‘Everything comes from something and nothing comes from nothing,’ droned the meditation facilitator while Kim shuffled restlessly.
The middle-aged speaker looked prim and confident as he held the entire class to his booming words.
‘Four basic elements once expanded exponentially to form the foundation of every living organism and naturally occurring material. Surely this is proof that despite our outwardly physical differences, we are all one in the same,’ he ended thoughtfully.
The speaker’s words hung in the air. Kim lingered on their interpreted poignancy. Her first seven days of drug rehabilitation had bombarded her overcast brain with acres of philosophical angles that all converged at common points despite commencing at different ends. As the fog slowly cleared a little more with each day, her darkest moments and most insidious acts of immorality played back to her again and again like an unforgiving recorder.
The facilitator ended the session by standing up off his navy blue cushion, signalling that the class should follow suit. Kim got to her feet robotically; the action entrenched into her like a monotonous habit. All around the brightly lit mess hall the scraping of feet echoed its familiar rustle of tender joints and sore muscles as the cabal of addictive personalities rose to their feet and formed a circle. Her eyes lazily took in the scene, one so resented that it seemed as surreal as hell; probably would after experiencing life on earth. The circle of faces blurred into a ring of varying complexions; each one familiar yet anxiously strange at the same time.
‘All together now,’ called out the main speaker in a
Kim felt warm, hands brushed hers gently on both sides before they locked grips like immaculately programmed, animatronic appendages. Each session ended this way. She had even begun losing track of the patients next to her. They were becoming nothing but extensions of the mundane experience; as routine as the lunch bell or the tea break that followed. Some hands were large and roughened; others small and clammy, each grip a different ‘squeezing force’. All were lightly deadened like hers, sucked of life, weak and meagre by nature. She closed her eyes as the human chain connected, link by link. Her lips moved automatically as the daily chant rang out around the sparsely furnished hall like an undead anthem.
‘God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.’
The chain broke into individual components that scattered in different directions. The majority, like Kim, headed for the little garden area that lined the outside of the room. Pallid grass and infantile little plants and buds were all that stuck out of the rich earth for the moment. Dazzling shades of colour among them hinted at the impending approach of another spring, one that promised to drape the little nook in a myriad of blossoming hues. She traipsed around the grassy spot while the other recovering addicts bumbled around her like medicated laboratory apes.
‘How’s your stay going?’ asked a drawling voice.
Kim turned to see a haggard face smiling crookedly at her with yellowing teeth pea cocking out like a decaying wall of repulsion.
‘Fine, I just miss home,’ Kim replied softly.
‘Hang in there, it will get easier,’ said the wizened crack-head.
Kim nodded and moved away in a manner that she hoped didn’t seem overly deliberate. As usual the patients in this ecosystem were a verbose mix of races, sexual deviants, semi-psychotics, genuine seekers of redemption and hapless clowns without a prayer of living a life free of relapse.
‘How did I get here?’ Kim thought glumly.
It seemed both a great mystery and a destiny deservedly fulfilled. Would anyone ever know this rancid confusion, this impermeable wall of frustration that knew no sense or justification, only an obligatory fate of shame and un-helping remorse?
What hurt her the most was the miniscule snippets of evidence her well trained eyes always found, evidence that she had once been a normal, fun loving, respectable daughter of the world.
A tear shimmered and clung onto her bottom eye lid as she noticed the pale, circular strip of skin that formed a neat mark around her ring finger. The spot were a luxurious platinum engagement ring once resided.
It felt like a dream now, that first time she had taken a hit in jovial ignorance. A light buzz of voices erupted around her as the other patients conversed with each other.
Kim ran her palms over her forearms; the purplish needle marks embossed beneath her touch, each one a morbid reminder of her shame. She walked off the grass and along the double storey building porch, taking light, random steps. Her hands quivered as her brain ached for any stimulant, a cigarette being the least of these.
So much had been taken from her life. Large chunks of her being ripped and shredded by swift addiction and she wondered if there was enough left to bother putting it back together. A tinted glass wall paralleled her drab steps, a ghostly image of herself walking along with her.
‘I can do this,’ she thought.
Ignoring the limp state of her hair, the brittle, skeletal form of her frame and the soulless stare of her sunken eyes, Kim gritted her teeth with a dense repertoire of determination taking over her. The life of her bad choices had imprisoned her, but still she longed for the antiquity of an almost forgotten freedom.
Of all that had been stolen from her, the last trait she clung onto faithfully was her womanhood; something that could never be taken. Disease, pain, bad men and the storms of life had all tried to break down her feminine ride. All had failed.
Kim ignored the voices, the nagging irritation of those lost souls around her and balled her fists into tightly wound lumps of strength and will. For the first time it felt possible.
