Misery NOT Company

They say, whomever they are and if you figure out who "they" are please let me know because I've several not so nice things to say to "them", that misery loves company. People use that expression like it is supposed to really mean something, and that it has some deep transcendent meaning that will make the person who is miserable feel better. Or that it will explain why the sad sack bastard who is miserable is trying to make other people around him or her miserable as well. "Misery love company" they will say and nod knowingly. Never mind the fact that usually the miserable bastard isn't exactly having the time of their life by being miserable. "They" just use that tired trope to explain why the miserable one is trying to make the world miserable with them. Well, they are wrong.

True misery, the type of misery that has you looking for methods to find your way out of the world in the least painful but quickest way possible does not in fact love company. In many ways, company is the very last thing that misery needs. It doesn't help, all the fake pity, and the "it will get better, I promise" lies told to the miserable one as ways and means just to get them to come to work and do their job. I mean you may be miserable,but can you get me those TPS reports before Monday, and try not to off yourself over the weekend, "yeah thanks."  The miserable comes to work, because what is the alternative? To spend the day in some coffin they call an apartment, staring at the walls as they begin to close in? To go to the track, and hope the ponies run swiftly? Even if they do, a true miserable bastard will get little joy out of picking the right horse. They will, if they are truly miserable, and it is deeply rooted enough find a way to explain that because their horse came in, it probably means there is a piece of Chinese space junk about to land on their head and even the karmic balance out, and it will probably happen on the way to cashing in their winning ticket. Thus, the balance of misery is complete.

Good things happen to miserable people all the time, they get co-workers to bring them donuts, they get told they look good in that dress, or that when they smile it lights up the room. They have people remind them of their humanity, and that in spite of themselves and their current condition, they are, in fact, a decent human being that has value far beyond what they believe. They have people, whether they want to believe it or not, that are really, truly (as much as any other human can be) on their side. People who will take up for them, people who will try to help them (again as much as any other human can) slay the demons that are causing the misery in the first place. They have people who will pour them several drinks into the glass of "calm the fuck down" and sit with them while they get heavily intoxicated on its contents. They have people that, after all those drinks, will steer them out of the bar, after they have calmed the fuck down, as the miserable one tries very hard to keep their shit together and either not fall or break down in public. They have (if they are lucky) people who will, for reasons passing understanding, watch that break down happen (and it will happen, it has to happen) in private, and remain beside them as the miserable one is having a come apart like a Frenchmen at the fall of Paris. They even have people who will provide them the most basic of human comforts. The type that people don't talk about at polite parties.


Of course the miserable one knows this, they are miserable, not blind, deaf, or dumb. The misery has not robbed them of their ability to appreciate the good people that are trying to take the "misery loves company" proverb and change its narrative. The actual theory behind the proverb is that miserable people want others to be miserable as well in the hopes that it will make them feel better to see that they aren't the only ones miserable. That is a load of bollocks. The miserable one doesn't need to know that other people are just as miserable as they are. Again, they are miserable not stupid. The miserable one(s) understand that the world has enough shit sandwiches to go around for us all, and that they aren’t the only one taking a bite of it. That is the difference between being miserable and being pathetic. It isn't a contest to see who can hit rock bottom the fastest. There is no prize for being the most miserable, or rather if there is, you sure as fuck don't want to earn it. If such a prize existed, and thank fuck that it doesn't, I seriously doubt it would be the "cure" to that person's misery.

Misery is a temporary losing of the plot, a side road on life's journey that may be a bit more bumpy than you'd like, but here you are fucking miserable. This is not the Lewis and Clark expedition, you do not need a team of mapmakers, guides, porters, and camp followers to come with you on this trip. If you do, then you aren't doing it right. Those well wishers, and supportive people who you left behind on the turn down misery lane, will be there (if you are lucky, and if they are truly supportive) when you find the end of the road. You don't need them to, and if you are any sort of decent human being, you don't want them to come on this journey with you. Write them letters from the wilderness of misery, drive the point home that you are on a solo journey of misery, and have them pray that tomorrow gets much better. If they care they will, if they don't, well fuck them they aren't your friends to begin with, and they can rot in a hell of their own making.

That trip through the wilderness of misery is fraught with all sorts of pitfalls and all types of peril. There will be places that will appear to offer respite from the horrors of misery, places that seemingly offer you a quick way out. A short cut to a happier place. This is an illusion, misery is a tricky bitch. It (she? he?) knows just the things to put in front of you to trick you into wandering even further into the brambles they have constructed for you. Misery is a clever whore, always has been, always will be. Generally, misery is smarter than you are, and that's a problem. Misery will allow you to cry for help if you want to, but remember she is smarter than you. Those cries for help that you think are clear as day, misery will twist and turn into something far, far different. Just for fun, misery will provide you with images of people (and they are just images, they aren't real) that seem to offer you an escape from her clutches. Another illusion, a trick, a way to get you to believe that misery does love company, and that here is another soul on the same path as you, that can provide you a modicum of warmth, and support to get you out of your misery. It's a trap, such a person doesn't exist. This is a fan favorite of misery, allowing you to believe the horrible illusion that another person can save you from misery. They can't, and you can't let them. It is a siren's song that is very, very difficult not to listen to, but like the crew of Odysseus' galley, you need to stuff you ears with wax, and not listen to any type of song that promises a way out of misery.

The trials and the trails of misery are yours to transverse alone, if you are truly aware of the nature of misery, you understand and accept this. Acceptance, as "they" say is the first step, and you are going to have to take a lot of steps to get out of the trap misery has laid for you.  However, misery, the true misery that if you are unlucky enough to be suffering does not love nor want company. True misery is like Linus' security blanket, it is something that you wrap yourself, and yourself alone in, and work out alone and do not share. You may try to talk yourself out of your misery in the company of others, but they are not on the journey with you, they are signposts, way stations on your intensely solo journey out of misery. It is a trip that must need doing, and only you can do it, and only you can want to do it. Other people can smash you over the head in their attempts to get you to "snap out of it" they can cajole, beg, and plead for you to come to your senses, and see the light (as it were), but it is a trip you have to walk alone. Try to reach out for help, and misery will be there waiting to make things worse for you. That is what misery does, makes things worse. It is the sole reason for misery's existence. I've never seen a situation so bad that it cannot get worse is one of misery's mantras.

The weight of the world is not on your shoulders, the world doesn't really give much of a fuck about you, sure it is kind of out to destroy you, but the world doesn't have to try that hard, and generally if it waits long enough, you will probably destroy yourself anyway. That weight, that Coleridgeian albatross following your ship doesn't have to end up around your neck. Your can is not empty, don't rattle it too much, or people will grow tired of the noise though they might (or might not) be too polite to tell you. Think of it as a rebuilding project, misery has torn you right down to the ground, and you need to rebuild yourself and the image of yourself (for you and others) from the bottom up. Erect scaffolding to facilitate the construction process. Your enemies (misery and others) will deride the scaffolding as an eyesore, and try to shake it to the ground. The scaffolding will, eventually, collapse, and perhaps it will crush you, but if that be so, let it happen when the edifice of the reconstituted, liberated you is already standing. That time, whether you know it or not, is coming, for not only strength is on your side, but truth is also.

Serge and his Apples II

"She told me you'd be here, drinking yourself into oblivion."  I looked across the booth to see the latest "fresh hell" that had wandered into my life and sighed. "What is it with you people and your unattached pronouns "she"?" He looked perplexed, and eventually replied "the one with br...., stop it boy! I fairly shouted, I fucking know what colour eyes your "she" has, and I knew she'd send you, and if either you or her had any sense, you would have known that I knew that already. For fuck's sake how big of a drunk does she think I've become?" I put up a forestalling hand, as I could see that he was actually about to answer my rhetorical question about the level of my non-sobriety. "It's Monday boy, and I knew she would send you around today, so let's not waste any more breath on the subject of who (or what for that matter) she is. Hopefully she also told you to keep your gob shut, and let me do most, if not all of the talking, please just nod if that is the case, voices are a bit much for my head to take at the moment, or rather any more voices." He arched an eyebrow at that, but did as he was told and nodded once in affirmation. "Good, now that we've reached a partial understanding as to how things are going to work, maybe I won't have to stick a fork in your forehead." Again he nodded, quick learner it seemed, probably learning all sorts of things quickly, but that was no longer my concern, I had other more complicated problems to deal with that this latest idiot of inquiry, but I certainly wasn't about to share that with him in order for him to share that with her.

"You're here, just like the last one, about Serge and his apples. Whether you know it or not." He looked a bit confused and replied "Serge? Apples? Who the hell is Serge, and why would she send me to buy apples?" I laughed out loud at that. "She didn't tell you about Serge? Or his apples? Or that eventually that is the point of her sending you?" He nodded his reply again indicating that she had sent this idiot on his "mission" grossly under-informed. "For Fuck's Sake! Do I have to educate the entire free fucking world on this every time your mistress(es) feel the need to pump me for information?" I raised another forestalling hand, "that is a rhetorical question, boy and you don't need to bother making things worse by replying in the affirmative." Sighing, I continued "fine let's start near the beginning, since it seems I am like Sisyphus destined to push this rock up the same fucking hill for all of eternity. But, before I start his long tale full of sighs, I want to make sure of something from you."
"What is that?" he queried "I want to make sure you remember it or if you can't I will give you pen and paper so you can make some notes to write down, I grow weary of telling the same story over, and over again to you lot." He nodded and said "I'll remember it, can't promise you, that others will but I will remember it." "Fine," I said "I guess that's about all I can ask for or expect."

"Our boy Serge, which isn't his real name, was just a normal lad, well as normal as any of us can be in this madhouse we call a world, and around oh twenty years ago you wouldn't have ever thought Serge would turn into the 'man with the apples' that he is today. It isn't like he started to run with the wrong crowd or anything. In fact, Serge is a bit of a loner, and crowds bother him. I think it is his intense dislike of people that might play into his almost pathological hatred of crowds. But, that is his and his therapist's problem (if he has one, he certainly could use one or three). The process that got Serge behind that apple cart was a slow one, it wasn't some Kierkgaardian earthquake that hit him one day while he was singing show tunes in the park. It wasn't some piece of Chinese space junk that landed on his life and flattened it for miles in every direction. No, it was an slow, subtle process of the little things that most of us fail to notice, but that for Serge started to add up to the sum of all its parts."

"Let me know if I'm going too fast for you boy, and by the way this is thirsty work" I waved what was now my empty pint glass towards him and then the bar "be a good lad and stand me a pint, I know she can afford it, and I know she knows it's the price of doing business with me." He nodded and said "yeah she mentioned that when she handed me the money, she said you'd need some lubrication in order to talk." He got up, and walked to the bar while I pondered the double meaning of 'lubrication' and whether or not I was going to bring it up to him. I decided against it, no need to antagonize her even further I thought. He slid back into his side of the booth with our pints, and I nodded my thanks. "Since we had to start at the beginning of this story, I certainly hope she was generous with our allowance for the lubrication. He smiled "she wasn't stingy, and I would imagine that if her money runs out, and I have to use my own she will reimburse me. Oh I am sure that she will lad, I am sure that she will."

"Anyway, back to our boy Serge. He is a clever fellow, but he is also a bit too narrowly focused, which at times makes him look surprisingly stupid. I know it's a bit of a oxymoron but he is what we would call a "clever fool." It makes sense if you know him, but I seriously doubt you'll ever get that chance, so you will just have to take my word for it. Serge is mostly a closed book to new customers now days, and I would not recommend you trying to cozy up to him. He would, more than likely, figure out who sent you, and things would not go particularly well. Serge's path to the glory of his apple cart was not a smooth one, and he spent a long, long time wandering the "desert" as it were. He had, still has, an unique ability to make enemies, and he compounded that talent by making enemies in the highest places he could find. He is fond of saying that in order to judge a person correctly you shouldn't judge them by their friends, but by their enemies, and he made some pretty powerful enemies in his time. Remember I said he was a 'clever fool' and his enemy list is proof positive of the 'fool' part. Still, somehow he survived his wanderings in the desert, and though he would never admit it, it probably made him a better, stronger person in some ways. Sadly, in other ways it also made him a proper cunt, and it is that dichotomy that is central to figuring out Serge as a person. One example is that he will go out of his way every year like clockwork, to buy someone, who publicly at least, seems to loathe him, a birthday present. If you ever want to figure him out try to figure that bit out. I mainly gave up trying to sort out what makes him tick (if anything), and just try to stay out of his way for the most part. That is until, your mistress and others send idiots like yourself to bother me in my golden years."

"Even when he was wandering in the desert, a desert that he was responsible for putting himself into in the first place I might add, Serge was making progress. He probably didn't even realize it himself, because again he's a fool, but he was. Wisdom, if it comes at all, comes late, and that is doubly true for our boy Serge. Don't get the impression that Serge is an idiot, he's not, he's just too narrowly focused for his own good, and deep down he expects more out of people than he is willing to admit, and when they 'fail' him, it usually surprises him, even though he would never admit that out loud.  He will loudly proclaim his hatred of people, then turn around and trust one with something of major importance. It makes as little sense to me as it does to everyone. It is the fundamental flaw (or the multitude of flaws that he has) in his character. I don't believe he has ever really resolved it, and he probably never will. He is torn between the polar opposite ideas of trusting no one, and trusting everyone. And it seems he can't reconcile the two, or find a happy medium. More the fool to him."

I put down my freshly emptied pint glass, and gave him a look "don't gawk boy, go to the damn bar, get us another pint, and be generous ask them to 'leave space in one of them'. "They will know what that means, even if you don't." He toddled off to the bar, and I began to wonder if perhaps he couldn't hold his liquor. That was going to be a problem if he was to continue to listen to the story of Serge and his apples. He managed to make it back to the booth, and I took the one with space, and topped it off with the contents of the flask I had in my coat pocket, took a long drink of it. "Good stuff, boy. If I liked you more, I'd share, but I don't so I'm not. Also, I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps you might not need to slow down on your drinking the story isn't even half finished yet. In fact, let me help you out." I reached across took his pint from in front of him, and downed about half of it in one gulp. "There you go, don't say I never did you any favours lad." He took the now half empty pint glass back with a morose stare, and said "yeah she cautioned me against trying to go pint for pint with you. Guess she was right." I laughed "that she was boy, that she was indeed. Now, settle down, nurse your drink like it was your favorite dying auntie, and pay attention."

"Your attention will have to wait another day boy." Both he and I looked up to see who the intruder into our little chat was, and why he was being so very rude to people clearly engaged in a private talk. I let out a long, deep sigh. "Hello, Felix how are you doing today, killed anyone yet?" The tall, thin and exceedingly dangerous man that I had addressed, looked down his aquiline nose, and replied. "Not yet, GI, but it is just barely past 2 p.m., so the day is young. You know we like to visit people we need to talk to after dark." I laughed "well I guess that makes me a special project then huh?" It does indeed GI, it does indeed." I looked around the bar, and noticed them "I see you've brought your usual playmates with you." Felix, or as we call him 'Iron Felix' wasn't the muscle type, make no mistake. He is a bastard, and will make your life a misery, but usually he won't have to lay a hand on you to do it, it made him even more of danger than if he had just punched you in the mouth like any honest thug would. I gave a little wave to Felix's companions, Viktor, and Lazar, large men with very little skill in the finer art of communication, and even less in the way of a sense of humour.

Felix glanced at the boy, "run along to your mistress, and tell her that GI will have to finish his sad tale of woe and neglect some other time, for now he has other, more pressing business with me and my people." I nodded over to the boy "it will be fine, Felix here is an icy bastard, and loves to put the fear of god or devil into people, he's good at it so he does it a lot. I figure his mother didn't love or hug him quite enough as a child, which is why he's such a cunt, but that isn't really the point at the moment. Tell your mistress that I've not become a grave man yet, she will understand. Maybe she will fill in some blanks for you before she sends you back for the rest of the story of Serge." Felix rolled his eyes at this "you daft bastard, you're telling this whelp" pointing at the boy "about Serge and his Apples? You've gone madder than Sully thinks, and he thinks you're round the twist already."

I sighed "Felix stop being such a fright, you'll give the lad a heart attack or a complex. I'm just telling him what she wants to know, and you already know. It's not like I'm giving away the keys to the castle." I looked at the boy, "trundle along lad, I'll be right as rain, after I talk to this lot. Just a minor misunderstanding of the ways of the world among old friends. We are old friends aren't we Felix?" He shrugged "I've known you a long time, and haven't needed to kill you yet." I smiled "see lad, for Felix that's almost family." The lad got up, turned tail, and left in as much haste as a husband whose wife has found the naughty pictures of his boyfriend, and 'needed to talk to him'." I stood up, "lead on Felix, and tell Mutt and Jeff there will be no need for their unique brand of persuasion. I've known Sully has been wanting to talk to me for a week. I was beginning to wonder what was taking him so long. Let's go and get this beating over with, I've other things that must needs doing afterwards."   To be continued ...