The Corner

She stood there, barely alive. The piece of soiled cardboard weighed only ounces but was the heaviest thing she could hoist. The sign read “Please Help.” Her gaze was pulled again to the ground whenever she dared lift her eyes to see the people coming up the stairs to street level from the subway below. She tried repeatedly to see them but couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. It was mutual, for nearly none of them could see her either, even though they stood right in front of each other. So the cold wind blew but she couldn’t quite feel it. Her shoulders hunched as her body responded to the cold but her mind was not perceiving the frigid wind. A man looked quickly and was careful to avert his eyes before she could move her gaze back to the crowd. The cycle repeats. Time passes. Life slips away bit by bit until there is nothing left. She finds a place to sit down on the pavement as people step over her—any pity they could have replaced by anger at the obstacle in their way. There is no way out. Life is a one-way ratchet now; it cranks down harder and harder. The pain of existence that she can still feel, she quickly finds a way to flush away in what is left of her mind. After everything that has happened to her and everything she has done to herself: she is still there, even if it’s just a little bit. This is the great comfort and agony in her life.

She was a happy kid growing up. Always smiling and always laughing. So friendly and so kind. The adults in her life made mention frequently to her parents about how special their daughter was. She was a beacon of light in her parents’ lives: an oasis away from each other and the pain of their own existence. From the time she was born, she carried the weight of the whole world. She was happy, she succeeded, and she was perfect. As she grew older she continued to grow more invulnerable: better grades in school, better friends with better people, better accolades than her peers. But one day, she realized something that changed her life: she wasn’t a happy girl, and she never was. She was a borrower who wore other peoples’ emotions for them and carried them further than they could. By her own strength, she could run the race for someone else and get the medal for them but at the end of it, she was still just borrowing their happiness and their pride. She was a great and wonderfully made vessel, but an empty one. She’d relied on herself because everyone did, always. After everything she had done and everything she was – she was somehow just nothing.

So, she decided she would feel. First was the anger, then the sorrow. Years of life spent living for someone else became years of living for oneself only. Searching and searching for a feeling that was real. When she had nearly given up, she found something that was real – she found him! He made her feel something. Many things. Good, bad, crazy, insane, and even peaceful sometimes. For the first time, she didn’t feel the need to carry the weight of her world alone. She began to trust someone other than herself, truly, for the first time. But he didn’t get the same feeling. He’d felt it before, or maybe he thought he could feel it again, but for whatever reason he left. Her first brush with truth was diminished into novelty. The hole in her newly-formed heart was gaping and she resolved to never ask anyone else to help fill it again. Back to the old ways, back to the only person that could be trusted: self.

She kept her friendships shallow and her work life busy. After years she was finally becoming moderately successful. Some friends could talk about work, some friends could talk about business, and there were many encounters and experiences in life to fill the tedium. One day, she had an accident, and she went to the hospital. It was minor but they prescribed some medicine for her pain. She took it. Everyone at work was shocked by her resilience and determination to be back at work with the cast still on her leg. But she didn’t want to take days off. She didn’t want to miss out, she had to keep going. Her resolve was renowned and soon enough the cast was gone, but her legend remained. She was invincible!

But one day, after a chance encounter, she began to feel something real again. Instead of crying or feeling, she determined to use her superpower and just be okay. She still had some pills left over from her leg and she thought about how they helped her through the pain. So she took her medicine again. And again. And every time she began to feel something, she knew she could solve it with a pill.

It worked. It worked until she ran out of pills. Then it worked until she ran out of money to buy pills. Then it worked until she ran out of savings. Then it worked until her work suffered. So it spiraled very quickly beyond the illusion of control she had always kept about herself. The walls that had been put up so that no one could get in were as thick as ever – almost invincible. But instead of protecting, they were suffocating. She made a mistake, and she couldn’t pull herself out. She couldn’t trust anyone else with her pain anymore. Who would want it? It was better to suffer alone, she could handle it. She thought this to herself many times as she smiled at her friends or her parents as she decayed from the inside out. They didn’t care anyway, better not to be a burden.

Now she was here. One event leads to another and before she could fully realize it, her life was over. And only at that point did she start asking for help. Only at that point did everyone decide that they didn’t care. That she was too far gone. That it was her fault. That she needed to help herself. Her wish came true: she finally was truly alone and self-reliant. The fruits of her labor had poisoned her.  The walls came crashing down to show a naked and scared person in desperate need of help from another. The ultimate act of humility and humbleness personified. Clinging loosely to life and the cardboard sign in her hands, she didn’t know if it had been hours, weeks, years, or decades since she was that cold person with her walls up to the world. The phantom thought floated through her mind, “no one cares.” Except now, she had no choice but to beg for the humanity of others.