Consider depression as a separate personality who is out to convince you to hate and hurt yourself. It’s not as severe as having multiple personalities, but it is very similar. We are can be easily deceived by all the reasons our depressive personality gives us to hate and hurt ourselves, and we consider it very logical, but when taking a step back, the logic is not there. Somehow, we need to separate ourselves from this depressive personality, and recognize that that personality is not our true selves. If this was the case, then I would have been dead a long time ago. What a waste that would have been. Do not let that depressive personality lead your life, but it will probably be difficult to do so alone. This is why there are friends and God. God’s pretty strong and He is able to lend his strength in us, but why should he lend His strength to those who refuse Him?

Lemonade: Alfred?
Alfred: Yes?
Lemonade: Do you like me?
Alfred: Of course I do. You know you’re my favorite.
Lemonade: Really? But you’ve tried other drinks haven’t you?
Alfred: Well, um. Sure, but you know. You’re my favorite during the summer.
Lemonade: Only the summer?
Alfred: Well, yeah. You during the summer and Apple Cider during the colder days. Orange Juice all year round with the occasional Grape Fruit Juice to remind me of the bitterness of life.
Lemonade: We all need to be reminded of that, don’t we?
Alfred: It keeps me from being delusional.
Lemonade: I’m not sure how I feel about you drinking all these drinks.
Alfred: Well, it’s Summer now. Let’s enjoy ourselves while the days last rhyming past nine o’clock in the evening.
Lemonade: Do you like the subway?
Alfred: Yes, I do. They’re like showers. I sit in them and think.
Lemonade: What do you think about?
Alfred: I think about all the people I’ve met and how it’s most likely that I won’t be seeing them in this lifetime.
Lemonade: That’s sad.
Alfred: Yeah, but I think I’ve developed this sort of immunity to saying good bye. I imagine myself meeting people then in the end, I’ll just disappear.
Lemonade: Will you disappear from me?
Alfred: Come Autumn I am afraid I will, but life goes in spirals. I could be back. I don’t know. Who knows what I’ll be doing?
Lemonade: I guess God does.
Alfred: I’m counting on it.

Harry Kalas ٥ Alfred Lee

The voice of Harry Kalas
A subsiding dull
Lulls me to sleep during another
Motionless Sunday afternoon.

A cicada vibrates oscillates outside in the trees.
The wind rustles through
Like the deep blue ocean my body sinks into
As a blanket covers me
Leaving my bare feet exposed.

The one two pitch.
Swing, and a miss.

My head digs deeper into the sofa cushions as his deep subdue approaches,
Hovering
Over me like a weight hanging from a string

Slowly swinging constantly
Back
And forth.

Bat and ball meet with a quick, hollow
Clack.

Line drive
Down the third base line.

My eyes slow sideways towards the artificial green surface of the Vet inside the television screen.

The screen windows breathe in
Allowing the wind to find its way to my toes
And out
To where the cicadas are.

That’s the end of the fourth inning
One run two hits no errors no one left one base
Phillies two
Dodgers Nothing

His voice moors into me.
I’m not going anywhere.

Before we returned to the camp site, I had to skip a few stones across Mongaup Pond. I think the last time I skipped stones was at another camp site in Cape Cod with my Chinese friends. My shoulder became sore.

Take your video recorder and record rocks skipping across a lake. Take your video recorder and record lines of orange construction barrels as they pass your car. Take your video recorder and record the rain pelting against plastic materials. Take your video recorder and record a marshmallow catch a flame in the fingers of crackling campfire while the roasting stick leads out of frame. Take your video recorder and record silently waving bars of light back and forth from flashlights into the night sky, onto the concrete path, into the trees sifting in the air.

Elizabeth has never seen a flat stone picked up from an unkempt beach of a pond and tossed into it as the stone skims the surface of water; skipping several times until the stone settles down with others at the pond’s bottom. She tried to skip a small stone herself. The stone stumbled into the pond without skipping. It won’t be her last time to try.

Looking down, Elizabeth kept her feet off the ground by placing her feet cautiously on large and partially buried rocks. She would occasionally slip, but this did not stop her.

While others had their Styrofoam cup people’s arms wave in wild positions, Elizabeth’s Styrofoam cup person had one of its hands in one of its orange paper pockets.

Support ٥ Alfred Lee

A dense pattern of
Light green dark green flowers
Printed on an open umbrella
Shading from the June sun
Resting on Mother Yun’s shoulder.
Her elbow gently closed,
Hand above the handle
Of clear plastic amber.
The early summer sun
Dusting, sifting below
Her small eyes, head inclined,
Lips quiet.
The wind slides soothes silently
Across her burgundy dress.
Rectangle pipes to frame
Another rectangle design inside.
She leans against this fence
The color of the sky that day.
Her dress folds into waves
Of fabric leading down
The dress to the firm held hand,
Her daughter.
Mother’s fingers touching
Her own daughter’s shoulder,
Her precious head heavy from the day
Fast by her mother’s side.

Father feels the flat gloss finish
A photo taken years ago
Wishing for a granddaughter.

Walmart Employee: Hello…
Customer: Will you look at this?
Walmart Employee: Um, what? The Coke can?
Customer: Look at it.
Walmart Employee: Yes, sir. Um, what am I looking at exactly?
Customer: This can of Coke is wrong.
Walmart Employee: Oh, would you like to return it, then? Customer Service is right …
Customer: No, no. I’m not going to return it. It’s mine. I paid for it. This Coke. This precious can of Cocacola will grant me three wishes, but I have to choose carefully. The Genie will try to twist my words and ruin my wishes, but I’m smarter than that. I’m going to wish right.
Walmart Employee: Genie?
Customer: You know why I’m telling you this? This secret? It’s cause I can tell, you’re a truthful good man. Aren’t you?
Walmart Employee: Um, yes?
Customer: I knew it. So, I want you to take this can of Coke and make the first wish.
Walmart Employee: No, I couldn’t.
Customer: No, please. It’ll show the Genie that I’m a unselfish person, and he’ll then want to grant my wishes the right way. You see, you have to impress the Genie. So, go ahead. Make a wish. Do you know what you want to wish for?
Walmart Employee: Actually yes.
Customer: Wonderful, go ahead and wish it.
Walmart Employee: Do I have to rub the can?
Customer: Yes, you do. See, you already know what to do. Make that wish. The Genie is waiting.
Walmart Employee: I wish, oh Coke can Genie, that this man would find his long road back to reality.
Customer: Thank you.

Boy: Bang! What are you doing? I shot you.
Boy: No you didn’t. It went past my shoulder. I moved just in time.
Boy: No. My bullet went right into your shoulder. The force of the bullet should have knocked you back to the floor.
Boy: No way! Your bullets are like needles. I can barely feel them. See, I can pull them out and flick them back at you.
Boy: No, you need a crowbar to get out my bullets. My bullets were designed with spikes that come out when the bullet comes in contact with human flesh. The bullet in your shoulder is clutching the muscle fibers around it. If you try to take it out, you’ll be ripping out part of your shoulder.
Boy: I am not human, so the spikes did not come out of the bullet. I am a robot from the future. We knew of your bullet technology so our organization sent me instead of our regular agents.
Boy: Ah, but you did not know about the explosives in the bullet. I came from another time line that you are not familiar with so you could not foresee the bullet ripping you into shreds in five seconds, four, three …
Boy: Then I will simply take off my arm and throw it at you!
Boy: Ha ha, stupid robot! I lied about the explosives and now I am in possession of your robotic arm. With this piece of technology, we will be able to create little robot toys that are able to transform into modern day automoblies. Now I can go into retirement and buy the island I’ve always wanted, and you won’t be invited.
Boy: I don’t care. Your island will be stupid anyways. We’ve foreseen it in the future. Some little man will climb a tower and scream at airplanes, “de plane! De plane!”
Boy: No way. My island will be a giant arcade with games like spy hunter and after burn and double dragon.
Boy: Well, my island will be better. Mine will have a bowling alley, go carts, and putt putt.
Boy: Your island will have Wendy on it too so you can kiss her all day long.
Boy: No it won’t. I don’t like her.
Boy: Yes you do. I saw you walking with her after school.
Boy: So? We live near each other. Why do you care? Do you like her?
Boy: No, you do.
Boy: I know who you like. You like Michael Jackson.
Boy: No I don’t. His hair caught on fire.
Boy: Pepsi cola burned him up!
Boy: Now he’s drinking 7 up!
Boy: Hahahahahaha!
Boy: Hahahahahaha!

Man: Here.
Girl: What’s this?
Man: It’s cereal.
Girl: I know it’s cereal. Duh. What kind is it?
Man: Product 19.
Girl: What is that?
Man: What. You never heard of Product 19?
Girl: I like Golden Grahams. Only lame people eat this stuff.
Man: Well, what the hell do you want for breakfast?
Girl: I’m not hungry.
Man: Here, have some juice.
Girl: I don’t want your poisoned juice!
Man: *Throws glass against refrigerator while magnets holding papers and coupons slowly slide down* It’s not poisoned! *Girl screams* I’m not trying to poison you! Damn it! *Goes to cabinet for another glass a pours juice into it* It’s not poisoned. Look. *Drinks from glass* See? It’s not poisoned. Just drink your juice. I’m not trying to poison you.
Girl: Why did you kidnap me? What do you want?
Man: At four o’clock, I have an appointment with your mother. I’ll tell her that I have you at my house, and then she’ll ask me questions, then probably call the police.
Girl: She won’t call the police.
Man: Why not?
Girl: She doesn’t love me.
Man: No. She does love you. You’ll see.
Girl: She doesn’t love me, *starts to cry* she won’t call the police. She hates me.
Man: She does love you. She’ll call the police. Do you know how I know your mother loves you?
Girl: How?
Man: Cause sometimes when I talk about how lonely I am, I can tell that she’s feeling the same emptiness I’m feeling, but then she looks at the photo of you on her desk and it gives her a peace.

Seeing my counselor ٥ Alfred Lee

For several months, I have seen a counselor once a week.
She would lead me into her room with a two-cushion sofa, blue
As the sky carrying clouds on the verge
Of disappearing.
Together, we discussed the on going hatred I have
For myself.

Today, her secretary who I would greet
With eye contact and a genuine smile
Telephones me and explains that
My counselor needs to cancel all of her appointments including mine.
It strikes me that she is seeing others.
I wonder where I fit in.

Looking down onto the white tiles of my kitchen,
I thought quickly
And told the secretary
The reason why she had to cancel her appointments
was that I kidnapped her daughter.

Is it my mommy?

No, it’s your mommy’s secretary.

I told you she didn’t love me.

No, she does love you.
She just doesn’t know where you are.
Now, she’ll know, so she’ll call,
Because she loves you.

I let Jane pick up when the phone rang again.
Hello? Hi, mommy …
I’m fine …
No …
Yes, he’s right here.
She wants to talk to you.

With a voice as calm s the mirror like surfaces of lakes found in Colorado,
I reassure Jane’s mother.
“Jane’s not hurt, and she’s not going to be harmed by my hands.

I’ve never heard my counselor cry before.
Listening to her trying to control her voice through her tears made her words different,
More distinct.
She truly loved her daughter.

“There is nothing to worry about. I’ve already called the police. I told them I’ve kidnapped your daughter.”

Forgetting our sessions together, she asked me why I was doing this.

I hung up the phone at a knock on the door.
It’s the police to take me out of my life.
Perhaps I should resist.

To know that my father is proud of me wants to make me let him know that I’m not done yet.

My Father: I don’t know anyone like you. You know that?
Alfred: Good. I don’t want to be like anyone.

Then I went off to India. I’ve been to so many countries, but it’s only because my father let go of me.

I am free because of my father. I am also free because of my Father.

I did not realize you were an actual person, Mr. Rush Rhees. Hello. How does it feel lying under six feet of earth for all this time? You’re dead, and in a lot of ways, I feel like I’m dead too. Since we have that in common, I find it that much easier to talk to you. But it’s not only that. It’s because of the library those money grubbing political heads decided to name after you: Rush Rhees Library. There is nothing magical about the library. It just so happened the lighting was perfect, the desks were spacious, chairs cushy, and if appropriate, I would have played with the feet of girls sitting across from me. Hats off to you, Mr. Rush Rhees. Maybe they named the library after you because of your wealth and that you had owned the most slaves in town.

Generic Rochesterian 1: See that there Rush Rhees? He’s a good man. Look at the number of slaves he has.
Generic Rochesterian 2: Yup yup, but when through this little scam I’m developing, I’ll have twice as many slaves then that there Rush Rhees. Look at him standing tall like that. Hey, Rush! You don’t got that many slaves! You a puny man, Rush Rhees! You’ll be my slave! You’ll see! I love this town!
-Both 1 and 2 laugh-

Well, thanks Rush. The library they named after you kept me sane, but sometimes I wish it didn’t.

It has come to a point where I no longer have the curiosity of what will come in the future. I simply do not care anymore. People attempt to control me; others hinder me. I am no longer myself, but I ask myself, “what will make me happy?” Unfortunately, nothing makes me happy. I’ve attained a similar negativity towards my life as Akira Kurosawa has in his film, Ran. I’ve constantly kept convincing myself that my state of mind is only temporary, but now I feel like I will always be like this. I refuse to be a prisoner of my own emotions and the only way I can escape is to fade from this life. I’ve made a conscious effort to go to hell, and I will see you with spear in hand ripping out your innards because I’ve been here that much longer than you have.