The Eden Express_ A Memoir of Insanity - Mark Vonnegut [52]
Having their feelings make sense is how people get their kicks. There was no way I could make my being that happy make sense just because of the farm working out, or spring coming, or my being that miserable and upset because of Virginia’s balling Vincent, my parents’ breaking up. There had to be more going on. I needed things to be that happy and that sad about. The dawning of an age of universal peace and brotherhood, nuclear holocaust, and the like fit the bill.
Time had gotten very strange. Things whizzed and whirled all about me with great speed and confusion. Then everything would stop. There was no more movement, everything was being frozen solid, life was being drained out of everything. I’d feel a scream building up deep down inside me when suddenly everything would spring to life and begin rushing around again, violently and pointlessly. The scream would come but there’d be no sound. It was all drowned out in the frantic rush of wings beating all around my head. I’d come to myself from time to time and realize that I was walking, half stumbling through the woods. I’d wonder where the hell was I going, what was I doing? I’d take handfuls of snow and press them to my face, trying desperately to get some sort of a hold on myself.
It kept running through my head that Virginia mustn’t see me like this. Tears of desperation were streaming down my face. “I mustn’t be like this when Virge gets back.” And a voice within me wondered, “Be like what?” “Like this,” I screamed. “Something’s all fucked up. I’m all shaky and falling apart. Virginia mustn’t see me like this. She won’t be able to make any sense out of it. She’ll think her letter did it. She’s got to be prepared. Somebody’s got to tell her what’s happened to me. Simon or Jack or Kathy, someone’s got to go tell her.”
Several times the dogs started barking wildly. Someone must be coming up the path. And every time, “It’s Virge, it’s Virge!” and my heart would start racing furiously. “Oh, shit, I won’t be able to take it. My heart will stop. She can’t see me like this. I don’t have any idea of what to say to her.” I’d hear her coming up the path. Sometimes I’d even catch a glimpse of her through the trees. False alarm after false alarm. No one coming up the path. What the hell’s wrong with those damn dogs? If I get this way just hearing the dogs bark, what’s going to happen to me when she really comes?
I needed help, but still in the back of my mind was the feeling that I was crying wolf, that there was really nothing wrong. It would be terribly difficult for anyone to understand what was wrong because what was wrong was such a strange, elusive thing, the sort of thing it would be easy, almost logical to discount.
Communicating was just about impossible. My tongue and mouth weren’t responding very well. It was only with the greatest difficulty that I could tell who was saying what and that I could make any sense out of words. I relied heavily on grunts and gestures.
I’d all of a sudden be sitting next to the stove, wearing the half-finished sweater Virginia had been knitting for me. There were knitting needles sticking out all over it and I was crying. Kathy was saying something to me. I had no idea what I was crying about. Then something would strike me as hysterically funny and I couldn’t stop giggling. Then I’d find myself somewhere else wearing completely different clothes or no clothes at all. Time stopped being continuous; it jumped around with lots of blanks. The only way I have any notion of time then is from Simon, Kathy, and Jack.
They became seriously worried about me a couple of days after we all tripped but just kept hoping I’d straighten out. They made sure I was never alone, and talked with me a lot. There wasn’t much else they