Debasement

How I wish life was structured like an operating system! When things get cluttered and performance lags, all you need to do is a quick reinstall and all is well again. Unnecessary programs deleted and all junk removed. You get that pristine pine fresh feeling that gives tingles of excitement coupled with that beautiful speed.

Unfortunately, life is built quite like a house instead. We work on a foundation and build bottom up. Even if everything crumbles down around you, there is only a finite and fixed amount of space and time to start all over again. Quite often, you are forced to recycle ruins that remain; repurpose bricks of a broken wall to build a kiln to make more bricks. There are those who come to see your ruins and even haul some of your broken stuff out. Maybe they would bring a lampshade that goes with the new furniture that lies scattered across the room. But in the end, when the dust settles and the hustle and bustle of life fades out, it’s just you lying awake in the middle of a makeshift bed in a broken house, trying to fight the urge to get up and search for that drip sound that permeates the gloom.

And when you are done building somehow it never feels quite the same. The walls are crooked or something creaks. It is still your space but you do feel alien in its midst. It is still your four walls but the coat of paint is not what you chose and it bothers you. You gingerly take steps around the room, testing the floorboards to ensure that you don’t fall through again. You don’t go down to the basement anymore because like every basement it is spooky but more so for you. Here in the basement where walls didn’t cave in, is something familiar and something that remained. Remnants that did not get damaged in the tumult but damaging to behold.

It pains you to stay in the basement but once you are there, you linger. Maybe it’s the odd familiarity, the presence of things that have been discarded a long time back but retained without an afterthought. You want to run your fingers thought the musty walls, you want to pick up a knickknack that lies in the corner and reminisce. There is part of you that wants to run away screaming to the heavens but there is that perverse side of you that forces you to remain and review all that remains despite the pain.

It's then that the air gets to you, thick, heavy and toxic. Your chest begins to hurt with every breath and all objects in the room swim around your very eyes. A loud crash upstairs brings you back to life and you stagger out of the basement choking and coughing as the air rushes back into you. Winded but curious you look for a sign of the commotion. Something has fallen on the floor- nay something has been thrown down. You trace the carnage back to the two feet that start firmly in the shaky ground and stares you down, arms combatively folded across the chest.

From the frying pan into the fire !

"What were you doing in the basement? "

You don't have an answer and you can see the white of the knuckles across the room. Somewhere the bugle of an incoming onslaught blares and you brace for the opening salvo. You fight back feebly but your arguments are moot. There was no purpose in the visit to the basement nor an excuse that could get you off the hook. Fight or flight - the question rattles your brain but you stay rooted to the very spot.

You will not throw the first punch nor will you place the last blow. The victor of the battle will wipe your blood from the gauntlets, only to know that in victory lies the greatest defeat. Because like the game "Jenga", the basement is all that is keeping you up. A tantrum can be thrown and a few more punches thrown but there is no joy in that anymore. The only question that remains is whether you are helped to clean up the mess or you listen as the door slams shut and the victor shuffles away from your desolation.

With all luck, you place a padlock on that door to the basement and you move on to furnish the house. But more often than not, it will remain open, a siren call that spirals you into depression. Maybe you will end up on the floor of that basement, wrists slit, silently hoping as your blood coagulates through the ground, all this will end and perdition will not be an infinite loop that throws you back into this again. Maybe you'll take a sledgehammer to the walls and try to work through the clutter. Maybe you will leave a little chair and a bottle of wine down in the basement so that you spend a quiet night ruminating on the items left behind.

Whatever you do, remember the basement is never for living - its where things go to die or be forgotten. Go back up the steps.