The War Within Pt. II

(continued from The War Within)

“The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master.”
-Khalil Gibran

The time is eight-something a.m.

The date doesn’t matter; every day is Groundhog Day, only with small, nearly imperceptible glitches in the matrix.

I, naked primate with a soft underbelly and fallible spirit, stand in the shower, again, eyes fixated in low-grade terror on the shower knob at thigh level.

Not an ounce of water has escaped the nozzle, yet I’ve memorized the shock of the cold and that’s transmuted by some alchemy I don’t understand into physical sensation.

I am Pavlov’s dog.

If I cave in and step out — which I have done in the past and might again at some point — the rest of the day will be in my mind an uphill battle, having already surrendered once before a thousand more small surrenderings to follow.

If, on the other hand, I soldier through, it’s more or less downhill from here.

There will be, for sure, other small defeats throughout the day — doomscrolling X for cheap dopamine when I swore it off for the thousandth time, for instance — but I will have already won a small victory to offset them.

So I turn the knob.

The water hits my skin, and it’s instant shock.

The muscles tense.

Panic.

The impulse to flight is almost overwhelming, only restrained by mental resistance against all natural urges.

I’ve been here enough times to understand that hyperventilating doesn’t do anything to help, so I breathe long and deep.

A daily tango

Devil: You were so comfortable in that bed. Just crawl back in and call it a day.

Angel: What kind of a man are you? Your grandfather died on some beach in Anzio fighting the blackshirts under machine gun fire!

Devil: Don’t turn that handle.

Angel: Turn the handle.

Devil: You don’t want to turn that handle.

Angel: Turn the handle, you fucking pussy.

Devil: Get out and let’s have a cold beer. It’s getting hotter every day.

Angel: After nearly ten years without the drink? Maybe what you want in the moment and what you really want are two different things.

Devil: Now that we’re here staring at a shower knob, it’s probably as good a time as any to revisit that suicidal ideation from a while back. This — all this inner turmoil — could all be over once and for all.

Angel: There’s got to be something worthwhile here.

Devil: You want this. Every day is another battle in a lonely war that no one else ever witnesses, much less cares about — a war you’ll never win. You’re nobody’s hero, not even your own. Give up the ghost.

Angel: You are Sisyphus, and you will have the cold shock proteins if it’s the only victory you achieve all day. The summit isn’t the goal; the pushing of the rock is. And you know that.

Benjamin Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile (now available in paperback), is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.

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