Hello and welcome to the fourth story edition of OGWiseman’s Stories! This story is on the long side, so this intro will be short.
I have become fascinated by world-shaking phenomena that are largely ignored. Once one thinks to look for these, they’re everywhere. From recent, credible evidence of advanced alien life to consciousness-expanding drugs to religious frenzy, there are small groups of people accessing incredible phenomena, and I am frequently struck by how little impact these things have societally and culturally compared to how extraordinary they must seem to those directly involved.
This is a story about something like that.
Not Drowning But Waving: Selected Entries From the Diary of Penny Redfinch
1-1-35
I started a new job today. It’s at this weird place where they sell near death experiences. I’d heard of it before kinda, but I never really thought about what it was until I actually went to work and saw it. It was a kinda last-minute thing, too. Calvin started last week and he said they got a lot of people quitting at this place, he didn’t know why.
Honestly it’s pretty crazy though. Calvin tried to warn me kinda but he ain’t a genius or nothing, plus he says everything is the craziest thing ever. So I go there this morning and it’s like a regular-ass office with real nice plants all over the place, but then in the back there’s all these coffins, basically, with tubes coming out like snakes everywhere, but on the inside it’s all smooth but with suction cups in a few places.
So I’m one of the guys who helps people in and out, cause when they go in if they ain’t done it before they’re always scared as hell. This one guy’s come down like a hundred times, paid a deposit he can’t get back, and then gotten right to where he’s about to get in and chickened out. He’s spent like fifty grand and he ain’t done it once. But even the vets get real shaky and sometimes they piss themselves, though nobody did that today thank god.
But then when people come out you literally have to like carry them, they’re real weak for twenty minutes, and then they suddenly snap back and real quick they’re fine. Like the first time I saw it I thought something had gone wrong, cause dude was hardly breathing, but then he took one huge deep breath and he was instantly thanking people and shaking hands like he was running for President.
It must be pretty cash too cause I didn’t see one person come out who didn’t seem happy they did it. Mostly they couldn’t get back to the counter fast enough to book their next appointment. They only let you do it every few weeks cause of some government rule, even though the owner says it’s crap. The owner’s this dude Gary he’s hella cool, he just got this new Mars-Series Tesla that is caaaaaaash.
Anyway it’s real good money and I could use it, cause shit is too real with Kendra, I’m probably gonna have to move out. Not even gonna write out all what’s wrong, cause honestly it already feels like all I do is talk about that situation. But if I can get even a couple checks under my belt here, I feel like I’ll be able to make moves and get my own spot.
1-4-35
This shit is changing people’s lives, it’s crazy. I don’t know for sure yet if I wanna try it, but Calvin already did and now he won’t stop telling me to do it. Half the reason I kinda don’t wanna though is cause people talking about it like some religious shit. Calvin said he couldn’t even tell me what it was like, and that got my attention cause usually that dude don’t never stop telling me what every damn thing was like whether I like it or not, but he just kinda sat there when I saw him the next day. When I pressed him he said it was like this huge light and he was heading towards it but also he was outside of it. Which I mean I guess that’s why he said he couldn’t describe it, cause what the hell does that even mean?
I told Kendra about it and she thought it sounded dumb, but that’s what she says about everything. But then I noticed she kept kinda bringing it up in that sideways-ass way she brings everything up, like she wanted to talk about it more, and at first I thought she was interested but then as soon as I got excited, she got all critical and said I shouldn’t even work there, and it turned into this big fight.
My third payday is February 19th, I can make it that long. I just gotta keep my mouth shut.
1-6-35
The guy did it! That hundred-times guy who paid fifty thou in deposits finally went through with it and I was the one to help him, and it felt so good. He’d literally been coming longer than any of the employees had worked there, but Gary came out from the back and congratulated him, and the guy was puuuuuuumped. It made me real happy cause he wanted to back out again, and I was the one to give him some encouragement right when he needed it, and he pissed himself but he got in anyway.
Afterwards he shook my hand and he thanked me for helping him and it was cash-ola. He had that same look like Calvin did, like he was real far away and not really like “in” himself, and he said he couldn’t describe it, but he went and signed up for more sessions.
1-13-35
Calvin did his second time today, and when he came out he started in on me again to try it. Gary, too, like not as obvious but he said he’d give me a discount, cause he wants his employees to know what it’s like at least so they’ll be better salesmen. And for real Calvin’s got better at helping people since he did it, there’s just something different about him they can feel.
I don’t know. It’s weird. Like literally what they’re doing is stopping your heart and running some shit through your brain to avoid brain damage, and so you get really super close to dying but they can control it somehow. And like I’ve seen it work a lot but damn, that shit is scary! Everything gets screwed up sometimes, right? I don’t wanna be the one!
Honestly, I can afford it now, though, even after one paycheck, and in three checks I’ll still be able to move out, doing it once wouldn’t be the biggest deal. I tried talking to Kendra about it again, but it’s hard cause I told her I was making less money than I am so she wouldn’t know I’m saving to move out, but then she starts saying I shouldn’t do it cause of the cost, even though that’s not why she even cares.
I probably won’t end up doing it, though, at least not now. Maybe when I actually get out of this situation and get my own place, it all just feels so hectic right now. I wanna be in the right headspace when I do it. Right now it feels like no matter how cash it was I’d be twitchy.
1-14-35
Oh my God. I did that shit. It’s impossible to describe, but if I had to I guess I’d say it’s like… it’s like waking up and realizing that your entire life has been a dream, but that it’s okay, because you’ll go back to sleep, and you only have to wake up forever once, and the moment you do, you’ll realize that all the things that you were worried about in the dream never existed, and only the good things that you loved were real.
Which, I mean, I know, that’s gibberish bullshit. There ain’t never no words for the most important shit. So what’s it really like? Well, you get in the coffin thing, and they close it over you, and the suction things grabs you and they put these little needles in you, but it don’t hurt much at all, just kinda tickles. And then it’s like you’re passing out, but it lasts for a lot longer, and you sort of lose track of how long it’s lasted, and then instead of passing out, you kinda exit your body.
And that’s the part there’s no words for. When I was a kid, when my mom would yell at me, I’d imagine myself sitting in the upper ceiling corner of the room and looking down at us, so it would be like she was yelling at somebody else, and I thought I was doing a good job of that, but nah, I wasn’t. With this shit you don’t go out your own back like in the movies, and you’re not still in the room.
I never watched nobody actually die, but it ain’t like you can see somebody leave when they do. They just snuff out. Something leaves from inside them but it leaves by going further in somehow, and that’s what this is like. You go further in and you fall and instead of landing after you fall, you stretch, and you realize that you’re stretched around the whole world, and now the world is inside the space that you vacated by disappearing inside yourself.
And when you try to turn around and look at what’s even farther outside you, you can’t turn. Not like you want to but can’t, but just like it doesn’t make sense to turn. It feels like trying to look backwards in time with your eyes, they just ain’t made to do it.
No more today. This feel is enough.
1-15-35
Man, that was some shit. I re-read what I wrote yesterday and, I mean… I guess. Don’t really clock it, but I tried.
I’d been all worried before about whether Kendra would be able to tell when I got back that I’d void-gazed, but I figured it seemed like people bounced back real quick, and Gary promised I would. He said he had people come twenty, thirty times and their wife or husband got no idea.
The weird thing is, though, once it was over, I didn’t want to lie. (By the way I realized that people ain’t even all the way back until they take that big breath and you can see them come to. That’s the first thing I really remember.) But I just didn’t even want to go through it. It’s not like I felt bad or like it was wrong, or something, it just seemed like a dumb idea. Like what was the point of hiding?
So I came home and I told her that I’d done it. And she started to yell, but I just sat there, and I realized that it just didn’t matter. Not how I thought about that before, like trying to convince myself I didn’t care, but it just didn’t even occur to me to care.
And holy shit did she notice! She stopped and got real quiet, and she started crying, and she said that she knew I wanted to break up, and I felt that impulse to lie again, cause I ain’t want to see her get hurt like that, but somehow I just knew… that it had already happened. It was my fault but I couldn’t stop it, and there was no use trying.
So I told her. I told her that I was making way more money than I’d admitted, and that I was saving up to get away from her and on February 19th I planned to move out. And I didn’t say it all cringey and punk-ass, I just said it.
And she didn’t yell, which I’d have sworn up and down was impossible. She just said okay, she understood, and she’d try to stay out of my way til then. And then she left, and I didn’t run after her and apologize, I didn’t throw myself around and break shit and swear, I didn’t call any of my friends up and cuss her out for a bitch. I just… sat there. I felt relief at telling her, I felt guilt for lying about it, but compared to how intense the void was, it was all just sort of fine.
1-23-35
Calvin gets his third chance in two days and he will not shut up about it. Like I’m excited too, but damn, bro, chill. I get it, shit is cash, it’s fine. But it’s like he’s a damn guru for this shit now, talking like neurotransmitters and biofeedback and all this crap he never heard a month ago. I keep calling him ‘Ass-Gary’, cause he’s a assy version of Gary but also cause anytime anybody asks him one question about his dumb vocabulary words he gotta “Ask Gary real fast”, and Calvin don’t say his ‘k’s, never heard him say the letter ‘k’ in his life, so it come out like ‘Ass-Gary’.
I get my second the day after that. I’m ready. Shit has worn off a little bit, but I’m still pretty wacked out, I guess, like shit just don’t bother me that used to. Things been real chill with Kendra, like we just talk about stuff now. Ain’t no spark there, like we don’t bone like we used to, but it’s better than getting some and then getting yelled at the other twenty three hours and fifty minutes of the damn day.
Still, I can feel it wearing off and little shit is starting to irritate me again. We’re definitely not fighting, but… well, it is what it is, three more weeks and I’ll be on my own.
1-24-35
I got my second dose. If I do this one and one more, plus the same for Kendra, it’ll set me back a paycheck in leaving, but whatever. This is happening now, I don’t want to half-ass it.
I figured knowing what to expect would kinda make it easier, but it made it harder cause I had more time to think about it! There’s something to be said for just doing shit on impulse and not leaving time to screw yourself up over it. If I didn’t want the feel after so bad, I’d never have done it again, but I did so I did.
Calvin was there waiting when I got out, like a proud dad waiting for his kid after soccer practice, smiling at me all big with his goofy ass. I’ll say this for him, for the first time in his life, he actually gives a shit and he’s trying hard at something. He’s a lot less Ass Gary these days, and a lot more the guy people ask if they need answers. I’m proud of him too.
Kendra knew I was going this time, and she was real weird about it, and afterwards she told me she wanted to try it too, but she ain’t have the money and she needs me to pay for it. I told her nah, I needed to save the money to pay for getting my own place, and she said if she got it she felt like we wouldn’t break up.
I told her I was sure I wanted to, real flat again, not cringey at all, and she dropped that shit and just started saying that she saw what it done for me and she wanted some of the same thing for herself, but I told her it was too late, I knew her real reason now and I ain’t pretending otherwise. It was the sort of stuff I’d never been able to say to her, especially in ‘real time’, like our therapist used to say when she dragged me to that bullshit.
But then I just sat there thinking about it, and I realized, who am I to say what the right or wrong reason to do this is? From the view outside everything, staring in at the world inside my void, all the reasons for everything are silly. So I gave her the money, what the hell. After my second dose, it feels like this is settling into my bones, like it’s not some weekend trip anymore, it’s really changing me. And if that’s true, then I shouldn’t be scared of her, whatever she becomes. Who cares?
So now she’s got an appointment next week. It’ll make moving out tighter but it won’t set me back a paycheck unless something else goes wrong, and even then, two weeks ain’t shit really.
I called my mom today for the first time in five years. She started happy-crying when she answered the phone. She asked me why it had been so long, and I told her that I was very angry at her because of how she’d treated me as a child. Then she started sad-crying from that instead. It’s weird how easy it is to tell the difference between different kinds of crying. I felt guilty after I hung up, but I didn’t regret it.
1-27-35
Calvin came to me today, real agitated, saying he didn’t want to wait for another dose. I told him to just chill and he seemed to a little, but it’s only been a couple days, damn. Honestly, I couldn’t imagine doing another round right now. And it’s not like he’s been doing it for years, he literally has once more than me, but he just seems obsessed.
1-29-35
It’s starting to get weird watching people do this. Like I just keep seeing people have these transformations, where it’s the most important moment of their lives, but for me it’s just another day, it’s some shit I gotta do to get my paper and I forget their names five minutes after they walk out. I see why Gary mostly supervises the technicians and doesn’t do as much client interaction as he used to.
It’s actually weird to me that this whole business ain’t a bigger deal. Like I realized the other day that I believe in God now. I for real believe that’s what this shit is. But most people never had it and never will have it! Like they could come in and for not that much money have direct experience of God, and like 99% of the world is just like ‘nah, I’m straight’. What?!
It makes me wonder what else is out there, like what am I in the 99% for, where the people in it are like ‘what the hell is everybody else waiting for?’ And I’m the one going ‘nah, I’m cool’?
Kendra’s appointment’s in two days. She keeps saying she ain’t nervous, which in my experience is what people say when they’re seriously thinking about punking out and not doing it. It’s actually kind of fun to tease her about.
1-30-35
Calvin came in today and it was obvious he’d gotten another dose from somewhere. His whole energy was just super chilled out. When I asked him about it he didn’t bother to lie, he said he went on the street and there’s plenty of people selling it off books. I guess there’s a kinda big part of the clientele here that does regular treatments at Gary’s, but then supplements with black market shit. Calvin said it was safe, but honestly, I’ve got another sesh on schedule for February 8th, and that seems fine with me. He’s already talking about going back in like three days, and I’m just like…
But I guess Gary kinda knows and doesn’t really ask a lotta questions, cause he saw Calvin today and he musta known he got a fix, but he just said hi and kept walking into the building.
1-31-35
Kendra came home after her first time, blissed out and wanting sex with me for the first time in forever. I told her straight that I’d do it, but it didn’t mean we were getting back together, and she said that was fine, and like a goddamn miracle I actually believed her. She said that shit straight, and I remembered how she used to talk to me when we first got together, and then I got into it too and it was some of the hottest sex we ever had.
After she started crying and tried to tell me about it, but she couldn’t explain either, so we just laid there for a while, but then I could tell she was starting to want to talk about staying together, so I got up and left.
Maybe it’d all be different now. Maybe if she felt what void-gazing feels like more regular, she’d stop getting so mad and sweating over nothing and talking shit all the time. But it don’t erase what’s been. It don’t mean I can trust it, even if she never slips again.
But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there’s some chance that getting this job and starting down this road actually fixes my relationship and I get the woman I fell in love with back. Even looking into the void, I know that’s possible, and I want it. That’s part of why I’m so scared to let myself have it. But maybe.
2-2-35
Calvin did another trip. That’s three now since I had my last one. I can’t imagine. What’s so different between us that he’d want to do that? I’ve got my third six days from now, and now I’m thinking he might do another one or two by then. I’m adding up the costs, too, damn. It’s gotta cost at least as much on the street as in here, maybe more cause it’s an A-felony if they catch you with unlicensed equipment and manslaughter if you screw up and kill somebody. He’s gotta be spending all he’s making the last couple weeks on this. Like he’s gotten a raise and all cause he’s turned into such a good salesman, but even that’s starting to slip a little cause he’s so over the top about it peeps who ain’t had the experience yet don’t really buy it.
2-4-35
I’m pretty sure Kendra went on the street and got her second dose already. She was talking about waiting for two weeks and how pumped she was, then she kinda obviously shut up about it, and then today she came home in a great mood and wanted sex again, and it was like the first time, but when I asked, she told me she hadn’t. Could she lie just after gazing into the void? I didn’t want to but if I had it would have been no problem.
That’s the problem with this shit—it seems like it make you see so much more, but really it just reveals that a lot of stuff you can never know. I ain’t got special powers. My feelings are still just mine, even if they’re different now. I can see the whole world inside my void but it ain’t like some psychic shit, I can’t like tell winning lottery numbers of whether my chick is lying to me.
I’m supposed to dose again in two days. I’m looking forward to it for me, but shit is starting to get hectic again with everybody else.
2-6-35
Ahhhhh. I mean this shit ain’t not good. People don’t flip out for it for nothing. I went there again today and this time it felt fine, like I was all confident walking up and my heart rate didn’t spike as bad. That moment of slipping away inside myself still felt crazy, but then I was there, wrapped around everything, and now I’m back and I can still feel it.
When I came out Calvin was there, but this time he wasn’t smiling. He’s started looking like shit most days. His sales pitch has the same words but he’s like a robot. I think he’s void-gazing every day now, which is crazy. I mean, come on. Maybe you don’t need two weeks between every time, but that don’t mean it don’t cost nothing to almost die.
It makes me not want to keep doing it, honestly, but the thing is, it’s helping in my life in a lot of ways. I’ve been talking to my mom pretty regular and not beefing with her at all. I’ve made a couple friends from the clinic, like people who got their shit under control, and I ain’t all anxious or awkward like I usually am, cause I just think about the void and suddenly it don’t even matter what happens.
So I don’t know.
2-7-35
Today I looked in Calvin’s eyes and it hit me that Kendra’s been lying. She’s dosed multiple times already, and he took her out on the street to score with him. When I got home she confessed when I just looked at her, started crying, and said she wished she’d never done it. I ain’t even get mad, and that made her so mad she told me I didn’t care about her, and she tried to blame me for getting her started with this shit.
I didn’t even blink. That’s exactly the sort of shit that would have set me off, had me digging in and yelling back and we’d go back and forth for hours, but this time I just shrugged, and she lost it. Not mad at me, like, just kinda screaming gibberish, like she was for real losing her damn mind.
She swore up and down that she was still void-gazing, that she never came back. I don’t really know what to say to that, I mean she ain’t doing no shit like I did if that’s how she acts.
2-9-35
I gotta quit my job. I started feeling disgusted with these people, really grossed out like I was gonna puke. Like they’re gonna just waltz in and put down their money for some shit they don’t understand and get a revelation, like the key to the mystery of life, then just walk out the damn door and do whatever they want with it. It’s cheap bullshit, and I don’t want nothing to do with it anymore.
Calvin quit. Or maybe Gary fired him, nobody seems to know. Now Calvin ain’t answering his phone, ain’t returning my texts. I tried to get Kendra to talk to him but she’s been in her room two days and either she can barely talk or she’s pretending she can barely talk.
2-11-35
I could hear Kendra getting restless in her room, so I pretended to go out, and when she snuck out a few minutes later, I followed her. Of course she went straight to meet Calvin, and I followed them as they went to some shit motel room and some dingy-ass fat dude with holes in his T-shirt let them in and got them off. It just took the last ounce of mystery out of it for me.
I went home and left them at the motel, and as I walked I turned one question over in my mind, one the void could never answer: Why had I canceled my appointment for my next dose and they were voluntarily almost getting murdered by some low-rent greaseball?
The answer ain’t that the void ain’t good enough to tempt me, and it sure as shit ain’t that I’m too well-adjusted. It’s good enough, and I ain’t. But I turned that other corner and went away from it instead, and there ain’t no sense to it that I can see, except atoms smashing together one way instead of the other.
I got home and realized she’d stolen money from me to go score. I’m officially gonna need a fourth paycheck to get my own place. Ugh.
2-14-35
It’s Valentine’s Day. Lots of couples coming in together as like a partner activity, and I just want to tell them that it’s the most solitary thing in the world and they’re wasting their money when they should just buy some decent food and try not to eat too much of it to screw afterwards, but I don’t cause I need the money and it’s just three more weeks til I’ll be able to get my own place.
I realized today that I don’t think Gary’s ever void-gazed. When he talks about it he always talks about his experiences real general and in the distant past, and it’s always on his way out of the room, into the back, where you can’t follow up and ask him for more specifics.
I asked everybody on shift and nobody’s been here longer than a year. Nobody but Gary can take it for longer than that, it’s just too gross to watch this miracle get turned into a roller coaster and too tempting to get in line for the ride.
2-15-35
I’m free. Gary heard about the questions I was asking, and he came to me and fired me. He gave me a big bonus on my way out the door, as long as I signed some dumbass hush-hush agreement saying I couldn’t ‘disparage’ him. As far as I’m concerned, that’s confirmation he’s never actually done one of his own damn treatments, but I’ll keep my mouth shut about it.
The truth is, there ain’t nobody to tell. Everybody’s out there looking for their own void, and Gary selling something he knows is too dangerous to use is small potatoes. I’m back into the 99% now who looks at a miracle and shrugs their shoulders. Maybe the smart ones are the ones who know that all the real miracles are too hard to tame, and too dangerous to tangle with wild. The nice thing about Jesus is that he never shows up.
I went home and packed my stuff. Kendra wasn’t there anyway. I hoped she wasn’t out on the street, on her way to some dark and dingy motel she’d never have visited if she never met me, but I know she is. I don’t know what that thing is that makes her lose herself in this shit when I didn’t, but whatever the thing is, it’s unmistakeable.
As I left, I called my mother. I realized we’d talked at least once a week for six straight weeks. She ain’t know I’d ever even started to work for Gary, and it seemed weird she’d never know that now, but I ain’t know how to explain it so I didn’t.
I ain’t leave Kendra no note, either, and she wouldn’t care if I did. Our paths crossed but she’s gone on her own way, and so’s Calvin, and so am I.
END
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In two weeks I will be back, with a story that’s a lot more fantasy-influenced called “Paint of A Thousand Colors”. Next Sunday, look for some more light-hearted, sci fi culture content, subject to be determined. Have a great week!
Enjoyed! We read it aloud which worked great. You write a very smooth conversation internal monologue. Interesting world there.
Owen, this was really captivating. You have so many voices (having read all your offerings from OGWiseman's Stories! The subtexts in this story are haunting. A lot of sadness, but strength too. Loved it!