“I don’t know what to do. I really don’t. I don’t know where to go from here. Everything feels wrong.”
“Are you still doing your therapy calls?” she asks, a hint of worry in her voice.
“I am, and itishelping but I just...I keep seeing his face. I see it every time I see my own face. It’s fucked up, and this city...I know I should give it a chance, but I just keep thinking I don’t belong here. It’s like I blew my own life up, and now there’s too much dust to see anything. It’s terrifying. I wake up sweating with my heart racing all the time.”
I didn’t mean to say that much, but it all spills out. I’ve spent way too much time alone lately, and I can’t hold back now that I’ve got a friend to talk to.
Monroe is quiet for long enough that I start think I’ve really freaked her out, but the question she asks leaves me sounding more taken aback than her.
“Do you know what an ouroboros is?”
“A...what?”
“I’ll take that as a no,” she replies, like this is some everyday word I’m supposed to be familiar with.
I’m pretty sure it’s a word only someone like Monroe would know—namely, someone with a masters in English literature who minored in classical studies.
“An ouroboros is this ancient symbol found in many different cultures across the globe,” she continues. “It originated in ancient Egypt and later rose to prominence in Greece—”
“Monroe,” I interrupt, “I’m really sorry, but could we maybe, um, condense the back-story a little?”
If I don’t stop her now, I’m in for a lecture as long as a college class.
She clears her throat. “Right. Okay. So, an ouroboros is a symbol of a snake eating its own tail. It usually symbolizes eternity, renewal, the cyclical nature of existence, that kind of thing.”
“Ah, yes,” I reply, “that kind of thing.”
She picks up on the sarcasm. “I’m trying to educate you, you smartass. This is useful stuff. The ouroboros also pops up in Norse mythology in the form of a giant snake called Jörmungandr. He grew so large that he could encircle the entire world and hold his tail between his teeth. He’s supposedly just chilling out like that until one day he’s going to spit his tail out and causeRagnarökto begin.”
I think she must have had a point when she started, but it’s been totally lost on me now.
“Do I want to know whatRag...What that thingis?”
“The apocalypse,” Monroe answers bluntly. “The end of the world. Death and chaos.”
“Okay, so...we were talking about me and Cole?”
“Yeah, exactly!” she says enthusiastically.
“Forgive me if I’m being a totalimbécileright now, but I don’t follow.”
“Okay, look.” She sighs, and I can picture her flopping down on her couch. This reminds me of the English lessons she used to give me when I first came to Montreal. “You and Cole have always been like a snake eating its own tail. You destroy yourselves to sustain yourselves. You’ve said it to me before; you’re a cycle that repeats and repeats and repeats. You’ve always done the same thing over and over again.”
“Yes, all right, I see that.”
“This—what you’re doing now by being in Toronto—this is you finally spitting your tail out. This is you breaking the chain. This is your refusal to keep repeating the same self-sustaining cycle of destruction.”
“But doesn’t that just end in theRa...TheRag...The death and chaos? Is that what you’re trying to tell me here?”
She sighs again. “I mean, at the moment, yes. You’re experiencing your own personalRagnarök. This is your dark night of the soul. This is the bottom of the pit.”
“Tabarnak,” I swear. “You really know how to cheer someone up. I feel great now. I just brought the apocalypse down on my own life.”
“No, no, no,” Monroe protests. “That’s not what I’m trying to say. The thing aboutRagnarökis that it’s not really the end. It’s the end of the world as we know it, sure. It’s pretty bleak for a while, but then the earth rises up again, and it’s all fresh and fertile and ready for a new start. It’s kind of beautiful, really. It’s like a phoenix, rising from the ashes—”
“?a va, ?a va!” I interrupt. “We don’t need to bring any more symbols into this. I get it...I think.”
“What I’m trying to tell you,” Monroe sums up, “is that the right choice doesn’t always feel easy. Sometimes it fucking sucks, but you have to walk through the dark before you see the light again.”
