This summer we were scattered like seeds to the wind when we heard a story about a boy who would remain a boy, becoming a man who, to this day, is that boy. We sat in our little boxes that we thought were solitary cells before we knew what solitary cells were and listened…
A boy of 17 committed a crime. Maybe the crime was serious, maybe it was mundane. Likely it was systemically probable, though perhaps it was not. Whatever the case, away to juvenile detention he went, for a sentence that lasted longer than the months it would take for him to become an adult. Or maybe because there were mere months until his adulthood, he was whisked away to a prison from the start. On he went to serve his sentence, and being the teenager he was, he got into mischief. Of course, this was not met well by the wardens and the guards. Problematic men need to be isolated, they thought. But they were wrong about one thing: this was still a boy. Nevertheless, to solitary he went, where he wallowed in his juvenile thoughts. And these thoughts, being so young, turned to fantasy, and wishes, and hopes. As young people are wont to do, he crafted a more pleasant reality in his head than the one he was in. Eventually he was let out of solitary, but again, as teenagers are wont to do, he pressed the same proverbial buttons that got him sent to the hole in the first place. Problematic men need to be isolated, they thought, but he was still a boy. Back to those same four walls. Indeed it was a different room, he could tell by the fact that there wasn’t a chip in the paint a finger’s width above the floor in the corner opposite the toilet, and there was a series of hashed scratches on the wall beside the bed, but four empty walls are four empty walls, and solitude is solitude. So solace was found in hopes. These hopes were fueled by occasional magazines, maybe, or maybe not. One can read about beautiful women and rich men with their expensive, or rich women and beautiful men on their expensive vacations, and dream that they are there beside them. And if you can remember the dream when you wake up, those dreams become memories. After weeks or months or years in solitude (true solitude, mind you; your quarantine summer couldn’t hold a candle to this sun), hopes don’t need to become dreams to become memories. So this boy, now in his forties, returned from his nth trip to solitary talking about his beautiful, young wife who’s waiting for him outside these cement walls and barbed wire fences, with fancy cars and money abound. With formative years in a single, small room with no contact, the buttons were still ripe for the pushing, so again they were pressed, opening up the trap door to those same four walls (he definitely recognized this room by now). Problematic men need to be isolated, remember? Another unit of time, another unit of assuredness about these memories. The man, now in his fifties, is released from prison, and sees his brother for the first time in at least twenty years. He has so much to share with his brother! His wife and brother have to meet! They should all go to the mansion he and his wife own, take a drive in one of his nine cars; take your pick of Porsche or Lamborghini or Ferrari. His brother sees mannerisms he hasn’t seen since high school, and these delusions of memories, and his heart breaks, and he cries as he tells us this story.
We cannot do this story justice because we don’t know this boy, nor do we know his brother, but we heard his brother’s story, nestled among other people’s. Details are inevitably lost, but those misremembered, miscounted details are the exact story of the sibling whose sibling saw an adjacent scene unfold before them.
Do you remember what it felt like looking into your first or second or thousandth zoom call and seeing everyone in their own little boxes? They almost looked like cells, didn’t they? Recall how devastating it felt, how it feels, to be isolated, to be unable to experience company the way you are so used to. When you fish these memories back to the surface, how easy is it for you to manipulate them into something else? What about childhood memories? Are they as malleable as these more recent ones? Less so? More so? The human mind is a powerful, incredibly capable thing…
It let you see a story of a group of seeds scattered to the wind, telling a story of a boy who would forever remain a boy, becoming a man who, to this day, is still that boy. You sat in your little boxes that you thought were solitary cells before you knew what solitary cells were and you listened… and you heard.