Collapsed

Photo by Dominik Scythe on Unsplash

“He’s a collapsed person,” she said, curling her head into the crook of my arm as the blankets started warming around us.

“Huh?” I answered too sharply so that it sounded rude when I hadn’t meant it to.

She didn’t seem to detect the misalignment. “A collapsed person,” she repeated, “somebody who has just folded in on themselves completely—folded in so that...there’s no one else who really exists for them. It’s only just them and everyone else is like a projection on a screen or something. Something like that anyway, I don’t really know exactly what it’s like; I don’t think I’m a collapsed person—not totally anyway.”

“Hmm…” I said without it coming off as rude this time. I looked up at the ceiling.

“There are different kinds,” she went on, starting to seem eager to tell me about it. “There’s not just one kind. Some collapsed people are just unbelievably selfish—they’d throw you straight into oncoming traffic if they could just to save a few seconds getting to wherever they’re going. And some of them almost seem...like...actually evil—like they are just sitting there plotting how to make everything worse for everyone else so that they’re on top of the pile by process of elimination. In some ways those people aren’t even really collapsed, I guess, because they know you’re there but they just want to destroy you or use you for something…”

“Like a sociopath, you mean?” I chimed in.

“Yeah, exactly,” she said, snuggling her head a little closer. “Them exactly.” She paused, thinking. “But then there are the collapsed people who aren’t even actually either of those things—they’re not mean, they’re not even actually selfish, really. They’re just…well…collapsed is all. Something has happened to them, or else maybe they just never properly developed somehow—like their brain or their mind or whatever just never got there. Like…have you ever seen a flower that budded but then the bud got hit by a hard frost? Then it tries to open later, but it’s all browned and the structure of the petals is broken? It sortuv opens, but it never really opens right, and it might have dead petals or no real petals at all or some stunted twisted stuff in there—do you know what I mean?”

“Yes,” I said, “I know what you mean.”

“A lot of people are like that, I guess. They got hit by a hard frost, or else something just went wrong in the genes somewhere—they got started but they never really opened up. They’re collapsed. It’s the kind of people who will walk right into you in the super market like they literally didn’t notice you were there even though they’re perfectly capable of seeing you in the physical sense. Or they’ll just talk right over you like you weren’t even speaking. Or just…not really ever take in what you say or who you are. They’re just waiting to talk—just floating around in the world like a little cottonwood seed that’ll just blow into your face and get into your eyes and just generally be in the way because of course it has no idea that you even actually exist—it’s just doing whatever it’s doing. But with these people...they aren’t even mean about it, you know? Like however much they do know you’re there, they actually do care about you. It’s just that they mostly don’t know you’re there.”

I nodded slowly, thinking about it all. “And you call that…‘collapsed?’”

“I dunno,” she said, “I couldn’t really think of anything better. I mean there’s narcissists, and like you said there’s sociopaths—and that’s part of it. But it’s really those other ones who aren’t either of those things but kinduv seem like it sometimes but for a different reason...it just seemed like there wasn’t a word for those people, and I wanted a word for them.”

She turned slightly, her head shifting on my shoulder so that she was looking up at the ceiling too now.

“The funny thing is,” she went on, “that thinking about other people—like, having humility, I guess, or love even—is actually the structure of a real mind. Which I guess doesn’t seem like it makes sense. Like you might think that your mind is built up from inside you out to what’s outside, but it’s actually the opposite. It’s built up from outside toward the centre. Looking out there—outside into the world—is what actually makes the structure of the petals of that flower. Or maybe the framing inside the walls of a house. It’s what makes the whole thing be able to stand up. When there’s just you—when the...the...actual reality of other people doesn’t penetrate in, then everything actually falls down and you’re just in a pile of rubble—in some kind of tiny little cocoon or something just big enough for yourself. Or, really, not even big enough for yourself—not big enough for anything at all. So then even your self shrinks smaller and smaller until you’re nothing but the tiniest speck buried deep in there somewhere. But that speck is your whole universe—it’s the only thing that even exists to you, really. So your body moves through space, you say words and stuff, you do things—but everyone else around you has to constantly adjust, constantly take care of you in ways you’ll never even notice and never say ‘thank you’ for. I mean people are like...literally getting out of your way as you just walk right in front of them without ever even looking around. Or they’re literally adjusting and driving around you on the road to keep you from just plowing into them. Or they’re just shutting down in their conversation and letting you talk and talk while they think about other things, or maybe they stay for as long as they can take it and then send some little signal or a text to a friend to come and take a turn listening to you for a while so they can have a break and go have a real conversation. If you’re a collapsed person that kind of thing is happening all around you all the time, constantly. And you never even realize—you have no idea. Because you’re basically unconscious at that point; you’re just so completely…well…completely collapsed.”

“I think I get it,” I said.

“We’re all collapsed a little bit sometimes,” she said. “You know in certain moments we can all be like that—we’re hurt or angry or scared or whatever, or just in a mood and selfish. I’m sure I’ve been that way with you sometimes…”

“I guess sometimes,” I said softly, “and I guess the same for me…”

“Yeah,” she said with a thoughtful pause, “but only sometimes.”

“I’m glad it’s only sometimes.”

She nodded against my shoulder thoughtfully. “It’s only sometimes. And that’s just the thing. For most of us it’s a passing thing. But some people really are just that way all the time no matter how they feel or what is going on around them. I mean when we have a fight you at least might say you’re sorry later—like you pretty much always do, actually. Maybe you’re too mad to really care about me right now, but eventually you’ll stop being mad and then you’ll care again—then we’ll go back to having space for each other again. But you’re not a collapsed person—at least I don’t think so. You’re just a regular person who gets tripped up sometimes. With really collapsed people that part where they start to care about you again never happens—it never shows up, and it was never there to start with. It doesn’t change for them. For them it isn’t sometimes it’s always…or never, depending on the way you’re thinking about it.”

I nodded my head slowly.

She shifted again to snuggle her face back in, closer to me. “But I don’t really know what to do about collapsed people, do you? I mean with a lot of people you can hope that things will get a bit better over time because people grow, right? But really and truly collapsed people—they don’t. They’ll just be this way to the end. So what do you even do? It doesn’t help to be angry at them. I mean it’s hard to even think that it’s really their fault. It doesn’t help to yell at them or even point out that they’re completely collapsed. They won’t register anything you say—that’s the whole issue to begin with. If there was some space there to work with and help them with it, then you could tell them about it maybe...but if there was space like that inside them then you wouldn’t be having the problem in the first place. Catch-22 or whatever—is that a catch-22? Anyway...when I’m angry at you I don’t have space for you right now, which isn’t good...but it will come back. Because I do love you—I really do. But for them they don’t have the space now, and they never had it before, and they never will have it. And they might even actually love you as far as that has any meaning for someone like that. I mean they might be fond of you and have a desire to be kind even if they can’t act on it very well. But they can’t see you there. I guess that’s why we all just usually make way for them as much as we can. Stepping out of their way…sometimes, like, literally…like I said. It’s the best we can give them to just be patient and let them carry on.

“But it’ll always be really sad, I guess, at least when you think about it. Like the frost bitten flower, you know? You can’t undo it, and there’s lots more flowers, and everything in the grand scheme of the universe and even in your life is really okay, so the whole situation is also really okay. And you’ve learned to live with it, and you’ve learned to accept it, and you’ve learned to find whatever little attempts they might make to care about you and just focus on those. And you’ve forgiven, and you’ve moved on mostly...” She paused and quietly yawned, then continued slowly. “But when you really look straight at it—at the heap of rubble or the dead flower or whatever it is…” She paused again. “...when you really look at it…you’ll always feel something sharp that hurts….It’s just the way it is….That’s just how it is.…”

“I guess that’s why you have to hope there’s another world out there waiting,” I said. But she had fully uncollapsed into my shoulder like one body melting into another, and was already sound asleep.