A Knee-Jerk Reaction

It had been quite awhile since Casey had been out of the house, besides a daily walk. Life had become much more of a waiting game rather than enjoying the moment at hand; he was mostly concerned with the future moments. At first it began with mild seclusion, leading him to dwell mostly on his own character. This seclusion intensified, leading to narcissism and eventually an existential crisis, ending in a jaded, solipsistic attitude. He could easily pick apart his mind and try to determine which part of his subconscious the characters in his dream stemmed from, and what he might do to let them return.

This day wasn’t much different from any other, but he was feeling more adventurous than usual for some reason. Without a break from time to time, being alone can drive one mad. He was motivated to leave his house and see if he could enjoy the company of others for a time. Casey collected a few quarters he had on his dresser, packed a few books and notebooks, and decided to leave the house. He hopped in his car and drove downtown to his nearest coffee shop.

Why he choose today to spend some time out of the house is hard to tell. The weather was terrible. Winter was closing in fast, and it was becoming quite chilly. He put on a simple pull-over jacket to keep him warm. The sky was very dark to the West, but seemed to brighten up slightly as you looked toward the other direction. It was raining sporadically, but didn’t seem to bother Casey at all. It was just nice to be in a somewhat less familiar environment.

He arrived at the coffee shop downtown and parked his car. Despite the rain, he didn’t bother rushing into the store. He took slow, careful steps, trying to maintain awareness of every sensation of his feet as they hit the ground. It seems silly and pointless, but he had developed a habit of trying to synchronize his breath with his steps; making sure that with each breath he took the same amount of steps with each foot.

He walked into the shop and was greeted by a very thin man who wasn’t very old. However, his hair seemed almost white. He seemed to be the trendy type, the type that would give passive, uninterested art reviews and read cigar magazines. It easily made Casey nauseous. The man looked at him with his head tilted slightly upwards.

“Can I help you?” he said.

“Yeah, I think I’ll have your coffee of the day,” Casey replied.

“Sure.”

He pressed some buttons on the register.

“That’ll be $1.61 please.”

Without saying anything, Casey handed him several quarters. He collected his change.

“It’ll be ready in a moment.”

The place was deserted besides the people who worked there, which there was only two. He had a seat next to the window to wait for his coffee. He remembered from his past trips there that the coffee of the day was always the same coffee. It never tasted any different. The coffee of the day would masquerade itself as a dark blend one day, or a Columbian roast another, but it never seemed to be any different. Maybe he never really developed a sophisticated taste for coffee, he wasn’t sure.

Within a few moments, he saw his coffee sitting on the counter. He picked it up and added some non-dairy creamer. No sugar. The rain actually seemed to be comforting for some reason, so he chose to sit outside. He took his coffee and his backpack full of books and had a seat outside. The coffee was still very hot.

He unzipped his backpack and took out a few books. Most people who have no taste, the types that read only novels about romance or mystery, would consider his interests to be somewhat eccentric. Casey never had any motive to read any sort of novel that wasn’t either obscure, spiritual, or famous. The books he brought with him included “Nine Stories” by J. D. Salinger as well as “Franny and Zooey” by the same author. “Franny and Zooey” was so excellently riddled with what seemed to be koans that he would reread the book constantly, hopeful of some sort of fleeting satori, but that was hardly ever the case. After he had certain experiences, Casey felt as if his mind had frozen. Often times when he would read a phrase or think some thought that he was certain would clear his mind for even a moment, allowing him to peer past the surface, but it never would these days. He also brought with him a book by Eckhart Tolle, a book that was pretentious and practically unbearable to read. It was terribly repetitive, and it would make you wonder whether Tolle has really only one concrete idea about anything; an idea he can only rephrase over and over in hope that something new is born. But often times it can be hard to tell the difference between creating something new and breaking what you already have.

He also had a Bible, the Qu’ran, a book by Thich Nhat Hanh, and Mein Kampf. Thich Nhat Hanh was a very enjoyable read. It can be repetitive as well, but it is in an entirely different approach. Whenever an idea seems to be recycled, it only serves to reinforce what has already been said, and in some sense of the word can even be seen as comical from time to time. He set his books on the table and thought about what to read. To jog his mind, he decided to smoke a cigarette as he began to drink his coffee. He took out his pack, slid out a cigarette, fumbled in his pocket for a lighter, and lit it up.

He decided to read “Franny and Zooey”, but was quickly distracted when he noticed what seemed to be a familiar face walking towards the coffee shop. He was far from certain, but he thought he had seen this person before. Casey eyed her for a moment, but about when she entered the store he quickly averted his gaze back to his book.

He read for awhile. A line that had always stuck out to him was a character in the book describing satori as “knowing God before he said let there be light.” He had always thought this statement to be riddled with error, but it was one of those things that seemed so clever you often hope it’s true for the sake of who knows what. He often tried to reason with the statement, picking apart theology as if he were splitting hairs, hoping that he could rationalize some sort of truth. His mind still seemed frozen.

After several minutes passed, the girl he noticed earlier stepped outside with her coffee. She looked over at Casey and recognized him as well. She walked over to him with a fair amount of confidence and had a seat.

“You’re Casey, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, that’s me. You look awfully familiar.”

“People will tell me all the time that I look different. But you look about the same. I thought it was you.”

“I do know you don’t I?”

“We were in fifth and sixth grade together. At Denmark Elementary. That small town?”

Casey laughed a little bit.

“Erin, the piano girl. Yeah, I remember you.”

“The piano girl? Is that me?”

“Yeah that’s you. You don’t remember that?”

“No.”

“That’s all I remember about you, to be honest. You would always tell me about your Grandma bringing you a new piano, but you had far too many pianos in your house already, and you had no room for the new one. That’s all I remember. The pianos.”

“Well, we had one piano. And my grandma brought me a new one home from vacation. We had no room for it. We put it in the garage,” she said.

“So, how have you been?”

“Well, I haven’t a reason to complain. Not about anything really, to be honest. Except for a couple things. Some things aren’t too good, if you really do want me to be honest about everything and all.”

“Sure be honest.”

“Well, my boyfriend spit on the back of my neck.”

Casey laughed again.

“Why?”

“He said he didn’t mean to. But I know he did. He was lying about everything.”

“Everything?”

“About why he spit.”

“Oh.”

Erin was eyeing his books. She picked one up a looked through it.

“I don’t like to read much. It’s so boring.”

Casey wanted to say something about her being poorly educated, or perhaps even a simpleton, but he didn’t.

“What did he say?” Casey asked.

“About what? What did who say?”

“Your boyfriend. About spitting on your neck.”

“Oh, that. He said it was a reaction. He didn’t try to do it at all, he just reacted. To be honest, he said it was a “knee-jerk reaction”.”

She paused for a second.

“Why do you read this book? Isn’t this what people in other countries read?”

He laughed.

“The Qu’ran?”

“Yeah. People that believe in Mohammad read this book. Some people who don’t believe in Mohammad say that he had epilepsy. He was a lunatic.”

“Well, I guess I read it because so many other people have, and it has had a tremendous amount of influence on society. It’s mostly curiosity, I suppose.”

“Oh. Can you read all of this? Even the squigglies?”

“No, I can’t read the squigglies. I wish I could. They say you can’t really understand it unless you can read Arabic.”

“What did you get to drink?” she asked.

“I got the coffee of the day.”

“I always get the coffee of the day. No exceptions. I like the variety.”

Casey almost burst out laughing, but only quirked a smile.

“Well so what have you been doing all these years?” he asked.

“Oh gosh. Well, if you want me to be brutally honest and all.”

“Let’s hear it. Brutal honesty.”

“Well, let me see. I’ve been going to school. Doing all sorts of things. There was the spitting incident. And others like it. I’ve also been going for walks. I like to daydream, and think about things.”

“What do you like to think about?”

“I guess, I don’t know really. I like to think back as far as I can, and see what I can remember. Buddhists say if you think back far enough, you can remember a past life, or even before that. The Buddha remembered millions and millions of past lives. He was a bird, a fish, an ant, and even a blade of grass.”

“What do you remember?”

“Well, only flashes. I remember being a kid and walking through the woods. It was in a town so far away, you can’t even find it on a map. I was walking through these woods. It was kind of scary, to be honest, because I think, if I can remember, that there were other people there to. But I don’t remember what they looked like, or what they said, or anything at all like that. What about you? What have you been doing?”

“Not a lot. Not a lot at all. Mostly reading. Using the computer. I’ve been going for walks to, just about every day. I guess, I think about things too.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. All sorts of things. I guess I think about the future more than anything else. I wonder what will happen to me, and the people I know, and society. Maybe there would be a revolution, where everybody would start thinking differently and be more creative. I wonder what could happen millions of years into the future. Whether or not there will still be people, if we will live in space. What we could discover. All that stuff.”

“Man. That’s really out there. I don’t think I would want to live in space.”

“Well, I didn’t say I would want to live in space. I just wonder if some people would live there or not.”

“Well, gosh! What do you remember about Denmark? Anything? Anything besides pianos?”

“Sure, I remember some things. I remember the kids that sat on the monkey bars. The kids that sat on the monkey bars were always much cooler than the kids who played kickball. They were damn sophisticated, in my opinion.”

She laughed.

“Well, I don’t remember that. I remember Mrs. Cooper. Her eyes were always bulging out of her head. Christ Almighty, that woman could stare through a brick wall!”

“You probably don’t smoke, do you?”

“Well, no, not really. My boyfriend smokes. He’ll blow the smoke in my face, and will pretend like he didn’t mean to do it at all, as if it was an accident.”

“A “knee-jerk reaction”?”

She laughed.

“God, who knows,” she said.

“So you don’t like to read books? No books at all?”

“I used to read. I used to read all the time. But then I read this one book and it made me think about some things differently. And after that I just didn’t think I could bear to read one more sentence!”

“What was the book?”

“It was a short book. Real short. I found it in a book store; it was so short that I didn’t even have to buy it, I read it in the store in one sitting. The book was practically nonsense. It was just all over the place; not even slightly cohesive. It had a theme, though. It was about philosophy, but you could never really gather what the point of it all was. It was just nonsense. I try not to think about it.”

“You try not to think about it? Why?”

“Well it wasn’t a bad read. Not at all, really. But it just isn’t something you want to put a whole lot of thought to. It’ll drive you mad, thinking about it all day.”

“My goodness. That sounds intense.”

“Well sure. Sure it’s intense.”

The rain seemed to let up. There were little pockets of blue appearing all over the sky by this time. They didn’t say much for several moments. They just sipped their coffee, staring off into space.

“I thought of the craziest thing yesterday,” Erin said, still staring off.

“What’s that?”

“Well, I wondered what it would be like if I had been born blind. It would be different than being able to see early in your life, and then losing your sight. If you had never seen colors or shapes, or anything like that, well than you wouldn’t have any idea of what they are like.”

Casey’s mind seemed to unfreeze instantly.

“Well, it was nice talking to you, Erin. But I really need to go.”

“Sure. It was nice to see you. Take care.”

Casey hopped into his car and drove home. He had the suspicion that he was enlightened. Everything he thought about quickly dissolved. But as soon as the idea that he was enlightened crept into his mind, his mind would seem to freeze again, so he tried not to think about it. Thinking about it would drive one mad. As soon as he got home he took all of his books and stuffed them in his backpack. They wouldn’t all fit, so he had to carry a few of them. He walked briskly to the nearest park, taking no notice of anyone. He dumped all of his books in a fire pit and set them all on fire; what seemed to be a knee-jerk reaction. His mind disintegrated into ashes along with the books, leaving nothing left. He eventually dozed off staring at the fire.