Chapter 18

I know immediately that I am not dead. Though describing myself as alive is problematical.  I am blind. It is not darkness that I see, no black, nor light of any kind, no brightness or colours. I see nothing because I have no receptors to detect light. I have no brain cells to process the lack of information. I see nothing. I don’t see. Nor can I hear anything. Though this silence is easier to describe. Again, no receptors, an inability to process information, but it transpires that silence is silence and a far greater universal concept than an inability to see. 

I am merely soul, without body, without emotion. Though for some reason, these two factors exist in the merest shadow form within me. I can detect the sense of movement within a space. Not my space, space here is meaningless, but space within time. Does time exist here? As my thoughts are ordered, and by my definition, concise,  as I am aware of a before and an after, I can only assume so, but unlike before, time is disconnected to the other three major dimensions. Regardless, I feel as if somewhere distant, somewhere beyond, a body is moving. I can detect the muscles being activated, pulling and relaxing upon command, but to me, not in command, I can only describe it as the feeling of allowing someone else to shift your arms and legs around whilst your body is completely relaxed, much as a puppet master does if you are the puppet. 

And there are other responses, unnecessary responses towards external forces. Not just the mechanical pushing of a machine, but there is a seeking of other ways, other directions it can go. I recognise this as emotion, but to define what emotion or emotions is difficult as I am far too removed.

But I am not dead. This is a crucial detail. But are there any others? I do not know if I am capable. I do not know if I am anything more. But I am not complete. Think about the distance, think about the other. There is a way forward, when I should have none. Think about what is barely there.

Movement and seeking. Space and time. None of these are mine, but they are within me, diluted to barely noticeable recognition, tinted, perhaps even tainted water on my empty canvass. I talk here about identity. As a soul, I must be an identity. But I recognise another. A parasite. Or even a host. An other that is a part of me. 

Bateman. 

Where, then, am I? I am sorry, but I do not accept any notion of heaven and hell, and this certainly is not it. I accept that this is a limbo to some degree, as my graduation to where I should have gone is not complete. But this is not the end, the lights off, power out, that I had expected death to be. Nor did I expect a link to a monster that I created out of my own psyche. I assume that I am not in the spirit world. Am I then inside of Bateman, a fragment of his imagination just as he was once a fragment of mine? Nothing more than a concept, potential without the means to be definite? Or is this the arena within which Bateman existed when he came to me in the mirrors?

But one thing is undeniable. There is a link between the two of us. I cannot completely die until he has too. I assume that the same would have happened in vice versa. But Bateman, if he existed in this form, fed off me. What effect does this have on me? 

I am aware that I am still being fed off. My soul, whatever it is that incorporates this identity, is shrinking, being sucked away into what I can only call the shadow, or even the reflection of my soul – Bateman. Shadow. It has all the right connotations, a reflection caused by the absence of light. There is no light in our relationship. It has all the traits of a reflection, mirrored movements, distortion due to perception, but dark, sinister. And blank. This is what eats me up. He cannot be one until he has incorporated me. The two sides of our soul will finally become just one. His. 

Bateman has proved one thing to me. I am alienated from the rest of the world. He is an ethereal being, but in a dark, sinister way. I have been rejecting reality for so long, that not only have I distanced myself from the world, I have created this mirror image. 

In terms of alienation, there are two types of people; the loser and the outlaw. Both withdraw themselves from society, unwilling or unable to participate. However, one is passive, whereas the other is active. The loser allows the world to change and morph and affect him in any and every way possible. The outlaw kicks back, fighting, rejecting what is being shoved in front of him. A loser has lost through unwillingness, passivity. The outlaw rebels through inability, through frustration, through anger, through activity. Both create identities that are separate from everyone else. But despite occasional glamorisation, at least on the part of the outlaw, alienation is the only outcome. 

I have always been aware of my alienated status. It is a hard thing to ignore. The trouble is, I have always seen myself more as an outlaw, even though occasional doubt has led me to the other extreme. I believed that I was an outlaw because I felt as if I wanted to fight back against the world. There is frustration on my part, but I wanted to fight back because I felt as if I was not being seen for what I was. I thought that the world conspired against me. That I was a martyr in the story of my life, if not the story of my world. I felt as if there was some key ingredient that was missing that did not allow me to fit in. That I had an inability to fit in that I wanted to embrace,

The truth of the matter is, I am educated. It was only ever me that conspired against myself. I have many if not all of the qualities that any decent, civilised person has. It was never inability that stopped me from fitting in, it was unwillingness. I never actually did fight back. I was never once rebellious. I just refused. I was no martyr, everyone saw me for exactly what I was. Someone who closed off barriers of communication virtually before they were ever opened. 

I have been blaming others when ultimately I should have blamed myself. Ironically I knew I was to blame, I always knew I was at the centre of my problems and attacked myself for it. But more often than not, I would project the blame on others, demanding more of people than they could humanly or willingly provide e.g., not being recognised, that the problems lay with them, and creating the martyr myth for myself. 

I know that a cynic would describe me as melodramatic. I am unsure whether or not to agree with them. It is true that I basically choose misery. It is an easier emotion for me to cope with, to deal with. Happiness scares me. It scares me to the point that I believe that I would seriously damage myself, allow myself to break down. Fantasies of being with women, being in love with them or carnal fantasies eventually come to the point where in my fantasy I am unable to cope, I am pushing them away, I am slashing and hacking away at my arm. I want to skin it, strip away the flesh, smash the bones, shatter them. I want to have an arm that is little more than lumps of bone barely held together by the fragments of flesh that remain. And I bleed. And I bleed. If I choose misery, it is because I fear the alternatives so much that I believe it will bring me to maximum levels of self-destruction. And with that self-destruction, I will destroy much that is around me. 

I choose misery. I have chosen suicide. Actually chosen it, not just desired it or believed it, I have taken that step. And yet, I have never seen that as self-destructiveness. I understand just how oxymoronic a statement that is, but it is the truth. With my eradication, I can stop the blame, stop the guilt, stop bringing the misery and the terror into others’ lives. Stop them from the fear and from the worry that I should do something stupid to myself. Stop them from the misery and the lack of self-help that I inflict on others. By killing myself, I will have removed myself, from their lives, before the event even, by severing ties, as well as the possibility of re-entering their lives. I understand why I killed Hemmingway. And I cannot blame Bateman. I killed Hemmingway because my only current ties are with the F.I.B.. By killing Hemmingway, I am removing any pity, any care, any worry that anyone might have held over me. I made them hate me. I needed them to hate me in order to accelerate myself to the dimension that I find myself in now. I had intended it to be no dimension.

Am I melodramatic? Do I intentionally exaggerate my emotions and my expression of them for maximum effect? Ultimately, I am asking myself, do I lack confidence, even in my own misery that I have to re-create it on a larger scale in order to believe it? My answer is yes. I am an addict, addicted to a harsh version of the reality of life that is not mine to claim. That is why the real reality of my situation is so scary. I could have potential. To what level, I have never dared find out. I could have success. But by attempting to attain this self-belief, I am being asked to give up an addiction. 

As an addict, am I therefore melodramatic? No, because I am driven by need. The symptoms may produce themselves as melodrama, but the symptoms are not the problem. Just the face. Just as a cold is not the runny nose or the sore throat, but a bug. The runny nose and the sore throat are my body’s attempts to deal with the problem. The bug. Melodrama is my mind’s attempts to deal with the problem. 

Though my misery is no disease, just as alcoholism is not a disease, just as bulimia is not a disease. It is a condition. A disease is an infection of the body, the physical body, by an external force. A condition is generated and perpetuated by the mind. It is not physical. It is a choice, conscious or unconscious, it is a choice, and nothing else but yourself can be the blame. If I cut myself, it is not because something bad happened to me, that is merely the decision. The cutting is a choice, a choice I can make by falling back on the excuse that the event has caused me to do this. This is incorrect. The condition is generated and perpetuated by the mind. Therefore, the only cure is for the mind itself to stop it, to deny the choice, deny the option. These decisions may never stop occurring, but the only way to stop it is to always deny it. It is hard. I have tried it for extended periods. I have relapsed. It is hard. What I have gone through is, I have to consider, the ultimate failure. The ultimate relapse. But it was a choice. Not Bateman, not Mitsuko, not killing Hemingway, not anything but me. I have only myself to blame.  

But I ask of myself now. Am I ready to kick the addiction? Am I ready to stop taking pleasure out of other people’s poor reactions to my self-pity, my misery? Am I ready to accept that I am going to have to be happy? 

Bateman is the complete mirror image of me. We are physically the same, emotionally the same, we are two parts of one soul. Bateman is such the product of me, that it was never his twisted feelings that killed Hemmingway. It was my own, that Bateman absorbed, magnified and threw back at me, just as he has done with many of my other feelings. As long as that is the situation, I am doomed. Am I ready to accept that although Bateman will always be my mirror image physically, there is one way to separate us two? That I must distance myself from him emotionally. That I must be happy, have to be happy. To starve him of all my negative feelings. If this was to happen, I can guarantee that we would even change physically as he reflects a different version of me, or becomes more twisted in an attempt to fight back and drag me back to where I was, where I am. Am I ready for all this? To give up the person I have known and become somebody else via the route of a mirror? This is a tall order. And one I cannot take lightly. 

Bateman is not a disease. Unfortunately, he is going to take a lot more than positive thinking to sort out. Positive thinking is only the beginning. Positive thinking can only lead me to the weapon. I need the weapon. 

First, I must come back to life. If I am not dead, then this somehow must be possible. With no body, how can I generate the need to come back to life?

All I know is that I am not content to stay in this limbo. But death is not an option. I am not content to become Bateman. This is an option. An option that is not content with me.

This, therefore, is a decision.

Need, right now, is only a secondary matter.