Ode to Joy
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Dear Bolu,
Too often, life gets away from me. Four decades in, and there is no shortage of mornings when I wake up feeling like I’m not where I should be. I float out of my bed and float back in after an 18-hour-long fever dream that lasts forever. If it were anything interesting, I’d tell you about the dream, but it’s hardly worth the exercise of a neuron. On occasion, I wake from the dream—I come alive, in the words of P. T. Barnum. Such occasions usually involve an encounter with wonder—a piece of art, an untold or telling story, another soul—but they are few and far between. Most times, I’m living another man’s life and I can’t, in good conscience, lay any serious claim to mine.
The other day, I watched a couple take in acid, the hallucinogen. It looked like one of those white sweets that’d melt nicely immediately it nests on your tongue. I’ve always liked sweets, albeit the doctor says they’re killing me, and so I watched on with a tinge of desire. I knew, as I saw the eyes of the couple travel inside their souls and outside their bodies, that if I had some of that white sweet within reach, I’d take it without any hesitation. Why? Would the experience not give me a looser grip on my life? Isn’t it one more guarantee that I’d find myself in a dream? I don’t know. The longer I spend in this dream state, the greater the compulsion to remain in it, and I find myself finding new ways to obey. I know it’s not good for me, and yet, after all these years, nothing I’ve tried has broken my fall into this abyss. I don’t understand why knowledge of an evil doesn’t guarantee immunity against it, and for the sake of my soiled soul, I dearly wish it did.
I don’t understand a lot of things. It seems my mind atrophies with each grey strand of hair my skin bears. You may say it’s a condition called ageing, but I think it’s worse than that. Shouldn’t wisdom, though wasted, be at least found in the old? Well, I have nothing, dear friend. There’s nothing in my head. Once, a kid asked me why water bubbled when it boiled, and I said I didn’t know. “Why don’t we ask Google?” I said. We did. I was glad for his sake that we did because I would’ve given him a corrupted explanation. “Why does boiling water bubble?”Twenty years ago, I’d have answered that in a heartbeat, but nothing I knew in my youth has accompanied me thus far. My better years are behind me, and I’ve not found any remedy for this malaise of the mind.
I’m tempted to describe myself as joyless, but even joy is a concept that escapes my understanding. The preacher man says joy is a state wherein one is assured, confident, and satisfied regardless of any external circumstances. He says it’s an almost other-worldly feeling that, unlike happiness which is sourced from without, stems from within. I'm either not dumb or smart enough to comprehend what he says. If joy were described as extreme happiness, I’d understand. However, it isn’t. To be very happy is not to be joyful. No matter how hard I try, I can’t make that impossible logical leap from happiness to joy. I can’t feel joy and hold on to that feeling. I can’t say with any reasonable confidence that I am or have ever been joyful.
If there were ever a time I knew Joy, it would be that Thursday in May when we found ourselves in a park. I sat in for a carnival ride, and I'd determined not to make a sound no matter how rough the journey got. No sooner had the ride begun had I felt a hand reach for mine and grab it firmly. Before I could say jack—not that I planned to say "jack"—you'd begun screaming. "We're barely even in the air yet", I muttered to myself, concluding that you'd ruin this experience for me. When the cart reached peak height, so did your scream. I remember looking over and seeing you with your eyes closed and the wind in your hair. It wasn't really your hair, of course, but rather a bob wig that, to date, I'm amazed didn't fall off. Only God knows what those things are made of.
As the cart descended, spun, ascended and twirled, your cry didn't stop, nor did your hold of me diminish in intensity. Although it seemed like we would be hurled into space at different points, I knew we were safe in the hands of man’s engineering. I was urged to tell you we were okaay, but I resisted doing so, given that I'd taken an oath of silence before the ride began. Moments later, laughter became interspersed with your screams, which I liked. I liked this unfamiliar sound of fun. I wanted more, but the ride quickly ended, and you let go of me. "I'm sorry I was a nuisance", you said with a little bow. "It's fine, as long as we do this again", I replied. And that we did immediately. This time, I buried my composure and held your hand. I let my heart reach my mouth, and we both screamed and laughed from start to finish. If I've ever known Joy, it was in that swivelling cart, in the company of your firm grip and stubborn bob.
I can't help but feel guilt when I look back on our better moments—moments like the one in the park. I haven’t the right to revel fondly in them because I wrote the tragic end of our story—a paragraph with lots of sorrys and forgive-mes. I wish it ended with an ellipsis, and not a period so that I may retain some measurable hope that our story continues. But, no, I inked the heaviest period you'd ever see. So many came before you, but, like Beethoven's ninth symphony, you're the best of them all and, sadly, it seems, the last. You're a reality I'd never live in again. And even my forever-long fever dreams don't let you in anymore. Too easily, life now tears me apart, and only threads of wonder stitch me back together. I dread the day that I will run out of wonder, dear friend.
Fin.
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Write you soon, merci!
- Wolemercy