Prose: “If Leaving Me Is Easy,” by Mike Gosalia

Me: Hey, I didn’t get the proofreading job.

Clara: Oh, I’m sorry, Bert. Keep applying, okay?

Me: Yeah, thanks. I got another interview for a college admissions essay editor. It’s in a week and a half. It’s also remote, but this one’s full-time, at least for a while. I think I’d really like this job. The work sounds interesting. Students that age are just beginning to think like adults, and they’re really creative.

It’s Sunday night. I’m chatting with my online friend Clara, who I befriended on an online communication platform called Discord, in a server called “Farthest Outpost,” meant for people with psychotic disorders. It’s a small community of about two hundred people, with around thirty users online at any given time. I talk to about five regularly. There are several of these small types of servers, and they’re really unique places on the internet—where people with these conditions can connect and talk about how they maintain their health. It gives me so many ideas and the confidence to address things more readily with my psychiatrist.

Just then, Clara, better known as Kittenz on the server, inserted a hug emoji into the chat. It felt good—it’s so funny how just an emoji can make you feel better.

I said goodbye to everyone and hoped that Luckystrikes, with the bright young face, would do the right thing and stay on her medication even though she was so determined to stop taking them—which is exactly how I was twenty years ago (I’m forty-five now). I quickly jumped in the shower and cleaned up. I’d known Clara for a few months, but this would be the first time I meet her in person. It was dumb luck that she happened to live in my city, and if it wasn’t that, it was something karmic.

It’s dark out, and I’m driving along Roe in my car, listening to the radio. A very yellow crescent moon hangs low in the sky, near the horizon. The stars are out—as much as they can be in the city—and the streets are still wet from the rain earlier. Within a couple of weeks, the leaves on the trees will turn into their autumn hues—some had already started. Cooler temperatures had begun to enter into the city, and I was excited to wear my warm clothing.

I have this belief that when I play songs on the radio or randomly on my music player, they’re selected by God as a message or sign to help me with whatever’s going on in my life. One has to have a firm faith in God to believe in something like this. But, when one lives their life hearing things, it’s hard not to imagine there’s a spirit world where Heaven and Hell, and who knows what else, exists. I believe that people with schizophrenia are given a window into the spirit world, call it psychism or whatever, which is why shamans from Native American culture were schizophrenic, because they could talk to spirits and ask them questions like what was going to befall their tribe, if the gods would bring rain for their crops, how to navigate a complicated spiritual situation, or simply how to relay a message to an old chieftain who died several years ago.

I pulled into the Winstead’s, parked my car, then went into the diner.

“Over here!” I heard a voice call to me as I entered.

Clara was there, seated at a booth with her sister, waving to me and smiling. Clara had a long, aquiline nose, pretty, big eyes, long black hair, and fair skin. She was beautiful, as I thought she’d be. She and her family were from Lithuania. If I had to guess, I’d say she looked like a very fair skinned Indian, and maybe she was. I found this suitable because my father is Indian (my mother’s side is French Canadian). The funny thing is, I don’t appear Indian, and no one ever guesses that. Most people think I’m white.

“You look nice, Clara,” I said. “Why were you hiding all this time from video chat?”

“For my privacy, Bert,” Clara replied. “Sit down.”

I took a seat at the booth. Kristina was sitting on my side.

“Your jungle in League of Legends is really good,” Kristina remarked. “I was watching you play with my sister the other day.”

League of Legends is an online, five versus five, battle arena game, and jungle is the position you play in the forest between lanes. It’s typical to surprise the fighters in the lanes with things like “ganks”—stealth attacks. I’d been playing the game for almost a decade now. The game was so good nothing had yet to replace it.

“Can we go home and play after?” Clara asked (she loved to play games).

“Yeah, sure,” I replied, smiling.

The gigantic milkshake came and we all drank it from different straws, and it kind of brought the three of us closer together, like we were old friends. We then got our burgers and onion rings and ate heartily, and when the time came to leave, I reached for Clara’s hand to shake it, but she came in for a hug—a real-life emoji. She smiled at me, a faint twinkle in her eye that said so many things, then she said goodbye.

Soon, a week had passed, and I got a call from Clara on Discord. I’d been working on a story I wanted to send to a contest in the Midwest.

“Hey, Bert,” she said, “I took my car to the mechanic earlier today. Do you wanna go to the park with me and Kristina and have a picnic? My dad’s taking us. You might have to drop me home. Kristina has a doctor’s appointment soon. We’ll bring the food.”

“Yeah, sure, I’d love to. I was just playing League with Darrell.”

Darrell is Clara’s long-time internet friend from another server before Farthest Outpost.

“Okay, it’s the park near your parents’ house—Tomahawk Park.”

It was beautiful weather, in the low seventies. The three of us were seated on a blanket under a couple of maple trees having ham sandwiches and grape juice. An occasional walker or bicyclist would go by on the trail next to us. It was a very peaceful, late morning. The leaves on the trees had just started changing colors.

“We should have brought some fruit,” Clara told Kristina.

“Oh, no, don’t worry, I sliced some apples before we left.”

“Oh, good. Bert, do you want some apples?”

“Yes, I’d love some.”

As we were munching on the apple slices, a car drove into the parking lot. It was Clara and Kristina’s dad. Kristina had to go to a doctor’s appointment. He got out of the car and introduced himself to me.

“Hello, Bert, nice to meet you. Can you bring Clara home later?”

“Yes.”

“Good, Clara, are you sure you’re okay to be alone?”

“Da-ad, I’ll be fine.”

“Okay, dear, see you later.”

We watched Kristina and her dad drive off up the slope to the main road. Clara and I looked at each other then ate the rest of the apples. We chatted about this, about that, and a little about nothing. Soon, I asked Clara if she wanted to walk to the pond to see the geese. She agreed. We put the picnic supplies and blanket in my car then walked down the path, over the bridge, through the corridor of old trees (my favorite), and into the area where the three ponds are located. The geese were there as I suspected. Clara took out her phone and began taking photos. I watched her then my mind wandered, and then I sighed. I was still upset about not getting the essay editor job, which I found out about yesterday morning. I hadn’t told anyone about it yet save for my parents.

Just then, Clara hurriedly walked back to me.

“Bert, I lost my necklace! It’s not here around my neck. Have you seen it?”

“No, but I bet it’s under those trees where we had our picnic.”

“Yeah, let’s go back and look.”

As we were hurriedly walking back, Clara said to me, “I thought I fixed the clasp, but I should have taken it into a jeweler to make sure. It probably came loose again.”

So, we got back to the picnic area, and Clara and I got to searching for it in the grass, but we couldn’t find it. We took out Clara’s blanket in my car and looked through that, too, but nothing. This is when Clara’s mood started to decline. As the minutes passed, she got more and more worked up, to the point of hyperventilating. We went back to the grass, and she got down on her knees and began pulling out the grass with both hands.

“This can’t be happening,” she told herself, breathing rapidly. “This can’t be happening. It’s my mother’s gold necklace. I’ve had it for years. I can’t lose it. I just can’t!”

“Clara, it’s okay. I know it was your mother’s, but these things happen. No need to get so worked up about it. You’re not well. It could hurt you.”

“Bert, you just don’t understand … you just don’t understand.”

She took off her shoe and threw it further into the grass then yelled, “Ahhh!” raising her hands up to the sky. Then she said, “Stop! I don’t want to hear you anymore!” It was the first time she made reference to her voices in front of me. I mean, I knew she hallucinated all the time. She’d tell me how many times the voices would be so mean to her that she’d cry. She seemed to handle them pretty well for not taking medication. If it was me without medication, I’d end up quickly in a hospital or in some sort of crisis somewhere.

So, I went to retrieve Clara’s shoe. When I got back, she was laying still in the grass. She’d passed out! I didn’t know what I could do, how to revive her, if I needed to call an ambulance. I checked her breathing and her pulse, and they were both very much there. I waited about thirty seconds to see if she’d wake up. The clock ticked slowly in my head, (twenty-three, twenty-four) and right as I was pulling my phone out of my pocket to call 911, she got up off the ground with her arms—she was okay. I could see that the spell she’d been under, the craziness in her eyes, was gone. I sat her against the tree then went to get some water from my car.

“There you go, Clara. Are you okay?” I asked.

“Bert,” I’m sorry about this. Something comes over me at times, and I can’t get out of it. I can see myself having a cow, but I can’t stop. It’s something I need to work on. I’m so sorry.”

Just then, I saw something shining in the grass, on the other side of the tree from where we’d been sitting. I picked it up and gave it to Clara.

“Here it is. We found it.”

Clara looked up at me and smiled. She was relieved. I put my arm around her while walking to my car then hesitated—I didn’t know if it was okay—but she didn’t mind, and she took my hand and held it in hers until I opened the car door for her. We drove back to her house in silence. Clara had really frightened me. Soon we reached her house.

“Okay, Clara, take rest. Everything turned out okay.”

Clara’s dad came out, and when we saw Clara he became worried. Then, she went inside, and her dad waved at me with a smile then went in, too. I would have to be extra careful with Clara from now on. I could see how fragile she was. Normally, on Farthest Outpost, she felt much stronger, more in control. Sometimes, when it comes to mental health, a person becomes really strong in order to cope with their condition, but they still have a weak side, and really, everyone does. People like Clara just know how to hide it better. But, in person things can be different.

Two weeks later, and I found myself sitting across a table from Clara in a cafe with a pumpkin spice latte in my hand. She’d brought a box of pastel chalks and was drawing my portrait. The cafe was mostly empty, which was nice—we had the place to ourselves. Clara told me she didn’t like being around too many people in a public setting as it made her nervous.

“It’s nice having this illness, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Well,” I said, shrugging, “If it wasn’t for this illness, I wouldn’t have found God. I was very self-centered when I was younger. I could hardly see anything besides myself, my studies, and the scientific world that I learned about in school. I never learned a drop of spirituality.

“Yeah, I get it. I’m done with your portrait.”

Clara turned the paper over so I could see it.

“The blues, the grays, and the pink, it looks fantastic,” I said.

“You have a handsome face, Bert. Good for portraiture.”

Just then, Clara’s phone beeped.

“Bert,” she said, “My sister’s at the mall exchanging some clothes. Can we go and meet her there in the food court and have lunch with her?”

“Alright, but are you sure being around a lot of people won’t bother you?”

“It will, but I’ll manage. Let’s go.”

Clara sprayed an aerosol over the chalk to hold the image in place then put it into her portfolio case very carefully.

“I’ll put this on some mat board and gift it to you later,” she said.

“Wait, Clara, I think I really like you. I mean—”

“Bert, I talked to you about this. Just friends.”

“Of course. I’m sorry, I don’t know what…”

It was really packed when we got to the food court in the mall. We found Kristina and sat down. We chatted for a bit, Kristina showed Clara what she exchanged at The Gap, then I got up to order some loaded baked potatoes at one of the fast-food stations. When I got back to our seat, Clara had her hands against her head, and she looked really stressed out and was crying. Kristina got up from her seat to tell me what was happening.

“She’s hearing things, Bert. She doesn’t do well in public places that are busy.”

“Oh, I see. I asked her about that, but she wanted to come.”

“I know, she often does. She doesn’t like this about herself.”

“So what should we do?”

“Let’s go home.”

I reached for Clara’s hand and helped her out of the booth.

“I’m sorry for this, Bert,” Clara said. “Please forgive me.”

So I took Clara home, and this time I was invited in to her house. Once she was in her kitchen and living room, Clara’s health visibly improved. I had a few words with Clara’s father, and I apologized for taking her to the mall, and then I took off.

Later that night, around bedtime, Clara and I were chatting on Discord, and I had to go brush my teeth, and I told her not to leave, but in truth, we’d chatted long enough. I was letting my imagination run wild—I wanted to be with her. For this, she got really angry, as if she could sense my need and attachment. So, she said she wasn’t a good texter, and please could she go. It broke my heart in a way that I couldn’t understand. It shouldn’t have—I knew she could be cold, but it did, and for that reason, I began questioning why thoughts of her occupied my mind so much. It’s never easy being rejected, but people often do it, not for hateful reasons, but because they don’t feel the same way as you do. I had to forgive myself for having such strong feelings all the time. In this case, like many others, they didn’t work out. I closed my light and turned on the radio beside my bed. A Phil Collins song was playing, “If Leaving Me Is Easy.” I imagined it was God talking to me, and so I just let go.

Mike Gosalia received his B.A. from the University of Chicago and his M.F.A. from Pacific Lutheran University. He is the author of The Drug from Mumbai (Zharmae Press, 2016). He lives in Overland Park, Kansas.