Shotgun Divorce

"I think what I'm going to do is shoot her."

"Shoot her?? But why?"

"Because it's like I'm on a frying pan getting fried alive and I'm going out of my mind!"

"Shooting her won't help that. It will only make it worse."

"How do you figure? I need her and it's driving me crazy. Getting rid of her gets rid of her being a problem."

"It's just the opposite. You'll only be adding to your problems. Shooting her won't make you stop needing her."

"But it has to! It's 24/7 fear, anger and depression. You wouldn't believe the agony."

"You fucked up. You had a chance to be with her and you fucked up. That's why you feel so lousy."

"OK, so I fucked up. But now I've got to live and that means without her - which I cannot do. I only ever felt like I was somebody when I was with her."

"That's why you need to keep her around."

"But there's no hope to be with her! And I can't stand the thought someone else is with her getting everything I lost. It drives me insane!"

"Still can't shoot her. It will end your life as well as hers."

"My life is not worth living. I've poisoned and littered my soul in hideous ways. Each day I go down to the river to pour motor oil in just so everyone can know how polluted I am."

"Does that help?"

"Nothing helps! But I can't stop doing it. I hate doing it but I can't keep it inside either. I need to shoot the river too."

"Face it: You will always miss her because you won't find another like her. You told me she's the first person not to make you feel guilty about your intelligence."

"You're not helping."

"Well, you got together in the first place for a reason."

"She thought I was something I was not. She thought I was an honorable person. I kept trying to tell her I wasn't but she wouldn't listen. So if I shoot her I'll finally prove my point. Damn, she's a stubborn woman!"

"You should have trusted her more."

"And she should not trust me at all! I never should have lied to be with her but I couldn't resist. Everything about her made me feel better."

"How did you lie exactly?"

"I didn't lie, exactly. I just sort of kept back facts of my failings. Problem was, with her I didn't feel those failings anymore, just when I was apart."

"So why didn't you go to the meeting with the counselor she proposed?"

"I was too afraid for anyone to know the truth."

"But you sabotaged everything because you wanted the truth out!"

"Funny part is, even with everything that has happened and she finally rejected me I still feel she doesn't know the truth."

"Running away from the counseling session was a mistake."

"I just couldn't face what that the counselor was going to say. I kept imagining it in my head. My failures exposed. She'd see the real reasons not to be with me, not the ones I was creating. The more I thought about it, the worse it got."

"If you had faced up then you'd be over this by now."

"I see that now but at the time you could not have imagined a more terrifying experience. I was paralyzed, it was complete panic. I kept thinking: "Anything but this!" I was absent reason. I did not want to lose her like that, to see the look of disappointment on her face."

"So how do you hope to make things better?"

"Better? How can anything be better? Everything is crumbling around me. Once you start running it never stops. It touches your whole life. I lie to people for no reason now. Baseless paranoia invades my dreams turning even the simplest thing into a nightmare. In my head I know it's groundless but I can't accept that as real."

"So you need to stop running."

"If I do, I'll die! Everything from the past will catch up to me. I still have to keep hope alive."

"Hope of what?"

"Hope that if I'd been honest with her things would have worked out better. She is more understanding than I gave her credit. It's easier to believe the worst so I don't feel so bad about fucking things up. Deep inside I still cling to her. She did me right and then some."

"Want to know what true hopelessness is? Never communicating. When you stop communicating and start living your life in your head it always turns out just like you've described. You think you'll solve your problems by removing the need to communicate but there's no getting around it."

"It's weird. It's like I've stopped even basic communication because when I do I feel all sorts of guilt. I'm out of control...just disintegrating..."

"It rots everything and will continue to do so until reversed. You'll find in a dishonest society where people hold back their true feelings it is the liars and deceivers who rise to the top. That is what happens when you stop facing the truth. Soon, your mantra becomes reversed: you tell yourself you must not communicate at all costs. That's when downfall comes."

"Damn, you really do know about this stuff, doc. You've got it all figured out. I was beginning to think no one had any answers. It does sting a bit going to a counselor now after rejecting it with Amelia. I fear her even more. But there's a price to be paid for past sins, I know."

"Yes, much mending must be done. Do not succumb to the unjust. Those who suffer under an unjust system are made voiceless. Silence your feelings and you become your own tyrant. Even if you gain a worldly profit from that silence there is no end game to it, just forever running."

"I see and understand. When you put it that way, it's easier to perceive it in others. Damn, doc, you should run for office or something. You could fix the world."

"We each have our calling. When I see you next time I hope I can hear a success story of you communicating!"

"Uh, sure, doc. Well, you see, it's like this. Speaking of communicating, there's no way I can pay your 300 dollar fee!"

"What? This is outrageous!"

"You said to communicate! Maybe you were wrong?"

"Never!"

"Well, would you have seen me if I had told you I couldn't pay?"

"Never!"

"Well, fuck, so much for communicating."