Jersey city cannabis ordinance
Bib for Jersey City Marathon
2023.03.29 01:59 accordionchickenwing Bib for Jersey City Marathon
Hi all. I've been training for months, but I have a lingering hip injury that just won't get to 100%. It'll feel fine but after my long runs it hurts a bit. Nothing too severe but I don't wanna risk it.
Now I have this bib and nothing to do with it. Would be sad to see it go to waste. DM me or comment. I got the same day pickup.
submitted by accordionchickenwing to RunNYC [link] [comments]
Now I have this bib and nothing to do with it. Would be sad to see it go to waste. DM me or comment. I got the same day pickup.
2023.03.29 01:40 PokingDogSnouts My "girlfriend" of one year has been in Turkey the past four months. Every single day of those four months, she has fed me the mistaken impression she was divorcing from an old marriage of years ago. It turns out she is staying.
From the month we started phone calls (February, 2022), I was assured that she never felt a drop of love for this person. He had manipulated her out of her first abusive marriage—guiding her through the divorce process. Her sole source of support through a very trying time, he also would completely disappear on her when she didn't do what he asked of her. When her first divorce was finalized, he convinced her to hop onto a plane to Turkey, and marry him immediately. The faulty reasoning he gave for such a wild and ill-advised idea (that her therapist strongly urged against, saying she needed time to heal and process the dissolution of the first marriage) was that if she were to live with him, she needed to undergo a marriage ceremony to make it permissible within their faith (Islam).
When I first heard this, I already thought that this was one of the worst decisions a person could ever make for themselves. A woman of few friends, she was going to isolate herself further in a country she did not know the language to, with a man whom she'd only met once. Making another marriage commitment, fresh out of the first failed one.
Another saddening aspect to her history is that this isn't the first time. The first husband had also, years and years prior, convinced her to move to Turkey. They came back, and she processed a green card application for this man. The same thing she's now doing for this guy.
But the second marriage also didn't work out. She was there for almost two years, and was having panic attacks all of the time. Fainting in the bathroom. Stuck there due to COVID lockdowns. She and the guy were wholly incompatible. She'd mentioned how she couldn't even be intimate with him because of how tensed up he made her feel. She'd told me she wasn't attracted to him, and that she cried at the ceremony, knowing she was making a huge mistake, but was so numb and expected to go through with it, at this point, that she did. She told me things in this vein, over and over again.
How utterly numb she was over there, unfeeling, disassociating and just doing what people expected of her. Living as a scraped-out shell of herself.
She returned home to New York in July of 2021. She'd still kept up the pretense with him, of being in a stable marriage, and continued to process his green card application, but knew even by December (according to what she told me) that she did not want to return and that she could not fathom living her life with this person.
We met in January of 2022. Not in-person, yet, but right here on Reddit. Innocuous enough, at first. I had been recovering from long-COVID, with no one in my life believing me. I was searching for both love and friends to see me through the most difficult time in my entire life. She replied to one of the friendship posts, and we bonded through a shared love for music, older music in particular.
She zeroed in on me from the start, telling me later on about how she'd sifted through all my social media and talked with her cousin, her best friend, about the kind of person I was.
The conversation moved to Discord. I was streaming a lot, then. One of the foreign friends I was talking to, said I had a voice that would go perfectly with book-reading, and that I should stream myself doing it. During a lonely end to the December of 2021, I decided to give it a try. I even did one on New Year's Eve, hoping to unite all of the lost souls, who, like me, didn't have any gatherings to attend.
In February, the streams were still going strong, and she seemed to enter every single one of them—constantly there for me, constantly wanting to not only spend her time with me, but to get my attention. And there's one incident that finally made me realize just how much she felt for me.
One late night, I told her politely that I'd be playing Minecraft with somebody else (we had been messaging daily by this point in early February). She had been engaging extensively, sending me a lot of caring advice on dealing with my symptoms, but I needed to rest myself from all the texting.
It was only two hours, but it clearly hurt her. I didn't hear from her until late the next day, when she spilled out her feelings in a message she deleted only moments later. I only caught the notification preview, but the gist of it seemed to be that she felt "disposed of", discarded, and she had cried over it.
This was a shock for me. I seriously didn't think it was that grave an error to commit (it wasn't), but nevertheless, I empathized. I, too, know fully well what it's like to be completely discarded (also see: the end of this story). I certainly didn't want someone coming out of interactions with me, feeling that way. And I resolved within myself not to hurt this person again. I was beginning to develop an affinity towards her—spurred by the obvious interest, and her qualities of both acute sensitivity, and a willingness to be open and vulnerable, something I deeply value. I wanted to become her source of comfort, too. To help her feel safe in a world that can often be cruel and insensitive. That is the decision I made for myself on that day.
Later in the month, nightly phone calls began. The first time we'd spoken through voice. Well into the nights, we talked for hours, a clear close bond beginning to form. She eventually confided that she was developing feelings for me; I said the same. One night, she brought up an obligation in Turkey, unfinished personal business that she would have to take care of, soon. I froze. It sounded like another person was involved with her. Feeling deeply uncomfortable, I told her I was going to go. She was talking around it and I assumed the worst. She told me everything. And she insisted that she had no love for this person, never desired to be with him again, and that the "business" she had there was in divorcing him.
Her family's faith complicated things. Even if she was only technically legally married (i.e., not living with him for almost a year, by that point), they would not allow her to be in a relationship while the marriage contract was still in effect. She was attempting to hide even her communications with me. This is a 32-year-old woman, by the way. Her parents had always been overbearing and controlling. She was not to talk to strangers on the internet. I witnessed her being treated like a minor half her age, numerous times over the course of our relationship.
She clearly wanted to be with me, but this got in the way of it, and a few times, we parted ways. But our link just couldn't be snuffed out—we always found a way back towards one another. In mid-March, we decided, finally, to be together. We were not boyfriend and girlfriend, but we would remain in contact, and we would acknowledge our feelings, which we previously tried to put aside (which obviously cannot work; you cannot deny feelings like these).
I did have to push for it, by then. She was clear her parents wouldn't approve. But at 32 years of age, and with a divorce that wasn't even able to be set in motion—if it was a definite eventuality, wouldn't it make sense to still live your life in the meantime? Divorces can take years to go through. Grown adults don't put possible new relationships off because of a technicality. The marriage was already over in their hearts—if it ever even existed within, and not solely on paper.
I just didn't want this to slip away. She made her interest in me very obvious, and had persisted enough for me to return her feelings. She continued to feed that previously empty part of me—the part of me that never, not once in my life, had been shown real love, by any woman. I didn't want to lose her. I have been used, and discarded multiple times, by people I'd barely ever met, but who'd kept me in a misleading cycle of hope and despair. This felt real, for once. This felt like it could be something.
The phone calls evolved into something deeper, at her instigation. She'd cutely suggested falling asleep together over Discord in late March: whispering goodnights, giggling when we were both unable to fall asleep, and greeting each other first thing in the morning. It felt like a dream, to me. I had never felt so loved, cherished, valued. She went far out of her way for me, and I was willing to do the same for her. We continued this nightly ritual throughout the entirety of our relationship—breaking it, occasionally—but for the first few months afterwards, there wasn't a night we didn't spend together.
The "I love yous" came next. I was adamant that, as much as I wanted to say it, I wanted to hold off, to tell it to her in person. She couldn't control herself, and gently said it to me one night as we were falling asleep. Our bond felt cemented. Talk of meeting increased.
If you'll notice, a pattern emerges here, where every subsequent higher step in this relationship was initiated by her. The clinginess, the admission of feelings, the phone call, the nightly ritual of sleeping on the phone, and now the "I love yous". I was overjoyed to be on the receiving end of each of these, and yes, I did fight for the relationship to stick in the first place, but in hindsight, it seems ever more crueler that she could've done all this, only to completely ditch me at the end.
We were across state lines. I was in New Jersey; she in New York. I knew of a bus that could take me to Manhattan. From there, it was just a hop, skip away to where she resided. She, once again, took the real initiative. We had originally planned to meet in the summer, perhaps at a café or library or amusement park. But she was telling me she only had to take one subway to end up at the bus I was speaking of. Early April, completely out of the blue, she sent a photo of that subway, asking if she should do it? That all I had to do was answer in the affirmative, and she would. I was in the shower, but I actually had this hunch that that was going to happen. For no reason whatsoever. There was no indication. I hadn't seen the message. I just somehow knew, and I was shivering in the shower at the thought of meeting her that day. Of course, it was too late by the time I was able to reply. However, we still met, the very next week.
We met at a large and lovely park, the only escape to nature you can truly get to in my town. She looked so lonely, staring at the stream, her backpack on. I came right up to her, and the sweetest meeting of my life ensued. We both somehow seemed cut from the same cloth. Both tall, but lanky—slimmer than most examples of our respective genders. Darker hair and eyes. And kind of a sensitive, hesitant disposition. The result of too much overexposure to the deafening hostility that can strike in this world, from all directions. We walked awhile, sat on a bench and somehow managed to hold hands to quell the shyness and nervousness that we both seemed to share (though her to a much greater extent). It was surreal. The day was a dream, but a dream that extended into most of the year.
We met again only two days later. She wasted no time in instantly coming back. We baked brownies together, and, probably too much information, but we became intimate from this day on. Once again, the bond went to another level. We were both hooked on each other: emotionally, and physically.
I don't need to go into the many months we spent together. There's simply too much to say. I met her in the city, and witnessed her father scream at her on the phone, bringing her to tears for daring to spend time in Manhattan with me. According to her, the divorce was now out in the open, and all parties involved knew of its inevitability. The husband wouldn't talk to her, so nothing could even happen. He told her to just worry about herself. But the parents weren't having it.
We met every single week up to November at least twice, barring one or two where she had a surgery take place in late April. We roamed down so many paths in my own town, and all over Manhattan. Experienced more restaurants than I'm sure I have in the past five years. Went to Coldplay at MetLife Stadium; it was also the first night she stayed over, again to her parents' ire. She would continue to stay each weekend. They were the loveliest times of my life. But her parents gave her hell every time she returned. They treated her like a complete outcast, giving her the silent treatment for days on end. A grown adult capable of making her own decisions for herself, being pressured by childish, immature parents who constantly filled her head with horrible advice about trusting nobody, keeping no friends, and adhering to a religion that I believe is an extremely harmful force in this world.
I had never felt so close to somebody before. She was as seemingly gentle as they come, and we were both extremely generous and caring to one another. Which is why the next part of this absolutely shocked me and sent my heart into a downward spiral I still struggle to soothe.
This past November, she finally left back to Turkey, the place she was formerly so miserable in, supposedly to take care of the divorce. She assured me all the processes were in motion—the search for a lawyer, setting of a court date, and the eventual date itself, somewhere in February. These were all lies. I don't know exactly what happened, but sometime in January she made the decision to remain faithful to both her religion and the marriage, yet she continued to lie to me daily about what was going on. One point of contention that came up again and again between us was the lack of phone calls from her, all of a sudden. The first few weeks, I understood it was because her dad was there, but in the months succeeding that, the situation hardly changed. I'd get hung up on out of nowhere, I'd get excuses such as depression—she even wrote a post on an alternate Reddit account asking for advice: how to assure a loving boyfriend that she's too miserable to call due to the circumstances surrounding divorce, and that it's no cause for insecurity. All while knowing that she was not divorcing... I was misled so cruelly. The web of lies is just immense, and I can't believe she was even capable of all this.
She argued with me over asking for more calls, pleading for me to understand her, and assuring me that she wasn't hiding anything. She would even randomly blurt out harsh things like...that she didn't trust me, or anyone...or that love can't always be there for you. She was slicing up my feelings and toying with my heart. Sensations that were all too familiar, from the wounds of my past. This wasn't the care a loved one is supposed to show, but out of trying my best to understand her side of it, I decided to stop asking for calls.
We went all of February and half of March without a single phone call. Not even on Valentine's Day. But I was only bottling up just how much it hurt to be so neglected. Surely two people in love both crave to hear each other's voices, more than this? She once told me my voice was like listening to the sound of the ocean through a conch shell. Comforting, yet fleeting. What was going on?
Another argument ensued, and this one led to a break-up. I realized through talking with a friend who asked about how we were doing, that I was immensely down about our only communication happening through a few daily texts. I wasn't given many updates on what was going on. She claimed in December that she was staying with the husband's family at night because he refused to fix the broken heating in her apartment. She was now staying there full-time. I tried to just trust her about it, but it looks like that was a mistake. She was isolated from any voice of sense, and only had pressure and religious guilt-tripping paving the path for her. I still don't believe she has any love for him whatsoever. He is a clumsy manipulator, who practically bragged to me on Reddit about luring her away from her first husband, while attempting to condescend to me about intelligence. Her few current Facebook posts all seem curated to highlight just how miserable she was over there the first time around, and that the same now continues. Her life is not her own, and I'm reminded of all the times she told me she was in chains. The one positive-appearing post was put up during our many days of vivid and lively exploration.
She always seemed easy to influence...often by people who never truly cared for her. I can't believe she would be duped by someone so obviously conniving that he convinced her to marry straight out of a divorce in the first place. She probably needs real help and people to look out for her...but her parents will not take up that mantle. She is, however, very conditioned to seek their advice, and treat their words almost as a decree from god, itself.
We broke up a little over a week ago. She still did not reveal the truth to me; she only acted as if I was asking for too much, all because I wanted some phone calls. She even argued, all this time, knowing she was deceiving me. And she put her all into her arguments, trying to portray herself as a decent person who held no blame. This is one of the most hurtful things anyone has ever done to me. And just like always, I'm expected to just accept it, with little explanation or apology given. She claims she wanted to live a sinless existence within her faith, but what she did so blatantly to me will never make her sinless. I poured my heart for the first time into somebody who I thought wanted to be with me for life. She'd say she'd never felt as alive, happy, and free as she was with me; that I was her favorite person. I definitely felt the same about her.
I don't even know what to think, anymore. She did claim her feelings for me were all true. In a final phone call that the husband initiated to tell me off, she said outright she'd be able to get over him, if he passed away. But that the same wouldn't happen with me. She also claimed she would never be able to truly be her own self with me, but that's not true. Happiness reveals your true identity; following your heart. But going against your inner nature, to please the whims of controlling people... that can never lead to happiness or truth, and is only ever going to slowly kill a person. I just wish I could've helped her. She never deserved such toxic people around her, but as long as she keeps choosing them, she'll have to live with the consequences of it.
submitted by PokingDogSnouts to love [link] [comments]
When I first heard this, I already thought that this was one of the worst decisions a person could ever make for themselves. A woman of few friends, she was going to isolate herself further in a country she did not know the language to, with a man whom she'd only met once. Making another marriage commitment, fresh out of the first failed one.
Another saddening aspect to her history is that this isn't the first time. The first husband had also, years and years prior, convinced her to move to Turkey. They came back, and she processed a green card application for this man. The same thing she's now doing for this guy.
But the second marriage also didn't work out. She was there for almost two years, and was having panic attacks all of the time. Fainting in the bathroom. Stuck there due to COVID lockdowns. She and the guy were wholly incompatible. She'd mentioned how she couldn't even be intimate with him because of how tensed up he made her feel. She'd told me she wasn't attracted to him, and that she cried at the ceremony, knowing she was making a huge mistake, but was so numb and expected to go through with it, at this point, that she did. She told me things in this vein, over and over again.
How utterly numb she was over there, unfeeling, disassociating and just doing what people expected of her. Living as a scraped-out shell of herself.
She returned home to New York in July of 2021. She'd still kept up the pretense with him, of being in a stable marriage, and continued to process his green card application, but knew even by December (according to what she told me) that she did not want to return and that she could not fathom living her life with this person.
We met in January of 2022. Not in-person, yet, but right here on Reddit. Innocuous enough, at first. I had been recovering from long-COVID, with no one in my life believing me. I was searching for both love and friends to see me through the most difficult time in my entire life. She replied to one of the friendship posts, and we bonded through a shared love for music, older music in particular.
She zeroed in on me from the start, telling me later on about how she'd sifted through all my social media and talked with her cousin, her best friend, about the kind of person I was.
The conversation moved to Discord. I was streaming a lot, then. One of the foreign friends I was talking to, said I had a voice that would go perfectly with book-reading, and that I should stream myself doing it. During a lonely end to the December of 2021, I decided to give it a try. I even did one on New Year's Eve, hoping to unite all of the lost souls, who, like me, didn't have any gatherings to attend.
In February, the streams were still going strong, and she seemed to enter every single one of them—constantly there for me, constantly wanting to not only spend her time with me, but to get my attention. And there's one incident that finally made me realize just how much she felt for me.
One late night, I told her politely that I'd be playing Minecraft with somebody else (we had been messaging daily by this point in early February). She had been engaging extensively, sending me a lot of caring advice on dealing with my symptoms, but I needed to rest myself from all the texting.
It was only two hours, but it clearly hurt her. I didn't hear from her until late the next day, when she spilled out her feelings in a message she deleted only moments later. I only caught the notification preview, but the gist of it seemed to be that she felt "disposed of", discarded, and she had cried over it.
This was a shock for me. I seriously didn't think it was that grave an error to commit (it wasn't), but nevertheless, I empathized. I, too, know fully well what it's like to be completely discarded (also see: the end of this story). I certainly didn't want someone coming out of interactions with me, feeling that way. And I resolved within myself not to hurt this person again. I was beginning to develop an affinity towards her—spurred by the obvious interest, and her qualities of both acute sensitivity, and a willingness to be open and vulnerable, something I deeply value. I wanted to become her source of comfort, too. To help her feel safe in a world that can often be cruel and insensitive. That is the decision I made for myself on that day.
Later in the month, nightly phone calls began. The first time we'd spoken through voice. Well into the nights, we talked for hours, a clear close bond beginning to form. She eventually confided that she was developing feelings for me; I said the same. One night, she brought up an obligation in Turkey, unfinished personal business that she would have to take care of, soon. I froze. It sounded like another person was involved with her. Feeling deeply uncomfortable, I told her I was going to go. She was talking around it and I assumed the worst. She told me everything. And she insisted that she had no love for this person, never desired to be with him again, and that the "business" she had there was in divorcing him.
Her family's faith complicated things. Even if she was only technically legally married (i.e., not living with him for almost a year, by that point), they would not allow her to be in a relationship while the marriage contract was still in effect. She was attempting to hide even her communications with me. This is a 32-year-old woman, by the way. Her parents had always been overbearing and controlling. She was not to talk to strangers on the internet. I witnessed her being treated like a minor half her age, numerous times over the course of our relationship.
She clearly wanted to be with me, but this got in the way of it, and a few times, we parted ways. But our link just couldn't be snuffed out—we always found a way back towards one another. In mid-March, we decided, finally, to be together. We were not boyfriend and girlfriend, but we would remain in contact, and we would acknowledge our feelings, which we previously tried to put aside (which obviously cannot work; you cannot deny feelings like these).
I did have to push for it, by then. She was clear her parents wouldn't approve. But at 32 years of age, and with a divorce that wasn't even able to be set in motion—if it was a definite eventuality, wouldn't it make sense to still live your life in the meantime? Divorces can take years to go through. Grown adults don't put possible new relationships off because of a technicality. The marriage was already over in their hearts—if it ever even existed within, and not solely on paper.
I just didn't want this to slip away. She made her interest in me very obvious, and had persisted enough for me to return her feelings. She continued to feed that previously empty part of me—the part of me that never, not once in my life, had been shown real love, by any woman. I didn't want to lose her. I have been used, and discarded multiple times, by people I'd barely ever met, but who'd kept me in a misleading cycle of hope and despair. This felt real, for once. This felt like it could be something.
The phone calls evolved into something deeper, at her instigation. She'd cutely suggested falling asleep together over Discord in late March: whispering goodnights, giggling when we were both unable to fall asleep, and greeting each other first thing in the morning. It felt like a dream, to me. I had never felt so loved, cherished, valued. She went far out of her way for me, and I was willing to do the same for her. We continued this nightly ritual throughout the entirety of our relationship—breaking it, occasionally—but for the first few months afterwards, there wasn't a night we didn't spend together.
The "I love yous" came next. I was adamant that, as much as I wanted to say it, I wanted to hold off, to tell it to her in person. She couldn't control herself, and gently said it to me one night as we were falling asleep. Our bond felt cemented. Talk of meeting increased.
If you'll notice, a pattern emerges here, where every subsequent higher step in this relationship was initiated by her. The clinginess, the admission of feelings, the phone call, the nightly ritual of sleeping on the phone, and now the "I love yous". I was overjoyed to be on the receiving end of each of these, and yes, I did fight for the relationship to stick in the first place, but in hindsight, it seems ever more crueler that she could've done all this, only to completely ditch me at the end.
We were across state lines. I was in New Jersey; she in New York. I knew of a bus that could take me to Manhattan. From there, it was just a hop, skip away to where she resided. She, once again, took the real initiative. We had originally planned to meet in the summer, perhaps at a café or library or amusement park. But she was telling me she only had to take one subway to end up at the bus I was speaking of. Early April, completely out of the blue, she sent a photo of that subway, asking if she should do it? That all I had to do was answer in the affirmative, and she would. I was in the shower, but I actually had this hunch that that was going to happen. For no reason whatsoever. There was no indication. I hadn't seen the message. I just somehow knew, and I was shivering in the shower at the thought of meeting her that day. Of course, it was too late by the time I was able to reply. However, we still met, the very next week.
We met at a large and lovely park, the only escape to nature you can truly get to in my town. She looked so lonely, staring at the stream, her backpack on. I came right up to her, and the sweetest meeting of my life ensued. We both somehow seemed cut from the same cloth. Both tall, but lanky—slimmer than most examples of our respective genders. Darker hair and eyes. And kind of a sensitive, hesitant disposition. The result of too much overexposure to the deafening hostility that can strike in this world, from all directions. We walked awhile, sat on a bench and somehow managed to hold hands to quell the shyness and nervousness that we both seemed to share (though her to a much greater extent). It was surreal. The day was a dream, but a dream that extended into most of the year.
We met again only two days later. She wasted no time in instantly coming back. We baked brownies together, and, probably too much information, but we became intimate from this day on. Once again, the bond went to another level. We were both hooked on each other: emotionally, and physically.
I don't need to go into the many months we spent together. There's simply too much to say. I met her in the city, and witnessed her father scream at her on the phone, bringing her to tears for daring to spend time in Manhattan with me. According to her, the divorce was now out in the open, and all parties involved knew of its inevitability. The husband wouldn't talk to her, so nothing could even happen. He told her to just worry about herself. But the parents weren't having it.
We met every single week up to November at least twice, barring one or two where she had a surgery take place in late April. We roamed down so many paths in my own town, and all over Manhattan. Experienced more restaurants than I'm sure I have in the past five years. Went to Coldplay at MetLife Stadium; it was also the first night she stayed over, again to her parents' ire. She would continue to stay each weekend. They were the loveliest times of my life. But her parents gave her hell every time she returned. They treated her like a complete outcast, giving her the silent treatment for days on end. A grown adult capable of making her own decisions for herself, being pressured by childish, immature parents who constantly filled her head with horrible advice about trusting nobody, keeping no friends, and adhering to a religion that I believe is an extremely harmful force in this world.
I had never felt so close to somebody before. She was as seemingly gentle as they come, and we were both extremely generous and caring to one another. Which is why the next part of this absolutely shocked me and sent my heart into a downward spiral I still struggle to soothe.
This past November, she finally left back to Turkey, the place she was formerly so miserable in, supposedly to take care of the divorce. She assured me all the processes were in motion—the search for a lawyer, setting of a court date, and the eventual date itself, somewhere in February. These were all lies. I don't know exactly what happened, but sometime in January she made the decision to remain faithful to both her religion and the marriage, yet she continued to lie to me daily about what was going on. One point of contention that came up again and again between us was the lack of phone calls from her, all of a sudden. The first few weeks, I understood it was because her dad was there, but in the months succeeding that, the situation hardly changed. I'd get hung up on out of nowhere, I'd get excuses such as depression—she even wrote a post on an alternate Reddit account asking for advice: how to assure a loving boyfriend that she's too miserable to call due to the circumstances surrounding divorce, and that it's no cause for insecurity. All while knowing that she was not divorcing... I was misled so cruelly. The web of lies is just immense, and I can't believe she was even capable of all this.
She argued with me over asking for more calls, pleading for me to understand her, and assuring me that she wasn't hiding anything. She would even randomly blurt out harsh things like...that she didn't trust me, or anyone...or that love can't always be there for you. She was slicing up my feelings and toying with my heart. Sensations that were all too familiar, from the wounds of my past. This wasn't the care a loved one is supposed to show, but out of trying my best to understand her side of it, I decided to stop asking for calls.
We went all of February and half of March without a single phone call. Not even on Valentine's Day. But I was only bottling up just how much it hurt to be so neglected. Surely two people in love both crave to hear each other's voices, more than this? She once told me my voice was like listening to the sound of the ocean through a conch shell. Comforting, yet fleeting. What was going on?
Another argument ensued, and this one led to a break-up. I realized through talking with a friend who asked about how we were doing, that I was immensely down about our only communication happening through a few daily texts. I wasn't given many updates on what was going on. She claimed in December that she was staying with the husband's family at night because he refused to fix the broken heating in her apartment. She was now staying there full-time. I tried to just trust her about it, but it looks like that was a mistake. She was isolated from any voice of sense, and only had pressure and religious guilt-tripping paving the path for her. I still don't believe she has any love for him whatsoever. He is a clumsy manipulator, who practically bragged to me on Reddit about luring her away from her first husband, while attempting to condescend to me about intelligence. Her few current Facebook posts all seem curated to highlight just how miserable she was over there the first time around, and that the same now continues. Her life is not her own, and I'm reminded of all the times she told me she was in chains. The one positive-appearing post was put up during our many days of vivid and lively exploration.
She always seemed easy to influence...often by people who never truly cared for her. I can't believe she would be duped by someone so obviously conniving that he convinced her to marry straight out of a divorce in the first place. She probably needs real help and people to look out for her...but her parents will not take up that mantle. She is, however, very conditioned to seek their advice, and treat their words almost as a decree from god, itself.
We broke up a little over a week ago. She still did not reveal the truth to me; she only acted as if I was asking for too much, all because I wanted some phone calls. She even argued, all this time, knowing she was deceiving me. And she put her all into her arguments, trying to portray herself as a decent person who held no blame. This is one of the most hurtful things anyone has ever done to me. And just like always, I'm expected to just accept it, with little explanation or apology given. She claims she wanted to live a sinless existence within her faith, but what she did so blatantly to me will never make her sinless. I poured my heart for the first time into somebody who I thought wanted to be with me for life. She'd say she'd never felt as alive, happy, and free as she was with me; that I was her favorite person. I definitely felt the same about her.
I don't even know what to think, anymore. She did claim her feelings for me were all true. In a final phone call that the husband initiated to tell me off, she said outright she'd be able to get over him, if he passed away. But that the same wouldn't happen with me. She also claimed she would never be able to truly be her own self with me, but that's not true. Happiness reveals your true identity; following your heart. But going against your inner nature, to please the whims of controlling people... that can never lead to happiness or truth, and is only ever going to slowly kill a person. I just wish I could've helped her. She never deserved such toxic people around her, but as long as she keeps choosing them, she'll have to live with the consequences of it.
2023.03.29 01:25 icarusflewtooclose ULPT Request: How do I get my neighbor to stop blasting their subs in the neighborhood.
We got new neighbors and they are really inconsiderate neighbors. one of them is a recovering addict while another person who lives there is an addict. Recently they installed some monster subwoofers in their cars and now the entire neighborhood is subject to having their windows rattled at all hours.
Our city has very strict noise ordinance which is routinely enforced in the case of house parties. The problem is that these are in cars that speed away before the cops get there to witness it. As well, parking a cop on the street won’t work because they would simply turn them down when they see the cop.
Any advice would be awesome!
submitted by icarusflewtooclose to UnethicalLifeProTips [link] [comments]
Our city has very strict noise ordinance which is routinely enforced in the case of house parties. The problem is that these are in cars that speed away before the cops get there to witness it. As well, parking a cop on the street won’t work because they would simply turn them down when they see the cop.
Any advice would be awesome!
2023.03.29 01:16 admiraltarkin How to permanently pause the map?
Every time I have one of these, I put the map where I want it and after about 5 minutes it starts moving. Why in God's name would I want that? Does anyone know how to keep it static?
submitted by admiraltarkin to unitedairlines [link] [comments]
2023.03.29 00:55 terp09 Physical Therapist
Does anyone have any recommendations for a physical therapist in the Jersey City/Hoboken area that has an understanding of grappling or martial arts? I’d prefer to go to someone who understands what I’m trying to get back to and offers specific pt, rather than just generic physical therapy. Thanks!
submitted by terp09 to jerseycity [link] [comments]
2023.03.29 00:54 NSmalls [USA-NJ] [H] HP Pavilion 22cwa 21.5-Inch Full HD 1080p IPS LED Monitor, Tilt, VGA and HDMI (T4Q59AA) - Black [W] Local Cash
Photos and timestamp: https://imgur.com/a/BfuNkHD
Used this monitor for about a year from April 2020 to April 2021. Pretty standard WFH monitor. No issues with the monitor at all. I live in Jersey City in a location convenient to the PATH train and can meet you at a coffee shop. Looking for $69 (nice) local cash.
submitted by NSmalls to hardwareswap [link] [comments]
Used this monitor for about a year from April 2020 to April 2021. Pretty standard WFH monitor. No issues with the monitor at all. I live in Jersey City in a location convenient to the PATH train and can meet you at a coffee shop. Looking for $69 (nice) local cash.
2023.03.29 00:51 Iconospastic We were warned (BTW resignation when?)
 | submitted by Iconospastic to jerseycity [link] [comments] |
2023.03.29 00:45 PokingDogSnouts My "girlfriend" of one year has been in Turkey the past four months. Every single day of those four months, she has fed me the mistaken impression she was divorcing from an old marriage of years ago. It turns out she is staying.
From the month we started phone calls (February, 2022), I was assured that she never felt a drop of love for this person. He had manipulated her out of her first abusive marriage—guiding her through the divorce process. Her sole source of support through a very trying time, he also would completely disappear on her when she didn't do what he asked of her. When her first divorce was finalized, he convinced her to hop onto a plane to Turkey, and marry him immediately. The faulty reasoning he gave for such a wild and ill-advised idea (that her therapist strongly urged against, saying she needed time to heal and process the dissolution of the first marriage) was that if she were to live with him, she needed to undergo a marriage ceremony to make it permissible within their faith (Islam).
When I first heard this, I already thought that this was one of the worst decisions a person could ever make for themselves. A woman of few friends, she was going to isolate herself further in a country she did not know the language to, with a man whom she'd only met once. Making another marriage commitment, fresh out of the first failed one.
Another saddening aspect to her history is that this isn't the first time. The first husband had also, years and years prior, convinced her to move to Turkey. They came back, and she processed a green card application for this man. The same thing she's now doing for this guy.
But the second marriage also didn't work out. She was there for almost two years, and was having panic attacks all of the time. Fainting in the bathroom. Stuck there due to COVID lockdowns. She and the guy were wholly incompatible. She'd mentioned how she couldn't even be intimate with him because of how tensed up he made her feel. She'd told me she wasn't attracted to him, and that she cried at the ceremony, knowing she was making a huge mistake, but was so numb and expected to go through with it, at this point, that she did. She told me things in this vein, over and over again.
How utterly numb she was over there, unfeeling, disassociating and just doing what people expected of her. Living as a scraped-out shell of herself.
She returned home to New York in July of 2021. She'd still kept up the pretense with him, of being in a stable marriage, and continued to process his green card application, but knew even by December (according to what she told me) that she did not want to return and that she could not fathom living her life with this person.
We met in January of 2022. Not in-person, yet, but right here on Reddit. Innocuous enough, at first. I had been recovering from long-COVID, with no one in my life believing me. I was searching for both love and friends to see me through the most difficult time in my entire life. She replied to one of the friendship posts, and we bonded through a shared love for music, older music in particular.
She zeroed in on me from the start, telling me later on about how she'd sifted through all my social media and talked with her cousin, her best friend, about the kind of person I was.
The conversation moved to Discord. I was streaming a lot, then. One of the foreign friends I was talking to, said I had a voice that would go perfectly with book-reading, and that I should stream myself doing it. During a lonely end to the December of 2021, I decided to give it a try. I even did one on New Year's Eve, hoping to unite all of the lost souls, who, like me, didn't have any gatherings to attend.
In February, the streams were still going strong, and she seemed to enter every single one of them—constantly there for me, constantly wanting to not only spend her time with me, but to get my attention. And there's one incident that finally made me realize just how much she felt for me.
One late night, I told her politely that I'd be playing Minecraft with somebody else (we had been messaging daily by this point in early February). She had been engaging extensively, sending me a lot of caring advice on dealing with my symptoms, but I needed to rest myself from all the texting.
It was only two hours, but it clearly hurt her. I didn't hear from her until late the next day, when she spilled out her feelings in a message she deleted only moments later. I only caught the notification preview, but the gist of it seemed to be that she felt "disposed of", discarded, and she had cried over it.
This was a shock for me. I seriously didn't think it was that grave an error to commit (it wasn't), but nevertheless, I empathized. I, too, know fully well what it's like to be completely discarded (also see: the end of this story). I certainly didn't want someone coming out of interactions with me, feeling that way. And I resolved within myself not to hurt this person again. I was beginning to develop an affinity towards her—spurred by the obvious interest, and her qualities of both acute sensitivity, and a willingness to be open and vulnerable, something I deeply value. I wanted to become her source of comfort, too. To help her feel safe in a world that can often be cruel and insensitive. That is the decision I made for myself on that day.
Later in the month, nightly phone calls began. The first time we'd spoken through voice. Well into the nights, we talked for hours, a clear close bond beginning to form. She eventually confided that she was developing feelings for me; I said the same. One night, she brought up an obligation in Turkey, unfinished personal business that she would have to take care of, soon. I froze. It sounded like another person was involved with her. Feeling deeply uncomfortable, I told her I was going to go. She was talking around it and I assumed the worst. She told me everything. And she insisted that she had no love for this person, never desired to be with him again, and that the "business" she had there was in divorcing him.
Her family's faith complicated things. Even if she was only technically legally married (i.e., not living with him for almost a year, by that point), they would not allow her to be in a relationship while the marriage contract was still in effect. She was attempting to hide even her communications with me. This is a 32-year-old woman, by the way. Her parents had always been overbearing and controlling. She was not to talk to strangers on the internet. I witnessed her being treated like a minor half her age, numerous times over the course of our relationship.
She clearly wanted to be with me, but this got in the way of it, and a few times, we parted ways. But our link just couldn't be snuffed out—we always found a way back towards one another. In mid-March, we decided, finally, to be together. We were not boyfriend and girlfriend, but we would remain in contact, and we would acknowledge our feelings, which we previously tried to put aside (which obviously cannot work; you cannot deny feelings like these).
I did have to push for it, by then. She was clear her parents wouldn't approve. But at 32 years of age, and with a divorce that wasn't even able to be set in motion—if it was a definite eventuality, wouldn't it make sense to still live your life in the meantime? Divorces can take years to go through. Grown adults don't put possible new relationships off because of a technicality. The marriage was already over in their hearts—if it ever even existed within, and not solely on paper.
I just didn't want this to slip away. She made her interest in me very obvious, and had persisted enough for me to return her feelings. She continued to feed that previously empty part of me—the part of me that never, not once in my life, had been shown real love, by any woman. I didn't want to lose her. I have been used, and discarded multiple times, by people I'd barely ever met, but who'd kept me in a misleading cycle of hope and despair. This felt real, for once. This felt like it could be something.
The phone calls evolved into something deeper, at her instigation. She'd cutely suggested falling asleep together over Discord in late March: whispering goodnights, giggling when we were both unable to fall asleep, and greeting each other first thing in the morning. It felt like a dream, to me. I had never felt so loved, cherished, valued. She went far out of her way for me, and I was willing to do the same for her. We continued this nightly ritual throughout the entirety of our relationship—breaking it, occasionally—but for the first few months afterwards, there wasn't a night we didn't spend together.
The "I love yous" came next. I was adamant that, as much as I wanted to say it, I wanted to hold off, to tell it to her in person. She couldn't control herself, and gently said it to me one night as we were falling asleep. Our bond felt cemented. Talk of meeting increased.
If you'll notice, a pattern emerges here, where every subsequent higher step in this relationship was initiated by her. The clinginess, the admission of feelings, the phone call, the nightly ritual of sleeping on the phone, and now the "I love yous". I was overjoyed to be on the receiving end of each of these, and yes, I did fight for the relationship to stick in the first place, but in hindsight, it seems ever more crueler that she could've done all this, only to completely ditch me at the end.
We were across state lines. I was in New Jersey; she in New York. I knew of a bus that could take me to Manhattan. From there, it was just a hop, skip away to where she resided. She, once again, took the real initiative. We had originally planned to meet in the summer, perhaps at a café or library or amusement park. But she was telling me she only had to take one subway to end up at the bus I was speaking of. Early April, completely out of the blue, she sent a photo of that subway, asking if she should do it? That all I had to do was answer in the affirmative, and she would. I was in the shower, but I actually had this hunch that that was going to happen. For no reason whatsoever. There was no indication. I hadn't seen the message. I just somehow knew, and I was shivering in the shower at the thought of meeting her that day. Of course, it was too late by the time I was able to reply. However, we still met, the very next week.
We met at a large and lovely park, the only escape to nature you can truly get to in my town. She looked so lonely, staring at the stream, her backpack on. I came right up to her, and the sweetest meeting of my life ensued. We both somehow seemed cut from the same cloth. Both tall, but lanky—slimmer than most examples of our respective genders. Darker hair and eyes. And kind of a sensitive, hesitant disposition. The result of too much overexposure to the deafening hostility that can strike in this world, from all directions. We walked awhile, sat on a bench and somehow managed to hold hands to quell the shyness and nervousness that we both seemed to share (though her to a much greater extent). It was surreal. The day was a dream, but a dream that extended into most of the year.
We met again only two days later. She wasted no time in instantly coming back. We baked brownies together, and, probably too much information, but we became intimate from this day on. Once again, the bond went to another level. We were both hooked on each other: emotionally, and physically.
I don't need to go into the many months we spent together. There's simply too much to say. I met her in the city, and witnessed her father scream at her on the phone, bringing her to tears for daring to spend time in Manhattan with me. According to her, the divorce was now out in the open, and all parties involved knew of its inevitability. The husband wouldn't talk to her, so nothing could even happen. He told her to just worry about herself. But the parents weren't having it.
We met every single week up to November at least twice, barring one or two where she had a surgery take place in late April. We roamed down so many paths in my own town, and all over Manhattan. Experienced more restaurants than I'm sure I have in the past five years. Went to Coldplay at MetLife Stadium; it was also the first night she stayed over, again to her parents' ire. She would continue to stay each weekend. They were the loveliest times of my life. But her parents gave her hell every time she returned. They treated her like a complete outcast, giving her the silent treatment for days on end. A grown adult capable of making her own decisions for herself, being pressured by childish, immature parents who constantly filled her head with horrible advice about trusting nobody, keeping no friends, and adhering to a religion that I believe is an extremely harmful force in this world.
I had never felt so close to somebody before. She was as seemingly gentle as they come, and we were both extremely generous and caring to one another. Which is why the next part of this absolutely shocked me and sent my heart into a downward spiral I still struggle to soothe.
This past November, she finally left back to Turkey, the place she was formerly so miserable in, supposedly to take care of the divorce. She assured me all the processes were in motion—the search for a lawyer, setting of a court date, and the eventual date itself, somewhere in February. These were all lies. I don't know exactly what happened, but sometime in January she made the decision to remain faithful to both her religion and the marriage, yet she continued to lie to me daily about what was going on. One point of contention that came up again and again between us was the lack of phone calls from her, all of a sudden. The first few weeks, I understood it was because her dad was there, but in the months succeeding that, the situation hardly changed. I'd get hung up on out of nowhere, I'd get excuses such as depression—she even wrote a post on an alternate Reddit account asking for advice: how to assure a loving boyfriend that she's too miserable to call due to the circumstances surrounding divorce, and that it's no cause for insecurity. All while knowing that she was not divorcing... I was misled so cruelly. The web of lies is just immense, and I can't believe she was even capable of all this.
She argued with me over asking for more calls, pleading for me to understand her, and assuring me that she wasn't hiding anything. She would even randomly blurt out harsh things like...that she didn't trust me, or anyone...or that love can't always be there for you. She was slicing up my feelings and toying with my heart. Sensations that were all too familiar, from the wounds of my past. This wasn't the care a loved one is supposed to show, but out of trying my best to understand her side of it, I decided to stop asking for calls.
We went all of February and half of March without a single phone call. Not even on Valentine's Day. But I was only bottling up just how much it hurt to be so neglected. Surely two people in love both crave to hear each other's voices, more than this? She once told me my voice was like listening to the sound of the ocean through a conch shell. Comforting, yet fleeting. What was going on?
Another argument ensued, and this one led to a break-up. I realized through talking with a friend who asked about how we were doing, that I was immensely down about our only communication happening through a few daily texts. I wasn't given many updates on what was going on. She claimed in December that she was staying with the husband's family at night because he refused to fix the broken heating in her apartment. She was now staying there full-time. I tried to just trust her about it, but it looks like that was a mistake. She was isolated from any voice of sense, and only had pressure and religious guilt-tripping paving the path for her. I still don't believe she has any love for him whatsoever. He is a clumsy manipulator, who practically bragged to me on Reddit about luring her away from her first husband, while attempting to condescend to me about intelligence. Her few current Facebook posts all seem curated to highlight just how miserable she was over there the first time around, and that the same now continues. Her life is not her own, and I'm reminded of all the times she told me she was in chains. The one positive-appearing post was put up during our many days of vivid and lively exploration.
She always seemed easy to influence...often by people who never truly cared for her. I can't believe she would be duped by someone so obviously conniving that he convinced her to marry straight out of a divorce in the first place. She probably needs real help and people to look out for her...but her parents will not take up that mantle. She is, however, very conditioned to seek their advice, and treat their words almost as a decree from god, itself.
We broke up a little over a week ago. She still did not reveal the truth to me; she only acted as if I was asking for too much, all because I wanted some phone calls. She even argued, all this time, knowing she was deceiving me. And she put her all into her arguments, trying to portray herself as a decent person who held no blame. This is one of the most hurtful things anyone has ever done to me. And just like always, I'm expected to just accept it, with little explanation or apology given. She claims she wanted to live a sinless existence within her faith, but what she did so blatantly to me will never make her sinless. I poured my heart for the first time into somebody who I thought wanted to be with me for life. She'd say she'd never felt as alive, happy, and free as she was with me; that I was her favorite person. I definitely felt the same about her.
I don't even know what to think, anymore. She did claim her feelings for me were all true. In a final phone call that the husband initiated to tell me off, she said outright she'd be able to get over him, if he passed away. But that the same wouldn't happen with me. She also claimed she would never be able to truly be her own self with me, but that's not true. Happiness reveals your true identity; following your heart. But going against your inner nature, to please the whims of controlling people... that can never lead to happiness or truth, and is only ever going to slowly kill a person. I just wish I could've helped her. She never deserved such toxic people around her, but as long as she keeps choosing them, she'll have to live with the consequences of it.
submitted by PokingDogSnouts to dating [link] [comments]
When I first heard this, I already thought that this was one of the worst decisions a person could ever make for themselves. A woman of few friends, she was going to isolate herself further in a country she did not know the language to, with a man whom she'd only met once. Making another marriage commitment, fresh out of the first failed one.
Another saddening aspect to her history is that this isn't the first time. The first husband had also, years and years prior, convinced her to move to Turkey. They came back, and she processed a green card application for this man. The same thing she's now doing for this guy.
But the second marriage also didn't work out. She was there for almost two years, and was having panic attacks all of the time. Fainting in the bathroom. Stuck there due to COVID lockdowns. She and the guy were wholly incompatible. She'd mentioned how she couldn't even be intimate with him because of how tensed up he made her feel. She'd told me she wasn't attracted to him, and that she cried at the ceremony, knowing she was making a huge mistake, but was so numb and expected to go through with it, at this point, that she did. She told me things in this vein, over and over again.
How utterly numb she was over there, unfeeling, disassociating and just doing what people expected of her. Living as a scraped-out shell of herself.
She returned home to New York in July of 2021. She'd still kept up the pretense with him, of being in a stable marriage, and continued to process his green card application, but knew even by December (according to what she told me) that she did not want to return and that she could not fathom living her life with this person.
We met in January of 2022. Not in-person, yet, but right here on Reddit. Innocuous enough, at first. I had been recovering from long-COVID, with no one in my life believing me. I was searching for both love and friends to see me through the most difficult time in my entire life. She replied to one of the friendship posts, and we bonded through a shared love for music, older music in particular.
She zeroed in on me from the start, telling me later on about how she'd sifted through all my social media and talked with her cousin, her best friend, about the kind of person I was.
The conversation moved to Discord. I was streaming a lot, then. One of the foreign friends I was talking to, said I had a voice that would go perfectly with book-reading, and that I should stream myself doing it. During a lonely end to the December of 2021, I decided to give it a try. I even did one on New Year's Eve, hoping to unite all of the lost souls, who, like me, didn't have any gatherings to attend.
In February, the streams were still going strong, and she seemed to enter every single one of them—constantly there for me, constantly wanting to not only spend her time with me, but to get my attention. And there's one incident that finally made me realize just how much she felt for me.
One late night, I told her politely that I'd be playing Minecraft with somebody else (we had been messaging daily by this point in early February). She had been engaging extensively, sending me a lot of caring advice on dealing with my symptoms, but I needed to rest myself from all the texting.
It was only two hours, but it clearly hurt her. I didn't hear from her until late the next day, when she spilled out her feelings in a message she deleted only moments later. I only caught the notification preview, but the gist of it seemed to be that she felt "disposed of", discarded, and she had cried over it.
This was a shock for me. I seriously didn't think it was that grave an error to commit (it wasn't), but nevertheless, I empathized. I, too, know fully well what it's like to be completely discarded (also see: the end of this story). I certainly didn't want someone coming out of interactions with me, feeling that way. And I resolved within myself not to hurt this person again. I was beginning to develop an affinity towards her—spurred by the obvious interest, and her qualities of both acute sensitivity, and a willingness to be open and vulnerable, something I deeply value. I wanted to become her source of comfort, too. To help her feel safe in a world that can often be cruel and insensitive. That is the decision I made for myself on that day.
Later in the month, nightly phone calls began. The first time we'd spoken through voice. Well into the nights, we talked for hours, a clear close bond beginning to form. She eventually confided that she was developing feelings for me; I said the same. One night, she brought up an obligation in Turkey, unfinished personal business that she would have to take care of, soon. I froze. It sounded like another person was involved with her. Feeling deeply uncomfortable, I told her I was going to go. She was talking around it and I assumed the worst. She told me everything. And she insisted that she had no love for this person, never desired to be with him again, and that the "business" she had there was in divorcing him.
Her family's faith complicated things. Even if she was only technically legally married (i.e., not living with him for almost a year, by that point), they would not allow her to be in a relationship while the marriage contract was still in effect. She was attempting to hide even her communications with me. This is a 32-year-old woman, by the way. Her parents had always been overbearing and controlling. She was not to talk to strangers on the internet. I witnessed her being treated like a minor half her age, numerous times over the course of our relationship.
She clearly wanted to be with me, but this got in the way of it, and a few times, we parted ways. But our link just couldn't be snuffed out—we always found a way back towards one another. In mid-March, we decided, finally, to be together. We were not boyfriend and girlfriend, but we would remain in contact, and we would acknowledge our feelings, which we previously tried to put aside (which obviously cannot work; you cannot deny feelings like these).
I did have to push for it, by then. She was clear her parents wouldn't approve. But at 32 years of age, and with a divorce that wasn't even able to be set in motion—if it was a definite eventuality, wouldn't it make sense to still live your life in the meantime? Divorces can take years to go through. Grown adults don't put possible new relationships off because of a technicality. The marriage was already over in their hearts—if it ever even existed within, and not solely on paper.
I just didn't want this to slip away. She made her interest in me very obvious, and had persisted enough for me to return her feelings. She continued to feed that previously empty part of me—the part of me that never, not once in my life, had been shown real love, by any woman. I didn't want to lose her. I have been used, and discarded multiple times, by people I'd barely ever met, but who'd kept me in a misleading cycle of hope and despair. This felt real, for once. This felt like it could be something.
The phone calls evolved into something deeper, at her instigation. She'd cutely suggested falling asleep together over Discord in late March: whispering goodnights, giggling when we were both unable to fall asleep, and greeting each other first thing in the morning. It felt like a dream, to me. I had never felt so loved, cherished, valued. She went far out of her way for me, and I was willing to do the same for her. We continued this nightly ritual throughout the entirety of our relationship—breaking it, occasionally—but for the first few months afterwards, there wasn't a night we didn't spend together.
The "I love yous" came next. I was adamant that, as much as I wanted to say it, I wanted to hold off, to tell it to her in person. She couldn't control herself, and gently said it to me one night as we were falling asleep. Our bond felt cemented. Talk of meeting increased.
If you'll notice, a pattern emerges here, where every subsequent higher step in this relationship was initiated by her. The clinginess, the admission of feelings, the phone call, the nightly ritual of sleeping on the phone, and now the "I love yous". I was overjoyed to be on the receiving end of each of these, and yes, I did fight for the relationship to stick in the first place, but in hindsight, it seems ever more crueler that she could've done all this, only to completely ditch me at the end.
We were across state lines. I was in New Jersey; she in New York. I knew of a bus that could take me to Manhattan. From there, it was just a hop, skip away to where she resided. She, once again, took the real initiative. We had originally planned to meet in the summer, perhaps at a café or library or amusement park. But she was telling me she only had to take one subway to end up at the bus I was speaking of. Early April, completely out of the blue, she sent a photo of that subway, asking if she should do it? That all I had to do was answer in the affirmative, and she would. I was in the shower, but I actually had this hunch that that was going to happen. For no reason whatsoever. There was no indication. I hadn't seen the message. I just somehow knew, and I was shivering in the shower at the thought of meeting her that day. Of course, it was too late by the time I was able to reply. However, we still met, the very next week.
We met at a large and lovely park, the only escape to nature you can truly get to in my town. She looked so lonely, staring at the stream, her backpack on. I came right up to her, and the sweetest meeting of my life ensued. We both somehow seemed cut from the same cloth. Both tall, but lanky—slimmer than most examples of our respective genders. Darker hair and eyes. And kind of a sensitive, hesitant disposition. The result of too much overexposure to the deafening hostility that can strike in this world, from all directions. We walked awhile, sat on a bench and somehow managed to hold hands to quell the shyness and nervousness that we both seemed to share (though her to a much greater extent). It was surreal. The day was a dream, but a dream that extended into most of the year.
We met again only two days later. She wasted no time in instantly coming back. We baked brownies together, and, probably too much information, but we became intimate from this day on. Once again, the bond went to another level. We were both hooked on each other: emotionally, and physically.
I don't need to go into the many months we spent together. There's simply too much to say. I met her in the city, and witnessed her father scream at her on the phone, bringing her to tears for daring to spend time in Manhattan with me. According to her, the divorce was now out in the open, and all parties involved knew of its inevitability. The husband wouldn't talk to her, so nothing could even happen. He told her to just worry about herself. But the parents weren't having it.
We met every single week up to November at least twice, barring one or two where she had a surgery take place in late April. We roamed down so many paths in my own town, and all over Manhattan. Experienced more restaurants than I'm sure I have in the past five years. Went to Coldplay at MetLife Stadium; it was also the first night she stayed over, again to her parents' ire. She would continue to stay each weekend. They were the loveliest times of my life. But her parents gave her hell every time she returned. They treated her like a complete outcast, giving her the silent treatment for days on end. A grown adult capable of making her own decisions for herself, being pressured by childish, immature parents who constantly filled her head with horrible advice about trusting nobody, keeping no friends, and adhering to a religion that I believe is an extremely harmful force in this world.
I had never felt so close to somebody before. She was as seemingly gentle as they come, and we were both extremely generous and caring to one another. Which is why the next part of this absolutely shocked me and sent my heart into a downward spiral I still struggle to soothe.
This past November, she finally left back to Turkey, the place she was formerly so miserable in, supposedly to take care of the divorce. She assured me all the processes were in motion—the search for a lawyer, setting of a court date, and the eventual date itself, somewhere in February. These were all lies. I don't know exactly what happened, but sometime in January she made the decision to remain faithful to both her religion and the marriage, yet she continued to lie to me daily about what was going on. One point of contention that came up again and again between us was the lack of phone calls from her, all of a sudden. The first few weeks, I understood it was because her dad was there, but in the months succeeding that, the situation hardly changed. I'd get hung up on out of nowhere, I'd get excuses such as depression—she even wrote a post on an alternate Reddit account asking for advice: how to assure a loving boyfriend that she's too miserable to call due to the circumstances surrounding divorce, and that it's no cause for insecurity. All while knowing that she was not divorcing... I was misled so cruelly. The web of lies is just immense, and I can't believe she was even capable of all this.
She argued with me over asking for more calls, pleading for me to understand her, and assuring me that she wasn't hiding anything. She would even randomly blurt out harsh things like...that she didn't trust me, or anyone...or that love can't always be there for you. She was slicing up my feelings and toying with my heart. Sensations that were all too familiar, from the wounds of my past. This wasn't the care a loved one is supposed to show, but out of trying my best to understand her side of it, I decided to stop asking for calls.
We went all of February and half of March without a single phone call. Not even on Valentine's Day. But I was only bottling up just how much it hurt to be so neglected. Surely two people in love both crave to hear each other's voices, more than this? She once told me my voice was like listening to the sound of the ocean through a conch shell. Comforting, yet fleeting. What was going on?
Another argument ensued, and this one led to a break-up. I realized through talking with a friend who asked about how we were doing, that I was immensely down about our only communication happening through a few daily texts. I wasn't given many updates on what was going on. She claimed in December that she was staying with the husband's family at night because he refused to fix the broken heating in her apartment. She was now staying there full-time. I tried to just trust her about it, but it looks like that was a mistake. She was isolated from any voice of sense, and only had pressure and religious guilt-tripping paving the path for her. I still don't believe she has any love for him whatsoever. He is a clumsy manipulator, who practically bragged to me on Reddit about luring her away from her first husband, while attempting to condescend to me about intelligence. Her few current Facebook posts all seem curated to highlight just how miserable she was over there the first time around, and that the same now continues. Her life is not her own, and I'm reminded of all the times she told me she was in chains. The one positive-appearing post was put up during our many days of vivid and lively exploration.
She always seemed easy to influence...often by people who never truly cared for her. I can't believe she would be duped by someone so obviously conniving that he convinced her to marry straight out of a divorce in the first place. She probably needs real help and people to look out for her...but her parents will not take up that mantle. She is, however, very conditioned to seek their advice, and treat their words almost as a decree from god, itself.
We broke up a little over a week ago. She still did not reveal the truth to me; she only acted as if I was asking for too much, all because I wanted some phone calls. She even argued, all this time, knowing she was deceiving me. And she put her all into her arguments, trying to portray herself as a decent person who held no blame. This is one of the most hurtful things anyone has ever done to me. And just like always, I'm expected to just accept it, with little explanation or apology given. She claims she wanted to live a sinless existence within her faith, but what she did so blatantly to me will never make her sinless. I poured my heart for the first time into somebody who I thought wanted to be with me for life. She'd say she'd never felt as alive, happy, and free as she was with me; that I was her favorite person. I definitely felt the same about her.
I don't even know what to think, anymore. She did claim her feelings for me were all true. In a final phone call that the husband initiated to tell me off, she said outright she'd be able to get over him, if he passed away. But that the same wouldn't happen with me. She also claimed she would never be able to truly be her own self with me, but that's not true. Happiness reveals your true identity; following your heart. But going against your inner nature, to please the whims of controlling people... that can never lead to happiness or truth, and is only ever going to slowly kill a person. I just wish I could've helped her. She never deserved such toxic people around her, but as long as she keeps choosing them, she'll have to live with the consequences of it.
2023.03.29 00:45 PokingDogSnouts My "girlfriend" of one year has been in Turkey the past four months. Every single day of those four months, she has fed me the mistaken impression she was divorcing from an old marriage of years ago. It turns out she is staying.
From the month we started phone calls (February, 2022), I was assured that she never felt a drop of love for this person. He had manipulated her out of her first abusive marriage—guiding her through the divorce process. Her sole source of support through a very trying time, he also would completely disappear on her when she didn't do what he asked of her. When her first divorce was finalized, he convinced her to hop onto a plane to Turkey, and marry him immediately. The faulty reasoning he gave for such a wild and ill-advised idea (that her therapist strongly urged against, saying she needed time to heal and process the dissolution of the first marriage) was that if she were to live with him, she needed to undergo a marriage ceremony to make it permissible within their faith (Islam).
When I first heard this, I already thought that this was one of the worst decisions a person could ever make for themselves. A woman of few friends, she was going to isolate herself further in a country she did not know the language to, with a man whom she'd only met once. Making another marriage commitment, fresh out of the first failed one.
Another saddening aspect to her history is that this isn't the first time. The first husband had also, years and years prior, convinced her to move to Turkey. They came back, and she processed a green card application for this man. The same thing she's now doing for this guy.
But the second marriage also didn't work out. She was there for almost two years, and was having panic attacks all of the time. Fainting in the bathroom. Stuck there due to COVID lockdowns. She and the guy were wholly incompatible. She'd mentioned how she couldn't even be intimate with him because of how tensed up he made her feel. She'd told me she wasn't attracted to him, and that she cried at the ceremony, knowing she was making a huge mistake, but was so numb and expected to go through with it, at this point, that she did. She told me things in this vein, over and over again.
How utterly numb she was over there, unfeeling, disassociating and just doing what people expected of her. Living as a scraped-out shell of herself.
She returned home to New York in July of 2021. She'd still kept up the pretense with him, of being in a stable marriage, and continued to process his green card application, but knew even by December (according to what she told me) that she did not want to return and that she could not fathom living her life with this person.
We met in January of 2022. Not in-person, yet, but right here on Reddit. Innocuous enough, at first. I had been recovering from long-COVID, with no one in my life believing me. I was searching for both love and friends to see me through the most difficult time in my entire life. She replied to one of the friendship posts, and we bonded through a shared love for music, older music in particular.
She zeroed in on me from the start, telling me later on about how she'd sifted through all my social media and talked with her cousin, her best friend, about the kind of person I was.
The conversation moved to Discord. I was streaming a lot, then. One of the foreign friends I was talking to, said I had a voice that would go perfectly with book-reading, and that I should stream myself doing it. During a lonely end to the December of 2021, I decided to give it a try. I even did one on New Year's Eve, hoping to unite all of the lost souls, who, like me, didn't have any gatherings to attend.
In February, the streams were still going strong, and she seemed to enter every single one of them—constantly there for me, constantly wanting to not only spend her time with me, but to get my attention. And there's one incident that finally made me realize just how much she felt for me.
One late night, I told her politely that I'd be playing Minecraft with somebody else (we had been messaging daily by this point in early February). She had been engaging extensively, sending me a lot of caring advice on dealing with my symptoms, but I needed to rest myself from all the texting.
It was only two hours, but it clearly hurt her. I didn't hear from her until late the next day, when she spilled out her feelings in a message she deleted only moments later. I only caught the notification preview, but the gist of it seemed to be that she felt "disposed of", discarded, and she had cried over it.
This was a shock for me. I seriously didn't think it was that grave an error to commit (it wasn't), but nevertheless, I empathized. I, too, know fully well what it's like to be completely discarded (also see: the end of this story). I certainly didn't want someone coming out of interactions with me, feeling that way. And I resolved within myself not to hurt this person again. I was beginning to develop an affinity towards her—spurred by the obvious interest, and her qualities of both acute sensitivity, and a willingness to be open and vulnerable, something I deeply value. I wanted to become her source of comfort, too. To help her feel safe in a world that can often be cruel and insensitive. That is the decision I made for myself on that day.
Later in the month, nightly phone calls began. The first time we'd spoken through voice. Well into the nights, we talked for hours, a clear close bond beginning to form. She eventually confided that she was developing feelings for me; I said the same. One night, she brought up an obligation in Turkey, unfinished personal business that she would have to take care of, soon. I froze. It sounded like another person was involved with her. Feeling deeply uncomfortable, I told her I was going to go. She was talking around it and I assumed the worst. She told me everything. And she insisted that she had no love for this person, never desired to be with him again, and that the "business" she had there was in divorcing him.
Her family's faith complicated things. Even if she was only technically legally married (i.e., not living with him for almost a year, by that point), they would not allow her to be in a relationship while the marriage contract was still in effect. She was attempting to hide even her communications with me. This is a 32-year-old woman, by the way. Her parents had always been overbearing and controlling. She was not to talk to strangers on the internet. I witnessed her being treated like a minor half her age, numerous times over the course of our relationship.
She clearly wanted to be with me, but this got in the way of it, and a few times, we parted ways. But our link just couldn't be snuffed out—we always found a way back towards one another. In mid-March, we decided, finally, to be together. We were not boyfriend and girlfriend, but we would remain in contact, and we would acknowledge our feelings, which we previously tried to put aside (which obviously cannot work; you cannot deny feelings like these).
I did have to push for it, by then. She was clear her parents wouldn't approve. But at 32 years of age, and with a divorce that wasn't even able to be set in motion—if it was a definite eventuality, wouldn't it make sense to still live your life in the meantime? Divorces can take years to go through. Grown adults don't put possible new relationships off because of a technicality. The marriage was already over in their hearts—if it ever even existed within, and not solely on paper.
I just didn't want this to slip away. She made her interest in me very obvious, and had persisted enough for me to return her feelings. She continued to feed that previously empty part of me—the part of me that never, not once in my life, had been shown real love, by any woman. I didn't want to lose her. I have been used, and discarded multiple times, by people I'd barely ever met, but who'd kept me in a misleading cycle of hope and despair. This felt real, for once. This felt like it could be something.
The phone calls evolved into something deeper, at her instigation. She'd cutely suggested falling asleep together over Discord in late March: whispering goodnights, giggling when we were both unable to fall asleep, and greeting each other first thing in the morning. It felt like a dream, to me. I had never felt so loved, cherished, valued. She went far out of her way for me, and I was willing to do the same for her. We continued this nightly ritual throughout the entirety of our relationship—breaking it, occasionally—but for the first few months afterwards, there wasn't a night we didn't spend together.
The "I love yous" came next. I was adamant that, as much as I wanted to say it, I wanted to hold off, to tell it to her in person. She couldn't control herself, and gently said it to me one night as we were falling asleep. Our bond felt cemented. Talk of meeting increased.
If you'll notice, a pattern emerges here, where every subsequent higher step in this relationship was initiated by her. The clinginess, the admission of feelings, the phone call, the nightly ritual of sleeping on the phone, and now the "I love yous". I was overjoyed to be on the receiving end of each of these, and yes, I did fight for the relationship to stick in the first place, but in hindsight, it seems ever more crueler that she could've done all this, only to completely ditch me at the end.
We were across state lines. I was in New Jersey; she in New York. I knew of a bus that could take me to Manhattan. From there, it was just a hop, skip away to where she resided. She, once again, took the real initiative. We had originally planned to meet in the summer, perhaps at a café or library or amusement park. But she was telling me she only had to take one subway to end up at the bus I was speaking of. Early April, completely out of the blue, she sent a photo of that subway, asking if she should do it? That all I had to do was answer in the affirmative, and she would. I was in the shower, but I actually had this hunch that that was going to happen. For no reason whatsoever. There was no indication. I hadn't seen the message. I just somehow knew, and I was shivering in the shower at the thought of meeting her that day. Of course, it was too late by the time I was able to reply. However, we still met, the very next week.
We met at a large and lovely park, the only escape to nature you can truly get to in my town. She looked so lonely, staring at the stream, her backpack on. I came right up to her, and the sweetest meeting of my life ensued. We both somehow seemed cut from the same cloth. Both tall, but lanky—slimmer than most examples of our respective genders. Darker hair and eyes. And kind of a sensitive, hesitant disposition. The result of too much overexposure to the deafening hostility that can strike in this world, from all directions. We walked awhile, sat on a bench and somehow managed to hold hands to quell the shyness and nervousness that we both seemed to share (though her to a much greater extent). It was surreal. The day was a dream, but a dream that extended into most of the year.
We met again only two days later. She wasted no time in instantly coming back. We baked brownies together, and, probably too much information, but we became intimate from this day on. Once again, the bond went to another level. We were both hooked on each other: emotionally, and physically.
I don't need to go into the many months we spent together. There's simply too much to say. I met her in the city, and witnessed her father scream at her on the phone, bringing her to tears for daring to spend time in Manhattan with me. According to her, the divorce was now out in the open, and all parties involved knew of its inevitability. The husband wouldn't talk to her, so nothing could even happen. He told her to just worry about herself. But the parents weren't having it.
We met every single week up to November at least twice, barring one or two where she had a surgery take place in late April. We roamed down so many paths in my own town, and all over Manhattan. Experienced more restaurants than I'm sure I have in the past five years. Went to Coldplay at MetLife Stadium; it was also the first night she stayed over, again to her parents' ire. She would continue to stay each weekend. They were the loveliest times of my life. But her parents gave her hell every time she returned. They treated her like a complete outcast, giving her the silent treatment for days on end. A grown adult capable of making her own decisions for herself, being pressured by childish, immature parents who constantly filled her head with horrible advice about trusting nobody, keeping no friends, and adhering to a religion that I believe is an extremely harmful force in this world.
I had never felt so close to somebody before. She was as seemingly gentle as they come, and we were both extremely generous and caring to one another. Which is why the next part of this absolutely shocked me and sent my heart into a downward spiral I still struggle to soothe.
This past November, she finally left back to Turkey, the place she was formerly so miserable in, supposedly to take care of the divorce. She assured me all the processes were in motion—the search for a lawyer, setting of a court date, and the eventual date itself, somewhere in February. These were all lies. I don't know exactly what happened, but sometime in January she made the decision to remain faithful to both her religion and the marriage, yet she continued to lie to me daily about what was going on. One point of contention that came up again and again between us was the lack of phone calls from her, all of a sudden. The first few weeks, I understood it was because her dad was there, but in the months succeeding that, the situation hardly changed. I'd get hung up on out of nowhere, I'd get excuses such as depression—she even wrote a post on an alternate Reddit account asking for advice: how to assure a loving boyfriend that she's too miserable to call due to the circumstances surrounding divorce, and that it's no cause for insecurity. All while knowing that she was not divorcing... I was misled so cruelly. The web of lies is just immense, and I can't believe she was even capable of all this.
She argued with me over asking for more calls, pleading for me to understand her, and assuring me that she wasn't hiding anything. She would even randomly blurt out harsh things like...that she didn't trust me, or anyone...or that love can't always be there for you. She was slicing up my feelings and toying with my heart. Sensations that were all too familiar, from the wounds of my past. This wasn't the care a loved one is supposed to show, but out of trying my best to understand her side of it, I decided to stop asking for calls.
We went all of February and half of March without a single phone call. Not even on Valentine's Day. But I was only bottling up just how much it hurt to be so neglected. Surely two people in love both crave to hear each other's voices, more than this? She once told me my voice was like listening to the sound of the ocean through a conch shell. Comforting, yet fleeting. What was going on?
Another argument ensued, and this one led to a break-up. I realized through talking with a friend who asked about how we were doing, that I was immensely down about our only communication happening through a few daily texts. I wasn't given many updates on what was going on. She claimed in December that she was staying with the husband's family at night because he refused to fix the broken heating in her apartment. She was now staying there full-time. I tried to just trust her about it, but it looks like that was a mistake. She was isolated from any voice of sense, and only had pressure and religious guilt-tripping paving the path for her. I still don't believe she has any love for him whatsoever. He is a clumsy manipulator, who practically bragged to me on Reddit about luring her away from her first husband, while attempting to condescend to me about intelligence. Her few current Facebook posts all seem curated to highlight just how miserable she was over there the first time around, and that the same now continues. Her life is not her own, and I'm reminded of all the times she told me she was in chains. The one positive-appearing post was put up during our many days of vivid and lively exploration.
She always seemed easy to influence...often by people who never truly cared for her. I can't believe she would be duped by someone so obviously conniving that he convinced her to marry straight out of a divorce in the first place. She probably needs real help and people to look out for her...but her parents will not take up that mantle. She is, however, very conditioned to seek their advice, and treat their words almost as a decree from god, itself.
We broke up a little over a week ago. She still did not reveal the truth to me; she only acted as if I was asking for too much, all because I wanted some phone calls. She even argued, all this time, knowing she was deceiving me. And she put her all into her arguments, trying to portray herself as a decent person who held no blame. This is one of the most hurtful things anyone has ever done to me. And just like always, I'm expected to just accept it, with little explanation or apology given. She claims she wanted to live a sinless existence within her faith, but what she did so blatantly to me will never make her sinless. I poured my heart for the first time into somebody who I thought wanted to be with me for life. She'd say she'd never felt as alive, happy, and free as she was with me; that I was her favorite person. I definitely felt the same about her.
I don't even know what to think, anymore. She did claim her feelings for me were all true. In a final phone call that the husband initiated to tell me off, she said outright she'd be able to get over him, if he passed away. But that the same wouldn't happen with me. She also claimed she would never be able to truly be her own self with me, but that's not true. Happiness reveals your true identity; following your heart. But going against your inner nature, to please the whims of controlling people... that can never lead to happiness or truth, and is only ever going to slowly kill a person. I just wish I could've helped her. She never deserved such toxic people around her, but as long as she keeps choosing them, she'll have to live with the consequences of it.
submitted by PokingDogSnouts to Vent [link] [comments]
When I first heard this, I already thought that this was one of the worst decisions a person could ever make for themselves. A woman of few friends, she was going to isolate herself further in a country she did not know the language to, with a man whom she'd only met once. Making another marriage commitment, fresh out of the first failed one.
Another saddening aspect to her history is that this isn't the first time. The first husband had also, years and years prior, convinced her to move to Turkey. They came back, and she processed a green card application for this man. The same thing she's now doing for this guy.
But the second marriage also didn't work out. She was there for almost two years, and was having panic attacks all of the time. Fainting in the bathroom. Stuck there due to COVID lockdowns. She and the guy were wholly incompatible. She'd mentioned how she couldn't even be intimate with him because of how tensed up he made her feel. She'd told me she wasn't attracted to him, and that she cried at the ceremony, knowing she was making a huge mistake, but was so numb and expected to go through with it, at this point, that she did. She told me things in this vein, over and over again.
How utterly numb she was over there, unfeeling, disassociating and just doing what people expected of her. Living as a scraped-out shell of herself.
She returned home to New York in July of 2021. She'd still kept up the pretense with him, of being in a stable marriage, and continued to process his green card application, but knew even by December (according to what she told me) that she did not want to return and that she could not fathom living her life with this person.
We met in January of 2022. Not in-person, yet, but right here on Reddit. Innocuous enough, at first. I had been recovering from long-COVID, with no one in my life believing me. I was searching for both love and friends to see me through the most difficult time in my entire life. She replied to one of the friendship posts, and we bonded through a shared love for music, older music in particular.
She zeroed in on me from the start, telling me later on about how she'd sifted through all my social media and talked with her cousin, her best friend, about the kind of person I was.
The conversation moved to Discord. I was streaming a lot, then. One of the foreign friends I was talking to, said I had a voice that would go perfectly with book-reading, and that I should stream myself doing it. During a lonely end to the December of 2021, I decided to give it a try. I even did one on New Year's Eve, hoping to unite all of the lost souls, who, like me, didn't have any gatherings to attend.
In February, the streams were still going strong, and she seemed to enter every single one of them—constantly there for me, constantly wanting to not only spend her time with me, but to get my attention. And there's one incident that finally made me realize just how much she felt for me.
One late night, I told her politely that I'd be playing Minecraft with somebody else (we had been messaging daily by this point in early February). She had been engaging extensively, sending me a lot of caring advice on dealing with my symptoms, but I needed to rest myself from all the texting.
It was only two hours, but it clearly hurt her. I didn't hear from her until late the next day, when she spilled out her feelings in a message she deleted only moments later. I only caught the notification preview, but the gist of it seemed to be that she felt "disposed of", discarded, and she had cried over it.
This was a shock for me. I seriously didn't think it was that grave an error to commit (it wasn't), but nevertheless, I empathized. I, too, know fully well what it's like to be completely discarded (also see: the end of this story). I certainly didn't want someone coming out of interactions with me, feeling that way. And I resolved within myself not to hurt this person again. I was beginning to develop an affinity towards her—spurred by the obvious interest, and her qualities of both acute sensitivity, and a willingness to be open and vulnerable, something I deeply value. I wanted to become her source of comfort, too. To help her feel safe in a world that can often be cruel and insensitive. That is the decision I made for myself on that day.
Later in the month, nightly phone calls began. The first time we'd spoken through voice. Well into the nights, we talked for hours, a clear close bond beginning to form. She eventually confided that she was developing feelings for me; I said the same. One night, she brought up an obligation in Turkey, unfinished personal business that she would have to take care of, soon. I froze. It sounded like another person was involved with her. Feeling deeply uncomfortable, I told her I was going to go. She was talking around it and I assumed the worst. She told me everything. And she insisted that she had no love for this person, never desired to be with him again, and that the "business" she had there was in divorcing him.
Her family's faith complicated things. Even if she was only technically legally married (i.e., not living with him for almost a year, by that point), they would not allow her to be in a relationship while the marriage contract was still in effect. She was attempting to hide even her communications with me. This is a 32-year-old woman, by the way. Her parents had always been overbearing and controlling. She was not to talk to strangers on the internet. I witnessed her being treated like a minor half her age, numerous times over the course of our relationship.
She clearly wanted to be with me, but this got in the way of it, and a few times, we parted ways. But our link just couldn't be snuffed out—we always found a way back towards one another. In mid-March, we decided, finally, to be together. We were not boyfriend and girlfriend, but we would remain in contact, and we would acknowledge our feelings, which we previously tried to put aside (which obviously cannot work; you cannot deny feelings like these).
I did have to push for it, by then. She was clear her parents wouldn't approve. But at 32 years of age, and with a divorce that wasn't even able to be set in motion—if it was a definite eventuality, wouldn't it make sense to still live your life in the meantime? Divorces can take years to go through. Grown adults don't put possible new relationships off because of a technicality. The marriage was already over in their hearts—if it ever even existed within, and not solely on paper.
I just didn't want this to slip away. She made her interest in me very obvious, and had persisted enough for me to return her feelings. She continued to feed that previously empty part of me—the part of me that never, not once in my life, had been shown real love, by any woman. I didn't want to lose her. I have been used, and discarded multiple times, by people I'd barely ever met, but who'd kept me in a misleading cycle of hope and despair. This felt real, for once. This felt like it could be something.
The phone calls evolved into something deeper, at her instigation. She'd cutely suggested falling asleep together over Discord in late March: whispering goodnights, giggling when we were both unable to fall asleep, and greeting each other first thing in the morning. It felt like a dream, to me. I had never felt so loved, cherished, valued. She went far out of her way for me, and I was willing to do the same for her. We continued this nightly ritual throughout the entirety of our relationship—breaking it, occasionally—but for the first few months afterwards, there wasn't a night we didn't spend together.
The "I love yous" came next. I was adamant that, as much as I wanted to say it, I wanted to hold off, to tell it to her in person. She couldn't control herself, and gently said it to me one night as we were falling asleep. Our bond felt cemented. Talk of meeting increased.
If you'll notice, a pattern emerges here, where every subsequent higher step in this relationship was initiated by her. The clinginess, the admission of feelings, the phone call, the nightly ritual of sleeping on the phone, and now the "I love yous". I was overjoyed to be on the receiving end of each of these, and yes, I did fight for the relationship to stick in the first place, but in hindsight, it seems ever more crueler that she could've done all this, only to completely ditch me at the end.
We were across state lines. I was in New Jersey; she in New York. I knew of a bus that could take me to Manhattan. From there, it was just a hop, skip away to where she resided. She, once again, took the real initiative. We had originally planned to meet in the summer, perhaps at a café or library or amusement park. But she was telling me she only had to take one subway to end up at the bus I was speaking of. Early April, completely out of the blue, she sent a photo of that subway, asking if she should do it? That all I had to do was answer in the affirmative, and she would. I was in the shower, but I actually had this hunch that that was going to happen. For no reason whatsoever. There was no indication. I hadn't seen the message. I just somehow knew, and I was shivering in the shower at the thought of meeting her that day. Of course, it was too late by the time I was able to reply. However, we still met, the very next week.
We met at a large and lovely park, the only escape to nature you can truly get to in my town. She looked so lonely, staring at the stream, her backpack on. I came right up to her, and the sweetest meeting of my life ensued. We both somehow seemed cut from the same cloth. Both tall, but lanky—slimmer than most examples of our respective genders. Darker hair and eyes. And kind of a sensitive, hesitant disposition. The result of too much overexposure to the deafening hostility that can strike in this world, from all directions. We walked awhile, sat on a bench and somehow managed to hold hands to quell the shyness and nervousness that we both seemed to share (though her to a much greater extent). It was surreal. The day was a dream, but a dream that extended into most of the year.
We met again only two days later. She wasted no time in instantly coming back. We baked brownies together, and, probably too much information, but we became intimate from this day on. Once again, the bond went to another level. We were both hooked on each other: emotionally, and physically.
I don't need to go into the many months we spent together. There's simply too much to say. I met her in the city, and witnessed her father scream at her on the phone, bringing her to tears for daring to spend time in Manhattan with me. According to her, the divorce was now out in the open, and all parties involved knew of its inevitability. The husband wouldn't talk to her, so nothing could even happen. He told her to just worry about herself. But the parents weren't having it.
We met every single week up to November at least twice, barring one or two where she had a surgery take place in late April. We roamed down so many paths in my own town, and all over Manhattan. Experienced more restaurants than I'm sure I have in the past five years. Went to Coldplay at MetLife Stadium; it was also the first night she stayed over, again to her parents' ire. She would continue to stay each weekend. They were the loveliest times of my life. But her parents gave her hell every time she returned. They treated her like a complete outcast, giving her the silent treatment for days on end. A grown adult capable of making her own decisions for herself, being pressured by childish, immature parents who constantly filled her head with horrible advice about trusting nobody, keeping no friends, and adhering to a religion that I believe is an extremely harmful force in this world.
I had never felt so close to somebody before. She was as seemingly gentle as they come, and we were both extremely generous and caring to one another. Which is why the next part of this absolutely shocked me and sent my heart into a downward spiral I still struggle to soothe.
This past November, she finally left back to Turkey, the place she was formerly so miserable in, supposedly to take care of the divorce. She assured me all the processes were in motion—the search for a lawyer, setting of a court date, and the eventual date itself, somewhere in February. These were all lies. I don't know exactly what happened, but sometime in January she made the decision to remain faithful to both her religion and the marriage, yet she continued to lie to me daily about what was going on. One point of contention that came up again and again between us was the lack of phone calls from her, all of a sudden. The first few weeks, I understood it was because her dad was there, but in the months succeeding that, the situation hardly changed. I'd get hung up on out of nowhere, I'd get excuses such as depression—she even wrote a post on an alternate Reddit account asking for advice: how to assure a loving boyfriend that she's too miserable to call due to the circumstances surrounding divorce, and that it's no cause for insecurity. All while knowing that she was not divorcing... I was misled so cruelly. The web of lies is just immense, and I can't believe she was even capable of all this.
She argued with me over asking for more calls, pleading for me to understand her, and assuring me that she wasn't hiding anything. She would even randomly blurt out harsh things like...that she didn't trust me, or anyone...or that love can't always be there for you. She was slicing up my feelings and toying with my heart. Sensations that were all too familiar, from the wounds of my past. This wasn't the care a loved one is supposed to show, but out of trying my best to understand her side of it, I decided to stop asking for calls.
We went all of February and half of March without a single phone call. Not even on Valentine's Day. But I was only bottling up just how much it hurt to be so neglected. Surely two people in love both crave to hear each other's voices, more than this? She once told me my voice was like listening to the sound of the ocean through a conch shell. Comforting, yet fleeting. What was going on?
Another argument ensued, and this one led to a break-up. I realized through talking with a friend who asked about how we were doing, that I was immensely down about our only communication happening through a few daily texts. I wasn't given many updates on what was going on. She claimed in December that she was staying with the husband's family at night because he refused to fix the broken heating in her apartment. She was now staying there full-time. I tried to just trust her about it, but it looks like that was a mistake. She was isolated from any voice of sense, and only had pressure and religious guilt-tripping paving the path for her. I still don't believe she has any love for him whatsoever. He is a clumsy manipulator, who practically bragged to me on Reddit about luring her away from her first husband, while attempting to condescend to me about intelligence. Her few current Facebook posts all seem curated to highlight just how miserable she was over there the first time around, and that the same now continues. Her life is not her own, and I'm reminded of all the times she told me she was in chains. The one positive-appearing post was put up during our many days of vivid and lively exploration.
She always seemed easy to influence...often by people who never truly cared for her. I can't believe she would be duped by someone so obviously conniving that he convinced her to marry straight out of a divorce in the first place. She probably needs real help and people to look out for her...but her parents will not take up that mantle. She is, however, very conditioned to seek their advice, and treat their words almost as a decree from god, itself.
We broke up a little over a week ago. She still did not reveal the truth to me; she only acted as if I was asking for too much, all because I wanted some phone calls. She even argued, all this time, knowing she was deceiving me. And she put her all into her arguments, trying to portray herself as a decent person who held no blame. This is one of the most hurtful things anyone has ever done to me. And just like always, I'm expected to just accept it, with little explanation or apology given. She claims she wanted to live a sinless existence within her faith, but what she did so blatantly to me will never make her sinless. I poured my heart for the first time into somebody who I thought wanted to be with me for life. She'd say she'd never felt as alive, happy, and free as she was with me; that I was her favorite person. I definitely felt the same about her.
I don't even know what to think, anymore. She did claim her feelings for me were all true. In a final phone call that the husband initiated to tell me off, she said outright she'd be able to get over him, if he passed away. But that the same wouldn't happen with me. She also claimed she would never be able to truly be her own self with me, but that's not true. Happiness reveals your true identity; following your heart. But going against your inner nature, to please the whims of controlling people... that can never lead to happiness or truth, and is only ever going to slowly kill a person. I just wish I could've helped her. She never deserved such toxic people around her, but as long as she keeps choosing them, she'll have to live with the consequences of it.
2023.03.29 00:44 Acronyms_R_Us New and looking for a Dispensary other Than the Botanist
Hello all,
I was recently diagnosed with a painful nerve disorder and looking for a good medical dispensary in the southern end of Jersey. I can't drive so it needs to be relatively close by. I'm not a newbie to cannabis, but I also don't get out much in terms of venturing to a bunch of dispensaries lol. I am not a fan of the Botanist. I see 710 is a new place in AC but I don't know much about it. Can anyone recommend other South Jersey Dispensaries and possible brands of flower. I enjoy Verano and Rhythm, but lately those are slim pickings around here at the moment. I won't use Curaleaf again after getting sick the fist time I used there stuff and Botanist quality is always hit or miss. Any help would be appreciated!
submitted by Acronyms_R_Us to NewJerseyMarijuana [link] [comments]
I was recently diagnosed with a painful nerve disorder and looking for a good medical dispensary in the southern end of Jersey. I can't drive so it needs to be relatively close by. I'm not a newbie to cannabis, but I also don't get out much in terms of venturing to a bunch of dispensaries lol. I am not a fan of the Botanist. I see 710 is a new place in AC but I don't know much about it. Can anyone recommend other South Jersey Dispensaries and possible brands of flower. I enjoy Verano and Rhythm, but lately those are slim pickings around here at the moment. I won't use Curaleaf again after getting sick the fist time I used there stuff and Botanist quality is always hit or miss. Any help would be appreciated!
2023.03.29 00:42 aswat09 No One Wants to Be My Steward
As the title suggests, I'm having trouble with having a follower be my steward at either Golden Hills, Tundra Homestead, or Hendraheim. I've asked Lydia, Erik, Uthgerd, and Aviendha. Has anyone had these problems and found a fix? I'm guessing it's mod related, but I'm unsure which mod it would be.
MASTER FILES:
Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch [XB1]
Unofficial Skryrim Creation Club Content Patch
Functional Homes Master
FOUNDATIONS:
Survival Mode USSEP Patch
Cheat Room
Skyrim Reputation
Skyrim Reputation Patch
Realistic Needs and Diseases
R.A.S.S (Shaders and Effects)
Dirt and Blood
Smeltdown
Ars Metallica
Character Creation Overhaul
CCO Dynamic Skill Progression
CCO Diverse Races and Genders
MENUS, USER INTERFACE, FONT CHANGES
Kontrol
SkyHUD - Dissonance Preset
YOT - Your Own Thoughts
QUEST ALTERATIONS
Stones of Barenziah Quest Markers
Jiub's Opus & Arvak's Skull Markers
PURE CRAFTABLES
Cloaks of Skyrim
Hunting and Leatherwork Overhaul[XB1]
Crafting Requires Tools
GAME MECHANICS
GIST
Crime Overhaul
LEVEL PROGRESSION
20 PCT More Perk Points
Rewarding Reading
PERK OVERHAULS
Ordinator
Advanced Cooking AE
Advanced Cooking Ordinator Compatibility Patch
MAGIC ADDITIONS AND OVERHAULS
Odin
Odin - Ordinator Compatibility Patch
Witchhunter Spells and Prayers
Warrior Poet Powers
ITEM AND LOOT LEVELED LIST
Summermyst
Wintersun - Faiths Of Skyrim
ENEMY NPC LEVELED LISTS
Immersive Patrols
WEATHEATMOSPHERE
Enhanced Lights and FX - Weathers
True Storms Special Edition
ELFX Weathers - TrueStorms Merged Compatibility SSE
Mythical Ages Weather Overhaul
GRASS MODS
Mari's Realistic Grass Field Mod
Maris' Flora All In One
Oak Forrests of Skyrim
LANDSCAPE AND GRASS FIXES
Landscape Fixes for Grass Mods
SKIN MESH AND TEXTURES, SKELETON
Realistic NPC Overhaul
IDLES AND ANIMATIONS
GENERAL MESH AND TEXTURES
Elaborate Textiles
AMidianBorn Book Of Silence - Armors And Weapons (Cabal's Cut) 1K
Unread Books Glow
Static Mesh Improvement Mod
Enhanced Blood Textures
NPC AI
Immersive Speechcraft
Serana Dialogue
Serana Dialogue Add-On Campfire Patch
Marry Me Serana
Double Beds Are for Two People
Undress for Bed
Double Beds for Spooning
NPC/ PC immersion
NPC/ PC FACIAL MODIFICATIONS
True Eyes
True Brows
INTERIOR LIGHTING/ DECORATING
Updated - Enhanced Lights and FX
Hearthfires - Unique Display Rooms
Functional Homes SE
JK's Interior AIO
JK's Interiors USSEP Patch
JK's Interiors AIO ELFX Patch
Mystic Condenser
JK's Interior's / Mystic Condenser Patch
LIGHT MULTIPLE EXTERIOR EDITS
The Notice Board
Missives
SINGLE AREA EDITS
MULTIPLE AREA EDITS
Skyrim Pizza Survival Mode Edition
JK's Skyrim All in One
JK's Interiors AIO JK's Skyrim AIO Patch
UNIQUE ITEMS ADDED TO LOCATIONS
Royal Armory
Heavy Armory
Wear Robes Over Armor
Wear multiple rings
COMBAT MODS
Wildcat - Combat of Skyrim
Mortal Enemies
Athletik Combat
UNIQUE FOLLOWER MODS
QUEST MODS
The Forgotten City
The Wheel of Time
MAP MODS
BOTTOM LO
Simple Cow and Goat Milking
Immersive Follower Framework and Overhaul
IFF Patch for Double Beds are for Sleeping
Alternate Start - Live Another Life
JK's Interiors AIO Alt Start Patch
Color Patches Remover
Relationship Dialogue Overhaul
JK's Interiors AIO Relationship Dialogue Overhaul Patch
Serana Dialogue Add-on - RDO patch
Immersive Citizens - AI Overhaul
Realistic Conversations (XB1)
Cathedral Water
ELFX Shadows
ELFX Shadows - Alternate Start Patch
ELFX Shadows - USSEP Patch
ELFX Shadows - JK's Interiors AIO Patch
submitted by aswat09 to SkyrimModsXbox [link] [comments]
MASTER FILES:
Unofficial Skyrim Special Edition Patch [XB1]
Unofficial Skryrim Creation Club Content Patch
Functional Homes Master
FOUNDATIONS:
Survival Mode USSEP Patch
Cheat Room
Skyrim Reputation
Skyrim Reputation Patch
Realistic Needs and Diseases
R.A.S.S (Shaders and Effects)
Dirt and Blood
Smeltdown
Ars Metallica
Character Creation Overhaul
CCO Dynamic Skill Progression
CCO Diverse Races and Genders
MENUS, USER INTERFACE, FONT CHANGES
Kontrol
SkyHUD - Dissonance Preset
YOT - Your Own Thoughts
QUEST ALTERATIONS
Stones of Barenziah Quest Markers
Jiub's Opus & Arvak's Skull Markers
PURE CRAFTABLES
Cloaks of Skyrim
Hunting and Leatherwork Overhaul[XB1]
Crafting Requires Tools
GAME MECHANICS
GIST
Crime Overhaul
LEVEL PROGRESSION
20 PCT More Perk Points
Rewarding Reading
PERK OVERHAULS
Ordinator
Advanced Cooking AE
Advanced Cooking Ordinator Compatibility Patch
MAGIC ADDITIONS AND OVERHAULS
Odin
Odin - Ordinator Compatibility Patch
Witchhunter Spells and Prayers
Warrior Poet Powers
ITEM AND LOOT LEVELED LIST
Summermyst
Wintersun - Faiths Of Skyrim
ENEMY NPC LEVELED LISTS
Immersive Patrols
WEATHEATMOSPHERE
Enhanced Lights and FX - Weathers
True Storms Special Edition
ELFX Weathers - TrueStorms Merged Compatibility SSE
Mythical Ages Weather Overhaul
GRASS MODS
Mari's Realistic Grass Field Mod
Maris' Flora All In One
Oak Forrests of Skyrim
LANDSCAPE AND GRASS FIXES
Landscape Fixes for Grass Mods
SKIN MESH AND TEXTURES, SKELETON
Realistic NPC Overhaul
IDLES AND ANIMATIONS
GENERAL MESH AND TEXTURES
Elaborate Textiles
AMidianBorn Book Of Silence - Armors And Weapons (Cabal's Cut) 1K
Unread Books Glow
Static Mesh Improvement Mod
Enhanced Blood Textures
NPC AI
Immersive Speechcraft
Serana Dialogue
Serana Dialogue Add-On Campfire Patch
Marry Me Serana
Double Beds Are for Two People
Undress for Bed
Double Beds for Spooning
NPC/ PC immersion
NPC/ PC FACIAL MODIFICATIONS
True Eyes
True Brows
INTERIOR LIGHTING/ DECORATING
Updated - Enhanced Lights and FX
Hearthfires - Unique Display Rooms
Functional Homes SE
JK's Interior AIO
JK's Interiors USSEP Patch
JK's Interiors AIO ELFX Patch
Mystic Condenser
JK's Interior's / Mystic Condenser Patch
LIGHT MULTIPLE EXTERIOR EDITS
The Notice Board
Missives
SINGLE AREA EDITS
MULTIPLE AREA EDITS
Skyrim Pizza Survival Mode Edition
JK's Skyrim All in One
JK's Interiors AIO JK's Skyrim AIO Patch
UNIQUE ITEMS ADDED TO LOCATIONS
Royal Armory
Heavy Armory
Wear Robes Over Armor
Wear multiple rings
COMBAT MODS
Wildcat - Combat of Skyrim
Mortal Enemies
Athletik Combat
UNIQUE FOLLOWER MODS
QUEST MODS
The Forgotten City
The Wheel of Time
MAP MODS
BOTTOM LO
Simple Cow and Goat Milking
Immersive Follower Framework and Overhaul
IFF Patch for Double Beds are for Sleeping
Alternate Start - Live Another Life
JK's Interiors AIO Alt Start Patch
Color Patches Remover
Relationship Dialogue Overhaul
JK's Interiors AIO Relationship Dialogue Overhaul Patch
Serana Dialogue Add-on - RDO patch
Immersive Citizens - AI Overhaul
Realistic Conversations (XB1)
Cathedral Water
ELFX Shadows
ELFX Shadows - Alternate Start Patch
ELFX Shadows - USSEP Patch
ELFX Shadows - JK's Interiors AIO Patch
2023.03.28 23:51 EchoJobs DriveWealth is hiring Principal Infrastructure Capacity Engineer USD 200k-215k US Jersey City, NJ [API AWS]
![DriveWealth is hiring Principal Infrastructure Capacity Engineer USD 200k-215k US Jersey City, NJ [API AWS]](https://external-preview.redd.it/xfz0H-eUbH30N4OcFA3IPG5X08XnpmQ_LFK4iKelIBw.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=2a85b88ba4f047290f06e2c4ccda8070b0fa08e7 "DriveWealth is hiring Principal Infrastructure Capacity Engineer USD 200k-215k US Jersey City, NJ [API AWS]") | submitted by EchoJobs to joblead [link] [comments] |
2023.03.28 23:51 EchoJobs DriveWealth is hiring Principal Infrastructure Capacity Engineer USD 200k-215k US Jersey City, NJ [API AWS]
| | submitted by EchoJobs to echojobs [link] [comments] |
2023.03.28 23:50 EchoJobs DriveWealth is hiring Principal Infrastructure Capacity Engineer USD 200k-215k US Jersey City, NJ [API AWS]
| | submitted by EchoJobs to CodingJobs [link] [comments] |
2023.03.28 23:37 dulcedileche 27F Looking for friends to do spring activities
Hello everyone!
I live in Jersey but I mostly hangout in Midtown and I’m looking to make new friends to explore my long list of Cafes, brunch spots and bars/restaurants. I love exploring new places and I’m also open to try new experiences as I’m fairly new to the city.
Interests- Coffee runs, brunch, rooftops bars, dancing, 420, art, museums, picnic, botanical gardens, parks, yoga, shopping, photography and good food.
submitted by dulcedileche to NYCFriends [link] [comments]
I live in Jersey but I mostly hangout in Midtown and I’m looking to make new friends to explore my long list of Cafes, brunch spots and bars/restaurants. I love exploring new places and I’m also open to try new experiences as I’m fairly new to the city.
Interests- Coffee runs, brunch, rooftops bars, dancing, 420, art, museums, picnic, botanical gardens, parks, yoga, shopping, photography and good food.
2023.03.28 23:27 CitizensJournal_US The Coming Destruction of Future Hotels by Bruce Bialosky, Flashreport You may remember that this past summer the Los Angeles City Council accepted an ordinance regarding the operation and development of hotels in the city of Los Angeles.
 | submitted by CitizensJournal_US to CitizensJournal [link] [comments] |
2023.03.28 23:24 baldindian [WTS] Omega Seamaster 300 Ref: 234.32.41.21.03.001 - 41mm blue dial [Jersey City, USA]
![[WTS] Omega Seamaster 300 Ref: 234.32.41.21.03.001 - 41mm blue dial [Jersey City, USA]](https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/vHvWe5KB9RKm12qboPumvC-WU7BBTMMRm7QDw_OAfcY.jpg "[WTS] Omega Seamaster 300 Ref: 234.32.41.21.03.001 - 41mm blue dial [Jersey City, USA]") | submitted by baldindian to watch_swap [link] [comments] |
2023.03.28 23:12 Enneagram-8 Someone at the post office in Jersey City is tampering with the mail. I have been receiving packages that were open with invoices, products & catalogs removed and the boxes re-taped back up. I’m receiving my mail late & piled up in bulks receiving it all at once.etc The complaints doesn’t stop there
submitted by Enneagram-8 to gsavestheworld [link] [comments]
2023.03.28 23:06 IMLostInPolyLand Vote for Wild Parrots to be the animal of San Francisco & spread awareness!
 | Hello Reddit! San Francisco is voting for our official animal. It is down to the Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill vs Sea Lions. You don’t need to be local to vote, just an email needed. submitted by IMLostInPolyLand to parrots [link] [comments] The Wild Parrot flocks began in the 80’s and were popularized by a book and film. There are about 220 members in the flock. Unfortunately members of the flock are suffering neurological injuries due to rodenticide they are eating from homes around the city. The local rescue published a research paper on this, but has been unable to gain traction. Winning this content would help get the word out. The winner will be featured on a library card, a soccer jersey, and city council will sponsor legislation to declare it the official animal. Help us save the wild parrots! |
2023.03.28 22:38 Omansurver A text-based work of art inspired by a certain piece of media, created by a fan of said media, which follows the same or an alternate universe of the aforementioned media artwork. Or, a fan fiction.
Dunno if y'all will like this, or if it will even remain up, but a bit of a DISCLAIMER; The first chapter is more akin to a prologue than an actual part of a story, but it is required for the story to make sense, as the story needs a lot of world building and explanation for everything to work out, and unless y'all wanna be confused for the next three chapters, then I suggest you read, unless you aren't interested of course. Oh yeah, it was so long that I needed to post the first chapter in multiple parts, so get comfy, and prepare to read almost forty pages in total.
Chapter One - Part One
Extremely Lengthy Exposition
He didn’t know how to describe it.
A sort of lucid state in which he was only partially aware of who and what he was? Maybe. A condition of some sort of brain death, it being a result of gazing upon an entity far too complex for the human mind to ever even dream of conceiving? Perhaps. Or maybe it was a sign. A sign from whatever gods or higher beings that were our forefathers, our creators. The very things that created the universe, and all others as we know it. Perhaps it was a sign from Them, of his ascension, his final evolution into a being so superior, that to others, he could be considered a god himself. Yes, that was right. He could feel it, the power. Not in a way of touching something with a hand, but in a more metaphysical way, one far better than the crude grasping tools that humanity has had to work with for far too long.
It was so close, the innate understanding that was intrinsically tied into the human genome from eons ago, the inheritance he was meant to receive, what he DESERVED to receive, was right there. All he had to do was reach out, and touch it. He did just that, his mental probes extending outwards towards it, to claim what was rightfully his. He closed his fingers around it, and-
“Jacob, wake up. The doctor is trying to say something to you.”
Or it could just all be a construct of his dying brain, one that was futilely trying to sort the things that he was experiencing into something that could be translated and read.
“Jacob?” His mother repeated, with a more stern note entering her voice.
“Oh uh, sorry. What were you trying to say?” Jacob leaned forward, clasping his hands together, placing his elbows on his knees and leaning on his arms.
“I was asking you how you’ve been feeling recently, as it does pertain to the conversation I am having with your parents.” The doctor smiled patiently, expertly hiding most of his probable frustration behind a veneer of placidity.
“Relatively well, though I have been having a good amount of headaches, considerably more than usual.” Jacob responded, plastering a nonchalant expression onto his face.
“And what about that little . . . episode you had a moment ago?” The doctor questioned, leaning forward expectantly.
“Oh yeah, that. I guess I just kinda zoned out there for a second, you know?” Jacob replied casually.
“Zoned out for over half an hour?” The doctor tilted his head.
“Yep.” Jacob wasn’t going to fall for the bait.
“Hmm.” The doctor leaned back. “Well, I'm fairly sure that ‘zoning out’ for over half an hour with absolutely no idea what's going on in the outside world isn’t exactly normal behavior typical for a boy of your age, Jacob. Did you perchance have any sort of feeling that you can’t explain, or something similar to an out of body experience? It could even just be similar to lucid dreaming.” The doctor appears to be very insistent, Jacob, why don’t you take care of him? You could be out of state within a day or tw-
“Well when you put it like that, sure.” Jacob decided that he would indeed play the doctor’s game.
“Hmm. Well Mrs. Pattine, you heard it from him. When we did our testing last week, we noticed extremely irregular brain patterns that would normally indicate extreme stress upon the brain. However, Jacob here seemed perfectly fine, aside from a rather annoying headache.”
“Now, I’m fairly sure that anybody could deduce that that type of behavior from the brain isn’t good at all. In fact, the tumor that we had diagnosed Jacob the same week, being practically the size of a peanut, has now doubled in size. In fact, the growth appears to be scaling upwards in terms of the growth rate. What was doubling in size per week, will quickly grow to quadrupling, and then quintupling. Soon, Jacob will have to undergo intense chemotherapy.”
Jacob’s mother did not seem placated, like what the doctor was trying to do, but in fact appalled.
“Why are you saying all this in front of him!? He’s just a child for damn sake!” Jacob's mother clutched Jacob tighter, much to his both amusement and frustration after she refused to let go.
“I’m sorry Mrs. Pattine, but all parties involved here have to know what’s at stake here, including young Jacob here.” The doctor, to his credit, did seem genuinely remorseful, yet not really backtracking enough to make an effective apology, more like creating a plausible justification for his actions.
Jacob didn’t really care either way. Well, he did care that he was probably going to die and was thankful that the doctor had decided to be blunt, but not caring about his mother’s rather extreme outburst in his supposed defense.
That had been the case as of late, not really caring about his loved ones. Well, he DID care, at least he thought he did, but why did they always have to be just, so, well, like that all the time? Jacob was rather exasperated from the whole ordeal, and plus, the doctor was talking again.
“-however, we have a solution to this problem of Jacob’s.” The doctor reached out to the briefcase on the table to his right, opening it. He then extracted what appeared to be a syringe filled with clear liquid.
“This is a prototype we, us being ANTI, have been working on for a long time. You might have learned what this is from various pop culture and media sources, but if you don’t, I’ll explain what it is now.” Without giving anybody in the room time to protest, he continued on.
“This is a syringe full of nanobots. Yes, honest-to-god, genuine nanobots. We’ve been working on these for a good amount of time, since around 2000, yet no significant headway had been made towards making a nanobot serum cost-effective enough to employ in more, liberal, uses.”
“However, when Russia annexed Crimea back in 2014, Congress decided that a viable threat was rising, and revived the program with a stimulant called cold hard cash. When another budget increase came with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it didn’t exactly hinder us, and a year later, we came up with the first effective prototype of nanotechnological biological cellular regeneration to date. And now, we're gonna give it to Jacob.”
Mrs. Pattine didn’t appear to care about all of the war stuff or fancy political words, only really catching onto the words of, “give it to Jacob” and responded accordingly.
“I don’t believe it. What's the catch?” Mrs. Pattine glared suspiciously at the doctor.
“No catch, just the requirement that we are given full liberty to experiment on the tumor in Jacob’s head, within legal bounds.” The doctor appears to be trying to brush over that fact, but Mrs. Pattine also catches onto the important bits.
“You want to experiment on my son!? That sounds like a pretty big catch to me!” Mrs. Pattine screeches in protest.
“It’ll be within full humane laws, nothing illegal, I promise you. In fact, we’ll give you even more incentive.” The doctor pauses, seemingly for dramatic effect.
“So, out with it!” Mrs. Pattine seems to be quite stressed, and most likely wants nothing more than to just go home already.
“We will give you a sum of thirty million dollars, with no tax put on it.” The doctor says plainly.
Mrs. Pattine doesn’t react for a moment, seemingly processing what she just heard.
“Th-th-thirty million dollars!?” Mrs. Pattine splutters in disbelief. “You can’t be serious!”
The doctor chuckles. “Oh but I am. We’ll place it directly into your bank account, as liquid assets would likely be hard to manage for you. It’ll even be covered by insurance.”
Mrs. Pattine clearly is still suspicious. “This is too good to be true.”
“I can assure you, Mrs. Pattine, it is not.”
She looks unsure as to whether or not to take the deal, and looks at Jacob.
“Go ahead.” Jacob shrugs, hoping to maybe NOT die.
Mrs. Pattine then gets up. “I need to go over this with my family.”
They accepted the deal.
* * *
Three days later, Jacob was inside a chamber packed with men and women in lab coats, all of them seeming to be doing something important. The room was about twenty feet in diameter and in height, circular, with a large ten-foot-high blast door being the only intentional access point that could be used to enter the chamber. A large secure industrial vent was inset into the ceiling, also covered with a steel mesh to prevent something from getting in, or perhaps out. In the center of it all was a large contraption, with many pipes, hoses, and wires protruding from various access ports around the machine. It all seemed a bit too militaristic for a minor cryo experiment, but what did he know?
On the front of the machine in the center of the room was a thick plastic cover that exposed the interior, the interior being a cavity about eight feet tall and two feet wide. It appeared to have been designed to allow a human to rest upright inside the machine, and rest comfortably to boot, utilizing a foam mold to mimic a bed. In fact, the little foam mold appears to be fitted to Jacob’s exact dimensions. Jacob, being the ever-curious fellow, inquired as to what the strange doohickey.
“So uh, what am I looking at here?” Jacob gestured to the machine in the center of the room.
“This is, for all intents and purposes, a cryo pod. It can effectively freeze a human being, preserving them for extended periods of time, without them growing or aging at all.” The doctor, who appeared to be in charge of this whole ordeal, answered him.
“And you’re putting me in there?” Jacob asked.
“Yes. We are hoping to learn more about that little tumor-that-isn’t-a-tumor in your head, as it's something that we haven’t ever seen before. Since the tumor is progressing at an alarmingly fast pace, and since we don’t want you to die, we will be placing you in this for a single year, on the dot. The freeze will stop the progression of the tumor, and the nanobots will keep you in top shape even if something goes wrong with the pod, and they will even combat the tumor, so you aren’t in any danger.” The doctor replied.
“Huh. And you’re gonna find some sort of miracle cure for the tumor while I’m on ice?” Jacob asked, wanting to get all of the essential information.
“Yes.” The doctor didn’t elaborate this time.
“Uh, cool. So we’re starting now? I was wondering why I was in this weird looking wetsuit thingy.” Jacob pulled at his sleeves, the tightness of them a little uncomfortable.
“Yes. Once the specs have been fully calibrated, we can place you in the pod, and you can say goodnight.” The doctor nodded to himself. “Yes, it should only be ten more minutes.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, a bit over schedule, everything was set up. Jacob was standing in front of the cryo pod, talking to one of the doctors.
“So I just step inside, right?” Jacob inquired.
“Correct you are. We’ll strap you up, run diagnostics, and then see you in t- a year.” The lady, Dr. Sophia Vasel by her nametag, appeared to have stopped herself from saying something was either a simple misspoken word, or something she wasn’t supposed to say. It didn’t really matter to Jacob, since you could just kill her, now and be done with it. It would be so easy, to ju-
“Alright, nice.” Jacob stepped up inside, a little stepladder conveniently set into the machine. He turned around and shifted a little, trying to get comfortable. Dr. Vasel and one other doctor began strapping him in, hooking little electrodes and wires up to him to do all sorts of technical mumbo jumbo. After a minute of attaching devices to him and making sure everything was in order, they began to run diagnostics to make sure everything electronic was working. After an agonizingly long ten minutes of affirming and reaffirming, the first doctor that he had met with walked up to the plastic clear door with a microphone in his hand.
“Can you hear me Jacob?” The doctor asked.
“Yeh.” Jacob replied lamely
“Uhm, OK, it seems like everything is alright on our side, so without further ado, I think we’ll be seeing you in a year.” The doctor nodded to his colleagues next to him, and they started to press buttons on the console. A loud alarm started blaring, and a hissing noise spread throughout the pod. Devices began to inject what was probably some sort of powerful anesthetic, considering he began feeling extremely drowsy a moment later.
The last thing he saw before he fell asleep was the plastic cover being coated in frost.
* * *
Three weeks after that, a government official of the program that had taken Jacob Pattine in for treatment and experimentation contacted the Pattine family to offer their condolences, as they had to inform them that due to a malfunction in the systems of the nanobots, Jacob Pattine had unfortunately died in testing, and that they hoped this won’t sour relations between them.
However, it did sour relations between them, as the subsequent lawsuit against them proved all too well. It had even progressed to a Supreme Court case called Pattine v Army Nanotechnological Initiative, which ended up with a seventy-two million dollar payment towards the Pattines, and a ruling that outlawed any and all with the use and/or experimentation on humans with nanotechnology, as it was deemed too dangerous to use on humans. A deep-dive into the records of the ANTI yielded many discoveries, the most notable of them being the many deaths of humans in the testing trials of the nanobots. This also led to the dissolution of the ANTI, and shaped the future of nanotechnology for years to come.
However, using nanobots for the use on humans didn’t stop there. In fact, some would say it thrived, just in a different way than imagined. Like many other creations that were found to be too radical or immoral for the majority of the populace, the CIA was the one to collect the scraps, and make it their own. By using their own funding to revive the unofficially named Nano-Cryo project, they resumed research, employing many of the original members of the infamous project, with the doctor being put back in charge of the currently unnamed project.
That left only Jacob to deal with. Luckily for him, Jacob wasn’t so disposable as some might believe, as certain conditions on his being made his potential quite desirable to some shadowy heads of certain organizations. This led to the CIA creating a cover story about the unfortunate death of the boy, which would allow them to both obtain the asset, and snip off the loose thread that was ANTI, killing two birds with one stone. They continued testing within CIA Black Site-046, which was located within the city known as New Jersey, which would later influence the name of the secretive project.
One more alteration would be made to the test. As Jacob had now been cut off from the outside world and was presumed dead, the CIA had no worry about public retribution, allowing them to extend his period in the cryo pod from one year to ten. At the end of the ten years, Jacob would be woken up from stasis, and testing would be enacted, with various procedures analyzing how his physiology had reacted to the tumor and the extended stay in cryostasis. The nanobots were there to ensure that Jacob didn’t die from the tumor, but also to make sure he didn’t die from the long periods of time spent sleeping. After twenty-four hours had passed, Jacob would be placed back within the cryo pod, and be woken up again when another ten years had passed, with this cycle repeating for the foreseeable future.
In the development of the cryostasis model, one thing had persisted throughout the trials. When the testers had been subjected to extended periods of time within stasis, once unfrozen, the brain would refuse to reactivate. No matter what measures were taken, the brain would simply not resume biological function, and the subject would be effectively dead. The leading theory on this was that the brain had been “dead” for so long, that it simply couldn’t remember that it was alive. This is the same reason why cavemen, even if perfectly preserved in ice, couldn’t be simply revived with a shock paddle or some adrenaline.
So, the nanobots were there to stimulate and keep the brain semi-active during time spent sleeping, keeping the brain alive through the barest of actions, making it more akin to sleep instead of simply dying and then being revived with a perfectly preserved body and brain. However, this led to the tumor being slightly active as well, so it would still progress while within stasis, albeit at an incredibly glacial pace. This would likely cause problems in the future, but a solution is bound to come up at some point.
Right?
* * *
Invariably.
What an interesting word
And a nice one at that. It really just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? A word that most people probably can’t even recall the meaning of, yet is seen so commonly in works that are often above the skill of your average eighth grader. It means for something to happen a lot, or always. For instance, you could say, “Oh, whenever I go to my friend's house, the meals his mother makes are invariably burnt.” or something along those lines.
Jacob couldn’t apply that word to his situation.
That would imply that he had been doing or experiencing something for long enough that he could use that word as a hyperbole. However, he hadn’t. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Imagine blinking your eyes. Now try to recall how long the moment between opening your eyes and the light reaching your eyes was. Now that's a more accurate comparison.
Right when Jacob closed his eyes, he had been hearing a hissing sound, expecting sleep to take him. Then a slight, rather odd blip in his awareness caused him to lose his bearings for a moment, but quickly regained them. The hissing continued, and became rather annoying after a bit, considering the nasty headache he currently had. Did he have that before he entered the pod? He wasn’t sure, but he was having a hard time remembering his last moments before he entered the machine, which was odd, as that was just a moment ago. Oh, now the hissing noise is stopping, so Jacob guessed that the doctors realized there was a problem, and were now spooling down the machine to take him out before something disastrous happened.
The hissing noise stopped, and the sound of pistons groaning filled the small cavity instead, along with a notable difference in the positioning of the cryo pod door, specifically moving upward. Ah, now the door is opening, fantastic. Jacob hoped that he could just get this damn experiment underway, without any more delays.
Goddamn the door is slow. At least he could see somewhat outside, as the door had opened up enough to let him see the feet of two people standing outside his little home. Actually, scratch that, three people standing outside, as the door had opened more up to let him see a third person standing behind the pair that were closest to him. He blinked several times to clear the fog from his eyesight, his eyeballs feeling pretty cold, as if he had spent a little in pure winter weather with his eyes open, letting them freeze a bit. Matter of fact, as feeling returned to his body, he felt cold all over. Not so cold that it was painful, but more of a cool uncomfortableness.
Speaking of feeling returning to his body, he felt a rather unpleasant prickling sensation throughout himself, like his entire body had fallen asleep, or if he had just returned from the cold after a long stay in the frigid winter air. He flexed his fingers, or at least tried to. His fingers were encased in a hard plastic glove, molded to fit his hand. It was the same story with the rest of his body, many straps fastened tight enough to restrict his movement, but not enough to restrict his blood flow. He tried to see more than the feet of the unknown people in front of him, as the door was open about halfway now, but the fog, or maybe steam, wafting up from his pod was masking everything else.
Oh yeah, the hissing was back too.
After another eternity of the door just slowly opening, the long-awaited event finally arrived. The door clanked to a stop, now resting somewhere on top of the cryo pod. The hissing noise also came to a stop, seeming to have been the cause of the fog as well, considering how it began to clear up with the end of the abhorrent hissing sound. The fog cleared up fully, allowing him to see a rather strange sight.
Three people in full hazmat suits were standing in front of him, one of the two in front holding an odd device that looked vaguely like a heart monitor. The one with the heart monitor stepped up to him, uttering a single word.
“Please hold still.”
Jacob naturally held still as the person wrapped a sensor on his wrist, then one on his neck. The man then pressed a few buttons on his little machine, and then watched some sort of readout on the screen that Jacob couldn’t make out from his angle. The man stayed like that for about half a minute before taking off the little sensors from his wrist and neck, and then put the device down on some sort of table that Jacob also couldn’t see due to his angle, before nodding to the man beside him.
The pair moved into action, unstrapping and unclamping him in various areas around his body, unrestricting his movement. Jacob didn’t move yet though, as once the pair were done taking off the various inhibitors, the third man in the back stepped up, as if he wanted to speak. The unnamed man grabbed the bottom of his visor, where a small lip was present. The man then used that lip to pull up the plastic covering his face, or at least the layer that was preventing Jacob from seeing his face. The man pulled it up, revealing the doctor, who’s name he still didn’t know. However, something was off about him, though Jacob couldn’t put his finger on it.
“Long time no see Jacob.” The doctor smiles disarmingly, which makes Jacob beg the question of why he would need to be disarmed.
“What do you mean, ‘Long time’? It hasn’t even been half an hour.” Jacob frowns, tilting his head questioningly, though Jacob is pretty sure he already knows the answer to his own question.
The doctor’s smile wavers, and his eyes turn downcast, avoiding Jacob’s.
“Well, ah, you see Jacob, it HAS been a long time. I imagine you just didn’t notice, due to no little input on our part.”
Suddenly, Jacob realized what was off about the doctor. When he had seen him last, the doctor had a look about him that made him seem like he could be in his early thirties or late twenties, with a little margin for error, of course.
However, The doctor now looked like he had aged around a decade, sporting a few new wrinkles that definitely weren’t there before. Instead of being a man just entering his more mature ages, he looked more like a man entering a higher, more responsible position in your standard American technical corporation. To put it shortly, he looked like he was in his forties.
“So you're saying that it's been a year already, and I was just too out of it to notice?” The doctor winced, and opened up his mouth to speak, but Jacob continued talking.
“However, I have noticed that while you said I was supposed to be in here for a year, the actual reality is different. Unless you somehow had a growth spurt, or decided that looking older was a new fashion trend, it's odd that you seem to have aged a decade in what was supposed to be a year of stasis.” Jacob tilted his head, focusing a stare on the doctor. “Tell me, doctor, how long was I out?”
The pair in front of him, having been listening this whole time, looked back at the doctor expectantly. The doctor shook his head, and attempted a smile, though the result looked more like a pained grimace. The doctor then looked up at Jacob, giving him a strange look.
“Noticed that, did you? Well, I suppose you do deserve an explanation. Let's talk about this in a more, comfortable, area.”
* * *
Jacob fixed the doctor with another bland stare for the fifteenth time in four minutes.
“So you’re telling me, that the damn CIA kidnapped me, your government organization was dissolved, and now I’m officially dead to the outside world? Not to mention I was asleep for not a year, but a decade?” Jacob said all of this with a tone that might have implied disbelief and anger.
“Well, when you put it like that, it sounds, well, exactly like what happened I suppose, but I wouldn’t put it, well, any sort of other way, so yes.” The doctor, contrary to the facade he was still bravely trying to put up, didn’t appear too comfortable with telling Jacob all of this. After all, who would want to tell an innocent, carefree, bright-eyed young boy, that his family thought him dead, and that he was asleep for a decade as well.
Jacob leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms and breathed out the air he had been holding in.
“Huh.” Jacob didn’t elaborate.
“I’m sure that this might be very alarming to you, but remember that this wasn’t in our control. I’m very sorry for your loss, but just know that we do have therapists and other people that you can talk to on hand, just let us know.” The doctor didn’t seem very proud of this series of unfortunate events happening to the aforementioned carefree child.
“Well, as long as they aren’t dead yet, I’ll be fine.” Jacob shrugs.
The doctor blinks in surprise.
“I- what? Are you sure? Your mental health is very important, and despite what our higher ups at the CIA might say, you are also important as a person.” The doctor had an increasingly worried expression on his face.
“Nah, I think I’m pretty good for now.” Jacob remained seemingly uncaring for his current status as perceived dead by his family, or for his mental health. “So, what happens to me now? I’m assuming I’m not getting executed for lack of further usefulness, or else you wouldn’t be offering me therapists, and I’m not exactly going back out into society, as that would be a rather awkward situation for the CIA. So, that leaves only one more avenue of action.” Jacob leaned forward. “I’m going back in the machine, aren’t I?”
“. . . yes.” The doctor seemed put off by Jacob’s lengthy statement.
Jacob leaned back and nodded, satisfied by his answer. “I have just one question then.”
The doctor cocked an eyebrow.
“Why am I so important? Plenty of people have brain tumors, and yet you guys aren’t kidnapping those people, right? So, what makes this one special?” Jacob tapped the side of his head.
The doctor cleared his throat, seemingly more comfortable to be conversing over a topic more familiar to him, like neuroscience.
“I can do that. Follow me.”
* * *
The doctor led Jacob to a room with only one other person inside, that person being an assistant. The lights were off, the only source of illumination being a projector shining on a blank whiteboard, the image being an x-ray of what looked like a brain.
“Well, as I’ve said before, that so-called tumor in your head isn’t exactly behaving like a tumor normally would. In the beginning, when it first appeared, it looked like any old brain tumor, forming in your cerebral cortex. It grew a bit abnormally, but nothing too out of the ordinary.” The doctor pointed at a small marble sized mass that was present inside the aforementioned section of the brain on the projection. “However, that's when things took a turn for the stranger.” The doctor motioned for the assistant to switch to the next slide, which he did.
The diagram now showed the same image as before, which Jacob now knew to be his brain, with the sole difference being that the mass had now enlarged, seemingly spreading what looked like feelers or tentacles outwards, the longest one stretching towards a middle section of the brain.
“After this happened, we were notified through plants, and we took over your medical case, observing the growth of your tumor.” The slide switched again, now showing a larger tumor. It had grown even more feelers, now numbering at five, and the longest one was now in the middle of the brain.
“The tumor had spread itself out, and the longest appendage of it had now entered what we call the anterior insular cortex, or, “ The doctor looked at Jacob. “the empathy center.”
Jacob stared back at the doctor, not showing any outward form of reaction. The doctor looked back towards the projection, clearing his throat.
“Ahem, anyway. As you can probably guess, this was highly irregular behavior from what was supposed to be a simple tumor. And what we realized next was even more shocking.” The assistant clicked to the next slide, this one showing . . . nothing.
Actually, it did show something, Jacob just didn’t notice at first. The tumor was now not a simple mass, but instead had somehow become, fainter, he supposed. It didn’t have any clear separation from his brain, instead, only sections could be made out from the former tumor. It seemed like it had merged with his brain, which wasn’t exactly comforting to Jacob.
“The tumor now couldn’t be described as a simple tumor. We had to deduce that it had somehow become part of your brain, as we couldn’t find any clear definition of where the tumor began and where it ended. We could still technically see the tumor, though it was like it had faded its edges in with your brain, merging with it.” The assistant shut off the projector, and turned the lights back on.
The doctor turned back towards Jacob, with what looked to be a sympathetic expression on his face.
“Now I hope you understand why we want to know what the hell this thing is. If this was some sort of parasite, and if it could spread . . “ The doctor let Jacob figure out the rest on his own.
“Huh, yeah. I wouldn’t really want the world to turn into a reenactment of a certain hit TV adaptation of a certain hit zombie game.” Jacob nodded. “So, how are you gonna go about solving, “ Jacob gestured haphazardly to his head. “This?”
“We . . . aren’t sure yet.” The doctor grimaced. “However, it has only been, well, it's been quite awhile, but we learned a lot from the first go around. We are hoping to gain more data from the next decade, with some new technologies to be used.”
Jacob nodded his head, looking around. “So do I just go back in now?”
“No, actually. The planned procedure is to keep you awake for a minimum of twelve hours, with us taking several tests to determine if any changes have been made to your mental or intellectual state. And also, you are going to have to visit some therapists, that's non-optional.” The doctor replied.
Jacob only grunted in response to that last statement.
* * *
Jacob is running on a treadmill, with several devices measuring his various functions.
“Just let us know when you’re getting tired.” The man, Dr. Markus Vasquez by his nametag, repeated for the fifth time.
“And that would be right around now, actually.” Jacob stopped running when Dr. Vasquez pressed the off button.
“Hmm, alright. You’re operating at standard rates for a boy of your age.” Dr. Vasquez writes down notes on his clipboard, probably about him. Or maybe some sort of weird fan fiction about some US president, you never know.
Dr. Vasquez motioned for Jacob to follow him, which Jacob does.
“And that should conclude your physical testing regimen for today.” Dr. Vasquez leads Jacob into a square room about six feet wide, with a couch, a chair, two tables, a bookshelf, and a TV on the wall opposite from the couch.
Then, another doctor walks into the room, holding a clipboard and a sheet of papers. Dr. Vasquez and the new doctor share a few silent words, ones that Jacob can’t make out, before Dr. Vasquez walks out of the room. The new doctor, a Dr. Sophia Vasel by her nametag, sits down on the chair next to the couch.
“Hey again Jacob. I’m here to-” Dr. Vasel begins, but Jacob cuts her off.
“Oh wait, aren’t you one of the people who strapped me in that pod a decade ago?” Jacob tilts his head questioningly.
Dr. Vasel blinks. “Erm, yes. Anyway, I’m just here to give you a couple tests, alright? Just standard procedure.” Dr. Vasel flips through her clipboard. “Here is the first one.”
Jacob started again. “No signing any forms or asking for consent or anything?”
Dr. Vasel hid her apparent frustration admirably. “Uh, no. Our policy doesn’t require us to do that. Anyway, if we could get on with the test?” Dr. Vasel pulled out a pen. “Just some questions for the first one.”
* * *
Jacob was a bit bored.
Actually, that was an understatement. He was VERY bored. There, a much more apt statement.
After a large amount of rigorous testing, physical, mental, biological, the whole shebang, they had basically left him in the small room and told him to entertain himself for the remaining eight hours, twenty-seven minutes, and five seconds. After that, he would be going back into cryosleep. They gave him access to a good amount of literature from his time, as well as giving him a rather generous library of online media, also from his time. However, they had severely underestimated his preferences, as the majority of the online material consisted of children for the age of ten, and all the good books he had already read several times over.
So yes, he was quite bored. So bored, in fact, that even pacing around and thinking couldn’t sate his hunger for entertainment, as the intense migraine he had prevented him from running any sort of complicated scenario that could even mildly entertain him. So, he was forced to turn to his old friend.
History.
A decade ought to have yielded a good amount of entertaining historical fruit, especially when you consider the rather hot pot that was world politics at the time of the beginning of his short nap. So, he had requested a book that recapped everything important that had happened in the last ten years. And how interesting it was.
Standing out the most in terms of the global stage, the American intervention in the Russo-Ukrainian war, pushing the Russians not just out of Ukraine, but also reclaiming Crimea for the Ukrainians as well. This had happened due to Russia repeatedly threatening to use nuclear weapons in the war, and so America finally had to intervene, managing to push them out of Ukraine in just two and a half months. And it seems Russia was bluffing, as no nukes were ever launched.
However, war wasn’t the only highlight of the last decade, as a miniature space race actually occurred not between the East and the West, but SpaceX and NASA were both racing for the clout and money that being the first to have a human land on Mars would be. It ended up with a SpaceX victory, and not a small amount of a budget increase.
Nanotechnology had also progressed, yet not as much as other avenues, as it's mostly been used for small-scale construction supposedly. Congress was being quite strict on the Supreme Court’s ruling. However, some small advancements had been made in the effectiveness and build of a standard nanobot, making them considerably cheaper and easier to make. However, the availability of nanobots was mostly limited to either private firms or large corporations willing to invest in the product.
As entertaining as history was, it wasn’t enough to sustain him for more than an hour, so he resigned himself to sitting, standing, pacing, and occasionally watching kids cartoons for the rest of his time. He wasn’t going to ask for his benefactors to obtain some new content for him to watch, not because they couldn’t, no, they likely could do anything, but because his pride would be too injured if he did. Yes, a truly brilliant mind we have here.
* * *
“This feels familiar.” Jacob mused, his words certainly pertaining to the scenario that he was currently in.
Dr. Vasel and another doctor were strapping him in, securing his hands and feet in molded plastic to restrict movement, and straps to secure his arms and legs. This time, a little hat with a dozen blinking electrodes was added to his menagerie of devices. They had also given him a fresh edition of nanobots, these ones supposedly more efficient by two percent. Yes, such a great increase. However, they also fed off the energy his own body produced, so that theoretically gave them an infinite life, as long as he was alive.
The doctors finished up strapping him into the machine, giving him a final once over to make sure nothing bad happens again. They stepped back, and began to run diagnostics on their computers to make sure everything electronic was in order as well.
Jacob sighed. He had a feeling that this set of actions would become an agonizingly long procedure.
After a very long fifteen minutes, the unnamed doctor, who had come down during the diagnostics, nodded to an assistant, and he began pressing buttons. The machine clicked and hissed, and the door came down, blissfully quicker this time. After just thirty seconds, the door sealed shut, and Jacob saw the doctor through the plastic. The doctor walked out of sight, as the foggy plastic couldn’t see that far, though the doctor clearly went somewhere where he could talk to Jacob, as he heard the doctor’s voice over what sounded like an intercom inside the pod.
“You can hear me, right Jacob?” The doctor asked.
“Uh, yep.” Jacob replied.
“Very good. As there isn’t anything else we have to do on our end, we’ll be sending you off right about now. Any questions before you’re frozen?” The doctor inquired.
“None that I can recall.” Jacob said.
“Then we’ll see you again in ten years.” The doctor said.
The intercom shut off with a crackle, and the hissing noise came back, probably meaning he was gonna fall asleep any time now. He wondered what the world would look like in another decade, bu-
Oh wait, he did have a question. What WAS the doctor’s nam-
-------------------------------
Part Two is gonna come, maybe in a day. I've already finished it, but the first part will serve to as a way to observe this communities reactions to this little thing, and see if I should post another. I expect about ten to twenty chapters, with hopefully not all of them being as long as this one, so yeah, hope y'all like this.
submitted by Omansurver to MurderDrones [link] [comments]
Chapter One - Part One
Extremely Lengthy Exposition
He didn’t know how to describe it.
A sort of lucid state in which he was only partially aware of who and what he was? Maybe. A condition of some sort of brain death, it being a result of gazing upon an entity far too complex for the human mind to ever even dream of conceiving? Perhaps. Or maybe it was a sign. A sign from whatever gods or higher beings that were our forefathers, our creators. The very things that created the universe, and all others as we know it. Perhaps it was a sign from Them, of his ascension, his final evolution into a being so superior, that to others, he could be considered a god himself. Yes, that was right. He could feel it, the power. Not in a way of touching something with a hand, but in a more metaphysical way, one far better than the crude grasping tools that humanity has had to work with for far too long.
It was so close, the innate understanding that was intrinsically tied into the human genome from eons ago, the inheritance he was meant to receive, what he DESERVED to receive, was right there. All he had to do was reach out, and touch it. He did just that, his mental probes extending outwards towards it, to claim what was rightfully his. He closed his fingers around it, and-
“Jacob, wake up. The doctor is trying to say something to you.”
Or it could just all be a construct of his dying brain, one that was futilely trying to sort the things that he was experiencing into something that could be translated and read.
“Jacob?” His mother repeated, with a more stern note entering her voice.
“Oh uh, sorry. What were you trying to say?” Jacob leaned forward, clasping his hands together, placing his elbows on his knees and leaning on his arms.
“I was asking you how you’ve been feeling recently, as it does pertain to the conversation I am having with your parents.” The doctor smiled patiently, expertly hiding most of his probable frustration behind a veneer of placidity.
“Relatively well, though I have been having a good amount of headaches, considerably more than usual.” Jacob responded, plastering a nonchalant expression onto his face.
“And what about that little . . . episode you had a moment ago?” The doctor questioned, leaning forward expectantly.
“Oh yeah, that. I guess I just kinda zoned out there for a second, you know?” Jacob replied casually.
“Zoned out for over half an hour?” The doctor tilted his head.
“Yep.” Jacob wasn’t going to fall for the bait.
“Hmm.” The doctor leaned back. “Well, I'm fairly sure that ‘zoning out’ for over half an hour with absolutely no idea what's going on in the outside world isn’t exactly normal behavior typical for a boy of your age, Jacob. Did you perchance have any sort of feeling that you can’t explain, or something similar to an out of body experience? It could even just be similar to lucid dreaming.” The doctor appears to be very insistent, Jacob, why don’t you take care of him? You could be out of state within a day or tw-
“Well when you put it like that, sure.” Jacob decided that he would indeed play the doctor’s game.
“Hmm. Well Mrs. Pattine, you heard it from him. When we did our testing last week, we noticed extremely irregular brain patterns that would normally indicate extreme stress upon the brain. However, Jacob here seemed perfectly fine, aside from a rather annoying headache.”
“Now, I’m fairly sure that anybody could deduce that that type of behavior from the brain isn’t good at all. In fact, the tumor that we had diagnosed Jacob the same week, being practically the size of a peanut, has now doubled in size. In fact, the growth appears to be scaling upwards in terms of the growth rate. What was doubling in size per week, will quickly grow to quadrupling, and then quintupling. Soon, Jacob will have to undergo intense chemotherapy.”
Jacob’s mother did not seem placated, like what the doctor was trying to do, but in fact appalled.
“Why are you saying all this in front of him!? He’s just a child for damn sake!” Jacob's mother clutched Jacob tighter, much to his both amusement and frustration after she refused to let go.
“I’m sorry Mrs. Pattine, but all parties involved here have to know what’s at stake here, including young Jacob here.” The doctor, to his credit, did seem genuinely remorseful, yet not really backtracking enough to make an effective apology, more like creating a plausible justification for his actions.
Jacob didn’t really care either way. Well, he did care that he was probably going to die and was thankful that the doctor had decided to be blunt, but not caring about his mother’s rather extreme outburst in his supposed defense.
That had been the case as of late, not really caring about his loved ones. Well, he DID care, at least he thought he did, but why did they always have to be just, so, well, like that all the time? Jacob was rather exasperated from the whole ordeal, and plus, the doctor was talking again.
“-however, we have a solution to this problem of Jacob’s.” The doctor reached out to the briefcase on the table to his right, opening it. He then extracted what appeared to be a syringe filled with clear liquid.
“This is a prototype we, us being ANTI, have been working on for a long time. You might have learned what this is from various pop culture and media sources, but if you don’t, I’ll explain what it is now.” Without giving anybody in the room time to protest, he continued on.
“This is a syringe full of nanobots. Yes, honest-to-god, genuine nanobots. We’ve been working on these for a good amount of time, since around 2000, yet no significant headway had been made towards making a nanobot serum cost-effective enough to employ in more, liberal, uses.”
“However, when Russia annexed Crimea back in 2014, Congress decided that a viable threat was rising, and revived the program with a stimulant called cold hard cash. When another budget increase came with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it didn’t exactly hinder us, and a year later, we came up with the first effective prototype of nanotechnological biological cellular regeneration to date. And now, we're gonna give it to Jacob.”
Mrs. Pattine didn’t appear to care about all of the war stuff or fancy political words, only really catching onto the words of, “give it to Jacob” and responded accordingly.
“I don’t believe it. What's the catch?” Mrs. Pattine glared suspiciously at the doctor.
“No catch, just the requirement that we are given full liberty to experiment on the tumor in Jacob’s head, within legal bounds.” The doctor appears to be trying to brush over that fact, but Mrs. Pattine also catches onto the important bits.
“You want to experiment on my son!? That sounds like a pretty big catch to me!” Mrs. Pattine screeches in protest.
“It’ll be within full humane laws, nothing illegal, I promise you. In fact, we’ll give you even more incentive.” The doctor pauses, seemingly for dramatic effect.
“So, out with it!” Mrs. Pattine seems to be quite stressed, and most likely wants nothing more than to just go home already.
“We will give you a sum of thirty million dollars, with no tax put on it.” The doctor says plainly.
Mrs. Pattine doesn’t react for a moment, seemingly processing what she just heard.
“Th-th-thirty million dollars!?” Mrs. Pattine splutters in disbelief. “You can’t be serious!”
The doctor chuckles. “Oh but I am. We’ll place it directly into your bank account, as liquid assets would likely be hard to manage for you. It’ll even be covered by insurance.”
Mrs. Pattine clearly is still suspicious. “This is too good to be true.”
“I can assure you, Mrs. Pattine, it is not.”
She looks unsure as to whether or not to take the deal, and looks at Jacob.
“Go ahead.” Jacob shrugs, hoping to maybe NOT die.
Mrs. Pattine then gets up. “I need to go over this with my family.”
They accepted the deal.
* * *
Three days later, Jacob was inside a chamber packed with men and women in lab coats, all of them seeming to be doing something important. The room was about twenty feet in diameter and in height, circular, with a large ten-foot-high blast door being the only intentional access point that could be used to enter the chamber. A large secure industrial vent was inset into the ceiling, also covered with a steel mesh to prevent something from getting in, or perhaps out. In the center of it all was a large contraption, with many pipes, hoses, and wires protruding from various access ports around the machine. It all seemed a bit too militaristic for a minor cryo experiment, but what did he know?
On the front of the machine in the center of the room was a thick plastic cover that exposed the interior, the interior being a cavity about eight feet tall and two feet wide. It appeared to have been designed to allow a human to rest upright inside the machine, and rest comfortably to boot, utilizing a foam mold to mimic a bed. In fact, the little foam mold appears to be fitted to Jacob’s exact dimensions. Jacob, being the ever-curious fellow, inquired as to what the strange doohickey.
“So uh, what am I looking at here?” Jacob gestured to the machine in the center of the room.
“This is, for all intents and purposes, a cryo pod. It can effectively freeze a human being, preserving them for extended periods of time, without them growing or aging at all.” The doctor, who appeared to be in charge of this whole ordeal, answered him.
“And you’re putting me in there?” Jacob asked.
“Yes. We are hoping to learn more about that little tumor-that-isn’t-a-tumor in your head, as it's something that we haven’t ever seen before. Since the tumor is progressing at an alarmingly fast pace, and since we don’t want you to die, we will be placing you in this for a single year, on the dot. The freeze will stop the progression of the tumor, and the nanobots will keep you in top shape even if something goes wrong with the pod, and they will even combat the tumor, so you aren’t in any danger.” The doctor replied.
“Huh. And you’re gonna find some sort of miracle cure for the tumor while I’m on ice?” Jacob asked, wanting to get all of the essential information.
“Yes.” The doctor didn’t elaborate this time.
“Uh, cool. So we’re starting now? I was wondering why I was in this weird looking wetsuit thingy.” Jacob pulled at his sleeves, the tightness of them a little uncomfortable.
“Yes. Once the specs have been fully calibrated, we can place you in the pod, and you can say goodnight.” The doctor nodded to himself. “Yes, it should only be ten more minutes.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, a bit over schedule, everything was set up. Jacob was standing in front of the cryo pod, talking to one of the doctors.
“So I just step inside, right?” Jacob inquired.
“Correct you are. We’ll strap you up, run diagnostics, and then see you in t- a year.” The lady, Dr. Sophia Vasel by her nametag, appeared to have stopped herself from saying something was either a simple misspoken word, or something she wasn’t supposed to say. It didn’t really matter to Jacob, since you could just kill her, now and be done with it. It would be so easy, to ju-
“Alright, nice.” Jacob stepped up inside, a little stepladder conveniently set into the machine. He turned around and shifted a little, trying to get comfortable. Dr. Vasel and one other doctor began strapping him in, hooking little electrodes and wires up to him to do all sorts of technical mumbo jumbo. After a minute of attaching devices to him and making sure everything was in order, they began to run diagnostics to make sure everything electronic was working. After an agonizingly long ten minutes of affirming and reaffirming, the first doctor that he had met with walked up to the plastic clear door with a microphone in his hand.
“Can you hear me Jacob?” The doctor asked.
“Yeh.” Jacob replied lamely
“Uhm, OK, it seems like everything is alright on our side, so without further ado, I think we’ll be seeing you in a year.” The doctor nodded to his colleagues next to him, and they started to press buttons on the console. A loud alarm started blaring, and a hissing noise spread throughout the pod. Devices began to inject what was probably some sort of powerful anesthetic, considering he began feeling extremely drowsy a moment later.
The last thing he saw before he fell asleep was the plastic cover being coated in frost.
* * *
Three weeks after that, a government official of the program that had taken Jacob Pattine in for treatment and experimentation contacted the Pattine family to offer their condolences, as they had to inform them that due to a malfunction in the systems of the nanobots, Jacob Pattine had unfortunately died in testing, and that they hoped this won’t sour relations between them.
However, it did sour relations between them, as the subsequent lawsuit against them proved all too well. It had even progressed to a Supreme Court case called Pattine v Army Nanotechnological Initiative, which ended up with a seventy-two million dollar payment towards the Pattines, and a ruling that outlawed any and all with the use and/or experimentation on humans with nanotechnology, as it was deemed too dangerous to use on humans. A deep-dive into the records of the ANTI yielded many discoveries, the most notable of them being the many deaths of humans in the testing trials of the nanobots. This also led to the dissolution of the ANTI, and shaped the future of nanotechnology for years to come.
However, using nanobots for the use on humans didn’t stop there. In fact, some would say it thrived, just in a different way than imagined. Like many other creations that were found to be too radical or immoral for the majority of the populace, the CIA was the one to collect the scraps, and make it their own. By using their own funding to revive the unofficially named Nano-Cryo project, they resumed research, employing many of the original members of the infamous project, with the doctor being put back in charge of the currently unnamed project.
That left only Jacob to deal with. Luckily for him, Jacob wasn’t so disposable as some might believe, as certain conditions on his being made his potential quite desirable to some shadowy heads of certain organizations. This led to the CIA creating a cover story about the unfortunate death of the boy, which would allow them to both obtain the asset, and snip off the loose thread that was ANTI, killing two birds with one stone. They continued testing within CIA Black Site-046, which was located within the city known as New Jersey, which would later influence the name of the secretive project.
One more alteration would be made to the test. As Jacob had now been cut off from the outside world and was presumed dead, the CIA had no worry about public retribution, allowing them to extend his period in the cryo pod from one year to ten. At the end of the ten years, Jacob would be woken up from stasis, and testing would be enacted, with various procedures analyzing how his physiology had reacted to the tumor and the extended stay in cryostasis. The nanobots were there to ensure that Jacob didn’t die from the tumor, but also to make sure he didn’t die from the long periods of time spent sleeping. After twenty-four hours had passed, Jacob would be placed back within the cryo pod, and be woken up again when another ten years had passed, with this cycle repeating for the foreseeable future.
In the development of the cryostasis model, one thing had persisted throughout the trials. When the testers had been subjected to extended periods of time within stasis, once unfrozen, the brain would refuse to reactivate. No matter what measures were taken, the brain would simply not resume biological function, and the subject would be effectively dead. The leading theory on this was that the brain had been “dead” for so long, that it simply couldn’t remember that it was alive. This is the same reason why cavemen, even if perfectly preserved in ice, couldn’t be simply revived with a shock paddle or some adrenaline.
So, the nanobots were there to stimulate and keep the brain semi-active during time spent sleeping, keeping the brain alive through the barest of actions, making it more akin to sleep instead of simply dying and then being revived with a perfectly preserved body and brain. However, this led to the tumor being slightly active as well, so it would still progress while within stasis, albeit at an incredibly glacial pace. This would likely cause problems in the future, but a solution is bound to come up at some point.
Right?
* * *
Invariably.
What an interesting word
And a nice one at that. It really just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? A word that most people probably can’t even recall the meaning of, yet is seen so commonly in works that are often above the skill of your average eighth grader. It means for something to happen a lot, or always. For instance, you could say, “Oh, whenever I go to my friend's house, the meals his mother makes are invariably burnt.” or something along those lines.
Jacob couldn’t apply that word to his situation.
That would imply that he had been doing or experiencing something for long enough that he could use that word as a hyperbole. However, he hadn’t. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Imagine blinking your eyes. Now try to recall how long the moment between opening your eyes and the light reaching your eyes was. Now that's a more accurate comparison.
Right when Jacob closed his eyes, he had been hearing a hissing sound, expecting sleep to take him. Then a slight, rather odd blip in his awareness caused him to lose his bearings for a moment, but quickly regained them. The hissing continued, and became rather annoying after a bit, considering the nasty headache he currently had. Did he have that before he entered the pod? He wasn’t sure, but he was having a hard time remembering his last moments before he entered the machine, which was odd, as that was just a moment ago. Oh, now the hissing noise is stopping, so Jacob guessed that the doctors realized there was a problem, and were now spooling down the machine to take him out before something disastrous happened.
The hissing noise stopped, and the sound of pistons groaning filled the small cavity instead, along with a notable difference in the positioning of the cryo pod door, specifically moving upward. Ah, now the door is opening, fantastic. Jacob hoped that he could just get this damn experiment underway, without any more delays.
Goddamn the door is slow. At least he could see somewhat outside, as the door had opened up enough to let him see the feet of two people standing outside his little home. Actually, scratch that, three people standing outside, as the door had opened more up to let him see a third person standing behind the pair that were closest to him. He blinked several times to clear the fog from his eyesight, his eyeballs feeling pretty cold, as if he had spent a little in pure winter weather with his eyes open, letting them freeze a bit. Matter of fact, as feeling returned to his body, he felt cold all over. Not so cold that it was painful, but more of a cool uncomfortableness.
Speaking of feeling returning to his body, he felt a rather unpleasant prickling sensation throughout himself, like his entire body had fallen asleep, or if he had just returned from the cold after a long stay in the frigid winter air. He flexed his fingers, or at least tried to. His fingers were encased in a hard plastic glove, molded to fit his hand. It was the same story with the rest of his body, many straps fastened tight enough to restrict his movement, but not enough to restrict his blood flow. He tried to see more than the feet of the unknown people in front of him, as the door was open about halfway now, but the fog, or maybe steam, wafting up from his pod was masking everything else.
Oh yeah, the hissing was back too.
After another eternity of the door just slowly opening, the long-awaited event finally arrived. The door clanked to a stop, now resting somewhere on top of the cryo pod. The hissing noise also came to a stop, seeming to have been the cause of the fog as well, considering how it began to clear up with the end of the abhorrent hissing sound. The fog cleared up fully, allowing him to see a rather strange sight.
Three people in full hazmat suits were standing in front of him, one of the two in front holding an odd device that looked vaguely like a heart monitor. The one with the heart monitor stepped up to him, uttering a single word.
“Please hold still.”
Jacob naturally held still as the person wrapped a sensor on his wrist, then one on his neck. The man then pressed a few buttons on his little machine, and then watched some sort of readout on the screen that Jacob couldn’t make out from his angle. The man stayed like that for about half a minute before taking off the little sensors from his wrist and neck, and then put the device down on some sort of table that Jacob also couldn’t see due to his angle, before nodding to the man beside him.
The pair moved into action, unstrapping and unclamping him in various areas around his body, unrestricting his movement. Jacob didn’t move yet though, as once the pair were done taking off the various inhibitors, the third man in the back stepped up, as if he wanted to speak. The unnamed man grabbed the bottom of his visor, where a small lip was present. The man then used that lip to pull up the plastic covering his face, or at least the layer that was preventing Jacob from seeing his face. The man pulled it up, revealing the doctor, who’s name he still didn’t know. However, something was off about him, though Jacob couldn’t put his finger on it.
“Long time no see Jacob.” The doctor smiles disarmingly, which makes Jacob beg the question of why he would need to be disarmed.
“What do you mean, ‘Long time’? It hasn’t even been half an hour.” Jacob frowns, tilting his head questioningly, though Jacob is pretty sure he already knows the answer to his own question.
The doctor’s smile wavers, and his eyes turn downcast, avoiding Jacob’s.
“Well, ah, you see Jacob, it HAS been a long time. I imagine you just didn’t notice, due to no little input on our part.”
Suddenly, Jacob realized what was off about the doctor. When he had seen him last, the doctor had a look about him that made him seem like he could be in his early thirties or late twenties, with a little margin for error, of course.
However, The doctor now looked like he had aged around a decade, sporting a few new wrinkles that definitely weren’t there before. Instead of being a man just entering his more mature ages, he looked more like a man entering a higher, more responsible position in your standard American technical corporation. To put it shortly, he looked like he was in his forties.
“So you're saying that it's been a year already, and I was just too out of it to notice?” The doctor winced, and opened up his mouth to speak, but Jacob continued talking.
“However, I have noticed that while you said I was supposed to be in here for a year, the actual reality is different. Unless you somehow had a growth spurt, or decided that looking older was a new fashion trend, it's odd that you seem to have aged a decade in what was supposed to be a year of stasis.” Jacob tilted his head, focusing a stare on the doctor. “Tell me, doctor, how long was I out?”
The pair in front of him, having been listening this whole time, looked back at the doctor expectantly. The doctor shook his head, and attempted a smile, though the result looked more like a pained grimace. The doctor then looked up at Jacob, giving him a strange look.
“Noticed that, did you? Well, I suppose you do deserve an explanation. Let's talk about this in a more, comfortable, area.”
* * *
Jacob fixed the doctor with another bland stare for the fifteenth time in four minutes.
“So you’re telling me, that the damn CIA kidnapped me, your government organization was dissolved, and now I’m officially dead to the outside world? Not to mention I was asleep for not a year, but a decade?” Jacob said all of this with a tone that might have implied disbelief and anger.
“Well, when you put it like that, it sounds, well, exactly like what happened I suppose, but I wouldn’t put it, well, any sort of other way, so yes.” The doctor, contrary to the facade he was still bravely trying to put up, didn’t appear too comfortable with telling Jacob all of this. After all, who would want to tell an innocent, carefree, bright-eyed young boy, that his family thought him dead, and that he was asleep for a decade as well.
Jacob leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms and breathed out the air he had been holding in.
“Huh.” Jacob didn’t elaborate.
“I’m sure that this might be very alarming to you, but remember that this wasn’t in our control. I’m very sorry for your loss, but just know that we do have therapists and other people that you can talk to on hand, just let us know.” The doctor didn’t seem very proud of this series of unfortunate events happening to the aforementioned carefree child.
“Well, as long as they aren’t dead yet, I’ll be fine.” Jacob shrugs.
The doctor blinks in surprise.
“I- what? Are you sure? Your mental health is very important, and despite what our higher ups at the CIA might say, you are also important as a person.” The doctor had an increasingly worried expression on his face.
“Nah, I think I’m pretty good for now.” Jacob remained seemingly uncaring for his current status as perceived dead by his family, or for his mental health. “So, what happens to me now? I’m assuming I’m not getting executed for lack of further usefulness, or else you wouldn’t be offering me therapists, and I’m not exactly going back out into society, as that would be a rather awkward situation for the CIA. So, that leaves only one more avenue of action.” Jacob leaned forward. “I’m going back in the machine, aren’t I?”
“. . . yes.” The doctor seemed put off by Jacob’s lengthy statement.
Jacob leaned back and nodded, satisfied by his answer. “I have just one question then.”
The doctor cocked an eyebrow.
“Why am I so important? Plenty of people have brain tumors, and yet you guys aren’t kidnapping those people, right? So, what makes this one special?” Jacob tapped the side of his head.
The doctor cleared his throat, seemingly more comfortable to be conversing over a topic more familiar to him, like neuroscience.
“I can do that. Follow me.”
* * *
The doctor led Jacob to a room with only one other person inside, that person being an assistant. The lights were off, the only source of illumination being a projector shining on a blank whiteboard, the image being an x-ray of what looked like a brain.
“Well, as I’ve said before, that so-called tumor in your head isn’t exactly behaving like a tumor normally would. In the beginning, when it first appeared, it looked like any old brain tumor, forming in your cerebral cortex. It grew a bit abnormally, but nothing too out of the ordinary.” The doctor pointed at a small marble sized mass that was present inside the aforementioned section of the brain on the projection. “However, that's when things took a turn for the stranger.” The doctor motioned for the assistant to switch to the next slide, which he did.
The diagram now showed the same image as before, which Jacob now knew to be his brain, with the sole difference being that the mass had now enlarged, seemingly spreading what looked like feelers or tentacles outwards, the longest one stretching towards a middle section of the brain.
“After this happened, we were notified through plants, and we took over your medical case, observing the growth of your tumor.” The slide switched again, now showing a larger tumor. It had grown even more feelers, now numbering at five, and the longest one was now in the middle of the brain.
“The tumor had spread itself out, and the longest appendage of it had now entered what we call the anterior insular cortex, or, “ The doctor looked at Jacob. “the empathy center.”
Jacob stared back at the doctor, not showing any outward form of reaction. The doctor looked back towards the projection, clearing his throat.
“Ahem, anyway. As you can probably guess, this was highly irregular behavior from what was supposed to be a simple tumor. And what we realized next was even more shocking.” The assistant clicked to the next slide, this one showing . . . nothing.
Actually, it did show something, Jacob just didn’t notice at first. The tumor was now not a simple mass, but instead had somehow become, fainter, he supposed. It didn’t have any clear separation from his brain, instead, only sections could be made out from the former tumor. It seemed like it had merged with his brain, which wasn’t exactly comforting to Jacob.
“The tumor now couldn’t be described as a simple tumor. We had to deduce that it had somehow become part of your brain, as we couldn’t find any clear definition of where the tumor began and where it ended. We could still technically see the tumor, though it was like it had faded its edges in with your brain, merging with it.” The assistant shut off the projector, and turned the lights back on.
The doctor turned back towards Jacob, with what looked to be a sympathetic expression on his face.
“Now I hope you understand why we want to know what the hell this thing is. If this was some sort of parasite, and if it could spread . . “ The doctor let Jacob figure out the rest on his own.
“Huh, yeah. I wouldn’t really want the world to turn into a reenactment of a certain hit TV adaptation of a certain hit zombie game.” Jacob nodded. “So, how are you gonna go about solving, “ Jacob gestured haphazardly to his head. “This?”
“We . . . aren’t sure yet.” The doctor grimaced. “However, it has only been, well, it's been quite awhile, but we learned a lot from the first go around. We are hoping to gain more data from the next decade, with some new technologies to be used.”
Jacob nodded his head, looking around. “So do I just go back in now?”
“No, actually. The planned procedure is to keep you awake for a minimum of twelve hours, with us taking several tests to determine if any changes have been made to your mental or intellectual state. And also, you are going to have to visit some therapists, that's non-optional.” The doctor replied.
Jacob only grunted in response to that last statement.
* * *
Jacob is running on a treadmill, with several devices measuring his various functions.
“Just let us know when you’re getting tired.” The man, Dr. Markus Vasquez by his nametag, repeated for the fifth time.
“And that would be right around now, actually.” Jacob stopped running when Dr. Vasquez pressed the off button.
“Hmm, alright. You’re operating at standard rates for a boy of your age.” Dr. Vasquez writes down notes on his clipboard, probably about him. Or maybe some sort of weird fan fiction about some US president, you never know.
Dr. Vasquez motioned for Jacob to follow him, which Jacob does.
“And that should conclude your physical testing regimen for today.” Dr. Vasquez leads Jacob into a square room about six feet wide, with a couch, a chair, two tables, a bookshelf, and a TV on the wall opposite from the couch.
Then, another doctor walks into the room, holding a clipboard and a sheet of papers. Dr. Vasquez and the new doctor share a few silent words, ones that Jacob can’t make out, before Dr. Vasquez walks out of the room. The new doctor, a Dr. Sophia Vasel by her nametag, sits down on the chair next to the couch.
“Hey again Jacob. I’m here to-” Dr. Vasel begins, but Jacob cuts her off.
“Oh wait, aren’t you one of the people who strapped me in that pod a decade ago?” Jacob tilts his head questioningly.
Dr. Vasel blinks. “Erm, yes. Anyway, I’m just here to give you a couple tests, alright? Just standard procedure.” Dr. Vasel flips through her clipboard. “Here is the first one.”
Jacob started again. “No signing any forms or asking for consent or anything?”
Dr. Vasel hid her apparent frustration admirably. “Uh, no. Our policy doesn’t require us to do that. Anyway, if we could get on with the test?” Dr. Vasel pulled out a pen. “Just some questions for the first one.”
* * *
Jacob was a bit bored.
Actually, that was an understatement. He was VERY bored. There, a much more apt statement.
After a large amount of rigorous testing, physical, mental, biological, the whole shebang, they had basically left him in the small room and told him to entertain himself for the remaining eight hours, twenty-seven minutes, and five seconds. After that, he would be going back into cryosleep. They gave him access to a good amount of literature from his time, as well as giving him a rather generous library of online media, also from his time. However, they had severely underestimated his preferences, as the majority of the online material consisted of children for the age of ten, and all the good books he had already read several times over.
So yes, he was quite bored. So bored, in fact, that even pacing around and thinking couldn’t sate his hunger for entertainment, as the intense migraine he had prevented him from running any sort of complicated scenario that could even mildly entertain him. So, he was forced to turn to his old friend.
History.
A decade ought to have yielded a good amount of entertaining historical fruit, especially when you consider the rather hot pot that was world politics at the time of the beginning of his short nap. So, he had requested a book that recapped everything important that had happened in the last ten years. And how interesting it was.
Standing out the most in terms of the global stage, the American intervention in the Russo-Ukrainian war, pushing the Russians not just out of Ukraine, but also reclaiming Crimea for the Ukrainians as well. This had happened due to Russia repeatedly threatening to use nuclear weapons in the war, and so America finally had to intervene, managing to push them out of Ukraine in just two and a half months. And it seems Russia was bluffing, as no nukes were ever launched.
However, war wasn’t the only highlight of the last decade, as a miniature space race actually occurred not between the East and the West, but SpaceX and NASA were both racing for the clout and money that being the first to have a human land on Mars would be. It ended up with a SpaceX victory, and not a small amount of a budget increase.
Nanotechnology had also progressed, yet not as much as other avenues, as it's mostly been used for small-scale construction supposedly. Congress was being quite strict on the Supreme Court’s ruling. However, some small advancements had been made in the effectiveness and build of a standard nanobot, making them considerably cheaper and easier to make. However, the availability of nanobots was mostly limited to either private firms or large corporations willing to invest in the product.
As entertaining as history was, it wasn’t enough to sustain him for more than an hour, so he resigned himself to sitting, standing, pacing, and occasionally watching kids cartoons for the rest of his time. He wasn’t going to ask for his benefactors to obtain some new content for him to watch, not because they couldn’t, no, they likely could do anything, but because his pride would be too injured if he did. Yes, a truly brilliant mind we have here.
* * *
“This feels familiar.” Jacob mused, his words certainly pertaining to the scenario that he was currently in.
Dr. Vasel and another doctor were strapping him in, securing his hands and feet in molded plastic to restrict movement, and straps to secure his arms and legs. This time, a little hat with a dozen blinking electrodes was added to his menagerie of devices. They had also given him a fresh edition of nanobots, these ones supposedly more efficient by two percent. Yes, such a great increase. However, they also fed off the energy his own body produced, so that theoretically gave them an infinite life, as long as he was alive.
The doctors finished up strapping him into the machine, giving him a final once over to make sure nothing bad happens again. They stepped back, and began to run diagnostics on their computers to make sure everything electronic was in order as well.
Jacob sighed. He had a feeling that this set of actions would become an agonizingly long procedure.
After a very long fifteen minutes, the unnamed doctor, who had come down during the diagnostics, nodded to an assistant, and he began pressing buttons. The machine clicked and hissed, and the door came down, blissfully quicker this time. After just thirty seconds, the door sealed shut, and Jacob saw the doctor through the plastic. The doctor walked out of sight, as the foggy plastic couldn’t see that far, though the doctor clearly went somewhere where he could talk to Jacob, as he heard the doctor’s voice over what sounded like an intercom inside the pod.
“You can hear me, right Jacob?” The doctor asked.
“Uh, yep.” Jacob replied.
“Very good. As there isn’t anything else we have to do on our end, we’ll be sending you off right about now. Any questions before you’re frozen?” The doctor inquired.
“None that I can recall.” Jacob said.
“Then we’ll see you again in ten years.” The doctor said.
The intercom shut off with a crackle, and the hissing noise came back, probably meaning he was gonna fall asleep any time now. He wondered what the world would look like in another decade, bu-
Oh wait, he did have a question. What WAS the doctor’s nam-
-------------------------------
Part Two is gonna come, maybe in a day. I've already finished it, but the first part will serve to as a way to observe this communities reactions to this little thing, and see if I should post another. I expect about ten to twenty chapters, with hopefully not all of them being as long as this one, so yeah, hope y'all like this.
2023.03.28 22:34 WDFKY Hmm. Lexington traffic is bad? I wonder why.
https://www.wkyt.com/2023/03/27/lexington-has-worst-traffic-kentucky-study-says/
/venting on
Here's my hypothesis as to why Lexington's traffic is so congested, and it has nothing to do with the hub-and-spoke layout of the major thoroughfares with New Circle and Man o' War.
Several years ago, the head of traffic management in Lexington was quoted in the Herald-Leader as saying, "Red lights are there to slow you down." I thought, "WTF?!" To the contrary, I believe reasonable citizens and traffic engineers would say that red lights are there to regulate and promote the safe and efficient flow of traffic. Apparently, that guy left the city some years ago, but has a consulting company that the city, I would bet, is still listening to on traffic engineering matters. While I have heard of some places timing lights to encourage a certain speed for the flow of traffic, that's not what we have here in Lexington; in fact, that would be an improvement, given the high incidence of multiple, successive red lights that we encounter regularly.
Adopting the strategy that red lights are supposed to act like speed bumps gets you what I experience every morning when I take my daughters to school - *toward* downtown from outside New Circle, in the direction of traffic that should be favored during morning rush hour - five (5) red lights in a row if you don't make it past the "domino" light at Fontaine: Fontaine, St. Margaret, Chinoe, Ashland, and Walton. It's not the volume of traffic causing the hold up, it's the timing of the lights, and this is but one example. (Ironically, if one happens to encounter the conditions that would be conducive to exceeding the speed limit down that corridor, one might find that he or she will avoid all five lights altogether; and that's not the only example.) Man o' War traffic around Hamburg is like a spastic colon, and the stretch of Nicholasville Road in front of Fayette Mall is a cluster**ck anytime during the day, and has been for years, even when it's not the Christmas shopping season. Main Street is no picnic, and High Street past Rose/Elm Tree has been horrendous lately - one light turns green just as the next light turns red so, naturally, traffic backs up. I mean, how can you get a one-way street wrong?!
Of course, like anywhere nowadays, you have the compounding factor of a growing number of drivers more interested in interacting with their phones than paying attention to the traffic light changes - especially egregious in left-turn lanes - and you get what I call "gaps" that reduce the number of cars that could otherwise have gotten through the intersection on green. My kids hear me say, "Gap...gap...gap" as I see the cars ahead of us leave two or three car-lengths' space in front of them before making their left turn; then in the style of Edna Mode from The Incredibles, "NO GAPS!"
Now there's been talk of putting in place automated red-light cameras to ticket drivers. To me, given the current programming of the traffic signaling system, that would amount to entrapment. What Lexington's traffic engineering folks seem to ignore is that there's a frustration level that keeps rising with every successive red light and every foiled intersection transit (because of the aforementioned "gap" occurrences, or intersection blockages), rising to the point that there surfaces a totally understandable sense of entitlement to get through that next intersection unimpeded by the senseless programming of the system. You see that in instances where two or three cars continue through the intersection well into a red, or where intersections get blocked by the cars that tried to get through before *and* after the light turned red and the signaling of the subsequent light is so ill-timed as to ensure the back-up (I'm looking at you, Nicholasville at Reynolds). The recent new ordinance prohibiting blocking intersections is pretty tone-deaf in regard to this latter situation, since it is the traffic signaling system's deficiency that is underlying the increasing tendency for the intersections to get blocked in the first place. I wonder sometimes whether traffic management leadership even drives around during the day to see how well (not) things work, or, if they do, whether they think they're doing a bang-up job.
Rush hour isn't the only problem. Off-peak and weekend signal timing seems to assume that no one is on the road. Lexington is now of a size that there will be moderate traffic during daylight hours no matter that day of the week. Signal programming needs to recognize that fact, as well as the fact that an increase in the volume of traffic itself has the effect of reducing the overall speed of traffic.
With the above article providing some objective proof of a traffic signaling system running at a deficit of efficiency, perhaps the city will take steps to improve this thing that affects pretty much everybody everyday. One can only hope.
As a side note, but very much related: I'd also like to see Lexington explore converting a large number of three- and four-way-stop intersections, and even some signaled intersections, to roundabouts a la Carmel, Indiana:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/roundabouts-traffic-safety-environment-carmel-indiana/
In my experience 85%+ drivers treat stop-sign intersections like roundabouts anyway (even Metro; got it on my dashcam).
/venting off
submitted by WDFKY to Kentucky [link] [comments]
/venting on
Here's my hypothesis as to why Lexington's traffic is so congested, and it has nothing to do with the hub-and-spoke layout of the major thoroughfares with New Circle and Man o' War.
Several years ago, the head of traffic management in Lexington was quoted in the Herald-Leader as saying, "Red lights are there to slow you down." I thought, "WTF?!" To the contrary, I believe reasonable citizens and traffic engineers would say that red lights are there to regulate and promote the safe and efficient flow of traffic. Apparently, that guy left the city some years ago, but has a consulting company that the city, I would bet, is still listening to on traffic engineering matters. While I have heard of some places timing lights to encourage a certain speed for the flow of traffic, that's not what we have here in Lexington; in fact, that would be an improvement, given the high incidence of multiple, successive red lights that we encounter regularly.
Adopting the strategy that red lights are supposed to act like speed bumps gets you what I experience every morning when I take my daughters to school - *toward* downtown from outside New Circle, in the direction of traffic that should be favored during morning rush hour - five (5) red lights in a row if you don't make it past the "domino" light at Fontaine: Fontaine, St. Margaret, Chinoe, Ashland, and Walton. It's not the volume of traffic causing the hold up, it's the timing of the lights, and this is but one example. (Ironically, if one happens to encounter the conditions that would be conducive to exceeding the speed limit down that corridor, one might find that he or she will avoid all five lights altogether; and that's not the only example.) Man o' War traffic around Hamburg is like a spastic colon, and the stretch of Nicholasville Road in front of Fayette Mall is a cluster**ck anytime during the day, and has been for years, even when it's not the Christmas shopping season. Main Street is no picnic, and High Street past Rose/Elm Tree has been horrendous lately - one light turns green just as the next light turns red so, naturally, traffic backs up. I mean, how can you get a one-way street wrong?!
Of course, like anywhere nowadays, you have the compounding factor of a growing number of drivers more interested in interacting with their phones than paying attention to the traffic light changes - especially egregious in left-turn lanes - and you get what I call "gaps" that reduce the number of cars that could otherwise have gotten through the intersection on green. My kids hear me say, "Gap...gap...gap" as I see the cars ahead of us leave two or three car-lengths' space in front of them before making their left turn; then in the style of Edna Mode from The Incredibles, "NO GAPS!"
Now there's been talk of putting in place automated red-light cameras to ticket drivers. To me, given the current programming of the traffic signaling system, that would amount to entrapment. What Lexington's traffic engineering folks seem to ignore is that there's a frustration level that keeps rising with every successive red light and every foiled intersection transit (because of the aforementioned "gap" occurrences, or intersection blockages), rising to the point that there surfaces a totally understandable sense of entitlement to get through that next intersection unimpeded by the senseless programming of the system. You see that in instances where two or three cars continue through the intersection well into a red, or where intersections get blocked by the cars that tried to get through before *and* after the light turned red and the signaling of the subsequent light is so ill-timed as to ensure the back-up (I'm looking at you, Nicholasville at Reynolds). The recent new ordinance prohibiting blocking intersections is pretty tone-deaf in regard to this latter situation, since it is the traffic signaling system's deficiency that is underlying the increasing tendency for the intersections to get blocked in the first place. I wonder sometimes whether traffic management leadership even drives around during the day to see how well (not) things work, or, if they do, whether they think they're doing a bang-up job.
Rush hour isn't the only problem. Off-peak and weekend signal timing seems to assume that no one is on the road. Lexington is now of a size that there will be moderate traffic during daylight hours no matter that day of the week. Signal programming needs to recognize that fact, as well as the fact that an increase in the volume of traffic itself has the effect of reducing the overall speed of traffic.
With the above article providing some objective proof of a traffic signaling system running at a deficit of efficiency, perhaps the city will take steps to improve this thing that affects pretty much everybody everyday. One can only hope.
As a side note, but very much related: I'd also like to see Lexington explore converting a large number of three- and four-way-stop intersections, and even some signaled intersections, to roundabouts a la Carmel, Indiana:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/roundabouts-traffic-safety-environment-carmel-indiana/
In my experience 85%+ drivers treat stop-sign intersections like roundabouts anyway (even Metro; got it on my dashcam).
/venting off
2023.03.28 22:27 paul-e-walnts Rents high. What is your alternative to increasing housing supply?
Genuine question. There’s lots of posts with people arguing nimby and yimby positions in the comments. I often see the blame going to Fulop, middle/upper class people moving here, and developers for increases in rents. I’m genuinely curious for those opposed to developing more, what is your alternative? To me it seems unrealistic to think we can just keep people out of Jersey City by not building, or that limiting development would even help the people already here. maybe I’m misunderstanding the point?
submitted by paul-e-walnts to jerseycity [link] [comments]