[Originally posted on the No-Lyfe Journal]



We were in an empty park somewhere. There was a gravel running track around a football field that was remarkably well maintained. There were bleachers, but only one little set on one side. He was there, wearing his characteristic black trench-coat, smoking a cigarette. His long hair covered much of his face.

We met here in a previous dream. I remember it vividly. It was such a haunting nightmare that I stayed awake for a couple days because I was literally afraid of going back to sleep. Eventually my body caught up with me and thankfully I had a different dream when I went back to sleep.

The Wallflowers are playing in the background. I don't know if that's part of the dream or external stimuli. Sometimes when something is playing on my mp3 list, it will find its way into the dream. In fact, it inserts itself into my dream somehow, kind of like this. It's possible that I'm only dreaming of him now because the Wallflowers are playing, or maybe they're playing inside the dream because he reminds me of this song.

I climb up the bleachers and sit beside him. He's wearing a Punisher t-shirt. In the hand opposite of me is a rifle. As long as he keeps it pointed to the ground, I'll be fine. I silently nod to the gun.

Pariah: You could poke an eye out with that.
Dark One: [mildly laughs] You're the one that put it here, Pariah. It's your dream.
Pariah: Pariah? No one calls me Pariah anymore. In fact, I think after we met and became friends, you started calling me Alex.
Dark One: So then why am I calling you Pariah in your own dream, if it makes you uncomfortable?
Pariah: I didn't say that it makes me uncomfortable, but maybe it does in a way.
Dark One: Why is that?
Pariah: I don't know. I guess that it was a part of me that I hoped to leave behind. I chose the Pariah nickname because when I had to pick one, I had self-esteem problems. It was a vocabulary word in a short story we were reading and it just seemed to fit. Last year I started looking to phase out the Pariah moniker because it didn't seem to fit anymore.
Dark One: And now?
Pariah: Now I guess it does a little. It's temporary, I guess.
Dark One: I never thought Pariah fit you. You were the most popular people I knew online. Even in person, you didn't seem like a Pariah like me a Dark One.

The Dark One moniker did fit him well, just as the Pariah one did me, once. Whereas I grew out of it, he continued to wear black and maintain an exceedingly dour and nihilistic view of life.

Pariah: Yeah, by the time we met, I was with Anna and succeeding in college and I didn't feel so outcast anymore. Like I said, that's changed, a little. I don't have the self-esteem problems that I used to, but I can't escape the notion that I have some of the same self-destructive tendencies, despite my keen eye for diagnosing them, some seem to have slipped through the cracks.
Dark One: [glares over at me] Perhaps you shouldn't have dumped Anna, then.
Pariah: That's not what I'm saying. It only tangentially has anything to do with women.
Dark One: So what does it have to do with, then?
Pariah: The way that I've been living. I guess I feel like Pariah in part because of that. I used to more or less exist online. That's how I met people and made friends. The Internet has replaced the BBS, but it's starting to feel that way again. Except now instead of my friends living in Katy or Spring, they live in San Marcos or Waco. I'm beginning to wonder if my ability to keep touch with everyone is starting to prevent me from meeting new people and then meeting... unfortunate... people when I do meet them.
Dark One: What's got you thinking this way?
Pariah: I met someone last weekend.
Dark One: A woman?
Pariah: Yes.
Dark One: But this isn't about a woman?
Pariah: Tangentially. Basically, things with this girl exploded so quickly and destructively that it's making me question everything about myself.
Dark One: It was that bad?
Pariah: Worse. By Saturday night, I thought that I'd met someone really special. I mean, it was amazing, or so I thought. By Sunday night, I was so distraught over it that I had to turn to Ora of all people for help.
Dark One: Ora? Ora Jones?
Pariah: Yeah.
Dark One: Holy shit.
Pariah: Exactly. I would have turned to anyone. I can't remember having felt that isolated in a while. Heh... so I turned to the most isolated person that I know. Maybe that's why she was able to help. Anyway, I just had to talk to someone. The questions were all hitting me faster than I could field them.
Dark One: Okay, fill me in on what happened first.
Pariah: I met a girl named Cathy. Things went great until I discovered that she suffers from some rather serious emotional problems, starting with depression and perhaps extending to bi-polarism or even worse.
Dark One: That's unfortunate.
Pariah: Yeah. What makes matters worse is that this is the second consecutive one. I still haven't shaken off my ex-girlfriend Lisa whose problems are even more severe. Two indicates the beginning of a trend. Not even an isolated trend. It's been off and on since Ora. Before her, probably.
Dark One: Oh, so this isn't about a woman, it's about multiple women?
Pariah: It's about why I feel a connection with people that have serious emotional problems. Not entirely, of course, because Anna didn't have these problems. Neither did Alicia or a handful of others. In the past when it's happened it's been because of something I've been doing and once I corrected it, I started meeting normal people.
Dark One: People with depression aren't lepers, Alex.
Pariah: I know that. I've dealt with people with depression before. You know that as much as anyone else. Hell, the BBS was a cesspool of trauma and heavily populated with people that had such problems. There's something about being behind the safety of a keyboard and monitor that attracts that sort of thing. The thing is... I can't deal with it anymore.
Dark One: So you're saying that if we'd met today, you wouldn't be my friend?
Pariah: I don't know. I do know that you and Ora are the big reasons I can't – or won't – do it anymore.
Dark One: Because we were that screwed up?
Pariah: No. Because... Do you remember Methuseleh?
Dark One: Yeah.
Pariah: One time when things with Ora and I were really, really bad, I told him that I didn't know how I'd be able to go on. Meth had this thing about random threats of suicide where he saw right through it. He was about the age that I am now I guess and he knew that we were all so young that we didn't really mean it. He told me “Fine then, if you're going to go kill yourself just do it. Don't ask for any pity because you're not going to get it from me.”
Dark One: That does seem like the sort of thing that he'd say.
Pariah: It was remarkably effective. Brought me right back down to Earth and confronting my problems more seriously because I knew I wasn't going to kill myself and that if I was going to live and these problems were going to be there, I'd have to learn how to deal with them. It was so effective that I used a variation of it whenever anyone else made the same idle threat. None of them were really going to do it. All I had to do was get them back on track to solve their problems like I did.
Dark One: I see.
Pariah: But then there was you. We'd lost touch for a couple months, which was odd because you were a best friend. You always were a nihilist. I knew that and it made our relationship all the more interesting because I was such an optimist... I never thought you'd do it, Keith. Not in a million years.
Dark One: I never thought you'd leave Anna.
Pariah: God damn it. Things change, Keith. Good relationships go bad and... when you're feeling down and out and at the end of the line, things get better! Things change and nothing is ever hopeless. Things can always change if you want it bad enough and... I just don't know what to do when people insist that they won't.
Dark One: Things don't always change, Alex. Never say to yourself things can't get worse because they always can.
Pariah: That's exactly what I can't deal with anymore. A couple years back Ora and I were talking almost every night online. On five separate occasions, she talked to me about wanting to end her life. I didn't know what to say, really. I didn't know what to do except that hope she wasn't serious and try to talk her down from the ledge.
Dark One: Knowing her, she probably wasn't serious.
Pariah: That's kind of what I thought. I even felt a little embarrassed for believing her. About a year ago I asked her if she thought we spent too much time talking to each other online and in her answer, she told me that there were times if I hadn't been online to talk to her, she wouldn't be alive today. I asked her when and she named three of the five conversations on the top of her head.
Dark One: I see.
Pariah: That hit me pretty hard, too. A little time after that a guy I was really close to was feeling hopeless and said that he was going to do one of two things, and suicide was the second. Our mutual friends scrambled to try to fix it but I just sat there paralyzed... numb. Was he serious? Did I have any way of knowing for sure?
Dark One: Well, was he serious?
Pariah: He didn't do it. But the more I thought about it the more I realized how unable I am to deal with it anymore. I can't be there for anyone 24 hours a day and... if there's one thing you've taught me is that it only takes one time to end it all. It just takes one night of feeling lower than low on uppers or downers and they can throw down the pills or find something to jump off of or... or take a rifle to their head.

He didn't say anything. He grabbed the rifle in his hand more tightly and just sat there, looking out into the empty field. Then he spoke.

Dark One: If you can't deal with it, then don't.
Pariah: That's the decision that I've made. I'm still close to Ora and some others with problems, but I can't take on any more in my life. Yet I have. I'm dating one now, in fact, until I can get out of it.
Dark One: Getting out of it is supposed to make the things better?
Pariah: It'll minimize the damage. Lisa fell hard for me in a short period of time. I can't give Cathy that long. It's more than just relationships, though. I have a friend that puts cryptic away messages about hopelessness and despair... and we don't really talk about it anymore, but I can't keep all these negative influences around.
Dark One: How so?
Pariah: One thing I always tell Ora and anyone else talking to me about their serious problems is that they need to not surround themselves with traumatic people. They need to find upbeat people that won't be able to relate to their condition...
Dark One: People like you, you mean?
Pariah: Ironically. People like me that aren't inundated with it. My point is that it's important who you surround yourself with. So my problem is that I am surrounding myself with the wrong people. There must be something that I'm doing to attract these people... or a reason that I'm attracted to these people. Whatever it is, I need to change.
Dark One: How are you going to do that?
Pariah: Those are the questions that I've been asking myself. I spend too much time online, for starters. People that I meet online are disproportionately likely to have these problems. I announced that I'm going offline for a while and I've been so ever since. I need to find more local friends. I go out a lot, but I need to start meeting more people when I do. Guys, girls, it doesn't really matter. I need to let go of the notion that I'm going to find a relationship or friends online and... well I need to change my behavior in a lot of ways. I think I need to let go of the notion that I don't need to find anyone. I'm happy in my nice, single life, but more than once I've let potential friends and girlfriends go because I've been too happy. Most of the ones that fought my resistence had definite reasons for needing friends... I suspect because they run through them frequently. Or maybe they don't and just find a kindred spirit in me and vice-versa. That's problematic enough, really.There must be something I'm doing to make this happen. Some aspect of myself that is leading to this repetitive occurance. I need to change it.
Dark One: You always did make that sound so easy.
Pariah: Make what?
Dark One: Changing yourself.
Pariah: Yeah, and it's gotten me in trouble before. But to an extent we all change. I used to be able to deal with people with problems a lot better, for instance. I used to be a lot more social. I'm not so much either of those things anymore, and that's both bad and good. However, if I can affect the changes that I go through, then it'll help me get to where I want to go faster.
Dark One: We are who we are, Alex.
Pariah: That's the difference between you and me, Keith. You accept that. I can't. Not anymore.

The hardest part about dreaming of Keith is waking up and remembering that he's gone, no matter how forcefully my dream tried to be clear on that fact. No matter how dead I know he is when I talk to him, he just isn't as gone when I wake up. Despite how close we were, I don't have a picture of him, so my dreams are the only time I actually get to see him.

Except when I think of him, of course, during which times I know every detail of his face. I don't think of him often, though, and he'd probably congratulate me on that. Sometimes, I'll hear a song that will make me think of him and I will want to cry, but I usually don't let myself because I know that the stoic he was he'd hate that.

All we can really do after tragedy is to move on, realize that things will get better, and figure out what it takes to make that happen.

[Epilogue]