it was God, smiling upon me.

It was the most beautiful sunrise I had ever seen. So clean. Crisp. Clear. Pristine. Heavenly. It's one of those moments where I wasn't upset to have forgotten my camera, because I not only wanted to get John home, but also because I wanted it to be a special moment shared just by the three of us. I could have gotten a photo of it, but I still wouldn't share it. It was a display of immense beauty that's best kept between the three of us, considering just how much this sunrise symbolized to us. I could even see John smiling towards it, as if he was seeing the same natural phenomenon in the same light as I did. He smiled. This smile, like he finally realized his own folly, the value of the day, and the idea that no matter what happens, the sun still rises tomorrow. And there's nothing we could be more grateful for.



_____
Yes - Awaken
^(Exerpt)

High vibration go on
to the sun, oh let my heart dreaming
past a mortal as me.
Where can I be?

Wish the sun to stand still.
Reaching out to touch our own being
Past a mortal as we
Here we can be
We can be here.

Like the time I ran away
and turned around
and you were standing close to me.

Like the time I ran away
and turned around
and you were standing close to me.