The Last Thing I Have To Say about Cho

Now I'm depressed. I've driven myself just about as far as I can go, and it isn't nearly far enough. I'm sick of this aching old body that carries me through this tiresome life. I use exhaustion as a drug, realizing that no addiction can solve the underlying problem. All my careful calculations about how to maximize my potential still do not allow me to perform with the intensity that I expect or require. It's seeming like a waste. A misuse and a misapplication of energy. What possible payoff is there? I'm not running toward anything. Just running away. That's no way to live.

I always thought I'd be able to have another family. If I were a woman, though, I'd be in menopause. Lucky me, I'm still as fertile as ever. But the more time passes, the crazier I get, and I find myself facing, more and more, the idea that nobody could want me. Pathetic, I know. I'm such a great guy. But I don't even look at women anymore. Why bother. I'm pretty much done with kids, too. Well, not pretty much. Completely. That's too bad, because I had a lot to offer.

I move down a corridor that extends past the vanishing point, and it echoes with the sound of slamming doors.

Self pity? You're such a genius.

There's a young fellow that I have glancing contact with, who went to MIT or UCLA or somesuch when he was 14. All I can think is that I wish I'd had his parents. What an incredible waste. How much of my intelligence went into just surviving the madhouse. I can actually feel it, daily, the weight of the inhibitions and neuroses and now-maladaptive behaviors. Slowing me down, making me actually stupid. My thoughts flow so much more freely when I'm alone. I've taken to just watching the plodding of my brain in social settings. It's pathetic.

But I've found it doesn't pay to let anyone find out who and how I really am. I make my lame little jokes, and give the same breathless speeches on my few pet topics, and otherwise stare off into space listening to molecules bounce off my eardrums. Chance of sunshine? -- slight. Chance of a great freeze? -- overwhelming. Take that young fella I just mentioned. We have really bad communication. Really bad. He's young, and still doesn't get it, about frames of reference. I no longer feel the urge to be Professor Pedanticus. Where does that leave us? Waiting for a long bus ride, when we can have a soulful heart to heart and he'll get the chance to see what Jack is all about. Yeah, right. That's the cosmos, right there. A galaxy of pinpoints, each with its own and correct frame of reference. Surrounded by an infinite void of darkness.

What good is God? A great Prime Mover, he is. Merciful and Just and Gracious, to have set up a scheme for salvation. Thanks for that. But now, right now in a world that shudders with grief and desolation and pain that cannot be forgotten or suppressed, where is this God? How many promises of peace, left hanging like some fruit on some tree. So high, so far, and guarded by serpents. What comfort? We are rescued, if we are, only from hell. Life remains to be endured.

The crippled man cannot run. The mute cannot call for help. The man whose mind is broken, whose soul has been born into a poisoned brain, so that all music is clangor and all communication sounds as a dissonance -- what hope do these have? We must crawl, then, and grunt, and ignore the phantoms of madness in the hope that what is pleasant is not mere illusion. Autistic and schizophrenic, Cho was. Was that his fault? Free will? Speak to the raging sea, and tell it to be still.

I just wish that there were less misery. There are too few saints, and I don't think I know any of them. What? Be one? You be one. Fruit will just fall into your hands.

Maybe I'll start fasting.



J