The Fourth Child - Session 3

(Beep. Music fades in)

No, my lungs are… To tell you the truth, they aren’t doing any worse than they have been. They aren’t any worse than they were. There was a time when things looked better and now they don’t. It’s a temporary thing. It’s the weather, I’ve told you. Chicago got a surprise bonus winter, and my lungs just can’t take the cold. It’s a mutiny, I say. A mutiny! And no, the joke was never funny. It was just a way to shift the conversation away from the misery of such a tightness in the chest and throat. Because no, it’s not fun, but like so much in life, it’s inevitable. Not quite inescapable because back when no one was leaving their homes, I was doing fine. No cold air in my lungs means no mutiny. It’s always been that simple.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

You remember that time, right? How could you not? It seems callous to say nothing much was going on when in reality, everything was going on, but true to those sorts of situations, your fears were at the forefront of your mind, specifically your fears for me. Because you knew you could do something about those. There were steps you could take to keep me safe and you always took them. You always did everything you could to keep me safe.

I know I said things about it that we’d both rather not, but I did not like being treated like a helpless child, and you know that. I told you that, repeatedly. I kept saying that I didn’t do well with feelings of helplessness, but then I realized that this was something we have in common. Neither of us did well with those feelings. We just coped in different ways. You just had more initiative than I did. You did something before I could. You were never as comfortable sitting in it as I was. You were never all that comfortable sitting with just about anything. 

And I appreciate that about you, just as I did all those drastic steps to keep me safe even when the actual science came in and said that was all pointless. I think I told you that. I think I took the time to say these things that matter, not just to everyone else but also to you. But I never sat with my discontentment because it was fun or because I wanted to. It was because I never knew how to do anything else. You showed me what else was out there, and you would always try to nudge me in that direction. It just didn’t take.

And maybe it’s better that it didn’t. All things considered. Maybe there’s still hope for us, and that hope is only possible because you and I have such a different way of reacting to things. You run. You react. Knee-jerk or otherwise. And on the other hand, I’m just here. With it. I’m not afraid of it. I can wait it out. 

Maybe the answer to this was really just waiting it out, and I could have told you that, had I been more confident in myself or in my own experiences. Maybe we were both responsible, in our own ways for what happened. Maybe either of us could have steered away from the worst of the storm, but I can’t help but think that I should have been the captain. Then again, it was you who lit the powder keg, and I can’t control you. I would never control you. No matter what it might prevent. 

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

I know you didn’t mean what you said. Or part of me knew it. Part of me knows that when you’re in the depths of that nightmare, when your wounds are raw and festering, when you’re scared, you’re inclined to say things you don’t mean. I’ve said things I don’t mean in that sort of context. 

Do you remember when you first told me you loved me? Remember how I almost immediately said I was allergic to peanuts so you wouldn’t try to kiss me with the peanuts of your pad thai still fresh in your mouth. It took me three months to come clean. And still, I only did it because you caught me eating the peanut butter chocolates I love so much. I remember the look on your face when I took a bite because there was a moment you genuinely thought I was going to die, and instead, I had to come clean. I had to tell you the truth that should have always been apparent. I’m not allergic to peanuts. I was just scared of the moment that came after you told me that you loved me. 

And the irony of it all is that I was the one to say it first. I started that conversation. I told you I love you. But even that was out of fear. It was me trying to articulate my fear of you. Love brings fear, you know. Because you give someone so much of yourself that you effectively give them the power to destroy you. To break your heart. Or, in my case, what’s–what’s left of it. And I needed you to be careful with me. I still need that, I think.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

I don’t want to make you feel guilty. That’s not why I said that. Okay. look, it’s my fault too, okay? That wasn’t hard for me to say. I need you to be gentle with me.  I just didn’t say it. All those times when you were so worried about me being physically delicate were times I could have explained that there was another thing to worry about. I am delicate, I could have said, but not in the way you think. 

And I would think about telling you. I would think about saying something. But then I’d get off the phone with my mom, and you’d see how badly she wrecked me without even trying or meaning to. Part of me thought you knew. I thought you knew because I took my reality for granted. Or that’s what I told myself. But really, I was afraid to explain it.It was fear. Fear made me silent.

Yet another mutiny perhaps. This time of the mouth, not the lungs, but you know, it’s all one system. Part of all one body. Face it, the human body is terribly unreliable. No one wants to think about that, but maybe if we were more aware of it, we wouldn’t be where we are right now. It’s not that the fight wouldn’t have happened, although that is a possibility. Maybe we wouldn’t even be together at all. Maybe we would have been too afraid to take that or any step. Or maybe that’s just me. 

I always thought of you as the strong one between the two of us, the one that plows through challenges. And I don’t think I’m wrong, but that doesn’t feel like a virtue anymore. Considering that you kind of, sort of, ran right over me to get to the other side of things. And it turns out, it wasn’t even the right side to be on. It was a mistake, you know? Human error, it always gets you. Or I just think it got us.

(Music fades out and new music fades in)

Right now, you’re just down the hall, right? I think you’re grading essays or something. I don’t keep track of what you do. I just know it was pretty awful that the university didn’t give you some time off after your dad died. I also know that it was also pretty awful that when I said as much you waved it off as university politics. Conversation over. You’ve never done that to me before. You’ve never been like this before. 

And I want to ask who are you and what have you done to my girlfriend, but is that what you were afraid of? That this would change you. 

(Music fades out. Beep)

The Oracle of Dusk is a production of Miscellany Media Studios with music licensed from the Sounds like an Earful music supply. It was written, edited, produced, and performed by MJ Bailey. And if you like the show, tell friends about it or the quasi-friends that are still on your social media feeds because social norms evolved before words did, am I right?