THE 97% SOLUTION
By
Joseph A. Domino
“Thanks for meeting me on such short notice.” David appeared a bit hyper and tense. Middle-aged, a stalled life, “stuck” as one of his former therapists described it. He fumbled for his cigarettes and shakily lifted a tumbler of scotch to his lips.
“No problem,” said his only male friend, Raymond. “It’s been a while.” Raymond leaned forward attentively. “You said you needed to talk. I know things haven’t been going well.” David made a face as if to convey mild shock at what he perceived as gross understatement. For a moment his gaze drifted about the bar, the dim lights, the couples, the low hum of disparate conversations.
“It’s intolerable. I’ve lost almost everything. Wife, lover, child. My mother is rapidly sinking into Alzheimers. My father looks at me as if I’m a bug. Lost my job with little or no prospects. Lost. Loss. I really think when people disappear from your life permanently, it’s little if any different from death. Loved ones.” David lit another cigarette and signaled for another drink.
“Have you considered professional help?” Ray squirms uneasily.
“I’m done with that. I had one good therapist. He helped but at this point, I can’t see going back.”
“Would anti-depressants help?” asks Ray without conviction.
David dismissed the notion. “Two kinds of depression. Internal resulting from brain chemistry imbalances. Meds have some success there. The other situational, external factors. Reality. Meds don’t make reality go away. That’s what I need: reality to go away. The present moment is an ongoing reflection of painful memories. It’s crushing. I want it to go away. Better yet, if these things had never happened to me. ”
Raymond leaned closer. “I don’t mean to sound like a therapist or a shrink but you worry me. You have suicidal thoughts?”
“Suicide doesn’t fully address the problem. What if there’s an afterlife? Good, bad, or indifferent. The painful memories would persist. There could be another solution. A ‘97% solution’. ”
Ray tried to shift the discussion. “I thought you were seeing someone.”
“Yes. It’s fine. But we’re both detached like we’re not completely there. The other day, we went walking through the Botanical Gardens and I was consumed by a sense of aloneness, even as we held hands. The whole afternoon and evening was weird.”
“How so?”
“I felt untethered, like I was becoming detached from the very ground under my feet. It was an odd Florida sky. Overcast but clouds thin enough to still see the sun. You know, dimming it like gauze over a light bulb, a corona effect. Or an eye with a cataract, God looking down on a blurry creation. They’re Japanese gardens you know and are landscaped to produce effects of tranquility, a meditative atmosphere. It felt like a part of me was somewhere else. Then in the museum. Something about Japanese settlers, cooperative farming, horticulture, very old photos. One caption read: ‘The identity of the man on the far left is unknown.’ How would anyone know he ever existed?”
“Everything is not metaphorical.”
Ignoring the comment, David continued, “We sat at an outdoor café later that afternoon. Pleasant, innocuous conversation. A man walked up to our table, smiled and said, ‘Are you Joe?’ No, I’m not I said of course. Who are any of us?”
Ray sighed heavily. “What’s your point?”
“It feels like there isn’t much left. Like I’m fading slowly. Hah, maybe I went back in the past and am slowly disappearing.”
“If you are, let’s pay the check first. Listen, what did you mean, a 97% solution?”
“That refers to my personal philosophy, ‘world view’ if you will. Life is 97% ridiculous and ‘ridiculous’ is being charitable. More like devoid of meaning, miserable, horrible.”
“And the 3%?”
“Meaning, fulfillment. Love of family and friends, beauty in art and the natural world, work with a purpose, sense of accomplishment. Making a difference. Without that 3%, there is no point to anything.”
“So, if suicide doesn’t guarantee erasure of these painful memories—“
“Hypnosis—time travel through teleportation. Sure it sounds crazy, but I’ve got to try.”
“Huh?”
“Simple. Go back and prevent my parents from meeting.”
Ray slumped back in his chair and groaned. “Look I know someone you should see.”
“Listen, I will never have existed, so there can be no issue of memories.”
“And if you succeed or have succeeded, how can we be sitting here having this conversation?”
“Parallel time lines. From one moment to the next, there are infinite possibilities. Our meeting and conversation is just one variant.”
“Then, somewhere a time line will exist where you will exist, your experiences, memories intact.”
“I know, rife with paradoxes. But I can’t go on like this.”
“Take this card. A Dr. Freeman. Cognitive behavioral psychologist.”
David sighed and leaned back in his seat for the first time. His features went blank for a few seconds, then he smiled, extended a hand, and took the card. “Sure, Ray.”
Ray looked askance and David knew that he knew he was being humored.
Later that night, David stumbled into his unkempt apartment, with a blossoming heartburn, which now seemed to spread across his entire torso, and down his left arm. He needed to lie down; that seemed to make it worse but he craved sleep.
It is like a black and white movie because it was taking place in 1952. A cold windswept winter day in St. Louis and he finds himself across the street from the city courthouse. He tries to focus: January. This is when his parents married. He sees a man, early thirties, leaning near the steps, reading a newspaper, as though waiting. The man lowers the paper. It is him; he’s seen the old photographs. A judge is going to marry them. So, they’ve already met. He’s waiting for her. What can he do?
He approaches warily, entreating his young father, “You don’t know me but I know Marilyn...let’s go have some coffee.” His father stares, unmoving. “You’re David. She told me. She’s engaged to another man and hasn’t broken it off.”
His father assumes an offensive posture, removing his hands from his pocket. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere. How do you know this?”
“I know the guy.”
David feels his young father senses a weak argument, no proof, then to his sudden surprise, “I had a feeling. I thought it would be OK. We were going to leave the area and move to the northeast. My discharge came through.” His expression says he’s mulling it over as he sits down on the courthouse steps.
“What will you do?”
“ Head for the train station.”
“Can she follow you?”
“No.” He gets up and takes one long look, turns, and heads away.
There is a kind of roar and everything starts to fade, close in on David as if the lights are slowly dimming. Sound, too, finally.
A starving African child sits atop a dusty mound of dirt and gazes at the sky to notice the sun fiercely beating down. Raymond is alone at a table in a bar, looking at his watch.
By
Joseph A. Domino
“Thanks for meeting me on such short notice.” David appeared a bit hyper and tense. Middle-aged, a stalled life, “stuck” as one of his former therapists described it. He fumbled for his cigarettes and shakily lifted a tumbler of scotch to his lips.
“No problem,” said his only male friend, Raymond. “It’s been a while.” Raymond leaned forward attentively. “You said you needed to talk. I know things haven’t been going well.” David made a face as if to convey mild shock at what he perceived as gross understatement. For a moment his gaze drifted about the bar, the dim lights, the couples, the low hum of disparate conversations.
“It’s intolerable. I’ve lost almost everything. Wife, lover, child. My mother is rapidly sinking into Alzheimers. My father looks at me as if I’m a bug. Lost my job with little or no prospects. Lost. Loss. I really think when people disappear from your life permanently, it’s little if any different from death. Loved ones.” David lit another cigarette and signaled for another drink.
“Have you considered professional help?” Ray squirms uneasily.
“I’m done with that. I had one good therapist. He helped but at this point, I can’t see going back.”
“Would anti-depressants help?” asks Ray without conviction.
David dismissed the notion. “Two kinds of depression. Internal resulting from brain chemistry imbalances. Meds have some success there. The other situational, external factors. Reality. Meds don’t make reality go away. That’s what I need: reality to go away. The present moment is an ongoing reflection of painful memories. It’s crushing. I want it to go away. Better yet, if these things had never happened to me. ”
Raymond leaned closer. “I don’t mean to sound like a therapist or a shrink but you worry me. You have suicidal thoughts?”
“Suicide doesn’t fully address the problem. What if there’s an afterlife? Good, bad, or indifferent. The painful memories would persist. There could be another solution. A ‘97% solution’. ”
Ray tried to shift the discussion. “I thought you were seeing someone.”
“Yes. It’s fine. But we’re both detached like we’re not completely there. The other day, we went walking through the Botanical Gardens and I was consumed by a sense of aloneness, even as we held hands. The whole afternoon and evening was weird.”
“How so?”
“I felt untethered, like I was becoming detached from the very ground under my feet. It was an odd Florida sky. Overcast but clouds thin enough to still see the sun. You know, dimming it like gauze over a light bulb, a corona effect. Or an eye with a cataract, God looking down on a blurry creation. They’re Japanese gardens you know and are landscaped to produce effects of tranquility, a meditative atmosphere. It felt like a part of me was somewhere else. Then in the museum. Something about Japanese settlers, cooperative farming, horticulture, very old photos. One caption read: ‘The identity of the man on the far left is unknown.’ How would anyone know he ever existed?”
“Everything is not metaphorical.”
Ignoring the comment, David continued, “We sat at an outdoor café later that afternoon. Pleasant, innocuous conversation. A man walked up to our table, smiled and said, ‘Are you Joe?’ No, I’m not I said of course. Who are any of us?”
Ray sighed heavily. “What’s your point?”
“It feels like there isn’t much left. Like I’m fading slowly. Hah, maybe I went back in the past and am slowly disappearing.”
“If you are, let’s pay the check first. Listen, what did you mean, a 97% solution?”
“That refers to my personal philosophy, ‘world view’ if you will. Life is 97% ridiculous and ‘ridiculous’ is being charitable. More like devoid of meaning, miserable, horrible.”
“And the 3%?”
“Meaning, fulfillment. Love of family and friends, beauty in art and the natural world, work with a purpose, sense of accomplishment. Making a difference. Without that 3%, there is no point to anything.”
“So, if suicide doesn’t guarantee erasure of these painful memories—“
“Hypnosis—time travel through teleportation. Sure it sounds crazy, but I’ve got to try.”
“Huh?”
“Simple. Go back and prevent my parents from meeting.”
Ray slumped back in his chair and groaned. “Look I know someone you should see.”
“Listen, I will never have existed, so there can be no issue of memories.”
“And if you succeed or have succeeded, how can we be sitting here having this conversation?”
“Parallel time lines. From one moment to the next, there are infinite possibilities. Our meeting and conversation is just one variant.”
“Then, somewhere a time line will exist where you will exist, your experiences, memories intact.”
“I know, rife with paradoxes. But I can’t go on like this.”
“Take this card. A Dr. Freeman. Cognitive behavioral psychologist.”
David sighed and leaned back in his seat for the first time. His features went blank for a few seconds, then he smiled, extended a hand, and took the card. “Sure, Ray.”
Ray looked askance and David knew that he knew he was being humored.
Later that night, David stumbled into his unkempt apartment, with a blossoming heartburn, which now seemed to spread across his entire torso, and down his left arm. He needed to lie down; that seemed to make it worse but he craved sleep.
It is like a black and white movie because it was taking place in 1952. A cold windswept winter day in St. Louis and he finds himself across the street from the city courthouse. He tries to focus: January. This is when his parents married. He sees a man, early thirties, leaning near the steps, reading a newspaper, as though waiting. The man lowers the paper. It is him; he’s seen the old photographs. A judge is going to marry them. So, they’ve already met. He’s waiting for her. What can he do?
He approaches warily, entreating his young father, “You don’t know me but I know Marilyn...let’s go have some coffee.” His father stares, unmoving. “You’re David. She told me. She’s engaged to another man and hasn’t broken it off.”
His father assumes an offensive posture, removing his hands from his pocket. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere. How do you know this?”
“I know the guy.”
David feels his young father senses a weak argument, no proof, then to his sudden surprise, “I had a feeling. I thought it would be OK. We were going to leave the area and move to the northeast. My discharge came through.” His expression says he’s mulling it over as he sits down on the courthouse steps.
“What will you do?”
“ Head for the train station.”
“Can she follow you?”
“No.” He gets up and takes one long look, turns, and heads away.
There is a kind of roar and everything starts to fade, close in on David as if the lights are slowly dimming. Sound, too, finally.
A starving African child sits atop a dusty mound of dirt and gazes at the sky to notice the sun fiercely beating down. Raymond is alone at a table in a bar, looking at his watch.