A Dust-Up in the West -- Pt. I

Spring neared again to mark the anniversary of what must be considered, although, unfortunately, only in hindsight, a nervous break.Vitality was burnt off at an incredible rate, in effect to humble me. Vitality, it was decided, had to be jettisoned out of season, as it had only ever proved an impediment to the development of a deeper purpose. At my bleakest hour, I perceived vitality, in possession of its own inexplicable consciousness, decide to slink away from me, rather than hazard its purity on a hopeless case. I knew myself to be unequal to its judgement, undeserving of its favor. Thus scorned, a resolution on what experience truly is sharpened. I fell out of time and place. I drove down and through Indiana rather than wrestle helplessly with sleep and turned back once I had seen the refineries. They burned fuel of an unknown description. My car burned its product. I burned time and accrued its residue. Interactions with the toll-booth operators in the wee hours of the morning I tried to breathe like air, imagining their life, what had brought them there, and where they were headed, wondering what awaited them once they returned from their booth. Pollutants reigned over every surface of the toll plaza. High visibility vests, personal effects, and currency endured despite the laden atmosphere. Pollutants reigned over my passage, and I carried grist within my limits into a room I departed hours since. Months passed in hysterics, few the intervals of equanimity, as I took in a unique isolation, but then every description of isolation feels unique, nigh unforgettable. Nigh unforgettable, nigh unforgettable, and gain to chant the words, summons from the bubbling vapors of the cauldron those tribulations once more.

My twenty-fifth birthday loomed when I departed for Ireland, thinking Gary, Indiana was not a sufficiently distant remove to contemplate my crisis. A nine month sting in New York precipitated the condition. I arrived there, I see now, unformed, hoping that the pursuit of New York would exert its influence over me, thereby bringing me to form. My first night I slept on a winter coat. I had a mattress delivered the next day. With the benefit of a moment’s pause, hearing the sound of cars along 9nth Avenue, cognizant of the intermittent sirens of the police station, I would have decided that there was sufficient cause to cut bait and return at once, despite there not being sufficient cause to draw me back. As it was, I did not pause, did not study vitality for signs of discontent, bur rather trusted in its fealty, and felt, to my sorrow, elated.