>>From: Belacqua
>>To: Perdita
>>Subject: varied
>>Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2000

My anxiety has been horrible lately. I can't sit still at all, I get all shaken up over nothing. I can't stand up, I can't use my hands, I can barely light a cigarette. It's making my stomach feel absolutely horrible and the anxiety pangs are going through my stomach and affecting my back. I've picked my fingernails all the way down and scratched off all the skin around them, so now it's just repetitive motions to try and avert my mind from whatever is making it move this way.

I think your question about being in the same vicinity would help and be useless at the same time. Would we quit hating everything? Probably not. Would we want like crazy to continue living? Hell no. Would it make us deliriously happy? Only if we were delirious. What I think it would do is provide a little comfort and some sort of solace, knowing we wouldn’t have to type an e-mail and send it hurtling electronically just to wait for a reply to come hurtling back, to not have to worry about phone charges if we need to physically talk, to have someone physically present to understand so we don't feel completely isolated. Sometimes you just have to crumple into someone who understands. Make it better? I don't know. Make it a little more tolerable? Definitely.

I love you.
Belacqua

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>From: Perdita
>To: Belacqua
>Subject: Re: varied
>Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2000

Belacqua,

I wish I could say something that would make you feel less shaken up, but I don't think I can. My anxiety has been pretty bad lately, too. It's been rearing its ugly head every time I get on the subway. People seem to take one look at me and decide that I'm a good person to fuck with, and that just doesn't sit well with me. Even if they're not fucking with me, I'll hear them talking loudly to their friends across the train and I just want to go up to them and shout, "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" But I can't do it because they're not doing anything particularly wrong except for pissing me off. So I stand there silently, putting up with the horrible crawling sensation I get up and down the back of my neck, and my fists clench up and all I want to do is fucking hit something.

I think you're right. At this point, I really don't think anything would make me really happy. Every time I go to the therapist, she asks me what would make me happy, and I can never answer her. I can't think of a single thing that would make me happy, ever. I know it's not money because I detest money. I know it's not love because love is for those normal people who can go out into the world and raise families. I know it's not my writing or my singing or anything because I've DONE all that. I've said most of what I want to say, and I've sung most of what I want to sing. I'm done.

I was going to call you last night, but I found myself falling asleep around 8:30, so I figured I should probably go with that. It's not often that I can fall asleep so early. I really hope your doctor's appointment goes well today. If the doctor doesn't give you something that helps more than what you're on now, I'll kick his ass.

You know what I decided? I've been thinking about what would be the best thing ever, and I decided the following. I think it would be the best thing ever to sing the national anthem at a sporting event, and then open fire on the crowd from the middle of the field. Wouldn't that be awesome? Another thing I've been thinking about lately is going out to Columbine for a visit and just spending a night out on Rebel Hill, where they had erected the crosses to memorialize the victims, and slitting my wrists so people would come in the morning to find yet another corpse to add to their ever-growing list of community tragedies.

I love you.
Perdita