An Untitled Life in Bullets: Part I

A Twitter novel by Scott Steward

Transcribed from the 2018-2019 Twitter story.

She was the most beautiful woman in town; I met her at a roadside bar at the edge of the city limits, and I watched her turn several men down; those sea green eyes and the way she wore her hair like fire, she was intelligent and butterfly intimidating.

Our love developed quickly. I was a soldier full of grit; she was a tiny delicate thing that could easily get lost in my shadow. We were young and in love. We had no money. We were survivors. We were happy.

We met in Texas and traveled across the country and back again. We shared a love for travel. Wanderlust, she would say. Our relationship was solid. We never broke up one time. Eventually, we married. The career took us to the desert. She became pregnant. There was something wrong with the baby. We had to go to the emergency room often when she stopped moving. We almost lost our child. We hired a specialist, and the little goblin was born by emergency cesarean. My life changed forever.

There were roses and laughter, wine and good friends and pool parties, play dates and barbecues, Vegas and Disneyland, and camping trips in the desert. We were living in ancient cities by the shore on the other coast. We lived the perfect bicoastal lifestyle. We lived life to the fullest.

I split my time between the stresses of a demanding job and home's white picket fence. When I sat at the kitchen table, I had to forget the death I saw earlier in the day, the drownings and shootings, and the corpses I found in the desert—the smell of the dead.

We moved to San Francisco, had a second child, my career became more involved, and family life became more demanding. We were happy. After five years, we moved to a mountain paradise with pine trees, bears, and a short commute into a new kind of war zone—a city view from a mile in the sky.

Life was magical. I would stare out of the living room window at the splendor of the cities below, sit on the deck next to my forest with a beverage, or help my children release butterflies into the wild after raising them. I called my home the Eyrie. It was a tranquil life.

Our summers were spent camping in places such as El Capitan, San Diego, Bolsa Chica, Santa Cruz, Monterrey, San Luis Obispo, Solvang. Winters in Death Valley, Calico. We would meet friends and ride ATVs and dirt bikes at Slash X. We embraced the Southern California dirt culture.

I’ve found my life to be one of the contrasts. A perfect family life existed in a dichotomy sharing an authentic and very dark side that supported the gardens and the flowers and butterflies. I paid for those things with heartache and my very soul, and soon the bill would be due.

While I dwelled on solipsistic importance, she hustled kids to school, lunches, teacher meetings, and maintaining a household. The fire in her that I fell in love with was the one that stepped up to ensure all the bills were paid; all the kids were cared for, and the wolves were held at bay.

My wife was loyal and honest. She was fire. In every way, I considered her perfect. She was my soulmate if I entertained such notions. She was well-read, more so than me. She loved ancient places and age-old romances. She was an old soul. She chose a writer to name our firstborn.

In my brain, I thought I was the star of this show, the important one. I was the one making history. I was the one fighting evil and a corrupt world. I now realize none of that shit matters in the end. What matters is the people you love and bring into this world and being there.

At some point during this journey, I dealt with overwhelming darkness; I bore the brunt alone. It took all my effort, the last fiber of my being, to make sure we got through. Coming off the wave of another dark period, I found myself lost and alone in the wake.

We get used to a lifestyle, regardless of its extremes, and we lose sight of who we are. We separate our lives into our experiences. For her, it was the domestic front; for me, it was the battlefield. We began to see each of our realms as the center: communication, the casualty.

Dauphine was born in El Centro, California. A desert border town where the job took us. She was a beautiful child. Fanciful and loved fairies. She was named after Daphne Du Maurier. I read to her every night. Our love of books was something we wanted to pass on to our children.

We moved to Yuma. A small main street American desert town in Arizona nestled by California and Mexico. Our first house was a little cottage with roses and a grass yard. We would joke about walking the grounds. Life felt real, and that home we made still holds a place in my heart.

It was during this time that I pulled my first corpse out of the canal. I witnessed a teenage girl fall to her death, blood pooling under her head, her flailing body. I witnessed a man who shot himself in the desert over a girl. They never go easy. The body always fights to live.

I witnessed a man freeze to death after paramedics pulled him from the river in wintertime. I saw a man cut in half by a train; he fell off and under one of the cars. He lived for half an hour. More corpses than I can count in the desert. I put it out of my head like nothing.

We moved to Charleston, South Carolina. I was teaching. We spent our time at the beach on the Isle of Palms. My little one would chase birds and find seashells. We explored Savannah and old plantations, and the ghosts of the city. Cypress gardens and alligators.

We spent time on the coast of Georgia before I took a promotion in San Francisco. It was there that my youngest was born. A small image of her beautiful mother. She would grow to have curls and big green eyes and the temperament of the Irish, big green eyes, and the Irish character. She’s an artist and a kind soul.

We lived in a small house with a cherry tree and a yard. It was in the suburbs of San Francisco, the kind of place where you knew the neighbors. We had barbecues and poker nights. Our children would run in packs on Halloween, the parents laughing behind them. Life was good.

My youngest never knew her grandmother. Two months before she was conceived, my mother became ill. I comforted her on her deathbed. I whispered forgiveness into her ear and told her it was all right to let go. She gripped my hand hard as her life fled her body.

I remember my dad being the most broken person I had ever seen. I held his frail body with my brother when I told him of her passing. My pain was gut-wrenching, and I felt utterly broken. I can only imagine what he was going through after thirty years of loving her.

I remember my last conversation with her. My work car was broken down. I was waiting for a tow. I called her to see how her day had been. She said she met friends at an excellent Chinese buffet. She asked about Dauphine. It was a friendly conversation; I never expected it to be our last.

My wife and child flew out to be with me. They comforted me. My wife had a tumultuous relationship with my mother, but she was there for me in my moment of grief. Losing a parent is the most devastating feeling. I imagine losing a child or a partner could be more horrific.

Something changed inside me after that. I felt abandoned somehow. I had my own family, but somehow, I felt alone. It was a feeling I could never thoroughly shake. I threw myself into my work and led the most significant project to date for my budding organization at work. I was trying to forget.

I felt the tremendous loss of my mother. At the same time, I felt the joy of my newborn. My emotions were conflicted between pain and elation. I threw myself into work to try and mitigate the conflicting feelings I had in my mind. The demands of it all began to take their toll.

The next few years saw me enjoying life in San Francisco. Coffee at Caffe Trieste, channeling the ghosts of my favorite beat writers, getting lost inside City Lights bookstore. Solo walks to Union Square at Christmas time. I was spending time in Napa, Sonoma. Life became wonderful.

I received the phone call that my dad had passed away. We were at a corn maze in Livermore. It was almost three years after he lost my mother. I flew out to bury him. I broke completely when I read their names in stone on that windswept hill. Kneeling, I failed again.

I was still mourning the loss of my dad when we moved to the mountains of Southern California. There was snow on the ground when we moved into our new house. It has been my dream to live here for the past decade. Nestled next to a magical forest and a city view, I felt hopeful again.

I was born in Oklahoma. All I remember about my early years were bumble bees, honey suckles, ice cream, orange Kool-Aid, girls with socks pulled to their knees, and my dog Puff. My family was religious, and I spent much time playing with toy cars in church while a man bellowed.

We lived in a small grey house with a large backyard. My father was a meat inspector, and my mother was a housewife. They drove old Plymouths. He was a good man, a naive man. She wanted more out of life. I heard the arguments but couldn’t understand them.

I read a letter from my estranged father decades later. He described the horror he saw on my mother’s face when she found out the baby she had carried to term had died inside her. He was stillborn. I remember going to my brother’s funeral, too young to understand.

Soon after my youngest brother was born, money problems took their toll. My father gave everything to the church. My mother told me that we were going camping and ran off with a truck driver, taking my infant brother and me with her. I hated him. I would love him more than anyone.

My stepfather was half Cherokee Indian. A man’s man, he smoked cigars, drank whisky. A veteran. He told me his grandfather played with Geronimo’s kids while interred at Fort Sill. He was the kind of man who worked on transmissions with no shirt on and never admitted pain.

His father left the family when he was a baby and died a hobo in Douglas, Arizona, in 1946. My stepfather lied about his age and joined the Air Force at fifteen. I have nothing but respect for that man. He always did what it took. He never complained.

My mother came from an affluent family. Her father was an artist and a businessman. Her mother was a first-generation American from a family of German doctors. They owned cattle ranches and had stock in oil companies. Long after their deaths, I still have stock in oil companies.

My mother came from an affluent family. Her father was an artist and a businessman. Her mother was a first-generation American from a family of German doctors. They owned cattle ranches and had stock in oil companies. Long after their deaths, I still have stock in oil companies.

After my parents divorced, we lived in a little pink trailer in Louisiana, about 40 miles south of New Orleans. We were poor, but my life is full of contrasts. My stepdad worked his way into the oil industry. He rose quickly. Soon we would find ourselves living in Europe.

I was educated in the English school system. I went to private international schools in Spain, Malta, and Norway. I spent summers in England and Scotland. I wore an insignia blazer and necktie and had a private driver. Nuns rapped misbehaving knuckles. I still cross my sevens.

My second-grade teacher in Majorca was a holocaust survivor. She would tell stories of the concentration camp, starvation, torture, and disease, looking at the potato fields outside of the wire, and how people were shot. I didn’t realize the significance of her tattooed numbers.

For most of my childhood, I lived by the sea. Most of the houses we lived in had a view of it: the Mediterranean, the English Channel, and the harbor of a fishing village. Even though I couldn’t see the North Sea from my house in Norway, it was a short bicycle ride down the hill.

I spent a summer at the Royal Hotel in Great Yarmouth. My room was a few doors down from where Dickens wrote David Copperfield. The hotel was across the street from the beach and pleasure fair. I had a boyhood crush on one of the teen servants; we stole secret kisses in the dark.

She was much older than me. She was beautiful. She stayed in quarters at the hotel. I could probably write a short story about the Royal hotel that summer. The ancient halls and chambers, the people in the television room, and the ghosts in the walls still live in my memory.

The woman I would eventually marry was born in Torrance, California, at the end of the Vietnam War. Her father was in the Navy. He operated river patrol boats on the Mekong Delta. Her mother was not quite a hippy, more of a folk-loving go-girl. She was stunningly beautiful.

After leaving the Navy, her father educated himself and became a famous architect and builder. Some of his projects include Disneyland, California Adventure, Universal Studios, and just about every chain restaurant you’ve ever seen. That man can make or build anything.

Her grandfather flew with the Flying Tigers over China in World War II, and her grandmother was a W.A.C. Her other grandfather was batshit crazy. Having blown out his ears in artillery, he served the rest of his time on a hospital ship. He never wore his teeth or shot at her brother.

It was her granny that held a special place in her heart. I’m told she was the only person in that family who was genuinely kind to her. They lived in Livingston, Texas. After her granny’s death from breast cancer, her crazy grandpa arrived late with a bouquet.

She grew up between Magnolia, Texas, and Moreno Valley, California. She spent her childhood on scenic camping trips, trying to be enough for her parents. Eventually, she was pawned off to a hick from Texas. She married at 19. He wanted to control her. She wanted more. She won, but not before she was dragged into the parking lot at the point of a shotgun amid homicidal rage. She came to my door at night. I took her in; I held her tight. I never wanted to let her go. We started a beautiful life together, children, hearth, and home.

He was a soldier; I was a soldier. The Army punished him for domestic violence. An official noticed her bruised arm, and he was sent to house arrest. She divorced him months later. I protected her from that moment on. She never lived in fear again.

She just wanted a little of what she gave to the world. She wanted a tranquil life. She put herself into people only to be let down. She was a perfect mom, wife, and friend, and she was dismayed when nothing she put forth was returned. I tried, but I even betrayed her in the end.

We moved into our mountain home between Christmas and New Year 2009. Snow covered the ground amongst the pines. We have always dreamed of living here; it would be an excellent place to raise young children. I was a family man with a sense of duty. I wanted to make a name for myself.

On my second day at my new office, I was given what would later be recognized as the largest project of its type. I oversaw coordinating the efforts of 750 people from various organizations. The entire project lasted months, and its success rested solely on my shoulders.

My Dad had just passed away two months before, and my employer assigned me that big project. The same thing happened when my mother passed away three years earlier. I never had a chance to mourn truly. I compartmentalized, dissociated, and moved on. This is not healthy, I now know.

During this time, so many people depended on me. I had the will to always come through while managing to keep everything away from the edge. I saw what lay at the bottom. I became immersed in the darkness and horror; I lived for it. Keeping it all in, hidden away from home.

Life at home was a relatively tranquil existence at first. The house was next to a forest. Bears would sleep outside of our bedroom window. Now and again, I would see one. We had a lush garden; there were butterflies and hummingbirds. I put up a swing set in the main yard.

Our mountain home was a wonderful place to grow up for my daughters. The small community was nestled on pine slopes surrounding a small lake. The grocery store had been there since the 1930s. It was a resort town with four seasons and LA, and the beach was just over an hour away.

My office was in the hood. Second, only in Detroit, the poverty rate was 34%. The murder rate was one of the highest in the nation. Back in the day, it was recognized as an All-American City. Rolling Stone’s first concert was there. The first Mcdonald’s is next to the HS.

The Hell’s Angels first established their clubhouse in the 1940s in the neighboring city of Fontana. Bugsy Seagal showed speakeasies all over the mountain. The entire area was rich in organized crime lore, speakeasies, tunnels, or so the rumor goes.

I was no stranger to poverty. In my adolescent years, the oil industry came crashing down, and so did the economy. So did my parent’s dreams. We lost everything. My Dad was a proud man and took whatever job he could find. He eventually became a truck driver at the age of 50. I had just graduated high school. I ended up putting myself through college by working my ass off. There were times I didn’t get enough to eat. I remember the lowest point. My only meal was spaghetti with beets and tuna—the last of the pantry. I eventually got better jobs.

I graduated into a sour economy. I ended up enlisting in the Army. I was in Recon. I was amazed that I got steak every week. I wanted to be an officer but sustained injuries that ended my military career. Years later, my platoon went on to be the one that captured Saddam Hussein.

I had never again been so hungry, cold, and exhausted as I was in my twenties. It was a rocky time, and I lived between the peaks and valleys. The mountains were not so tall, and the valleys were edges. I managed never to be homeless, but I came close.

The first year in our new home saw us taking the kids to Disneyland. We had passed. It was important to me. We saw our first bear shortly after moving in. Our first Christmas was magical. We camped at La Jolla Indian reservation that year. Life was grand. In 2009 I was optimistic.

I began to have an existential crisis at some point during this period. While taking my youngest to preschool, I would think of myself in a desperate mental situation. I felt strangled by life. I had no way out. Between my work and family obligations, I lost my identity.

We moved to this mountain to be close to her family. Shortly after we arrived, they distanced themselves. They were very dysfunctional. We ended up not having grandparents to watch our children for date nights. Like so many of the boomer generation, they were all about themselves.

The times we spent as a family were priceless. We were very close. We did everything together. We became friends with other young families. We would have parties and barbecues. We liked to drink, so there was that. This friend circle became like family. We did so much together.

I bought an old truck for the snow and towed a camping trailer. I jokingly call it my drug dealer truck. It has a thunderous muffler system. The dashboard is cracked, and it smells like dirt inside. It’s one of the best off-road vehicles I have driven, and it’s easy to work on.

I remember working on cars with my dad when I was younger. We would be out in the garage all night getting a friend’s piece of shit back on the road or doing general maintenance on one of ours. He taught me so much that I’ve gotten myself out of car issues.

When I was in college, I bought a Datsun for $600. I got $200 off because someone scratched “FUCK” on the hood. It took a shit one day, and my dad was in town and helped me pull the carburetor. I remember the two of us vividly rebuilding it on my kitchen table. The smell of gas…

Grit and oil under fingernails, the stains on your hands that won’t wash away entirely no matter how hard you scrub. He was once a professional mechanic working on ship engines. I no longer do my mechanic work, but I’m sometimes nostalgic for days when I had no choice.

My friend mentioned at my dad’s how kind he was and how he spent so much of his time helping others out. The three of us worked late into the night, diagnosing and working out how to get an old Volare back on the road. My friend’s father used to work with my dad in oil exploration.

My friend’s father was a raging alcoholic and was fired from the company. He divorced, and my friend was forced to live with his mom and her many boyfriends. A few years later, his father killed himself in a murder-suicide with another woman. I know my dad felt responsible for him.

He is my best friend in this world. I’ve known him since I was 12. I haven’t spoken with him in a few years, but we went through many of life’s trials together. He ended up marrying and spent 11 years in the Air Force. He runs a retirement fund for public employees in Oklahoma.

We lived in our new home for about a year and were settled in. It was winter, and my wife was making chicken noodle soup. She caught me on the Internet having inappropriate conversations with other women. She was devastated. I slept on the couch for four months. I had no excuse.

It was the first time that our marriage was in doubt. I don’t know if it was that something in my psyche kept telling me that nothing is ever good enough. I’m never good enough. Nobody who loves me is good enough. Maybe depression, or perhaps I just didn’t have a fucking excuse.

At this very moment in our relationship, she lost all respect for me. We tried for years to come, but she was quick to criticize; I would always falter in her eyes. Things eventually returned to a semblance of normalcy as we worked to try and keep our family together.

She later pointed out that my actions changed her feelings for me forever. I resolved not to be a dirtbag and threw myself into my family. For years to come, I became the perfect husband, friend, and father. We got past this. I understand many couples do. Her loyalty never faltered.

To this day, I feel remorse for my actions. I own them. I tried to make it up, but in the end, nothing you can do can change something fucked up you’ve done to a person who loves you. This was one of my biggest failures; perhaps it revealed a significant character flaw. I lacked insight.

We moved past the turmoil; my work picked up. I always seem to seek more. I was a chronic overachiever. During an important project, I witnessed an ethical violation by my supervisor. I confronted him and subsequently reported him. I went out on a limb to do what was right.

This proved to be career suicide. We argued in front of the second line, and I boldly called him a liar. I requested reassignment to another group. I couldn’t work for an ethically corrupt person. My request was granted. The nature of my role was when the absolute darkness began.

I’ve always stood up to bullies, even when I know I can’t win. I would rather lose a fight than lose face. I once knew about honor and civitas, the willingness to subordinate your needs for a greater good. After my confrontation with that corrupt man, he was relocated. I won.

I learned long ago that you must stand and fight for what you believe in, what you love, and what’s right and just. If you don’t, the world will stomp you into the dirt. Predators prey on the weak and those with victim mentalities. Everyone should have a bloody nose sometimes.

My adversarial relationship with religion began at an early age. I was born into a fundamentalist Christian family. We went to church twice a week on Sunday and Wednesday nights. I remember preachers screaming, red in the face. It was all normal for me.

I was baptized when I spent a summer with my father. The church aired a movie called “The Burning Hell,” a propaganda movie that was entirely inappropriate for a 7-year-old. It depicted worm-eaten flesh and the torments of the damned. I asked to be baptized immediately.

When we moved to Europe, we stopped going to church. I was devout, however. I wanted to be a man of god when I grew up, or Batman. I was a Protestant and attended a Catholic school. I always marveled at the opulence of churches and cathedrals. I felt the presence of God there.

I befriended a boy in the US who was from another denomination. I always thought my church was the first after Christ, yet he insisted he was. So, I researched and found out neither of ours was. The history of Christianity was a meandering trail of violence and repression.

Yet still, my faith was unshaken. I prayed every night until I was in my late thirties. My faith survived religious philosophy classes in college, where I drew similarities between Jesus and Bacchus, the grape, wine, and release. I turned agnostic for the next fifteen years.

Then one day, I realized I didn’t believe any of it. The Bible has too many contradictions, and the Crusades and witch hunts made it morally corrupt. The most sympathetic character in the Bible was Lucifer, who tried to free willing thought slaves’ tyranny.

I became a full-blown atheist. I didn’t believe in any of the millions of gods humanity created, killed, and died for. The found morality preceded religion. The crux of losing my faith rested in Epicurus’ problem of evil argument and extrapolated by Hume.

Which was “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence come evil?” It sometimes amazes me how anyone could have faith after the Holocaust, Rwanda, and Srebrenica.

Perhaps I’ve seen too many glimpses of hell. I find comfort, not in Bronze Age eschatological fables of redemption, blood, and child sacrifice but in the spirit of humanity, enlightenment, knowledge, and the common desire for goodness. We may fail, but it’s only on us.

In the fall of 2012, I broke my foot running down the stairs to watch an episode of The Walking Dead with my daughter. I wasn’t even drinking. You can endure much in this life, but it’s the stupid shit that’s going to be our downfall. The surgery cost $20,000 before insurance.

Of course, I tried to tough it out. I didn’t go to the ER for a couple of days. When I got there, the doctor said I had a fracture. I asked him what he meant by that. A crack, a chip? He got angry and said I was parsing words. He insisted it was a fracture and stopped there.

I went to a specialist, who said my left metatarsal was pulverized into mush. So much for parsing words. The last time I dealt with the medical field was when I went under the knife in 2009. I remember the blackness of the anesthesia and thought this is what oblivion feels like.

Doctors can be hit or miss. I was once misdiagnosed with a heart murmur and hepatitis C in 2010. It sent me into a depression. Several rather expensive tests later proved both to be inaccurate diagnoses. Hepatitis C disturbed me. Veterans have five times the infection rate.

I spent three years working on two intense projects. I must allude to things here; I hope you understand. I can typically handle a lot. I’m calm in stressful situations, and I’ve been in plenty. For the sake of this story, just assume it’s bad when I say it’s terrible, and it was.

Death I’m ready for. Mangled bodies, drowning victims, charred remains I can handle. All bravado goes out the door when it comes to horrible things that happen to children, particularly victims of sexual abuse, abuse on a relatively large scale, the particulars you will have to infer.

For three years, I worked diligently on these two dark projects. The images burned permanently into my brain like a macabre after a shot. I was consumed by work. I was always in a bad mood at home. I could talk to nobody because nobody could stomach what I’d seen. I bore it alone.

Three years passed, and my work came to an end. I’m one of those men who never cry because real men never call. Right real men? I broke entirely on my way home from LA. I was not in a good headspace for months. The second project concluded two weeks later. I swore I would do no more.

Months later, I called my wife and told her I was coming home. I got a phone call and was delayed by 15 minutes. When I pulled up, I could hear the kids fighting. I came in, and she screamed at me for being late for dinner. I hadn’t even made it up the stairs. I had had enough. I told her I wanted to divorce. We argued all night. The kids were upset. I spent the next few months in another bedroom. I was not in a good place. We eventually worked things out to a degree. Enough to stay together. My family is important to me. I was willing to work on it.

Around springtime, three years prior, I opened a Twitter account. I started debating politics and religion but became bored. I discovered the literary part of Twitter and wanted to give it a shot. I found it helped me deal with stress. I wrote for a few months before stopping.

I started writing again and fell in love with the beautiful writing coming from beautiful minds. I was awkward and clumsy and prone to cliché. This was my world, though—a place to escape the chaos around me. I love writing on here. The more I opened, the better I felt.

When we got back from the desert, something horrible happened. It was the darkest moment of my life. It consumed me entirely and left me as a shell of a person. I was lost and completely broken and holding on. Nobody understood the amount of energy I had to spend just to be ok.

I felt what true loneliness feels like. Even among people, I could feel my isolation. I knew I had to keep fighting the despair. I got back up, dusted myself off, and pretended to be okay. My work heaped accolades on me, but I paid too much of a price. I continued my grim journey.

In the aftermath, I took a moment to inventory my life. I examine it every so often, in the spirit of Socrates. I spent time with my kids; my wife was understanding. I felt completely wiped out emotionally. I started to withdraw within myself. I dissociated.

I’ve painted a picture thus far of a life filled with its share of hardship. There had been a hardship, but there has also been tremendous joy. The pain takes precedence for the sake of this narrative. In general, I am well-adjusted and content with bouts of madness. Introspective.

I’m no saint. People are complex. I’m no different. My life is that of contrasts. I’m aware of my darker side. I’m arrogant and rash. I have a temper when provoked. I can be selfish and impatient. I can be cruel. I can be ruthless. I’ve done some cold-blooded shit without remorse. When crossed, I will hate you. I will hate those who enable your treachery. I have a fire that engulfs and consumes me from within its conflagration. It fuels my passion, my lust, and my hedonism. I feel like I may burst from it. I embrace my dark side, my shadow, my demons.

Carl Jung wrote that the Shadow “is the rejected and repressed aspects of yourself. It is the part of yourself that you do not want the world to see because it is so ugly or unappealing. It symbolizes weakness, fear, or anger.”

Jung went further; he said we never see others, only aspects of ourselves that we project. When someone is brave enough to withdraw all their projections, they are “conscious of a pretty thick shadow.” We must embrace our dark side to be whole, enlightened, and aware.

In the aftermath of the previous events, I lacked introspection. I was in a dark place. My emotions were shut down. I couldn’t feel anything. I didn’t dream. I suffered deep melancholia and hopelessness. It must have shown in my writing on Twitter because some noticed it.

To be continued…