The Possibility Of Being In Debt
It was a fine day when I awoke sometime at the end of 2024. I found myself sitting on my bed under a spell of light darkness and moved from the bedroom to the living room smelling sausage and potatoes. I strolled to the kitchen and lifted the silver lid, and there, warmed and nicely crisp, were my breakfast my mom cooked before she drove to work. After I ate I strolled to the bedroom for my towel, and near the couch was a stack of mail. And finding among the stack of mail my mom dropped on the coffee table I spotted the large, black letters ’UNM’ and felt the oncoming weeks of dread, packed tightly in me, released after a week spent in Presbyterian Behavioral Hospital. I’m aware how much of a bore it is going over, and over, times I’m obviously obsessed to recount; that was only two weeks ago then, and it wasn’t far off the terror of being checked in and having to stay five days away from anybody: An hour with each call on the phone for family and friends every day until I could go home to my own bed again.
That day when I peeled open the UNM letter, I found a bill for the semester, Fall 2024. It needed to be paid about over 4 thousand dollars. I’m aware to some this is very much a slap on the wrist. In my mind, however, it was the end of the line. Not only for passion to stay consistent with my filmmaking future but a nail in the coffin I was meant for darker days to come. Drama queen, I know.
I couldn’t work up the courage to notify my dad and kept it in my room, in the back corners of my closet. I feared it would come to light soon, since he’d always asked if any bills or money needed to be paid. “Then be grateful, damn it!” I hear you telling me. I know, but my guilt for so much as little over a hundred made my worst self just feel shameful; I couldn’t even be brave to even begin processing how much money needed to be paid. 
To maintain some dignity for my fearful, anxious thoughts that easily drove me, and still do, to an edge not far from suicidal tendencies I imagined if I worked up the courage to murdering someone else - yeah - If I could learn to use a gun somehow and trick someone to be somewhere at a certain time… oh my god, I thought depressingly, am I a psychopath?
This was so sloppy to jump where my dangerous mind could go and after my shower I decided next time, a nice bath would better me; that’s why baths have now been my favorite thing to do whenever thoughts like that get too real.
So, for the rest of that day I watched YouTube, stayed asleep on the couch, awaiting anything to happen. I concluded, at some point in a haze, this could be a sign I'm destined for anything but humanly good. And thought, in jealousy, how for others this was as simple as working up the right to make due and pay it before growing from interest rate. Because of this pressure I later slept on, especially after my parents witnessed a near mental collapse fully take over my own life and having to resort to hospitalization, I oddly started cherishing it. Huh?
Let me explain: I couldn't help but feel my worst fears of myself were coming true, right? Yet, I believe I need to prepare for it to take full control. Instead, just this once, I thought I was a complicated and frightful person among many other complicated, intriguing people - much like the protagonists in one of Shirley Jackson’s Stories.
Of course, I said to myself: Dear god, man, pull yourself together! And laughed knowing this was an experience many are going through at that moment, and still are.
It felt like I just touched something insightful and repeated it over and over in my head.
However, and this is the big insecurity added to it, I couldn't shake off the pain of never going full-out in middle and high school, thus it motivated most of my passion for writing and reading. If you want more on this, just read ‘Roaches In The Kitchen.’ 
Like everyone, I made myself question what was entirely right for me entering college and graduating high school; though, again, I took it as a sort of fun psychological playground, like a thriller or a Roman Polanski picture, or an Edgar Allen Poe story. This was my way of being an active participant: taking everything as a possibility for a story. Back in High school I wasn’t as invested in literature as I am now, as cringey as that might sound. Everything was a possibility to explore the deep state of human depravity, as I entered CNM and UNM, and again this Fall.
Cut to a few months back from this day, when I was set at CNM for my first months of ”college life,” I still struggled. Cut a few months forward, there was a shift when I transferred to UNM in 2024. Suddenly, with back pain from stress, I simply felt selfish again. Poor me, I thought harshly, I’m so weighted by money and obvious financial backup from my two, glorious parents and family. I couldn’t see myself outside of this support. I believe I would’ve learned and shot a gun by now without this backup, hopefully not at someone. And that scares me.
Pity, I thought. It was noticeable how labeless, unfounded, and easy how I understood myself as a blank canvas without home, parents, and nobody outside of it - anybody can draw anything but nothing that would stick for long when I’m alone.
Simply put, this came to a point: if I wanted to be less conscious about my traits as a person and impact, then I shouldn’ve worried less when I was younger if I was ever in the right: being neutral and good, to my best elementary capabilities. But I felt I failed in this too. Resulting in me having a strong sense I would've had these youthful habits, like playfulness, trouble, and love all gotten over with. By now I could’ve been more healthy, happy - “positive vibes only” type. Rather than a stuck up bitch who spitted at anybody who said those areas of positive and ‘all deserve a good life.’ Whatever that means, you optimistic, door-Matt zoomer cunt. See what I mean! Let's take a breath.
Up to the present day now. Yesterday, I listened to the 18 year old who shot his Uber driver 5 times because, as he stated, “wanting to let off some steam,” and then searched about the church shooting in Minnesota. Anyway, I thought, after I listened to music to cool off I was reminded I needed to finish reading my textbook on ‘A Short History On Film’ for my class. 
By the time I took a five minute break - really, a twenty minute break more like - I then saw on Instagram Ryan Murphy was making another ‘Monster’ series, with serial killer Ed Gein, who inspired Psycho, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and many other famous characters. I haven’t watched the previous one, nor the Dahmer story, but have enjoyed the short edits and clips of these shows. Anything that makes my heart happy for just a moment.
So, what does this all have to do with the Bill from UNM? Well, I was reminded again, another insight you can say, of a short story called ‘The Possibility Of Evil,’ by Shirley Jackson. 1950’s: A story about an old lady Mrs. Strangeworth, who is known for her wonderful roses, tending them in her front yard around her big, brick by brick house, that is older than all the other buildings in this small American town.
While she is, in the beginning, a sweet, slightly judgmental old lady, who “had [stopped] every minute or so to say good morning to someone or to ask after someone’s health.” When she went into the grocery store, “half a dozen people turned away from the shelves and the counters to wave at her or call out good morning” (Jackson), and just seemed well-earned in her status among people in the town, and everyone seemed to know her too.
However, when she returned to her large house with her groceries, she felt inspired to write her letters that she kept a pen and colored paper locked away in her drawer in a wooden desk. She goes and begins writing her letter, putting, “DIDN’T YOU EVER SEE AN IDIOT CHILD BEFORE? SOME PEOPLE JUST SHOULDN’T HAVE CHILDREN, SHOULD THEY?” Before, outside the grocery store she met with a mother, who, concerned about her baby girl not developing normally, Mrs. Strangeworth sighed lightly and said, “some babies just develop differently than other’s,” and the mother then felt comforted by her observation.
But, Mrs. Strangeworth is recounting those exact written words in order to send it right to her door at that moment. Again, Mrs. Strangeworth knows everybody and everyone’s personal business, entirely based on heightened suspicion rather than facts.
This behavior Jackson elicited, including other common strange behaviors in her short stories, I thought were impossible to explain among day-to-day environments along with personal experiences of mundane tasks.
It struck me that Mrs. Strangeworth was the exact person who truly believed, by writing letters to keep her neighbors on their toes, she was helping her community prevent evil from going unnoticed, unpunished. But instead, she was the source of these forces becoming even more powerful; in the wake of suspicion and assumed fear, she provoked more and more of those fears to be seen and easily dismissed, like herself. And, eventually, after she didn’t realize one of her letters fell from the mail box to send, one of the teens saw and decided with curiosity to deliver the letter for her.
When the next day came, Mrs. Strangeworth awoke, went downstairs knowing with pleasant excitement several people were gonna read her letters, and decided she should have tea with sugar and a good breakfast.
When she found mail being delivered, she found among them a letter -“one of my letters?, she thought” - and opened the colored paper and looked, with horror, at what was written. Stating: “LOOK OUT WHAT USED TO BE YOUR ROSES.” The End.
When I read these exact words, a spark of joy came out, and I, by then, decided to give my dad the bill and waited to see what he said. Spoiler: it’s paid thanks to his sister: Jessie and my father, Mr. Leon.
I wonder if I should start writing letters to people, I thought and laughed. I wouldn’t even know how to get people’s addresses - let’s put a pin on it for now. Since then I have felt a little less frightened. And I'm grateful. And horrified the possibility for my own evil - thank you, Shirley.
