Short Story: Daimon

And there you were, illogically confounded by the mystery of its beauty. For anyone else, that little toy plane was just a withered old memory hidden away beneath layers of shattered dreams and unforeseen challenges. But for you it meant something else. For you it meant freedom. The same freedom one gets when they immerse themselves in the boundless reach of their eager imaginations. You held on to it throughout your whole childhood and looked at it with curiosity, the same way you looked at all broken things. It reminded you of the angel you once encountered with the droopy eyes and the broken wings. You knew it was special because it was yours and it meant something to you. And you laughed and you played and you cared and you grew. Because even from a young age you knew how important it was to feel like you belong …

The overweight man who jumped in my taxi was wearing an over-sized magenta jacket and had a beard that reflected an old, anarchic mind. Without sparing a single breath he shouted, “Follow the red van up ahead!” which took me by surprise considering how, as always, there was no other vehicle around. I hesitated whether to ask him to leave but my mother always told me to never underestimate the power of conviction and hence, I drove ahead.

After a while of cruising through the blue mist of an eternal road, the man lost all sense of urgency and eventually forgot about his timely request. He proceeded to light up a cigar he claimed to have saved since the days of the Latvian Civil War. Normally, I don’t allow the passengers to smoke inside the car, but there was something about his confident panache that made me think perhaps I could make an exception. He huffed and puffed, a grayish cloud looming over us both and a pile of ash building on top of his puro.

“You’d think in a time like this a man would remember his first fuck,” he said with a tannic arrogance as he released the ash into the empty seat next to his.

What followed was an anecdotal conversation in which the passive-aggressive demeanor of the man paired up nicely with the broken memories of a spirit that won’t be missed. He told me about his youth, how he once played the trombone alongside the greatest jazz musicians east of Lafayette. Basie, Waller, Gillespie; countless were the names of those who joined him in nights of drunken hibernation and Southern melancholy. He then made mention of falling in love with a Parisian girl in a café near Montmartre. How they got married against her family’s wishes, how they eloped to the mountains south of Auvergne, and how calling her a “greedy cunt” promptly led to a vicious divorce.

She was the first of five marriages that despite their different inceptions, all led to the same inevitable termination. Eventually the man grew weary of romantic companionship and spent his last days drinking vintage cognacs and listening to Miles Davis’ It Never Entered My Mind. He decided to live a quiet life as an award-winning breeder of Labrador Retrievers, patiently waiting for the unavoidable rendezvous all men who won’t be remembered face.

The man had a tough exterior, scarred by an unforgiving bitterness that only added weight to his fat chin. Therefore, it was unexpected to see pools of misty teardrops towering over his moonlit eyes. A harrowing breeze settled in as we approached the last few miles. We didn’t speak until we reached the end.

I pulled over by the chrysanthemum fields, where the road ends and the landscape lives in a state of perpetual sunset. The man patted me on the back and apologized for the smoke and the ash. “It’s alright,” I said. “Nothing’s permanent.” He then gave me a golden coin and thanked me for listening to him.

The man exited the vehicle with graceful parsimony, as if every second was worth hours, and every breath captured many lifetimes. He looked at his journey ahead and sighed with a melancholic sense of acceptance. As I usually do, I stayed to watch as he walked into the field and slowly began to disappear.

And there you were, uncompromised yet lost in a world that kept devising new ways to terrify you. When you left your childhood home you were bound by your faith in chaotic experience, ready to tackle everything that came your way, and yet softly hoping that nothing would matter. You knew that the fiery anarchy of the teenage mind was nothing but a bubble that would burst into a million fragments once reality came through. And when those years finally came you were struck by the coldest tyranny of an ever-lasting solitude. And you learned you had no choice but to pick yourself back up, willing to let life shatter you in hopes of a better tomorrow. And you wondered and you cried and you danced and you grew. Because you knew that even in our selfish minds, there’s always hope in being hopeless.

They were both old enough to have lived moments of genuine connection and yet they were too young to have reached the threshold of true catharsis. When they first jumped into my taxi, I couldn’t help but think it was unwise for them to go on their journey together. Normally I only allow one passenger at a time. That being said, I remembered when my mother told me never to judge those who have fallen in a state of naive infatuation, and hence, I drove ahead.

As I understood they came from vastly different backgrounds. Her father was a Laureate Philosophy Professor who specialized in metaethics and the deontological approach, while her mother was a celebrated seismologist and an expert on the topography of the Australasian Sea. She was born into a life of academia, mastering over seven languages and proficient in topics such as ontological empiricism, cinema verité, and Chomsky.

He, on the other hand, was born to a single mother who worked part-time as a laundromat attendant and sold stolen fur coats in the Mongolian black markets. She had died when he was just a baby, stabbed in the heart by a drunk ex-lover who had stumbled upon a walrus tusk at a local pawn shop. The man was marked by the tragic nature of his upbringing, being forced to jump from one foster home to another.

They met in college where they both pursued a career in the humanities. She ate at the local diner where he used to wait tables and ordered a classic Finnish breakfast: a double shot of espresso with a hint of vodka and a cigarette. “I knew it then and there that I was bound to marry her”.

They were drawn to each other the way a mouse is drawn to a lion, or a deer is drawn to a pair of headlights. He was a virgin when they first met, but she was kind and patient, and would provide a guiding hand in the initial seduction process. Her parents never approved of him, and whenever they’d visit them home, he’d be relegated to sleep on his own in a small woodshed his dad used to store old Kantian texts and Civil War figurines in.

“I will never forget the first time I saw my reflection in her eyes” the man said. “It never ceases to amaze me how fortunate I am to know that no matter what I’ll always have someone there for me.” The man kept a strong grasp on her hand and her fingers started to become purple. “Someone to lift me when I’m down, to hug me when I’m alone. Oh, how I pity those who have no love.” The woman had nothing to add and simply smiled as one does whenever happiness is needed to masquerade profound guilt and loneliness.

At this moment I wondered whether the old jazz musician turned dog breeder would have agree with the man’s thoughts about love and companionship. Perhaps he would have said something like “Love is just love as long as you’re able to understand the difference between what’s real and what’s simply a diluted version of your imagination”. Or maybe he would have said something along the lines of “Love doesn’t reflect the chaos of the past once lived, but rather the fear of what we all see coming.” Then again knowing the man he probably would have said “Who the fuck cares?”, as he kept unleashing a vile amount of ash into my car seat.

When we reached the end of the road, they asked me whether I’d driven another couple before to which I nodded and replied, “From time to time these things tend to happen. Some people think it’s best to end everything together rather than face the unknown alone.”

The man was first to step out, leaving me alone with the woman for a brief second. She looked at me in the eyes, as if bursting to speak her mind. But instead she simply sent that bittersweet smile my way and followed his spouse towards the chrysanthemum fields. The sun, as usual, was bound to set again.

And there you were, perpetually denied of an answer to your queries. Your hair had become gray, and your skin was the coarse outline of a fatigued soul. You wondered whether you had a place in what you knew to be infinite, and you wondered whether time was passing through you or you were passing through it. You had memories that were lost, and you learnt the power nostalgia has on a weakened mind. You were lonely and bitter, but not in a way that was resentful towards the outside world, but rather as protection from your unforgiving feelings of passive guilt. And you ached and you yearned and you prayed and you questioned. Because you knew how painful it is to live a life unanswered.

I felt ill that morning, the way I’d never felt before. I woke up in my cab, back at the starting point of the blue, misty road I always drive through, only to realize I was not alone. Sitting next to me was a short, lanky figure with a scruffy beard and a worried look.

“Do we go now?” he said with a thick Latino accent and without making eye contact. I felt withered and nauseated, as if someone had drained all my energy and my bodily functions were hanging on a thread.  I wanted to quit and leave everything behind, but my mother always told me the best things happen when you least expect them and hence, I drove ahead.

For the first part of the journey the man said nothing, which although not uncommon, still struck me as intriguing regardless of how many times I’ve undergone this endeavor. I glanced at him for a second, his eyes still glued to the front. A slight summer breeze could push him into a nervous breakdown and yet there was something about his look that made me feel as if he was more stable than a giant boulder.

“Have you met him?” he finally asked.

I knew exactly what he was talking about, so I merely shook my head no.

“But he is real. Right?”

“I’m just a driver.”

The man took a long breath and took his hand to his pocket, sweat dripping down his forehead. Out came a humble rosary which had clearly seen better days. He held on to it tight and closed his eyes, later opening them a few seconds later. The sky started to turn gray, and the fog became so thick it made a rustling noise as my cab drove by it. In a surprising turn of events the man turned to me and with the utmost nobility started telling me about his life. “Nayarit” he said. “It’s where I’m from.”

He grew up a farmer in the Mexican coastline, a child of maize and ocean breeze. He had crossed to the United States when he was 21 alongside his wife and two young daughters. He worked picking strawberries for the next 15 years until a horse fell on his leg and was ruled unfit for farm labor. The man became an alcoholic and in his own words, a cruel person, loathing life’s unjust sense of humor and constantly courting death. His neighbor begged him to turn to faith, and while renouncing it at first, he at last became a member of his local church. His will to live was reinstituted, a new burning passion was instilled in his soul.

He worked for his local parish through the remainder of his days, helping people who, like him, felt lost and in despair. He introduced them to a new metaphysical comprehension of goodwill and virtue and accepted their flawed souls for what they were. “I helped Him save them” he told me with a phlegmatic self-awareness. “I hope that was enough for me to reunite with Him”. He again looked at me with that faithful smile and the teary eyes of a soul with no regrets, begging for me to provide him with a reassuring answer.

“Like I said, I’m just a driver.”

After pulling over by the chrysanthemum fields the man grabbed my arm and held on to it tight, tears running down his cheeks and into my seat. For the first time since the beginning of our journey, it seemed as if an air of despair had crept under his skin. I thought maybe I could help him, lie to him. Tell him everything he prayed upon was there, as promised by those who’ve yet to die. But as his stared into my soul with those misty eyes I couldn’t get myself to lie. Ignorance is bliss.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered with a cautious tone. “I wish I could help, but I’m not like you. An orchestra has great musicians that play many parts in order to become a whole. I’m not one of them. I’m just an instrument. Played on by an external force, waiting for time to render me useless.”

​

The man finally let go of me and pulled himself back into a whole.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Thank you.”

​

The man took a deep breath and turned his back on me, the endless array of nothingness standing tall in front of him. He held the rosary tight to his heart and closed his eyes. For the first time I decided not to watch, instead I started the engine and drove off.

On my way back I noticed that the clouds had lost their shape, and the stars were no longer shimmering. I thought about my job, its futile nature and my purpose in this plane of existence. I was condemned to lead people to something I’ll never actually possess, and yet, I feel as if death is closer to me than anyone else. And there’s nothing for me to do but watch as the sun sets yet again while the light still shines on me.

​

And there you were, struggling to remember why you cared so much about fulfillment. Since the beginning, your empiric mind annotated moments as if they had distinct material worth. You focused on living a life without regrets, an eternal pursuit of happiness, and yet you were shocked to notice how little it all meant. At that moment, in that breath, you felt whole with your emptiness, and as I put my arms around you and welcomed you to my home, you suddenly understood what it was all about. Because death, like life, requires you to be many things. It requires you to feel everything from the moment your heart starts beating to the moment it stops. And you will do so by yourself and with yourself. Because the sun, as usual, is always bound to rise again.