No Hero to Fix the Leak

There is no hero in this story. Time after time, there is only me, being here, in China, India, Cuba… Living the life, people think—but I fall, and no one picks me up.

Only me. 

And I convinced myself that I could do this, that I could be extraordinary, limitless… change the world. Can I really? I can’t even get a job as a bartender. 

I’ve lived everywhere and belonged at the cost of losing any sense of certainty of who I am and where I am going. The institutions that I thought would support me have their own agendas, and little seems to matter about what my life plays in them.

And you are gone. My unconditional cheerleader. You never gave up on me, not once. You were not perfect, but you were my mother. I wish I had been the hero you needed, but crossing the ocean was not enough. The Writer of our lives had another end for you, and only They know what the hell They are planning for me. But They are having the time of Their eternity seeing the melodrama of my existence. 

So, I am in this little room… leaking like a defective pipe. I have tried everything to fix all these fissures, but tears flood the place without any weather forecast on my phone. AI has not figured out how to tell me if I will finally have a good day. 

I wonder how that feels… It’s been a while. 

And I pretend to be ok. I talk with multiple therapists, take whatever pills I should. I even joined a school group to deal with anxiety. But this fog just comes and takes me… sometimes it’s for a second, and other times, like today, I’m just functional enough to perform. I went to a council meeting in a union I belong to, and I could not understand anything written on the motion. —Is this Russian? No, it’s just mind fog. So, I just asked my friend and did the least democratic thing I had ever done: follow her lead. And yes, we lost. The motion did not pass. It did not surprise me; maybe I jinxed it by attending in the first place. 

There is no hero in this story, and I paid the premium on Hinge to see if it finally finds someone who appears to be right. What was I thinking? My dad would tell me that I should not be looking for love, that I should be writing my thesis. I guess that is all I am: a thesis and an empty degree that, I sometimes wonder, will get me nowhere. In this economy? Who even cares about preserving humanity when we have AI to replicate whatever we want at the drop of a hat? 

But let’s try again. C’mon, you have come this far. Right? —Literally, you are in Melbourne, en el culo del mundo, amiga. 

So, I just opened my computer and free-wrote, the only thing I seem to do right when I’m losing my mind. 

But no prince will read your letters, little one. Haven’t decades of searching demonstrated that? But ok, I’ll let you have this one… go write. 

No one prepares you to lose your mother, and those who haven’t lost her… can’t even grasp how much it can tear you down… There is nothing more than my mother wanted: for me to be happy. She wanted me to finish my degree and to find love. The former one seems reasonable; the latter resembles science fiction now. DreamWorks science fiction—Disney is overrated and corrupted now.

So… here I am, looping a song that repeats that “everything will be alright”. The leak seems fixed for now, but my mind is still scattered… 

Can you hear me, Mom? And do you understand me now? Have you learned English in the afterlife? Because there is a serious anomaly in my system, and now I speak to you in a foreign language. ¿Y mamá, le puedes pedir a mi Abue que me desbloquee? I didn’t mean to hurt her, but there is no way I will ever hate my father. And yes, Mom, more importantly, will you even find me here, in this little room at the end of the world? You never got to come here, so just find the Pac-Man light I lit on; it looks like the ghost, though. What a coincidence, una luz fantasma para pedirte que vengas del más allá…

I guess no one gets to win against this… not even me.

There is no hero in this story. There is only me. And the fog.