Excerpt: The Defeated

So, they said that screaming into a pillow might work. I tried it. No such luck, although my throat hurts now so maybe "they" thought the change from the pain of the soul to the pain of the esophagus would be an improvement. I'd tried other things, but they hadn't worked the way I had hoped either. I had picked up a liking for beer, and maybe that in some small way was a help, but I doubted it. How do you treat pain in the soul if you really have no idea where it truly hurts or how to even fully address it?

That was my dilemma. Sure there were specific details, there always are, but I had reasoned that such a hurt was beyond the details themselves. More likely the pains were the symptoms of an overall problem that remained unaddressed. Still, the specific detail was that I had been laid off. Lost my job. Adios to the income and stability I had grown accustom to. Hello to the anxiety and worry that so many people I had helped knew in intimate detail.

I was, am, a counselor. A teacher of sorts. Bullshit artist was just as good of a description of the work I had been doing for years. I had liked it, for the most part. Taking the problems of others, looking at them objectively and providing feedback and possible solutions. It was during this whole experience after the layoff that I knew I may have been good at giving the solutions, but I sure as hell was not so great at coming up with ones for myself.

The day had started off like any other post-employment. I woke up late. Technically, for me it was early at noontime. On some extremes I had known the start of the day to come around two or even three in the afternoon. Usually it was better that way. Less of the day to experience with suffering and dread. As I wandered into the bathroom and looked at my scattered red hair and bleary eyes, I wondered if I should just go back to the safety of sleep.

But even sleep was not good enough. The dreams I had been having plagued my resting time. In the back of my head I knew from my training that all the visions of swimming in the open ocean, fearful of drowning, or of brittle teeth falling out every time I tried to eat were definite signs of anxiety, but it was either take the unconscious innocence of dreamland, or the conscious bitterness of reality and most of the time the unreal won out.

Finishing my morning routine, I grabbed a few swigs of soda from the fridge and walked over to the couch. My aged laptop sat on a TV tray next to the coffee table, and I switched it on, hoping that today would be the chance to start a new life and get the current crap as far away from me as possible. As it warmed up, cooling fans whirred and the outside breeze hit me in a sudden gust of wind. It was warm and pleasant, and I remembered a time where such a thing would have been invigorating. Today it just melded into the background like the pointless tribute of the computer fans and the blaring Windows logo.

I flipped on the television with the nearby remote, hoping the background noise of the daytime dramas and bad sci-fi movies would calm my racing thoughts as the laptop reached the point of being ready to use. I clicked on the browser and went to the start of the job search website. I had started, initially, being very positive about my prospects. Each job I would apply for, I imagined what life would be like if I gained that sort of employment. The fantasy of it all carrying me away when I sent out my carefully constructed resume and appropriately ingratiating cover letter.

No longer did that sort of drive egg me on. At this point, I did it out of routine. I had heard back from one of the places I had applied for of the seeming hundreds of applications I had sent out. After a time, the fantasies were apparently nothing more than that. A dream and a hope that never came true. I had been able to live off of unemployment for a while, and had even gone to a couple mandatory job seminars that were completely useless for my career path.

Somewhere in the mix, the powers that be had forgotten that by cutting massive amounts of budgets for social services, there would be many people like myself out of work with nowhere to turn. The helpers who had turned into the helpless. Much easier, it was, to focus on laid off industry workers. Retraining truck drivers on the use of computers and such. Easier to ignore the sort of niche career of social services. It was apparent to most of us in the field that whenever budgets were cut, the first to go were those who provided assistance for others. I guess they reasoned that people who needed help could suffer in silence and still be productive to the bottom line. Who knows?

I clicked on the job search engines I had set up. Nothing new jumped out at me. I had begun to apply for jobs that I knew I was not qualified for, thinking it didn't hurt to try. I got sick of reading my own name on my resumes as I adjusted them slightly to match every job I applied for. Even though the cover letters were a complete joke, I found myself having more of a struggle to make them civil in an attempt to sell myself as a good potential employee.

But since there was nothing new, I didn't have to worry about that today. I tapped my mouse hand on the TV tray, creating a constant drumming noise not unlike a heatbeat. One of my cats responded to the call, jumpping up on the couch with me. I looked over at his grey pleading face as he meowed his discontent. Some parts of life may fall apart, but the feline desire for wet food at the given schedule was always unchanged.

I shook my head as I turned from tapping the small table to patting his head, resulting in the quick staccato purr I had always loved. An appreciative head nudge followed as I stood to feed him and the other two beggars peeking out from around the corner. Jonah must have been nominated by the group to summon me this day.

Strangely enough, the further I fell into despair, the less I could detect my own hunger. It really only came to me that I needed food when sudden hunger pangs hit me like a jab to the torso. Of course, it could also be due to the fact that opening the cat food always made me less receptive to eating alltogether. A chorus of meows greeted me as I scooped the foul smelling fish pate onto their eating plates and put them down for the three of them.

As they greedily scarfed down their meal, I walked back to the computer, noticing an advertisement on the television at the same time. Some sci-fi show must have been on, perhaps even a cartoon, because the specific commercial to come up was not the cleaning products of the afternoon schedule or the bizarre infomercials that plagued cable networks after hours. This time, it was for some sort of video game.

"The Wars of Order and Chaos" was the name. I could not think of a more generic title to an advertisement that made the game seem to be such an epic scaled drama. The commercial showed gaily colored elves battling dark armor clad fiends in a fantasy setting. The sounds of clashing swords and electrical magic swarmed the television screen in a way that would possibly cause an epileptic fit for those so vulnerable.

But I was intrigued by the description. "Live out the life of a seasoned warrior! Conduct epic battles with the power of elemental magic! Immerse yourself in the role of anyone you choose! Who needs the worries of real life, when the worlds of Asperion are so much more compelling? Join The Wars of Order and Chaos today! Rated T for Teen."

"Indeed," I thought to myself. "Anything is more compelling than this day to day sludge in the trenches."

I sat down as the commerical ended and pulled up the website for the game itself. It would take a bit of time to download, but it seemed like a good change of pace. Somehow the game was free, and I decided to explore the information on their homepage while the bits and bytes ate their way onto my laptop's hard drive.

The world of Asperion, it seemed, had seen better times. Chaos Knights from the evil god Thoros had begun their attack on the righteous Crusaders of Lorian in an attempt to make their dark lord reign supreme. At the same time, a small group of peacemakers and druids from the elder god Aeroth strived to keep the balance and prevent the world from consuming itself.

There were some various game mechanics that seemed a bit cumbersome, and I didn't spend much time looking at them. I figured if I was going to distract myself with a game, there would be enough time to figure it out after it was installed. For now, I'd just try to figure out how what role I was going to play.

In my career, I figured I had strived to keep the balance more than anything else, so that seemed a no brainer on that level. I'd become a druid. But I had always enjoyed the backgrounds of all of my clients and how their personal histories had brought them to the troubles they were currently facing, so I decided to bring some of that into the life of the game.

As I mused over the possible life story of a character, the game finished downloading. I closed my internet browser and installed the program. When it was fully resting in the bowels of the machine, I pressed the start button and fell away from the hopelessness of my current situation and immersed myself fully into the life of Kelva Taurelasse, Druid of Aeroth!