K.W. Turner, kdubs, Kilo Watt Turner - The legend.

This is a draft copy of Release, Chapter 7 of The Other Side by K.W. Turner, unedited. We will be releasing a good amount of the chapters of this story over the coming week to ten days.

Enjoy.

=============

Faith continues to be an epic struggle for all of Man; else, the darkness creeps upon you, calling your name and misspelling it. Fucking clowns. Like the movie “IT,” but dumber..

I was talking with a former associate the other day. He insulted me and demeaned my feelings towards having lost something significant to me.

He ridiculed me so that if I were a violent person, I would have stabbed him in the throat with my dick. But I didn’t. Nor would I ever. And not just because I’m insecure about my cock.

I allowed this to go on for a while, not just one conversation, but many more over a solid piece of time. It was always a test of faith, even if I was not religious.

As the days slipped into weeks, I ignored this person because I had faith in myself. I had faith that I was strong enough to take anything he could try to throw at me. And one day, I finally had had enough, and I said to him.

“It does not matter what you think. It does not matter what you say. You are inconsequential. You are insignificant. And I’d like to remind you of the age-old saying of “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”

I had the opportunity to work for CNIPROC.LIVE and what I would be doing would be ethically against my morals, my fabric.

It would be against all of my values, but I was in such a position that I had to take the job. It was taking the job or killing myself. Literally, and there’s the darkness again.

I worked there for a while, and every day I said to myself, “I’m going to quit soon because this is not right. This is immoral”. Eventually, I was ushered out via downsizing, like so many others.

They didn’t give me any hope or faith; they kept me away from that darkness. But then, I lost it all. The job and money. Everything. And I was very angry, confused, frustrated.

What have I done to have been put into a position like this?

What part of the Karma universe did I shit on to get treated in such a horrible manner? What did I do wrong? And I had no answers. Like asking Truffle Takao Money Lion Shiro Rai how their dinner was.

Then, something amazing occurred to me. I had some stocks from CNIPROC.LIVE, and they were doing pretty well. More than pretty well.

The point where I made money hand over fist over fist, and I could see the cashout, or at least I thought it was a cashout. I had to have faith in that coming to fruition.

But the money, the money kept pulling on me. I could have better toys; I could have better spaces, I could have better access to people and resources. And you know what that stuff does?

It questions your faith and positions the darkness to rule over you, suffocating your existence.

There was a rather significant and negative downside here. Having that money brought access to drugs. And oh boy, the drugs. Someday I’ll talk about that, but know it was fun.

But then CNIPROC.LIVE had a huge scandal, and their stock tanked. That money went “poof.” My benefits are gone. Health Insurance was relegated to using the ACA (Obamacare).

What a fucking shit fuck that is. This doctor is covered; this doctor says no fucking way. I’m sure people understand this one.

I needed a particular drug for my thyroid, and it was getting difficult to deal with the side effects. I had no job; I had no insurance; I was living off selling some of the stocks from time to time.

While all that was great, getting that medication was very challenging. I saw my doctor, and my doctor said they couldn’t give me the medication unless I submitted myself to a battery of tests.

I said, “Are you fucking kidding me? How much do these tests cost?” The response was predictable, “Since you don’t have insurance, at least a $1,000.”

And I stopped. And I wondered to myself again, what the fuck is going on? Is this that slap from Karma?

I started to feel like the walls were closing in again, and I couldn’t take it. My life was being battered and destroyed. I turned to the darkness. Nah, my desperation caught hold of me.

I made an appointment with my vet and I brought Truffle in, a few weeks earlier than was scheduled. I’d been with my vet for 13 years, between several clinics. I was so happy and proud when he opened up a clinic of his own.

He was stunned that I was in and asked about that. I told him about my issue, needing the thyroid medication.

I asked him if he would prescribe the non-addictive, no psychotropic or hallucinogenic, or euphoric feeling thyroid medication to the cat in this specific dosage that I needed.

He said no. He said no because that was immoral and ethically wrong. So I didn’t argue with him, I understood, and I know it was a big ask.

I thanked him for at least discussing with me and that I will see him at Truffle the next appointment a few weeks later.

And to be honest, all of the subsequent times that I saw him, we never talked about it. We never talked about it. He never mistreated me was always so kind and generous to me.

A couple of weeks later, I found myself in the same situation as I was before. Again, I am afraid of what’s happening or what could happen even though I’ve requested assistance.

This time I had asked for assistance from the State of Arizona the United States Federal Government, and with all of their programs, I was getting nowhere.

I had my Obamacare insurance come up for renewal, and as I was filling out the form, I could only enter the amount of money I was making as my unemployment insurance. I get to the end of the document, and it says

“too bad, so sad, you don’t make enough money, why don’t you try something else because you are a giant loser.”

Hyperbole. OK, that’s not really what it said, but it did indicate that I wasn’t making enough money on unemployment to be a part of the Obamacare program, and it did suggest looking into alternatives.

Medicaid and Medicare are a joke. Which is all great and everything, except none of my doctors accept it. Lovely.

What exactly was I supposed to do when I was in a position like this? I have no one to help me, and nothing was pointed in the right direction? I don’t understand why I am just spinning my wheels and getting nowhere.

It is incredibly discouraging and rather frustrating to be in this position.

And the darkness leaped back into my life, filling cracks in my brain like pouring paint made of some super sticky syrup all over a table.

It never feels like it goes away. It lurks in the depth of my mind, every once and a while knocking at the front door as if to remind me it was there. This darkness never asked me for anything. It just wanted everything.

But I knew it was there. I kept trying to push it away, make it stop. I tried alcohol. I tried marijuana. I tried a variety of prescribed medications. I tried other fun drugs.

The darkness was always there, waiting for me. Waiting for me to make a mistake. To backslide. To admit defeat. To allow it to take over and consume my soul, my essence.

I feel like the darkness keeps calling me, subconsciously at the very least. It is an ever-present pulsing beacon. I can hear it like a counter in the recesses of my brain like it’s beating a lobe to kingdom come.

The darkness, it’s everything you think it would be. It never stops. It will never stop; it knows no way other to be the bringer of pain. It’s a really sad way to think about it.

The darkness will always be calling to me.

For as long as I have remembered, the darkness has haunted me for as long as I have been. It has always been the doubt that clouds my mind. It has always been the anxiety that has punished me.

The darkness is a cloud that brings nothingness. It brings self-desolation and despair. It is all that destroys life. It is all that cripples your mind, preventing you from any happiness.

It is doom. It is sadness incarnate. It is limitless. It does not know time.

A lot of people relate this feeling to “goth” stuff. However, I can assure you that for myself, at the very least, “goth” wasn’t the initiator of this. No, not at all.

Having not knowingly listened to “goth” till the first-time hearing Type O Negative (Christian Woman) circa 1994. I don’t think I’d ever heard “goth.” The whole genre gets a bit of a bad rap.

I have always had this sorrow inside of me. It is always there; it never goes away. It is ever-present. It’s ever crippling. It’s the bringer of doom, more than anything else.

There are times when, much like my knee pain, I have wished that there was something that I could give of myself to make it go away. But then I end up sitting in the shower with the showerhead spraying down my knees.

Nothing makes that pain go away. Nothing makes my knees not hurt. I’ve had six knee surgeries, yet I still am nearly always in pain.

I’m always catering to my knees, those fucks. The pain makes me want to do much harm to myself. I often live my life around them. Around how I know they are going to feel “later.”

darkness,faith, K.W. Turner, kdubs, Kilo Watt Turner - The legend.
K.W. Turner, kdubs, Kilo Watt Turner – The legend.

Backlinks to other Chapters

DRAFT – Chapter 0 – Lost – The Other Side |2022
DRAFT – Chapter 1 – Backstory – The Other Side |2022
DRAFT – Chapter 2 – Hope With a Side of Fear – The Other Side |2022
DRAFT – Chapter 3 – Fear without Hope – The Other Side |2022
DRAFT – Chapter 4 – Fear with Darkness – The Other Side |2022
DRAFT – Chapter 5 – Darkness and Hope – The Other Side |2022
DRAFT – Chapter 6 – Release – The Other Side |2022

 

K.W. Turner, kdubs, Kilo Watt Turner - The legend.

This is a draft copy of Darkness and Hope, Chapter 5 of The Other Side by K.W. Turner, unedited. We will be releasing a good amount of the chapters of this story over the coming week to ten days.

Enjoy.

=============

Lately have been feeling rather hopeless about how the tone can change around here. And it becomes worrisome. Worrisome because of the darkness. It feeds into my fears.

The idea of having a roommate makes me nauseated. I hope that’s the right word for it. The last time I lived with somebody was back in 2008. I had a male roommate who was a referral that my ex-wife gave me.

My ex-wife knew that I needed a roommate. Required might be a more important word than required. She had met him at an indoor soccer game, a league she and I played in. She was always chatting with everybody because that was her way.

Let’s say his name was Coss. Coss was Canadian and just a very relaxed, smart guy, and a good human. So I want that to be the focus here, and I hope that comes across.

It wasn’t so bad, but man, I fucking hated having somebody else around. It wasn’t about Coss, and it was that darkness I have that consumes me and pushes me to hide. I didn’t want always to be hiding from Coss, but that would often happen.

Much like my ex-wife, I know Coss didn’t love that I’d get home and go into my office. I’d decompress for an hour or so, depending on how craptacular my day was. That was less about my ex-wife or Coss.

While having a roommate wasn’t horrible because of Coss’s personality, the extra money was excellent. But I had a $2000 a month mortgage payment, and he was giving me $500 a month. So while it helped some, it didn’t help that much.

If I said, “But that’s 25%, dude,” I would be forced to slap myself.

And queue the shitty inner monologue.

All of this is ultimately my fault because I took some job or made life decisions that were inconsistent with what I should be doing, and therefore I have to pay the price for them. I hope that makes sense.

I thought it would have a different direction in my life, just like everyone else. I thought I was getting away from the darkness, but I wasn’t. Instead, the darkness pulled me back in, no matter how far I ran.

Now I have this big fucking house that I’m renting. I bought a new car, which required me to trade in my diesel that I had paid off. Thus it got me nowhere. I’ve gone nowhere. Sigh.

In a moment of sadness and self-realization, I now have decided that I would start applying for jobs that I am so incredibly overqualified that the likelihood of getting an interview is minimal. On top of that, any offer would be so minimal.

That is because no sane manager or director will hire somebody with 15 years of experience, highly experienced, for a job where they’re answering emails all day for customer support. It’s just stupid.

My alternatives, though, are nearly as unappealing. I have to figure out how to bring home a certain amount of money, just like everybody else. I have to figure out a way to survive because my ultimate goal here is not to kill myself.

The ultimate goal is to get back to where I was, but if I get to that point and I know, I know what I have to do.

Elsewhere in my book, I make comments or notation on my fears with suicide because I do enjoy Dante’s Inferno and would it change to have the usefulness of the idea.

And in the darkness for me, that would take me to the seventh level. That isn’t a hotel, and nowhere anyone who had any hope or delusion of it being anywhere that the darkness would not find them.

I got to thinking about it one day, and I mentioned the topic to The RevCD. He’s one of the few people that I look up to, and I have the utmost respect for him. He’s a super fantastic human, and I value his opinion immensely.

He asked me why I thought so highly of Dante’s Inferno and

I’m talking about all my tattoos to see, and the tattoos represent pain to me because I have so much. I have full sleeves, a full vest, a full lower on my legs, and my back is about 30% done—330 hours or so at this point of tattoo work time.

At the very least, for this event, we’re talking $40,000. – $45,000 easy of money that I put into myself, but I, from a technical perspective, pissed away money that I could be living off of right now.

Let’s be real here, I still would’ve fucked around with that money anyway and got myself into the position I am now. Inevitable.

I think this is because I often feel like the walls are getting closer and closer and closer. Closing me in, strangling me and my life. It keeps putting me into hopeless positions where some of the decisions I have to make are a little less appealing.

All of my apathy aside, I wonder to myself, “What is it going to take to turn things around? What is it that I’m not doing right? How do I keep succeeding at failing at everything I do?” Does it lead me to know where? Or is it putting me right where I’m supposed to be?

What I mean by that I am curious if I am paying the price for something I did or didn’t do, for the actions that I have taken or not taken, and how much more do I have to pay for this, how much more of this shit am I supposed to handle and deal with before I break.

I ask it that way because I feel like I’m being punished. While millions upon millions of people in the United States are suffering like I am, there are millions upon millions across the planet who are suffering like I am.

Marvel Comics - The Punisher

Growing up, I was a huge fan of the Punisher comic book by Marvel. Not the movies because they kind of weren’t great but yeah. I appreciated his tenacity and determination to make people pay the price for their misdeeds when the system isn’t.

Now while I don’t condone his murdering of lots of people, I do entirely grasp and understand nay I get it. However, I don’t believe I have transgressed in such a manner that the punishment is so intense and relentless in my life.

I recognize that how I feel is dependent upon what is around me, the transpiring events. And that is the same to be said for so many people. But fuck them. Just kidding.

It presents a specter above and beyond what it is now that I am dealing with. Its black cloud brings me pain, suffering, and misery.

I don’t feel like I can ever be pleased, and it’s not just because of some of the things that I have lost in my life, just like everybody else. But not everybody else has mental health issues, and I would want to say I’m thankful that they don’t.

I wonder. I wonder what I did wrong. If you could hear me speaking right now, it would be incredibly somber and self-reflecting or self-reflective. I always want to make myself a better person, and it is a driving factor in my life.

But now I have no drive. I have no desire or push, or motivation to get there. I feel dead inside, and while I’m not scared of this facet, it is a bit concerning because my friends aren’t exactly helping me. How could they?

Meanwhile, Good sister is doing a fantastic job of taking care of some financial sides of things. It is challenging to maintain any positivity and maintain my brain.

I mentioned this to Debo a few weeks ago while we were doing technical stuff at his house, and I commented that I was concerned that I was losing my mental acuity and technical skills because I was not using them.

One of the reasons why I felt this way was due to a project that I had started working on a specific and specialized system build, which had been slowed by parts being delivered that I had ordered off of eBay.

I had ordered a new video card, upgraded processors, a wifi card, and a few other bits in the hopes of building a system that can replace my iMac, the one I’m dictating on right now. Potentially a second system on top of that for downstairs as the video card in the kitchen is just going to shit.

The punishment that I’m getting or taking is often related to having to sell or part with things in my life that are part of me, that defined me and embodied who I am.

The paintings, the DAC, the tube amp that I love so much, the diamond engagement ring that my ex-wife gave me back so I could sell it (that lays around my neck). That one hurts a lot. And then my computer. These all represent things that are part of me, and it hurts.

I find myself questioning myself and what I have done, what did I do that was so egregious that I’m being punished in such a manner that I feel like I’m falling apart, and I just am having such a fucking hard time dealing with it. The darkness increasingly tears at me.

When you start thinking about or planning out how you’re going to commit suicide and then work on getting all the things in place to carry that out, you know you have issues. Or at least you should know!

And the last thing I had wanted to do was bring harm to the gatos.

Another aspect of this is the consequences of talking openly and honestly with your friends. They either don’t want to hear it or are afraid of it because it is tough to deal with that fact.

What I don’t understand, and I’m not second-guessing the motives of my friends because I care about them and they are essential to me, and I enjoy them is that either they’re not taking me seriously or they don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.

The only thing I can do is hope that I can find what I did so horrible that I am being punished the way I am or find a way to break out of this. But, unfortunately, I don’t see either of them being plausible or possible, for that matter, at this time.

I think of what I write on my blog, and often it’s just something that comes up in my mind, and I say, oh, that reminds me of this song, and I write a couple of hundred words about it I posted. Then from time to time, I come up with good ideas or ideas and write about them.

This morning I posted up a rather lengthy blog about Anesthesia, which is my absolute favorite song from Type O Negative.

I noted in the first paragraph the following quote “In case you didn’t know, Anesthesia from Type O Negative is my favorite song. That includes every Dream Theater song, ever. It holds powerful meanings to me and in my life.”

And as I go through, a couple of bits are of interest to help give context to what I’m writing today. and here are a few quotes from my post:

  • I fucking feel like everything is a surgery now. I feel like parts of me are being destroyed, removed.
  • My whole life, my whole world, was destroyed to block the pain, to relieve myself from it. To make me comfortable, comfortable with this horrible shit. I don’t feel anything.
  • I am fighting the future; I am fighting the past. I cannot win the present.
  • I am so broken now I dissolve into a mess of alcoholism, drug use, and substance abuse. I am trying to find a way to NOT FEEL ANYTHING! I don’t want to feel anything.

If those quotes do not give you enough background or understanding as to how I feel and how it is that I think I have no hope, how I cannot win, then there might not be enough words to do so.

I let those feelings soak in that day. It hurt that I felt so sad and lost. I know that I want to go back to normality, but what is normality?

And just like that, I realized I was so fucking far into my head that I could see myself from afar. Just drifting.

Darkness, Darkness and Hope, K.W. Turner, kdubs, Kilo Watt Turner - The legend.
K.W. Turner, kdubs, Kilo Watt Turner – The legend.

Backlinks to other Chapters

DRAFT – Chapter 0 – Lost – The Other Side |2022
DRAFT – Chapter 1 – Backstory – The Other Side |2022
DRAFT – Chapter 2 – Hope With a Side of Fear – The Other Side |2022
DRAFT – Chapter 3 – Fear without Hope – The Other Side |2022
DRAFT – Chapter 4 – Fear with Darkness – The Other Side |2022

 

K.W. Turner, kdubs, Kilo Watt Turner - The legend.

This is a draft copy of Fear without Hope, Chapter 3 of The Other Side by K.W. Turner, unedited. We will be releasing a good amount of the chapters of this story over the coming week to ten days.

Enjoy.

=============

Fear. Darkness. I know what’s coming, and I have tried to prepare my friends and family for it, but I have been preparing for the inevitability for several years.

It’s the saddest situation and a sad statement. This, too, is the darkness.

Debo and I were sitting in the kitchen once more. He was sitting at the kitchen table and taking puffs off his god-awful e-whatever fucking thing is called.

I was washing up some petite potatoes at the sink that would be a part of dinner.

In the back of my head, I heard myself saying, “Dude, what’s the fucking recipe for this shit? … Oh, so neither of us know?. FUCK!” Yeah, mental is a bitch.

We had the vodka/Zevia flowing. I took a swig, perhaps you could call it a gulp, and I politely asked, “Is now a good time to continue with “The Story”?”

With a nod, it was time. I’ve always loved how a nod and a glance can portray the appropriate answer.

I’d been thinking about this a lot, and I knew that I was getting to some parts where the darkness started to come out. I don’t want to allow my darkness to consume me.

These chats with Debo have helped ease some of this fear and pain.

“I’ve continued thinking about what it takes to admit to oneself that one was not only a failure, but a monumental failure, and that I have failed everybody and everything.” I know that was a bold statement to start based on the look I got.

I paused for another swig of my drink before looking around for the fixings I needed for these petite potatoes. I think that’s what they are called.

Super tasty and easy to cook in the oven and seasoned the way we’d grown accustomed. Not that I have a cookbook deal, but Special Shit is the Shit.

“Let’s talk about faliure. You damn well know my mother had told us, my two sisters and I, and likely yourself and Ms. J, that she had intended to kill herself and detailed precisely how.”

“A few years ago, as you recall, when she passed away, my sisters and me completely, totally, believed that that was what she had done. No doubt.”

Whew. That was another big statement; I thought to myself as I spun around in the kitchen looking for a ziplock bag, the Special Shit Spices, and the olive oil.

I added, “This is to reiterate there was no gambling-related to when she’d die, how she’d die, and the generalized context of her death.” I could feel the darkness starting to paw at me.

I started chuckling after that… It took me a good 10 seconds to stop. “I know, I had the under on all three! I talk such shit and mean it, especially about her,” I added.

I took another “sip” of my drink took a deep breath, trying not to chuckle further.

“So… Good sister and I had been texting back and forth, and I mentioned to her that I was planning on using a small amount of the money on LegalZoom.”

I know Debo is fully aware of what that means, so I had no reason to express anything on that topic for some stupid ass reason. Call it fear of the darkness I try to control. Or call it two dudes talking and having a few -many- drinks.

“I’m not plugging them. I just want to ensure that I have a properly documented power of attorney, will, trust, all of that legal stuff because…”.

So, there it was. The darkness is starting to creep up. Fear in my heart manifests itself as darkness. And no one likes the darkness inside another, nor wants to hear about it. Darkness is hard shit.

“I’m only telling you this because we need to understand where my mind is when it comes to making a decision that would inevitably lead me to where nothing good happens.”

“Are you good for me to continue?” I asked. The response, another nod, and a hit off that fucking e-cig, whatever the fuck it is. “I’ll continue, but this might be a little longer…”

“Last week, while I was talking with my doctor, we were going over some of the feelings I have been expressing lately. I’m not in a bad way where she scolded me, but she said something to me that was so striking about my willingness to go through with it.”

Debo knew what that meant, his facial expressions changing some based on the topic.

“It wasn’t a challenge, and she made that very clear, and I agreed that it was not a challenge. But in all honesty, the honest answer is yes. I am prepared to because that’s where my choice ends up.”

“Just the other day, I was engaged in the conversation with my ex-wife, and we were talking about my current situation, and she was offering up some ideas and whatnot. I just reiterated to her that, the same thing that I had said to my therapist, that I have been preparing to because…”

And I trailed off in my mind. Yes, a lot of this topic… this topic, in particular, comes from my apathy and just how tremendously it had grown over the last few years, starting with leaving one company and where I had four (4) jobs in 20 years. Since that point, I have had three (3) in three (3) years.

The dynamics of the technology field that I have been specializing in have changed considerably. Where I was a systems engineer at the lead or senior level, that has changed from actual engineering like infrastructure design and implementation to more of a DevOps role. I have a hard time with DevOps because I feel my mental capacity in dealing with DevOps is low.

The DevOps world is more about automation and scripting and continuous integration of pipelining and shit like that. That’s not what I enjoy doing, nor is it within the passages of my mental capacity. I just don’t understand it enough.

I don’t know how long I paused with that in my mind, but I think it’s time to start the grill so I can shut the fuck up for a few. Debo did not like where this was going.

“So what I was saying to my ex-wife was how my experiences over the last few years and the inability to find a job going on 4+ months now, in many ways, is because I don’t have some of the skills that these companies are looking for.”

Debo finally added to the conversation with a very explicit statement, “You are so skilled that it’s retarded that you are thinking some of this shit! You are a leader, not a follower. We’ve known this for a long time now.”

“You aren’t wrong,” I added, and after a short pause, I continued, “This is where my fear takes me. The darkness is brought upon by the fear of having to make shitty job choices in going for the money and not the joy.”

“I’d like to get back to my ex-wife if that’s OK…” I nodded to Debo, and he got the door for me as we went outside to start firing up the grill. He had been seasoning the ribeyes for the last bit, and I wasn’t paying attention as I was blathering about.

“I have tried to help my ex-wife understand the level of apathy that I am suffering from and what that means because she has always been the type of person who thinks that health changes people by giving them self-esteem.”

“I knew and understood that she was giving me her honest position, and I have never guessed the was anything aside positive intent. I know that she’s not doing it to be an asshole.” Under my breath, I chuckled, “that was my job.”

That raised an eyebrow or two from Debo as he fired up the grill. He’s a fucking streak-grilling master, always perfect to what I want. A magical meat magician. OMG, that’s so fucking funny!

“By the end of the conversation, I think she was starting to understand that I have lost so much, as have so many other people. I’ve had to go through this process of not feeling sorry for myself and dealing with selling and getting rid of things that I don’t want to, but that’s part of being an adult, apparently.”

This is one of the parts that hurt me the most, things that I had worked so hard to get. Some take over ten years to be able to obtain finally.

“As you know, I just sold my best computer monitor, my best in the ear earbuds. I sold my Apple Watch, and I have one of my speaker amps up for sale. I have a digital to analog converter (DAC) that is phenomenal. And that’s just the beginning because I will have to make more sacrifices.”

Debo got a call from work, and I stepped inside and shut the door, trying to give him privacy. I mean, I think it was from work. I mean, doesn’t everyone call their co-workers sweety and honey?

My mind went sideways with the chance to dance around the edges of the darkness. It’s a joyful task if I do say so myself.

“A few days ago, I was getting my haircut from my stylist of the last 20+ years. She and I were talking about the same general topic as earlier. She told me that I was being selfish and that I should be looking at any jobs possible, even if it’s a help desk position, just so I have extra money coming in.”

“I sadly told her the same thing I had told my ex-wife. I just don’t care. I’m at the point where I have been beaten down by so many people I just don’t care. How do you survive when you don’t care about anything?”

And there it was, my brain popped. Darkness. Boom.

“All of this is a part of the general downward spiral I am currently experiencing. It’s an important part of the overall story because it is a complicated topic for people to talk about. A lot of times, people don’t know what to say.”

“In a funny bit, I was on Tinder recently, and as I was looking through profiles (mostly swiping left), I happened upon a gal whose profile/blurb was rather interesting.”

“It felt like I know this woman, but I have no idea why. She had a shirt in one of her pictures that said “Suicide.” I thought it was funny because of where I am and how hard I am trying to keep the darkness in check.”

I continued, “I’m pretty sure her name was Ms. E, and I knew her from a previous employment gig. At one point, I knew that she was doing a pet sitting service, and I always considered that if I had traveled but… to no difference.”

We both knew I fucking hated traveling. Unless I went first class, my knees were never cool about sitting in economy. Fuck that. Too painful.

“All of this, as I have learned, as part of the story about what’s going on in my life is the readiness that I have. Ultimately it’s selfish, but all I want to do is to protect myself and the boys from the extraneous circumstance of what could be.”

“One of the things that I have been thinking about, besides taking a shitty, shitty, shitty help desk level job, was something that my hairstylist mentioned to me. Maybe I could also look at doing a driving service like Amazon delivery or BevMo, as examples, that kind of stuff where I don’t have to be around people, which is a fabulous thing for me because I don’t like people.”

Debo knew how much I disliked people. Darkness sets in when I think about taking them all with me. And some glee always came from the idea of doing that. Not that I have the means. Or energy, fuck that.

“I feel a rant coming on… I had just spent $675 on maintenance for the fucking BMW because I was three months behind on a slew of services… oil change, air filter, brake fluid, coolant, and who the fuck knows what else was done.

“I don’t want to talk to good sister about the money as this was one of those things that I told her that I had to do. Do I use this as an opportunity to skip out of my $214 a week from the state of Arizona because there’s no fucking hope that the politicians in Washington, all those cunts, are going to get anything done that we would provide me with some relief? And just don’t care.”

“I really just don’t care. I don’t care if I work. I’ve been enjoying writing the book. I have enjoyed working on my writing blog while paying more attention to leveraging SEO plugins formula to learn more.”

“It has been great and interesting to me but… That’s not going to pay the bills, and if I want to stay in this house, I’m going to have to figure out a better solution because I can’t pay the retarded amount of money.”

Debo knew that I was hitting hard in the fear area. I could sense he was seeing it in me.

“I have gotten empathetic to the point where I just don’t care about much of anything, including myself. I very obviously care about and love the boys. I don’t care what people say, I don’t care what people think of me, I don’t care about any of it, and it’s just my apathy running rampant.”

There, I said it. I brought the darkness to the fear and the fear to the darkness—a perfect circle of a downward spiral.

“It made me very nervous because there is always a possibility I can make my way through where I am right now and find a way to make it work. But I don’t know what that looks like, and every day I wonder if I can do it.”

“And with that, I knew I have gone over the limits of what I could talk about with you tonight and am very appreciative…”

And I trailed off for a couple of seconds as I mentally added, “that you didn’t put my head in the grill and slam the lid down a few times.”

“I probably knew that about 15 minutes ago and didn’t shut the fuck up. My apologies.” I added, feeling shitty for having gone on and on.

I concluded the evening with, “Hey, how about some refills and you school me again on the proper steak-grilling process?”.

Darkness, K.W. Turner, kdubs, Kilo Watt Turner - The legend.
K.W. Turner, kdubs, Kilo Watt Turner – The legend.

Backlinks to other Chapters

DRAFT – Chapter 0 – Lost – The Other Side |2022
DRAFT – Chapter 1 – Backstory – The Other Side |2022
DRAFT – Chapter 2 – Hope With a Side of Fear – The Other Side |2022
DRAFT – Chapter 3 – Fear without Hope – The Other Side |2022