Under a Fluorescent Sky: A Story About Loss, Light, & Lunacy

Looking up from rock bottom.

Above me, atomic collisions, caressed by phosphor, birth light.

Its photons, cool to the touch, tumble onto my paper-towel clothes, revealing a seaweed-cyan palette that’s neither comforting nor curative.

I know this skyward scene is trickery, nothing more than a cheap plastic cover designed to hide two bulbs and a ballast. And, perhaps, to provide some semblance of connection to those disconnected underneath.

Still, I envy the clouds it portrays.

I resent the determined bond it suggests between hydrogen and oxygen. I begrudgingly imagine the molecules holding hands, steady as the energy surrounding them rises and falls. Jealous, I picture their steadfastness as they rapidly transition between a liquid and a solid and back again.

Lured by these permanently impermanent beauties, I float skyward, allowing our shared winds to carry me away from the surrounding fluorescence.

“I just don’t know if we should keep doing this,” she said, her head nuzzled into my neck as we sat on the park bench. Her stray strands of liquid gold, their fibers luminous amidst the setting sun, danced in the wind, partially obstructing my view of the field where the dogs played.

Fucking fuck.

In the last nine months, I started ketamine therapy, awoke from depression, divorced, moved cities, watched my mother-in-law wither away, lost my job (and apartment, health insurance, etc.), moved again, and reentered—in my mid-forties—a decimated copywriting market.

And. Now. THIS.

I mean, I didn’t even want a goddamn relationship.

Curiosity was my sole reason for creating a dating profile in the first place. I’d been in a relationship for nearly 30 years, for god’s sake, and I just wanted to see what was out there.

But before I knew it, The Universe crossed my path with this bundle of light, and after just a few short weeks, I was intoxicated by her energy, smile, laugh, and touch.

Sure, it moved fast. But naively, I thought, “Hey, this feels great, so what the hell? Let’s see where it goes.”

And for a while, the dynamic was bliss; exemplary of what can blossom between two fundamentally aligned people.

Then, like flipping a switch, it wasn’t.

And now, she was ending it.

Temporarily numb as I climbed behind the steering wheel, I maintained my shit just long enough to reverse down the long driveway away from the field, turn back onto the road, and drive past the end of the white picket fence surrounding the property.

Then, I floored it.

“Doesn’t this upset you?” I asked as she walked, stoic, to her car.

The speedometer reached 100 mph before I blinked my tear-blurred eyes.

“Of course it does.” She turned back and hugged me tightly.

My car’s sensors blared desperately as I weaved in and out of traffic.

“This isn’t goodbye,” she tried to assure me.

I screamed, fogging my windshield until I was hoarse.

“Hey, Siri, take me to the nearest Bass Pro Shops.”

I planned to buy a gun.

Write my notes.

Pack a bag.

Leave my phone.

Hike somewhere.

Pin a note to my shirt.

And blow.

My fucking.

Brains out.

But I’m unemployed. And broke. And if I got cold feet, the gun wasn’t returnable.

Lights, streaking.

I’m walking up our apartment stairs.

Trudging toward the third floor, I remember very little other than hoping to somehow transit between the front door and my bedroom unnoticed.

But here’s a fact: a parent with chronic mental illness raises children who are ultra-attuned to energy shifts.

My oldest felt the fluctuation as soon as I walked in. She caught me in the hallway and asked questions, but my throat closed every time I tried to respond.

I held no answers, anyway.

After retreating with a whisper and shutting my bedroom door behind me, I flopped, fully clothed, on top of my comforter. I hadn’t laid underneath it since moving out of my old apartment a few weeks ago. Doing so still felt like betraying her space, somehow.

For the next several hours, I veered between sleep and starkness. Blanketed by warm memories one moment and stripped bare by cold realizations the next.

About the raw reality before me. About the unfairness of it all.

About sleeping with other people. About going months, and then years, without talking to one another. About creating memories—and eventually whole new lives—with someone else.

Endless rumination looped with tsunamis of suffering.

Amidst the waves, I drowned.

I reached out to some.

But none answered.

I was mostly grateful. What would I have even said?

By the time the sun peeked above the horizon, every inbreath brought more grief. And with every out-breath, I wished for death.

My tank was long past empty. I just wanted this pain to stop.

Left to my own devices, I knew I couldn’t keep myself safe. So, I asked my ex to give me a ride to the behavioral health center, where I’m now a voluntarily involuntary resident for the next 72 hours.

Soon, I’ll meet Jeff, a young man in his early 20s with a history of schizophrenia, drug addiction, and homelessness, who was navigating the mental health care system entirely alone.

I’ll meet Miles, my roomie, who would stand silently in corners for hours. For three days, I didn’t hear a sound from him. Then, out of nowhere, as I was picking up my area of the room before being discharged, he said, “Nice to meet you.”

I’ll meet Hugo, a Peruvian asylum-seeker who rebuilt his entire life in the States more than 30 years ago, only to have everything fall apart between a recent Parkinson’s diagnosis and his oldest daughter’s death. His wrist bandages bled through frequently, and the nurses would compassionately change them.

“I hope you don’t want to kill yourself again,” he’ll say during our goodbyes. “Thank you. I hope you don’t either,” I’ll offer in return.

I’ll meet a woman whose name I’ll never know, but whose debilitating sadness I’ll never forget.

I’ll also miss the smell of the outdoors. Wearing a belt. How good shoes feel. Not being looked at with pity. The electricity of human touch.

But for now, all I have is this sky.