Chapter 4 - In Memory of the Year 1994

For the next few days, Catherine immersed herself in the 1994 journals like a woman possessed. There were three of them just for that year, each one a descent into something that made her skin crawl. Even reading Sara's writing took considerable time—many of the notes seemed to have been written hastily, but Sara's handwriting was always sketchy. In some cases, there were notations in the margins or small drawings that meant nothing to Catherine but felt somehow significant, like pieces of a puzzle she wasn't ready to solve.

Besides the journals, there were notes, drawings, stories on Sara's computer, torn scraps like keepsakes that had been folded and tucked inside other books like secrets. And then there were the research papers, dense, technical documents that Catherine had no idea how to decipher. Some of the writing was clearly related to Sara's work as a data science analyst. Other notes and journals were intensely personal, with detailed and intimate writings about her companions, business associates, and one important man who kept appearing like a ghost throughout the pages.

Sometimes Catherine was embarrassed to read the words, her cheeks burning as she warned Jax via text that some contained explicit content that might disturb him. Jax didn't seem surprised or concerned, responding with unsettling calm.

"Don't worry, Catherine. I'm all grown up now. I don't know any details, but you know Mom. She's always been a bit of a free love free thinker at heart, although a well-dressed and highly educated one."

...

The first entry in the 1994 journal was dated January 5th, 1995—written by a seemingly drunk and rambling Sara. Maybe that was insignificant, or perhaps there was a reason she'd chosen to commemorate 1994 while drowning in tequila. Catherine couldn't tell. She didn't know what it all meant, but she remembered the man named Jon that Sara had been obsessed with at that time. She knew it had ended badly, but apparently much worse than she'd thought. Attached to the journal entry was a scrap of paper—a note from Jon curiously opposite to the content of the journal entry.

From the Journal, Thursday, January 5, 1995|
In memory of the year 1994, who died peacefully in its home located at what was previously the end of a disastrous 1993 and the culmination of 3.37 years of glory days with Jon. I like to think of those days with Jon that way. Glory days. The days of tequila shots and hours of lavish sweaty sex. No. It wasn't just sex, that's just a physical act any two fools can perform. Those few years were transcendent and intoxicating. Ecstasy can only be experienced, not described; it is not merely living, it is standing at the edge of a cliff waiting for the wind to sweep you off, knowing that eventually, it would come. So it did.

We should not count our days as they revolve around the sun, Why does humankind have a desperate need to construct markers of its own significance? The act is the play, and it is all a painful march from glory days toward life's ghastly embrace that rises and falls as consistent and truthful as the waves.

As it was, 1994 was a countdown of days as much as it was an avid collector of men—men from nearly—well, I believe eight states, three countries, including one particularly lovely man from São Paulo.

I began to think of last year, the curiosities and strangeness of 1994, as the Year of Men and Madness. It's true that toward the end of 1993 I was descending into a ghastly embrace of time falling apart. At times, I felt barely alive, as if I were crawling through my days, fingernails digging into the carpet, sucking at the air to find breath, and finally falling asleep to Cohen or Simon under noise-canceling headphones to block the screaming inside my head.

How many times did I hide in the stairwell at work to endure a panic attack in private? Sitting on the cold cement, sweating, shaking, trying to pull my mind back into my body. I would pray no one would take the stairs. Was I having a heart attack this time? How many events with friends did I decline? How many times did I nearly jump out of my skin when the phone rang or there was a knock at the door?

It cannot be said that people had just disappointed or turned into monsters, that is far too simple and casual a definition. Betrayal is something far worse than death. Each lie is a tiny cut. Who is it that said we die by a thousand tiny cuts? Love's blades disfigure one part of us at a time until little is left that is recognizable. We too become monsters.

Last year was a death, but somehow I am still alive. I don't choose to give up on myself. I never will, but life has turned ugly and unpredictable, and I feel completely out of control.

The first horror was that Jon, a man I surmised as my soulmate, had disappeared. He had not died in body or disappeared driving off to the east, but his once beautiful spirit had fallen into a coma from exhaustion—that comfortable numbness, that fatigue that comes from pretending to be something he couldn't even perceive. Was it just that I didn't recognize the face of the monster within? The visions had only recently started. Did I not see his creature emerge? Or did I see his soul and reject that reality? I know now I have the ability to see into the deep soul, but do we truly perceive what is standing before us if we don't want to see? Soulmate? What is that exactly—an illusion, a conjuring of the brain? Desperation? Simple lust?

To future readers: note—yes, I've drunk nearly a bottle of tequila in an attempt to put this year to rest. And so, in lieu of funeral services for 1994, I celebrate its life by memorializing the oddities of 1994 in writing—the men and madness who participated in distracting me from those months of consternation that followed the demise of the glory days and preceded the finale of 1994. Among the many accomplishments, 1994 liberated my spirit by offering up these visions of monsters, yet unknown to be a blessing or a curse, but at least delivered a reprieve and solace that blotted out the cold fog and drowned out the wailing screams in my head.

I used to believe in fairy tales, but now I see them, and I'm not afraid. But I know that most fairy tales do not have happy endings.

Catherine set the journal down with shaking hands. Sara's words weren't just the ramblings of a heartbroken woman—they were the confessions of someone who had seen something that shattered her reality. The references to "visions of monsters," the ability to "see into the deep soul," Jon's "creature" emerging—it all connected to what Jax had described in Chicago.

Whatever Sara had discovered about herself, about the world, had started with a broken heart and a bottle of tequila. But it had led to something far more dangerous than Catherine had ever imagined.