I’ve always lived in my mind wandering down the deserted avenues of in bed by 9 neighborhoods. Shrieking through the streets drastically searching for a cognizant reality only a sharp-penciled doctor could diagnose.

“How are you feeling today Ritchie?”

Suddenly I’m falling from one universe to the next. The physical world translates the questions and I respond. How am I feeling? How does an amputee feel when they’re asked to judge an arm wrestling competition? How am I coping? How am I healing? How am I dealing? This white haired man had them all. Feelin’ fine doc.

“….We’ve had some results and level-3 degeneration of cognitive functions remain….”

Like always I begin muting the room with a coked out stare eclipsing my face. I engage in another sorry session with the doc communicating on much the same wavelength as Charlie Brown and his teacher. Who has time to waste living when you’re losing thought? Drifting delusions filter the shadow screen of my eyes. The reception of external light diminished and here I am tearing down another boulevard festering and focusing energies. Peering in the windows of distant memories. Breathlessly searching for fragmented dreams. Renelle! Fading through the neighborhoods knocking on doors, I search for her loving influence.

But I was comatose. No, her gentle energy that had proliferated my mind and sense of being would just become a categorized disaster in the DSM IV.

“….Ritchie, it may be time to start thinking about around the clock supervision at one of our facilities….”

Another street passes and I breathlessly hunt a flickering essence. The sky seems cloudy like some television with bad reception. A buzzing of passing thoughts and low volume echoes of the doctor’s dismal tale of my mental health radiate off the walls. Renelle!
And there she is. Sullen in the street crying wearing a beige long raincoat. Her bright yellow umbrella reflects her aura against the muted grayscale buildings. Her eyes smoky with mascara.

“….Certain motor skills will impair your judgment. As your doctor I cannot see you independent for much longer. You’ve seriously got to……..”

Glancing up at the scrambled sky I’m still lightly listening to the doctor but Renelle seems phased. She ‘s still looking down at the muddy streets staining her legs as water droplets crash on the pavement splashing everywhere. I haven’t seen her in my memory for over a month now. Her visual memory is just a blurry remnent. I feel and remember her gentle words, but they seem almost as autonomous and manufactured as this dementia riddled mind struggles for belonging. This confusion engine inside my brain had an uncanny ability to paste and copy memories of past conversations to formulate new conversations within. Call me crazy, but you already knew that.

Staring back at her I yearned for some amount of speech to swell in her voice box reaching out to consume my ears. Sweetly sayings were never her forte, my brushes with sweetness lay in replies of heart-felt mumblings serenading her for comfort.

Your love is a whispering sweetness audible by only the princely. Your prince charming is out there Renelle.

Magnificence is only measured in the combination of love you two share. You’re not whole without him go for it Renelle.

My heart EXPLODED with feelings for this girl, but all I could ever utter were sweetened orations comforting her feelings when her guys fucked up. Every single one of them a meathead and as such every relationship afforded me adequate practice time for when I could spill my guts and not chuck my words into some undeserving panty chasers melon. .

“…..Ritchie, everyday faces become strangers as your world turns almost wicked…..”

Nonetheless, my generous rhetoric rarely went unrewarded. Occasionally I’d get a hug, or she would tear up and realize I was right and her boyfriend was a Class-A douche.

It was those times where she’d embrace me with a best friend grip around my body but I could only return the endearing feelings palpitating through every avenue of my body. As I closed my eyes in that instance of bliss the imaginative highway carried me off to another dimension where Renelle’s eyes would clear and her stare would shift. Telling me how I’d been her best friend forever and could not be apart any longer. Sadly the jingling of a cell phone always disrupted the blissful escapism. Meathead#335 would luck out and chime in at her most emotionally forgiving moment and salvage it all. She was always over joyous to receive an apology. Who can blame her though, when you fuck up a relationship with a girl that hot, an apology of that kind always renders presents. Renelle’s boys certainly believed she lived in Madonna’s material girl world.

No, Renelle’s equivalency in sweetness was subtly matched by her reactions to ego boosting. I loved lifting her spirits and making her cry her eyes out. That ability as a spectator to emotionally touch her at such a deep level was liberating in my conquest to satisfy my feelings.

“…..Drugs can help but due to the uniqueness of your condition sedation would rapidly occur…”

Her eyes began running deep with mascara fading down her jacket and onto the street. The charging atmosphere around us was still raging, but the angelic radiance that would only be appropriate for Renelle shone through my wretched cranial environment. Standing nearly fifteen feet away I squinted as her mouth began to move. I closed my eyes and half-prayed for sweetness. The humble reality would be I would most likely never feel this in the morning anyways. Her pure words would forever remain pure as the probability of recollection neared impossible.

Please Renelle, they can rocket every sedative known to man through my veins after this instance. Just send me out on a high note.

“…..After this meeting your family will make the majority of decisions for you as we don’t see you fit enough to rationalize…. “

Please Renelle, they tell me I’ll forget but the entire world around you here in this distraught lobe is built on us. I cannot forget, just speak too me and let us both become mush in our own rights.

“…Given your young age and the amount of fight your body should theoretically possess, we’re baffled at your state…”

Please Renelle, softly spoken or shouted just permeate the air with your essence. Remember Renelle, your love is a whispering sweetness audible by only the princely.

“…It’s not an easy judgment call, but you uh, Ritchie hmm uhh what I’m saying is you haven’t got a lot of time left young man. Not nearly enough as you think. Maybe weeks…”

Please Renelle!

“…I’m so sorry to have to tell you this…”

Please!

Like soft lips blowing out a candle the image of her is instantly whisked away in a bright flurry of force and then immediately dampened with the choking sensation on what my conscious thought just perceived.

I’m going to die now?

The doctor nodded solemnly luring eyes to the floor.

“While you were waiting in here I took the liberty of informing your parents on the state of affairs. They are waiting outside where we will then go back home pick up some of your comfort belongings and in the morning we’ll make a trip to Westhaven Treatment.”

A fuckin insane asylum? Comfort things? FUCK YOU!

“Ritchie please, this isn’t a hard thing to explain to people, you’ve got to understand that myself with the cooperation of your family are just trying to help make sure you’ll be safe and comfortable.”

The doctor proceeded to remove himself from the room leaving the door open where my sobbing parents immediately flanked me. They rushed me forming some kind of sick dramatic bawling sandwich. I could feel their chests almost collapsing from grief as tears stained both my cheeks. I could not share their mania. I thought about feigning some emotion just to comfort them in adapting their level of concern, but nothing. I even tried rationalizing my fate as well. Nothing.

The reaper was likely packing his bags for the trip down as we speak, and all I can think of is losing a lost Renelle. Losing something that gave me meaning, hope, and promise. So what did I have?

On the drive home I stewed bitterly out the window. I had lost her forever. I had lost myself in her therefore losing me. What was I without her? Is that really the epitome of love? Losing something so great you fail to exist just the same? All I could conceive were more and more questions, miles passed and more questions. Questions this defunct melon could only dream of cracking. Heck according to the doc this sucker couldn’t even dream.

Excerpt From “Memoiruckus” copyright © 2006 Jay Yeo.