Anthology Complex (2 page)

I start to wonder if she is always in a hurry because she wants to be in
a hurry, like a piece of rock moving through outer space on some pointless
voyage to nowhere. I start to think, are people the way they are simply because
they are that way, and they want to stay that way. They want to keep being that
way. If this is truth then that would mean, according to the aforementioned science,
that people can never change. Not unless a force comes along and changes them.
Maybe a force such as love, or hate.

Chapter 3:

SIXES AND SEVENS

There are those who will tell you that numbers, mathematics, have the
potential to answer every question there is out there. That if we can
understand them, they will reveal the truth. Uncover something we have been
looking for the answers to for so long. The problem is that mathematics alone
is just numbers, formulas, equations. It's only when these numbers are applied
to something that they have meaning, possible comprehension. It's when they are
applied we have a science. Science, the language we can understand.

The apples on the table is simply one minus one gives you zero, or one
plus one gives you two. However, when we apply the idea that this apple is
being taken away from someone, that this person may starve and die, we
understand what these two equations really mean.

A few nights ago I woke up at six a.m. because I had to go use the
bathroom. I'm in there, relieving myself, when I hear someone yelling at
someone else. At first I say to myself, "This early in the morning?"
But then I start to listen, I even lift up my window a little bit so I can hear
the words more clearly.

A man is yelling at a woman. He yells about how he is always late for
work because she can't complete a simple task. On her end, all I can really
hear is sobbing, but I can feel her regret. I close the window, flush the
toilet and turn off the light as I exit, and I go back to sleep.

Last night, I had a dream where I woke up at seven a.m. because I needed
something to eat. I go to the kitchen and make a less than desirable sandwich,
and not a second after my first bite I hear someone talking to someone else. I
put the sandwich down and out of curiosity I lift up the window a little bit so
I can listen to what's being said. A man is talking to a woman. The man asks
the woman if she got the car from the repair shop and brought it home last
night. She says she forgot. The man comments on how she is always forgetful,
and out of nowhere she rips into a furious rage.

She starts to yell as if she were bottling up so many years of regret
inside herself. From what I could hear, the man didn't yell back, he just
leaves for work. I close the window and leave the kitchen, forgetting about my
sandwich. Forgetting about turning off the light. When I get back to my bed,
there is a woman lying in it. I lay down next to her but I can't see who she
is, and then I wake up.

I'm laying in bed this morning, and all I can think about is why I would
have a dream about my discontented neighbors. I keep thinking about why they
are so different in my dream than in real life. Probably the same people, but
different actions and reactions to an event. I start to wonder if there is a
mathematical formula out there that determines what kind of person someone will
be. What kind of person someone is. How they will react to a certain event. Can
I write down these two peoples' equations and finally understand, finally know
who they truly are.

There is a man named Joe in my apartment building. He lives right across
the hall from me. Sure, I can know Joe, but I can never really know Joe. I can
know what he likes to watch on television, what he likes to eat for lunch, what
type of women he prefers, but I can never truly know Joe. I can never truly
know Joe the same way one person can never truly know another person.

But still, I wonder if there are a group of numbers I can apply to Joe's
behavior, to Joe's habits, to find out who he is so I can truly know him. Just
to understand Joe. And when I wonder that, I wonder if I can find out who I
truly am in the same sense. Just to understand myself.

I'm still laying in bed, and I start to think about the times that I
woke up. Six, seven. Two different times, two different outcomes. Two different
numbers, two different results. If I had waken up at five or eight how different
would the outcome be? How different would the result be? I would probably be up
too early to hear them or wake up too late and just miss them. I start to
wonder if fate has anything to do with it. The objectivity of fate. Was I
suppose to wake up at six in this life, and suppose to wake up at seven in the
dream life?

I get up out of bed and go to the window to find it is raining extremely
hard. I look down my street, down a row of parked cars, and even further down I
look, and I see an intersection. I look down even further, and I see the next
set of parked cars. I ask myself how much longer this can go on. How much
longer it can go on.

Chapter 4:

THE BEFORELIFE

I take a composition notebook down from the shelf and I flip to a random
page. I find a dream that I had in January of last year. In the dream I'm at a
funeral for someone, I couldn't really tell who. There are many people around,
some that I know, some that I don't know. Most that I don't know.

We are all just standing there, no one is crying. There is so much
mystery surrounding death; almost anyone will wonder where we go after we die,
if anywhere. Despite the fact that in most religions the forthcoming idea is
incorrect, I'll say that many groups of people believe that if you are a good person,
you will go to a good place when you die, and if you are a bad person, you will
go to a bad place.

This creates a sort of judgmental role to be taken place in the
afterlife, and gives birth to the concept that we as human beings are split up
in death. Depending on the judgment, some of us are sent to a good place and
some of us to the bad place. Furthermore, if there is an afterlife, and there
is a nowlife, it is perfectly logical to assume that there is a beforelife, our
existence before we are sent here, to this life. The question that must be
asked is if we are judged when we are in the process of moving from the nowlife
to the afterlife, why aren't we judged or split up when we are moving from the
beforelife to the nowlife.

If we assume that there are good people and bad people in this world,
then judgment and separation is absent and from our basis this would be
incorrect. If we assume that there are only good people or only bad people in
this world, then perhaps we were actually separated when departing from the
beforelife. The only problem is that it may be impossible for we as human
beings to ever know what is truly good and what is truly bad.

I try to be a good person. I try to be a decent person. I follow the
instructions in life. Stop at red. Don't hit your sister. Go to college. I do
all of these things, I follow the instructions word for word, but in the end I
get nothing for my obedience. Well I guess I do get something, I get to lose my
mind. I get to conform and lose my mind just like most of the other people who
follow the instructions.

After I went to college, after I got what I needed to be successful,
there was still a chance that I could end up homeless. The truth of the matter
is that a formal education is not the only thing to consider. So instead of
becoming homeless I become aware, and that's what eats away at you the most,
that's what makes you lose it. Becoming aware of human nature. Sometimes I
wonder if it would pay to be bad. To not follow instructions. To pass red lights.

I put the notebook back in its spot, and I go into the kitchen. As I
pass by I notice that the garbage can is empty. Empty garbage bag. I stop and
stare into it. Eventually I start daydreaming about the garbage bag being
filled with those notebooks that I keep. Maybe I want to get rid of this
addiction. Maybe I need to. Before the next thought can come through I hear
something bang the wall near my door.

Well, at first I'm not sure if I heard anything, so I wait for a few
seconds and then I can hear people talking. "Move it to the right." I
go to my door and look through the peephole. This fisheye view.

I can hear people but I can't see them, so I open the door and I see two
men moving furniture into the apartment next to Joe's. I go to my window and look
outside, I was right, there are people moving into the building. I'm looking at
the rear of the moving truck to see what's inside, and then I see a tiny woman
get out of the passenger side of the truck. I didn't really notice it at first
because she's wearing a long dress, but she has a prosthetic leg. She has a
fake leg because somewhere along the road her real leg must've been taken away
from her, by something or maybe someone.

I ask myself, what would I do if I lost a leg, I try to figure out how angry
I would be. How angry I would be at myself and the world. I try to figure out
how much of a disadvantage someone like her is at, and how much stronger she
has to be because of it. How much bitter. Not too long after I see two kids get
out of the same side. They all go to the rear of the truck and begin to grab
things and help bring them inside into their new apartment.

I run back to the peephole and see all three of them as they walk past
with these things in their hands, I can hear the woman who I assume is their
mother telling them a joke. I know the joke, but when I first heard it a long
time ago, it didn't make me laugh. When she's done, I can hear the kids
laughing. The joke still doesn't make me laugh, what makes me laugh are the
laughing kids. That high pitched fast paced laugh that kids have. It's not
until we get older that this laugh becomes low and drawn out. Trying to figure
out when it's appropriate to laugh and when it's not.

The moving goes on for some time, and then I hear the truck engine
start. I go to the window and I see the truck sitting there, but running. It
sits there for a few minutes, and I look around trying to figure out where the
two men are. Where the family is.

Finally I see the two men walking from the front door of the apartment
building and they enter the truck. As they are driving away I can hear someone
walking through the hallway. I run to the door and I look through the peephole
and I see the woman walking by. I hear a door open, and then a door shut, and
then silence. Silence. Silence. And then I hear a door open again and I look
through my peephole. I hear footsteps, but I see nothing. Nothing. Nothing. And
then I see that yellow dress and the tiny body inside it.

She's standing in front of Joe's door, as if she is going to knock on
it. I can only see her backside, but I know that her face is full of some kind
of confusion. She waits there, just stands there, for at least a minute before
she finally knocks. An extremely soft knock, as if she was sorry to bother
whoever lived there. That tells me that she either doesn't know Joe or that she
is afraid of Joe.

There is no answer to her knock. She knocks a little bit harder this
time, but she still gets no answer. Joe must not be home. Where would a person
like Joe be? It's not enough to not know who Joe is, but what would Joe be
doing right now. Maybe Joe can be defined by where he goes and what he does
when he gets there. I'm standing here thinking about Joe and suddenly this lady
in yellow turns around, looks at my door and walks a bit closer. That slight
limp.

I feel the center of my chest clutch and I back away from the peephole. I
just stand there in front of the door, knowing that I will hear a knock soon.
Soon. Soon. The knock comes. I start to wonder what this woman could possibly
want with me. Perhaps she knows Joe, but I'm certain she doesn't know me. Not
literally or philosophically.

I open the door and I'm staring down at this smiling woman. I can do
nothing else but smile back. She greets me and tells me she just moved into the
building. I welcome her. Then she goes on to tell me that there was one small
problem with the move. I ask her what that problem is, and she tells me that
the moving men didn't put the children's television in their room, and that the
cabinet that they were suppose to put it on is pretty high. That the television
weighs a ton.