Fuck….
Okay, what do you want me to say?
What do you mean I don’t need to say anything?! You don’t think I would feel a sense of obligation about this??
Okay. Just the facts first. A year ago tonight, some fucking maniac used an illegal Smith & Wesson to shoot sixteen people, the last of them being himself, on an area of Danforth Avenue that is literally one block north and zero blocks east or west of my house.
I was not in my house at the time.
I was ON THAT BLOCK OF THE DANFORTH.
I had to hurry home from my friend’s house in the direction that police had determined was safe for the moment. There was a great deal of broken glass in my way. It wasn’t until I think about an hour and a half after I got home that any kind of credible, clear information about what was going on became available.
I remember exactly what I said to myself that night. It wasn’t “Oh God, The Horror….” It wasn’t “HOLY SHIT, THIS IS INSANE!!!” It was just…..
“yup”.
Not even with a capital ‘Y’.
“yup”.
That’s it.
What had just happened aligned with how I felt already – and I cannot fucking italicize this next word hard enough – perfectly. I had just turned 29, the same age as the shooter, a couple of weeks earlier, my birthday being on July the 5th. I don’t remember that night. Not a second of it. I’m sure I had fun. The same way I’m sure I had fun most nights that early summer. I’m also sure I didn’t feel like I was having fun at the time on any of those nights.
I felt……nothing.
Actually, you know what I felt? I felt DOOMED. That’s what I felt. Sometimes it was a crawling tingle of fear, other times a vague numbness, but either way, little more than background static. How am I feeling? What kind of stupid question is that?? I’m feeling like there was a guy who drove his van onto the sidewalk because women wouldn’t fuck him. I’m feeling like the stuff I put in my body to make me not panic all the time may or may not be at the store today, depending if the police got around to taking it all away. I’m feeling like I know which of my most seminal influences as an artist is going on a sex offender list next. I’m feeling like my best friend’s Dad just died way, way, way too young. I’m feeling like five minutes after I made a comment on an old high school friend’s facebook post that was a completely genuine expression of how I feel about something that affects me as much as them, it caused like six of their friends to go apeshit and call me every name in the book while the OP either doesn’t notice or is more afraid to delete abusive shit from their new friends than stick up for one of their old ones. I’m feeling like EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE FUCKING UNDERWATER BEFORE I’M FIFTY. I’m feeling, in short, like alienation is the only feeling I’ve ever felt, and any joy, any levity, any distraction, any curiosity, any meaning, any thing besides rage,dread and the sweet relief of occasionally having the luxury of feeling nothing whatsoever, must have happened in a previous lifetime.
This was a daily reality. I barely noticed it after awhile.
I’m going to be honest with you, I am really not sure where my determination came from. I don’t know how I finished my run of webcomics. I just…..did it.
I guess I did whatever you did.
You remember those feelings, right? A little bit? Was 2018….not 2018 for you?
Well, it was for me.
Now it’s 2019. It’s a lot better. Actually, it’s shockingly better.
Whatever we’re doing differently, I think it might actually be working. Maybe we should keep doing it.
I love you.
-Zoran Taylor
July 22, 2019