He stood there looking tired, dirty, and strung out. His pupils were black pin-pricks located at the center of hazy eyes, an indication that he was back on the pills. We all knew the signs, but when each one of us is confronted by every single red flag, we tend to look the other way because sometimes it's just easier to ignore the facts. His tattered shirt was not a fashion statement, but rather a symbol of his status, or lack thereof. He was a twenty-seven year old man who had spent the last decade of his life working in kitchens, learning the trade of restaurant cooks. And he was good at it, except when he was high, which these days seemed to be all of the time.
Someone somewhere in the kitchen called out for some couscous. It never appeared though. Several minutes passed by and another person called out for the couscous. More minutes passed by. He just kept standing there staring at the nothingness, which seemed to consume his field of vision. He was present, but not accounted for.
"Where's my goddamn couscous?" a server shouted.
Finally, he moved, though his movements were sluggish and mechanical. He pulled a plate off of the top of the line and threw it in front of him. Next, he dumped a dish of microwaved couscous onto the plate and even as it began to fall apart, losing its form, he never once seemed interested in the work that he was performing. He handed over the plate of couscous, which lacked any meaningful presentation and then moved to put another dish of couscous into the microwave, immediately forgetting that mere seconds earlier he had completed this very task.
Hours later he claimed to have blacked out. His memory of the last 4 hours, he said, was gone. He had not been at work in the kitchen. Instead, he had been traveling through time and space, searching astral planes for a meaningful existence. His search had proven to be fruitless, much to his dismay. He told us nothing about the other wheres and whens of his travels, which led all of us to believe that he was lying to us. We believed, as we always had, that he had simply been too high to function normally. After all, who believes a junkie when he says that he is a time traveller? More to the point, who believes anyone who claims to be able to dance across time and space? Certainly none of us would profess to give such a generous benefit of the doubt to anyone who could not provide us with undeniable evidence in support of their claim.
Some hours later as I was sitting at the bar feeling sorry for myself he sat down beside me. Minutes passed in silence. I didn't even bother acknowledging his presence because I would have been obligated to speak to him about his drug addiction and I was, quite frankly, too tied up in my own problems to want to take time out of my day for him. It is selfish, I know. As I considered standing up and wandering around the building in search of a kindred soul, he turned his head and looked at me. It was growing increasingly harder to ignore his presence, and so I returned his gaze.
"I met the other you," he said.
"The other me?" I smirked incredulously.
He nodded.
"You mean like a doppelganger?" I asked.
He laughed a hard laugh. It sounded like wind blowing over dried reeds on a steely grey day in November. I hadn't been expecting it and it took me by surprise.
"No, it was you. There are a lot of other yous, but I only met one of them. You are a lot alike."
"This is absurd! There is not another me out there."
"Yes, there is. I met her when I was travelling today. You'd like her, I think. She doesn't wallow in her self-loathing," he said quietly.
"What?!" I was offended.
He didn't say anything in response, and so after few seconds passed I continued to speak to him, "I don't wallow in self-loathing. And I don't think there is another me out there. I think you are insane. Either that, or you are high. So which is it?"
He smiled, "Neither."
"Whatever!" I said as I moved to leave.
"I knew I shouldn't have told you," he said shaking his head.
"Lay off the drugs."
"Please, wait!" he implored me. Something in his voice was heartbreaking. It was as though every loneliness in the world had surfaced in those two words and he offered all of it up in his plea. How could I say no? So I turned around and faced him.
"What?" I asked.
"He's not worth your time. You know that he isn't. So does he. You're better than that."
"Who?" I asked.
"You know who I'm talking about. She told me about him. He's an image, a character. You've taken his best qualities and amplified them in your image of him and you've managed to ignore everything else about him, but he's a real person and he's more than the sum of his parts. You're doing him a disservice and you're doing a disservice to yourself, too. You don't respect him. If you did, you couldn't break him into parts and pieces. You'd want all of him. And he doesn't respect you."
"I don't know what you're talking about," I lied. I didn't want to admit that he was right. Further, I was puzzled by his knowledge of this particularly troubled relationship in my life.
"He lies to you. He isn't interested in you in the long run. All he wants are the bragging rights to that notch in his bedpost and once he's secured those bragging rights, he'll be gone. You're a novelty to him, nothing more."
"You don't know what you're talking about," I told him indignantly.
"What are you doing with him? At twenty-one he's no better than a child," he pressed.
"I'm not that far removed from twenty-one."
"Don't kid yourself. You are. And you've been an adult for much longer than you've been a child. You know better than this. She, the other you, told me to remind you of this before you waste anymore of your time and affection on him. He doesn't deserve you."
I didn't know what to say, so I just stared at him as the anxiety of this conversation twisted by stomach into knots.
"Has he ever taken you out to dinner? A movie? A real date? Does he call you just to hear your voice?" he asked.
"No."
"Does he lie to you?"
"Yes."
"And you know it, but you just let it happen."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because."
"That's not good enough. Why?"
I didn't want to continue this conversation with him. I felt like I was following him down the rabbit hole and I was afraid of what I'd find there. I stood up and turned my back to him. Even as I inhaled deeply, I felt the defeat creep into my spine, twisting it ever so slightly. Everything felt heavier. I was on the brink of acknowledging my own worthlessness as I took a step forward.
"She told me to tell you that someday you'll be loved. Don't feel worthless, because you aren't," he said almost tenderly.
I stopped, one foot in front of the other, not turning around, "And how does she know all of this?"
"She's you in a decade. And she's happy now. You'll be happy someday, too."
I smiled at the thought of my future self being happy. Maybe he was high. Or maybe he was insane. Or maybe he was telling the truth. It no longer mattered to me whether this was the truth or a fantasy. I had hope that someday I would be happy. I walked away from him in silence, never bothering to turn around.
The next day at work we were informed that he had passed away in the night from a suspected drug overdose. Sometimes I entertain the briefest of thoughts that he isn't dead, but that instead, he is dancing across time and space, enjoying another where or when where he is happy, too.
