Misericordiamercy
Brief Description
The Offices of Cardinal Health are very excited to introduce to the public their new and revolutionary cure for anxiety, Misericordia, which—after passing numerous cycles of rigorous testing and garnering FDA approval—is now available, over-the-counter, in both pharmacies and stores nationwide.
What is it? Misericordia is a unique blend of medication and simple practices that can be accessed by any individual, 18 and up, suffering from anxiety. Upon buying a pack, for only $19.99, customers will receive both a bottle of Misercordia’s patented blend of medicine as well as its easy to read booklet of anti-anxiety practices which are proven, alongside the medication, to curb any level of anxiety.
The father, sitting in a pair of boxer shorts on his son’s bed, clears his throat and says to him: All weather is, right now, happening.
Then the son, after his father has spoken, looks to his left. To the open window, where there is only the lawn, a line of cypress trees, the morning sky—of an off-green texture—and the wind, unseen yet violent, tearing within each gap of space; making space. And it all looks like nothing to him.
The Medicine: Misericordia comes in easily digestible, time-released capsules. Within each capsule is our unique and thoroughly tested blend of:
Air
River Water
Top Soil
A Strategic Selection of Atoms (which have undergone cultivation for over two millennia, and are both all natural and proven to have been, at one point, crucial to the makeup of numerous wild animals.)
The GOODBYE ANXIETY BOOKLET: A 50 page booklet of anti-anxiety practices (each footnoted with their own possible side effects), which Cardinal Health, through many diverse and meticulous surveys, can guarantee has multiple practices available to any individual—regardless of location, health, or financial circumstance.
In fact, Cardinal Health is so confident in the GOODBYE ANXIETY BOOKLET that any potential customer may now view a selection of the aforementioned practices in a free pamphlet by simply going online to goodbyeanxietypreview.org, or asking his or her local pharmacy for a print copy.
The father puts his hand on his son’s shoulder.
The son feels his father’s hand come on to his shoulder.
Just say Goodbye: Don’t let anxiety control your life any longer. Finally experience the world unclogged, one weightlifting breath at a time. All of us at Cardinal Health know that sometimes we all need help untying our own knots, and sincerely hope that, by trying our accessible and affordable cure for anxiety, you too can just say Goodbye! The Pamphlet
*We recommend all practices to be performed only while taking your Misericodia capsules, available for $19.99, by mouth each morning.
EASY, DO-IT-YOURSELF CURE FOR ANXIETY PRACTICE # 1:
If at the close of a particularly stressful evening—winter, summer, or spring; but never autumn—a feeling of anxiety begins to bloom within your chest, corresponding with the usurping of the sun by night; remind yourself to stay calm and remember the infinite cyclicality of all things: life; knowledge; the vocal durability of syllables throughout disparate languages, both alive and lost; and of the atoms that you yourself swallowed just this morning, which on evenings identical to this one may have possibly run, unbound, as the paws of countless, unconscious mammals.
Then, once a moderate level of calmness has been reached, find the nearest light bulb to you. Stand, completely still if possible, staring directly into the light for 10-20 minutes. Whenever you are able to close your eyes and see within the blackness of your eyelids the burnt formation of the light, and then open your eyes and see within your field of vision the burnt formation of the light, leave your home or office.
And rush outside, into the darkness.
Then, in the mouth of doorway; the wife, the mother, stands wide-eyed, holding a dirty rag. And, as both father and son look at her, there’s a sudden and silent splitting of identity: the creator and lust; an intimate body, simultaneously maternal and sexual; lost cheeks and mute mouth: a mother to her family. A light, standing absently awake.
Possible Side Effects for PRACTICE #1: If this practice were to be performed, against suggestion, in autumn: the presence of dead leaves beneath your feet, after having rushed outside, will almost always rupture the calmness brought on by the remembrance of infinite cyclicality.
Since the crunching of the leaves will remind you of the most innate quality within a Continuation by Cycle: unavoidable death, and then—with death so immediately at mind—the word infinite will also become suspect: making the ring of light, originally burnt into your vision to help you see always a light in the dark, momentarily change into a more reddish tint and then begin to expand unendingly, taking on resultantly, an image of the void.
EASY, DO-IT-YOURSELF CURE FOR ANXIETY PRACTICE # 2:
Upon waking in the morning to an unbearable feeling of self-awareness,or anxiety, in your chest:
1. Immediately take a Misericorida capsule, which we highly recommend you keep in your bedside table, and then go as quickly as you can to your bathroom sink.
2. Turn the faucet on, both the hot and cold handles to full pressure, so that you’re wholly releasing the water available to you; and place your dominant hand in the stream.
3. Watch the water flow onto, over, and past your hand, and then see how it carries on into an aesthetically pleasing spiral around the sink before falling, in a groan, down the drain.
4. Think of the river water within the Misericorida capsule currently working itself into your bloodstream.
5. Think of how water, both thoughtlessly and despite geographical circumstance, always runs its timeless path.
6. Let a little certainty let you forget, if only a little, your present self.
7. Then, keeping your hand beneath the faucet, look in the mirror.
8. Think, timeless path.
And there’s a change in the internal weather of each body—an impulse to cry rushing over all of them, followed by the quickness of consciousness: that reminder of shame and regret, which is seen as its felt by each family member, in the way they look away from one another, into irrelevant directions.
Possible Side Effect for PRACTICE #2: If at any point during this practice, you were to think of the ocean, or of how a river—especially the water of the river within you—wants nothing more than to fall silently into the deepness of the ocean and, once there, lose its identity; an overwhelming sense of loss may replace your feeling of anxiety.
Thereafter, making the mirror itself seem like a standing pool of water reflecting your image as ubiquitously as the ocean does the sky: turning the sight of yourself, to yourself, into this withheld moment of watching your body fall into the ocean, or of looking at your own reflection in the sky from beneath the surface of the ocean—which in some cases has proven to be a positive development.
EASY, DO-IT-YOURSELF CURE FOR ANXIETY PRACTICE # 3:
For those suffering from anxiety while visiting a hospital:
Go to a closed elevator and knock on its doors. Wait politely for a few moments, as you would at the house of a friend, then knock again. Continue this until the doors open.
Then, as they open, stare at whoever’s inside with your mouth partly open, but remain quiet. Allow the person, or people, in the elevator to ask whether or not you’re coming in. Then nod and enter, but don’t press any button. Allow the person, or people, again to ask you where you’re going—up or down?—and nod in agreement to whichever direction they speak first. Then ride the elevator to the next stop and step out. Walk the hallways, without looking into any open doors. Find a window, and admire the sky.
But the son looks back to his mother, seeing, as she twists the dirty rag in her hands, the soft fragility of her fingers and heart, when she says: The earth is to the earth as I am to myself.
Possible Side Effect for PRACTICE # 3: Of course, there’s always the possibility that the elevator will never open, or that the person, or people, inside will not ask you in. If this were to happen, you may feel a sudden influx of loneliness, or an inability to never escape from your anxiety, increasing your terror. The sound of uncaring strangers may form; like the echo of a howling coyote rustling within a grave dug into the earth; in the hospital hallway.
But the father looks back to his wife, seeing, as she twists the dirty rag in her hands, the clenching of her breasts, and the sensual licking of her lips, before she says: God is the mind that invented Him.
EASY, DO-IT-YOURSELF CURE FOR ANXIETY PRACTICE # 4:
At any time, say one or all of the following:
“Mother Nature has a mother.”
“God is so unknown to the mind of man; we’ve given him a white beard, like Santa Claus.”
“A book and a brick are made from the same earth.”
“My car is to a train as a coke can is to my car.”
“The city of New York and I are made from the same earth.”
“The earth is to the earth as I am to myself.”
“My mother’s mother’s mother had a mother.” (like a song)
“By taking my capsule this morning, I have eaten the earth.”
“Somewhere, an animal is speaking.”
“All weather is, right now, happening.”
“Somewhere, someone’s thinking somewhere.”
“God is the mind that invented Him.”
Possible Side Effects for PRACTICE #4: Language is tricky. Our lexicons are subjected to personal experience. So a word can come from anywhere: the dark or light, and may carry with it any number of images: mother, the grave; or car, pain. So, since language is always to us a reflection of our lives, anxiety may increase whenever a person using these statements falls further into his or her own mind, instead of pulling their attention towards the union of the world.
Then the mouth of the doorway is empty. The father takes his hand from his son’s shoulder, and the son stands up from the bed and walks to his dresser; removing a towel, a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, then leaves the room. The father is alone, and looks to his left. To the open window, where there is only the lawn, a line of cypress trees, the morning sky—now a full-green—and the wind, noted and knocking against the parameters of the window-square, squirming, like a trapped animal, to escape the endless tethers of his vision. And it all looks like a prison.
EASY, DO-IT-YOURSELF CURE FOR ANXIETY PRACTICE # 5:
To soothe the anxiety which keeps you from sleeping at night, imagine your own suicide. This suicide: Forget family and religion. And imagine taking yourself to the riverbank. See yourself writing goodbye in blue ink on the palm of your hand. Remember, by being made from the atoms of the earth, you’re going nowhere and everywhere, dead or alive. Feel your bed sheets ripple, as if your body were a twig falling onto unmoving water, all around you.
Whisper, I’m not really going to kill myself. Say, I’ll always be able to fall asleep and dream. Think, the past is no more real than any dream.
Now, take yourself back to the riverbank. Then take your hand—the one with goodbye written on it—and dip it in the river. Let it keep there. The water’s hot, as cold as hot sweat. Look around you and notice how the river is covered on each side by shelterbelts, which sway in the wind like laundry lines of outgrown dresses. There’s not a bird in the sky, but still you hear the birdsong of your life compiled into kept images of unappreciated memories, from childhood to now, capturing unappreciated moments of yourself in the present. Around your hand, the water begins to blue. And the death of your life, like a baptism, has been taken by the water. Pull the covers over your head, (fall into the water) whisper: (swallow the river) nothing (nothing)
The son closes his eyes in the shower, letting the water catch, wrap, and then create the shape of both his body and life.
Possible Side Effects for PRACTICE # 5: Suicide.
While his mother, and his wife, and her own person—Melissa, for god’s sake, Melissa—carries a spool of orange extension cord into the attic, feels with her fingers the strength of a rafter where it meets the roof, and turns out the light.
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About the Author: Michael D. Regime is somewhere, right now, in Texas, more or less alone than you.