A Turn for the Grisly - A Screened Word Story for Adults

My latest therapy appointment has come and gone and look what it amounted to.

Zilch.

I didn’t care anymore how successful or unsuccessful it was. All I knew was that the usual answers my counselor, Jonathan Pertch, left me with were the same old bullcrap he always pestered me with. The kind of advice where they’d expect you to better yourself and try out different methods of self-readjustment.

But no. Nothing that he said to me, my family, my friends, or anyone else, nothing that he said to me would make me forget how sure I was that I let my wife and kids down.

Let me explain what happened and make one thing clear.

My wife and kids were the most valuable treasures a guy like me would ever have asked for. My wife, Jeanne, was a sweetheart, loved our children like there was none other than them, and was a successful model. My kids were all the rage, too. They’re a knockout in school. My big boy, Damien, just became a pro at football, and my angel of a daughter, Jenny, was on the verge of speaking and walking, and at 2 years old, no less! My family was truly something else.

However, only one thing had to curdle its way in between what we held so dear to us.

You see, ever since I was just around Jenny’s age, I’ve always been fixated on girls, and I mean, any girl. In fact, when I say that, I’d usually mean I paid too much attention to their bodies. Let’s put it that way. Due to what I felt from it, it mutated into a sort of addiction I couldn’t shake off.

My parents and brother, Sam, caught on to it, and just after I was getting the hang of keeping it private, too. So, when I was caught with my pants down and scolded for my lurching around, I did my best to veer clear away from the objects of my desires. But one way or another, whether from advertisements, billboards, beaches, social gatherings, and so on, my addiction always found a way to sneak its way back into my life and make it a living hell.

I felt like I didn’t have the best luck with this, too, because I had gone through my whole life as I normally meant to do, with getting good grades in high school – and in college, too – making good friends and holding on to them tight, finding some good jobs, and making good business with whatever clients I could’ve been fortunate enough to work with. I was not what you’d call a man’s man. The friends I did make, I could tell how much they were my friends if they simply greeted me when I went about my business. Everyone else seemed to either be busy with something else or, at worst, turned their heads away from me.

What did that matter, though? Even if I had better luck with them in real life than online, I had gotten that rhythm down, first after going through it in Spokane, and then in Colorado Springs shortly after my family and I moved there. My family and I walked downtown once, and that’s when we ran into a nice, young lady who seemed just most agreeable to me, and she was just walking by. I’m speaking, of course, about Jeanne.

After a quick chat, my parents got her phone number, and they, along with Sam, encouraged me to give her a quick call and let nature take its course. Once we met up again, we started to hit it off well, and from that came more dates to leave us both in cloud nine. Jeanne had a lovely face, a pretty disposition, a slender body, and a generally mellow personality, and the more we got together, the more we fell in love with each other.

Ten years had come and gone, and after all the nagging and bragging about our negotiations, we decided to finally seal the deal with our union. I wanted to pull out all the stops with our wedding, but the way it turned out, I don’t think we could’ve sealed the deal any other way, or in any better ways that it had already played out.

Soon after, we settled near Missoula, where we would’ve always woken up and been greeted with the beauteous wonders of the Bitterroot Mountains shining in all their glory, rain or shine. What’s more, Jeanne told me once upon a time that one of her favorite pastimes was to take long, early morning hikes up in the mountains. I’ve always wanted to engage in more exercise routines, anyway, so this seemed like just the ticket.

But even that did not compare to what more Jeanne and I had done when we decided to take what we both thought already felt like a flaming, passionate relationship to the next level. The love we shared went on to be made, and we made it like there was no tomorrow. And wouldn’t you know it? God blessed us with Damien, my big boy, already on his way to becoming a man. And soon after that, Jenny, my lovely little angel, came along, and we feared she was not going to last long. She was a little later in making it out than was considerably normal for babies. Nonetheless, watching her grow and develop, not to mention cheer other people up as they approached her, just made me warm up deep inside. I could tell from her responses that she could tell who was trustworthy and who was not. I could see her already shaping up to be a sharp, observant young lady, the kind who other boys would be proud to have on their side.

However, every time I thought back to my college days, there were some experiences that I had nothing but regrets over, and they began to catch up to me in the worst way and in the worst time possible. One day, my wife peeked into my Facebook posts from my college days and stumbled onto one post that highlighted one of my friends’ nights out, and that was back when I counted on my good buddies for good drinks and drugs to keep myself at bay. Originally, I didn’t want to give into it, but I figured, if I had done only a small amount at a time, then what’s the worst that could happen?

Apparently, when people say you shouldn’t do drugs, they meant it. That night, my friends and I had really smoked a joint, and I became the highest I had ever been in my life. And man, what an idiot those drugs made me! During my high, my mind was at its most unfiltered, so whatever what went through my head, I simply blurted them all out with no time or thoughts to reconsider exactly what I was blurting out. And among them, of course, was my history of the fixations that I had since childhood.

My wife had stumbled onto the Facebook posts that went into greater detail on what I had blurted out during my high. I did not even think that I would’ve written that post, let alone any social media post, about what I went through or what was on my mind during that exact phase. So, I should’ve known better than to succumb to the drugs promised to me by my friends – so-called – and just gone about my business.

But nope. There Jeanne was, reading what went through my head that day, and she cornered me as calmly as possible, asking me if I really meant what I said in that Facebook post about my past faults. At first, I didn’t know what she was talking about until she showed the posts to me. Looking it over, I felt a wave of memories and fast revelations crashing towards me, and it left me sick to my stomach. It wasn’t just because I had never seen this before. In fact, I didn’t recall visiting my Facebook account regularly or keep tabs on my friends from way back when. I was more nauseous over the idea that this chaotic, crazy night was documented at all. As easy as it would’ve been for others to have made some comments about it, which, at one point, I did see in one of my friends’ Facebook accounts, what I had written went into even greater detail about my past faults. How that made it into Facebook, I’d never know. Unless the drugs made me enjoy it too much to recall that I had written it.

Regardless, however, there it was, for the whole reading world to see, and now, my wife was there to see the whole show. No wonder my friends did not engage with me online after that.

After that, I told her the whole story of what I had gone through, why I had gone through the things I went through because of my addiction, and how I tried my best to leave it far behind where it would never have tampered with me again. That way, I would’ve focused on what was most important, like my work, my family, my livelihood.

So, after I told her, she decided to stab me in the back and clue her kids in on this, too. Why did she have to tell then that? Our kids were too young to be listening to any of this. What were the odds that they would’ve looked at me like I loved them for different reasons than they expected me to love them? As soon as I caught on, I thought,

Well, that’s it. There goes my life. All that I ever worked for, all that I ever strived to achieve, there it all goes, all because we both made serious mistakes.

“Honey”, Jeanne said to me one day. “I know you mean well. You know I do. But I know a counselor in town who’s incredible at what he does, and he can help you. His name is Jonathan Pertch. Here’s his card, so please get in touch with him. Promise me, Don, do what you can to take his advice and work your way through what you’ve struggled with. Otherwise, I will be compelled to file a divorce.“

Thanks a lot. Or should I say, thanks for nothing? Therapists would always tell you what you wanted to hear them say.

It will all get better. You have what it takes to turn your life around. Just do what I recommend that you do, and soon enough, you will be golden again.

Could it? And would they?

The appointment I just finished up with Jonathan was my twentieth one, and already, I’d begun to pick up on some helpful advice, but not enough of it to help me turn my whole life around just like that. I still loved my wife and kids, but there were times where my hormones controlled what and whom I meant to pay attention to, and they inevitably steered me towards the very thing I tried to avoid, especially since I had my wife and kids to worry about.

What’s the use? How would I know that what was guaranteed to help me was going to revamp how I lived my life? And I knew I wasn’t making any substantial progress ever since Jeanne recommended him to me. So, what was the point?

What. Was. The. Point?

It was September on a foggy weekday, and my kids were away in school, with little Jenny starting her first day in preschool. Jeanne was busy with her own thing elsewhere. A special meeting, she told me. And this just felt like the right day for me to take a walk and…um, contemplate where I went wrong. But if nothing came from that, then I had just the tools I’d need to truly set myself at ease.

It was on that day, at 11:15 AM, where I had driven off into the farthest depths on the mountains near us. I got into my sweet silver Sedan, and already, the fog was just starting to build up all around me. Around my car, around the streets, all around the city, no matter where I went, the fog just closed in on me. As soon as I turned the ignition on, I set forth on my trip upwards, the town was nearly barren of townspeople roaming about. Was it the weather? Was it a busy day? I didn’t care.

Before I left home, however, I mustered enough courage to write a quick note that I left on the kitchen counter for my wife and kids to read when they got home. This, I was sure, would set their minds at ease about me.

Jeanne, Damien, Jenny,

You three are the most precious people I’ve ever known in my life. But I can’t go through with this knowing that I have let you down. I wish you three the best of luck in life, and please understand that the last thing I would ever mean to do is hurt you. I don’t want you to be burdened in life by my mistakes, so please, live your lives as I trust you all will.

Jeanne, you are the only person I would ever love with all my heart.

Damien, you’re a big man now. Make the world proud of you.

And Jenny, my baby girl, be the strong-willed woman I know you’ll grow up to be.

I know now how to fix my mistakes once and for all. Don’t any of you worry about me. Not anymore.

Goodbye,

Don

As I drove about through the streets, the whole atmosphere around me began to feel more ominous than usual. Never mind that it was the clouds hovering lower than usual, it felt more like God’s way of telling me,

“You better make the most of what you’re doing with the time you have left, Don. Make your decision soon, or else you know exactly how to make the most of your life from then onwards.”

Whether this was really God telling me that, I could not tell, but I no longer cared about that, either. I had to set out, do my own thing, and know the right steps to take as I got settled in the mountains.

After driving upwards for about an hour, I found what looked like the clearest, most desolate, and least occupied part of forestry for me to have started my hike on. I had nothing on me worth stealing, so I got out of my car, shut it behind me, and left my keys in the car, with its doors completely unlocked.

The forest around me was very quiet. Nothing I could hear aside from one or two birds chirping away in the distance and some small gusts of wind. It was almost peaceful. I felt as if it was the closest I ever came to walking toward Heaven, where my parents, their parents, everyone who I ever loved and lost would be right now. Once I flashed on this, I hoped to engage in some conversations with them and ask them where I have gone wrong, see if they would have anything to say about it to me. In fact, me being so close to Heaven would have made me contemplate the idea of having conversations with God himself about where I had gone wrong. What could I do to change all of that?

“Hello, God! Can you hear me?” I screamed out at the top of my lungs. And I heard my voice echoing all around me.

In response, a few rustles from the trees came about here and there, but other than that, I could tell that someone, somewhere nearby, was parroting back what I was telling God.

“Was I just being tested all along? If there really was a plan for me, then tell me, where have I gone wrong? What have I done wrong? Am I worth anything? And am I worth something to someone even because of that?”

For all my attempts, the parroted voices I heard soaring through the trees all around me made me wonder if maybe there was no one who had my best interests at heart after all, not even my wife or my kids.

After trying and failing to reason with anyone about it, rather than just blabber on and on into the gray, misty void, I had to hop to it and set forth on my hike up the hills. The scenery around me was starting to experience the same disillusionment and disquiet as I did, like I suddenly began to feel more at one with Mother Nature herself. Suddenly, I felt like I was stuck in the middle of an argument between two major forces: God himself and Mother Nature herself. Why bother complaining or confessing my problems to my parents when I had the ultimate parental figures themselves to counsel me?

“Where have I gone wrong?” I said. “What was I thinking to have been so irresponsible with what I struggled with? I even made moves off them on one of my fellow classmates back in elementary school. How could I? We were good friends, so how could I have taken advantage of the situation and fulfilled my needs through her? And how could I have been so stupid to blab about it under the influence when I was in college? Are some secrets not meant to be sealed away? If they aren’t, then what’s the use of living when there’s no one who would stick their neck out for me to help me with such troubles? All professional counseling is going to do it put you on a path that they see as suitable, whether it’s suitable for you or not. If you can’t make compromises for others without compromising yourself, then what is the point of living anyway? Huh?”

Anger swelling up in me, that’s when I let out another last go.

“God?” I screamed out, as my scream soared out around me. “What’s your plan?” I screamed out, and this time, I said it to whoever Mother Nature’s real name would’ve been. “What’s the use? I have problems of my own. Sure. But don’t we all? Maybe that would mean nothing to you because, let’s face it, you know the way. You know what’s best for people. Neither of you have faults. Whenever you do something, whatever it is you do, you can do no wrong. So, are humans like me just destined to do nothing but wrong? Is it all that it’s cracked up to be? What’s the point of doing you proud if I can’t be anywhere close to being like either of you?”

Every time I continued to speak out, I began to acknowledge that my conversations felt less like they were directed to either God or Mother Nature, and more to myself. I slumped down into the soggy ground in despair. With my already soggy face becoming even more damp with tears, I felt what little sparks of love that I thought I felt slowly drift away from me. “What’s the use?” I mumbled.

Suddenly, reaching in my pocket, I held in my hand the only solution that I knew would help me out: a cyanide pill.

I had seen one of those open, and I saw one lying around by my counselor’s office. Whether he would’ve allowed it or not, swiping that pill from under his nose would save him so much trouble. So, if nothing else of value came about, this would’ve been my only ticket out of all my problems, too.

Surefire peace with just one pill. That’s what I knew would’ve guaranteed me some absolution, a much-needed peace of mind.

Then, once I grabbed the tablet out of my pocket and into the palm of my hand, I knew just where to go to munch down on this so it could finally let me go about my business without interfering with those of others.

In a split second, I sped off like a shot. It didn’t matter to me what would happen. The chance could not come sooner, so, in a short moment’s notice, I felt my head quickly rise itself up as I flung the capsule right into my mouth. I felt all prepared to bite down on it and feel the taste of sweet death taking me away from this place.

That was when my feet lost touch with the ground. Suddenly, the sneaky force of gravity pulled me down from the soft moist fields of grass behind me and pummeled me all the way down hills that stretched farther down beneath me.

My body was tossed about on my way down, as every part of my body, my head, my back, my knees, my feet, my elbows, my stomach, were all pummeled with every bump and flip on my body onto the exposed dirt and soil. A minute had passed by me when my body slowed into a series of flips as I finally laid face down upon the soft moist grass ahead of me. I was losing what little I had left of my torturous life force, I was sure, and soon, I felt my head give way.

It was so cold… finally, the feeling of nothingness coming to take me away from this mocking place.

I thought that would be all I’d feel as I left this world, but what I didn’t know I could feel even after death was unexplainable. I remembered a pitch-black abyss hovering all around me, with the soft inner impulses swirling all around me as if they left my body and were now circumnavigating me. Were they investigating me? What was I seeing? I couldn’t tell. All I saw was a void of unknowable forces without form circling me until I felt some senses trickle back into me. Once they did, I felt something unusual close to my face. It was moister than what I had felt during my time up in the mountains, and much thicker than the mist upon my face. But somehow, it carried more warmth than what I had felt before. How could it be?

But then, the warm moisture I felt upon my face became more forceful, more repetitive. Just then, I felt myself beginning to feel my face being met with many different senses at once. I caught a whiff of something smelly. I felt the moist substance of some other matter outside of me. I felt something bristle on my skin. And then, before I knew it, my eyelids began to take a life of their own and lift themselves up. Slowly but surely, my eyes began to open.

I finally came to, when, in front of me, was a nose of a bear. This bear was tinier than what I was used to, though. This must’ve been a cub. At least I was greeted by the sight of something cuddly, but what did it matter? As I really came to, I felt many other things in my mouth. I tasted a little bit of dirt, and possibly a drop of blood – my blood – but what I recalled tasting from the cyanide pill, it wasn’t there anymore. What happened to it?

If this cub, and one more behind it, was here right in front of me, then their mother should be nearby. In that case, I trusted her to do the final job of securing my place in the afterlife. I looked closely at the furballs as they took a good, long gander at the miserable half shell of a human that I was. The subs began to back off a little bit as they sensed what I was beginning to show in my fully awakened state.

As soon as the senses I wanted to leave behind all trickled back inside me, I took a closer look at the cubs in front of me. Behind them, barely concealed by the bright, gray mist, was their mother finally coming into detectable view.

Judging from her bulky shape, claws and what easily tempered dispositions the three of them had, I could tell they were grizzly bears. That’s how I knew that they had to be sure to ward off and annihilate anyone they saw as a threat. Well, this couldn’t have been more fitting. It wasn’t what I expected, but you know what? Bring it on. I hoped, deep down, to find an Angel of Death somewhere up here to finish the job on me, and I found it staring me right in the face threefold.

It wasn’t just the mother who would take down their threats. I knew that they would strike their threats down if their young were threatened. So, you could say that the cubs themselves had as much of a say in the matter, too.

Something about these grizzlies seemed different, though. The mother and her cubs weren’t doing anything. All they did was stare at me as the clouds of breath shot out of their noses.

“What are your waiting for?” I mumbled as I got back up, and with such agility, I did back them off a little bit, as the mother looked at me from afar with an unveiling of her jaws.

That’s more like it.

“Come at me, why don’t you?” I said, as I kicked the ground around me and throwing stuff every which way. Whether I ever did, I couldn’t tell. I felt too weak to notice.

“Finish me off! You know you want to! Do it! Do it! DO IT!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

Then, as the ground shook beneath us, the mother grizzly’s jaws were open, she ran towards me, and I was ready. In less than a second, I shut my eyes and spread out my arms as I awaited her first strike to land upon me. But as the large beast with brown hair and sharp teeth came towards me, all I felt were pebbles and soily fragments of earth flying out at me from underneath her feet.

She had stopped.

Her, too?

Realizing what she had just done, I fell on my knees into the soggy grass beneath me. I felt like there was nothing I could do. That’s all life was, I knew. Just a big, fat, damn tease. I cried like I had never cried before. I was sure that if not even Death, nor a mother grizzly bear, would come to take me away, then what was I here for?

For a few minutes, I flashed back to my life, my parents, my kids, my wife. I thought about what I had done to them. Or what they had done to me. What they had done for me. I looked back at what good friends I was thankful to have, what a prosperous life that mine was shaping up to be. I pondered all of that when I felt the mother grizzly’s claws upon my hands and her face up close to mine as she looked straight at me. I lifted my head up, and I somehow didn’t see hostility in her face anymore. Suddenly, I noticed some shred of feeling lurking somewhere in there. It wouldn’t be possible for her to suddenly sense something wrong with me and take a closer look at me instead of putting me out of my misery. What was it with me that I never saw but, somehow, she did? What would she possibly spare me for?

Maybe there was something about how she looked at me. Maybe there was some semblance of understanding that I sensed in her eyes as she looked at me, like maybe she wasn’t sure if I meant harm or if I had no idea how to handle it. But then, with a snort, the mother bear backed away from me, and, in a minute, her claws had lifted themselves off my hands as she walked away. I looked closely at her two cubs, who were also staring out at me before they began to follow their mother.

Where to? What to do? I didn’t know. As they all walked away and left me, I looked out at them wondering what that was all about. I had done some truly stupid things in my life, so if I was not meant to do my things for what sins I had committed, then what did God really have planned out for me? If I can’t fix what I had committed before, then what could I do to make the most of where I was at this moment?

As I stood around and contemplated what I had done, where I was, and what this was supposed to mean, I couldn’t have thought of anywhere else to go. At least, I didn’t think so, except my mind kept wandering back to my Sedan. So, with what little strength I had inside of me, or maybe it was just because I was finally starting to get back to my senses, I trudged step by step across the damp fields of grass stretching out away from me.

I began to finally acknowledge that, no matter where I roamed, I had to at least retrace my steps until I was sure I knew where to go from there.

A half an hour had passed when I had finally seen the one part of the forest where I knew I was before my big fall. There was something about the weather. It was still cloudy, but I swore I noticed the fog beginning to lift, and it helped me find my way back easier. Around the corner, behind the trees, was my silver Sedan. As I trudged closer to it, I noticed nothing different about it that wasn’t there before. Once I had my hand in the handle and opened the door, what I looked at inside was also just as I left it: my keys still in the car untouched. Without a minute’s hesitation, I stepped inside and shut the door beside me as I grabbed the keys and quickly turned on the ignition.