Frankly Told: Still People
Thunder rumbled in the distance. Raindrops pelted the roof like they had a vendetta against the dry interiors of the office. The wind rattled the glass pane windows threatening to rip them off their hinges but they held on.
He lay across the sofa with his arms wrapped around one of the throw pillows. She sat across the room in a high back armchair with her legs crossed, writing something on the clipboard on her lap. For the first time in a long time, the silence was comforting to him, so much so the words were having a hard time leaving his tongue but he pressed on.
“I believe, in the multiple realities that exist, there is a world that has a version of me I would like to sit and have a conversation with,” he said in one exhale.
“Oh? And why would you want to speak to that one version of yourself compared to the rest?” she asked in her calming voice.
“I don’t know,” he reasoned. “I think that they are likely to exist in a world totally different from the one I live in because they took a different path in life. I wonder what that looks like.”
“I see,” she nodded. “So what do you, particularly want to hear out of this other you?”
“I can’t really say,” he responded. “I never get that far in the thought.”
He sat up and flipped his legs off the sofa in a graceful motion. The pillow remained lodged between his arms and his chest. The white noise of the rain somehow paced his running thoughts and he walked through his session with a sureness.
“Do you ever feel stuck?” he asked her.
“What do you mean?” she inquired.
“Does life ever feel like you are the hamster on a hamster wheel and you are running and running and running, but still in the same spot?” he expounded.
“I suppose I have had moments where I have felt like that,” she responded.
Silence resumed its captive hold on the room. He looked at the clock on the wall and traced the second hand that silently swang around the face in a continuous motion. Perhaps he imagined it but he could have sworn that day was the first time he heard it tick.
“I feel like that is where I am right now,” he started again. “Recently, I was catching up with my friends from primary school and while it was a great nostalgic experience, I remember driving home feeling this pang inside. I remember how for a lot of the questions we asked one another my answers all seemed to start with ‘still’. It concerns me.”
“How do you mean?” she asked, sliding her glasses from her face.
“I mean we talked about everything, from careers to relationships to goals and dreams,” he sighed. “Theirs were quite something. Everyone is moving strides to everything they want in life. You know six-figure deals, big cars, beautiful wives or fiances, dreams and ambitions bigger than themselves.”
He stood up and tossed aside the pillow. Walking towards the dispenser, he poured himself a glass of cold water and downed it in countable gulps before he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and continued.
“Me?” he continued. “Still paycheck to paycheck, still going back to an empty apartment, still driving that car I bought when I could finally afford enough to take out the loan for it. Still dreaming of things right at my nose.”
She only nodded and maintained eye contact with the man as he run his thoughts. Outside the rain slowed to a light pitter-patter.
“My father once said,” he puffed his chest. “While a rolling stone gathers no moss, it is one that has the best stories to tell the valley where it finds its rest.”
He pivoted on his heel and strode back to the sofa where he placed the pillow neatly before he sat back down slowly and cautiously.
“There is a point, where I didn’t care about having stories because I was always comfortable with where I was,” he surrendered. “Now I sit here, poked by life and it is like I lost that bit of the man in me that wanted to prove himself so badly.”
“I’m scared that the stillness I tried so hard to pursue brought with it complacency,” stroked his goatee.
“Does this mean you no longer seek stillness?” she prodded, after a beat of silence.
“No no no,” he shot back. “If there is some way that I can get the burning flame of something in this stillness for a little while then I can sit in hot water and find in it some strength to move these mountains.”
She looked at her watch.
“I see. Well, that’s our time then,” she put aside her clipboard.
“If I could offer some parting thought,” she continued. “I believe still people are never really still. Like the water in a dam, they are learning to hold their potential before they find some way to make it positive when they do decide to fall back into the meanders. Perhaps, there is a lesson to be taken from dammed water.”
“Interesting,” he stroked his beard once more, standing to bid her goodbye.
“Still people, like dammed water,” he nodded as he shook her hand and turned to walk out without another word.
“Well back to work then, I don’t pay you to be your therapist,” she ushered him out.
