I read the words in my mind. And the figure is there in the room with me. As if his hand is on my shoulder. He means well for me; he wants to support me, but his presence is terrifying. I don’t move or make a sound. My heartbeat pounds in my ears and my ragged breath fills my head as I struggle to listen.

Even before a word is on my tongue…

Why do you run, child? Why do you hide? he asks me. I don’t want what I wanted; I don’t want what I chose, I tell him.

The words coming out of our mouths, of my mouth, start to slur together into one soft buzz. Can we not talk, or can I not hear? Then those questions disappear altogether, and I feel something hard under my chin. The bar top. I put my head down and watch through my one winking eye the best friend’s jaunty movements. He lurches forward and leans heavily on the bar. He moves like in a viewfinder, stopping in one pose and starting in another. I realize he’s not in an old-timey movie. As hard as I try to hold them open, my eyes are heavy and blinking.

Black. So quiet you can hear the still.

He was so devoted to me. You would think I liked it but instead, it’s like it made me angry. He was unfazed by the largeness of my personality, the wildness of my emotions. I talked incessantly and he listened. He adored everything I did, even the annoying or gross stuff. He was steady. I could count on him. It drove me mad. I found myself breaking up with him just to watch his expression change, just to feel something. It devastated him. I creeped myself out how I couldn’t feel anything. It’s like he was in a jar, under glass. I couldn’t quite make out what he was saying. I couldn’t touch him. It was like I could press pause or mute and he would just be stuck there, quiet and helpless.

There was an alchemical magic to it, Charlie was so curious and willing to ponder any notion and I was so packed with sacred ideas that I had enclosed in iron-clad orbs of doubt and shame for protection, but I was finally free to release them, to speak them as Truth, impart them on another to amplify their power. I didn’t proselytize and he wasn’t hypnotized, blindly absorbing my message. It was Socratic and invigorating, and had that energy of kindergarten, where Charlie innocently questioned and challenged everything including the reality of the leaves we walked on, the space between us. And I enthusiastically, joyously shared with him the staggering idea that it was all an illusion, that in fact, there was no space between us, and we were recreating the appearance of the leaves underneath our feet with every step we took, in perfect cooperation with their own consciousness, of course.

To the heartache of those who love me, against their advice, against all odds, oblivious or indifferent to signs of turning back or impending obstacles, I skip gayly, stagger blindly, or even sometimes scratch and crawl with spiteful determination down this path that others disdainfully refer to as “the hard way.”