Green
Ben: 32 years old. Optimistic.
BEN
Basically, I used to drink often and…take acid and what not. And apparently I suffered some sort of mental collapse followed by a few short weeks of schizophrenia…
I imagined -- and managed--to have a pretty serious relationship with a woman I’d invented in my head.
I thought I just met someone who I knew for a short while then she left. Either way, what’s the difference, in this case, real or not?
(Pauses)
I imagined a house for us, in a valley, with a river running through it. So yea –I imagine places, but at least they’re nice places.
We fished, and I don’t fish. I would dangle my feet in the water, she’d sit cross-legged on the dock: that’s where we spent our mornings. And if I caught something, we’d have it cooked up for lunch.
“Caught something”…that should have been my first hint.
Looking back, everything was too green to be plausible: grass was green, trees were green, the water and the fish were green…she was blonde, but, still--that’s a lot of green.
So I stopped drinking and taking acid and what not, talked a lot with Dr. Zanther, sorted things, realized that “Yes, Doctor, she isn’t real.” I know that now.”
Then I got out and I realized how depressing it was to live. I was sitting on my balcony way up in the sky, in my apartment that is, having breakfast and tea, and I realized my life was better with Ashley in it, whatever that meant.
And it was shortly after that that she called me, asked me how I was.
“I’m good…” I told her. Told her I live in Toronto now, in the north end near York University, and it just turned out that she was coming to Toronto a couple days after that and she wanted to meet me up at York University.
And that day is today, I’m supposed to meet her at 1pm.
You haven’t seen her have you? She’s blonde, and pretty.
I’ll find her.
