Who was that man they crucified in the headlines, splattering his name across mainstream media and destroying all he had become? Was it the same man who only yesterday had reached God-like stature? Who was that man?
It was me.
I held the syringe that could end it. All I had to do was inject it into my vein, and it would all be over. The defamation of my name, the loss of my empire. Taken from me by my political opposers. I had done nothing wrong to have them destroy me as they had. What was my crime? I tweeted my opinion. One tiny tweet. That’s it, and those maggots destroyed everything I had achieved.
I gripped the syringe and brought it to my left vein. I could do this. Surely, it had to be easier to make this small poke than to return to a life of ruin. I felt the cold needle on my skin. “Now, just push.”
But I couldn’t. As much as I longed for the misery to end, I couldn’t take my own life. I sat in my sauna as sweat dripped into my eyes and stung them. I blinked rapidly. Would this be easier to do somewhere else? The needle slipped from my wet skin, and I let the syringe drop to the wood floor. I sobbed as my tears washed the sweat from my eyes. If I didn’t end it in the sauna, the hell would continue when I left.
I think back to that moment and am glad I didn’t kill myself. The desperation I had felt overtook all my senses. I had spent the last twenty years as America’s favorite son. I had built a name and empire and never waited for a table in any restaurant. My fame was my ticket to affluence and respect. Respect, I had been hallowed, and then the tweet.
“Where are you going, Saria?” I asked my girlfriend as she headed to the door with a suitcase in hand.
“I don’t need my name associated with you. I’m out of here.”
“Seriously? But you agreed with my tweet. Now, you are going to abandon me?”
She stared at me with empty eyes. No compassion. No love. Had it ever been there? Probably not. Saria had been in love with my status, not me. I had always known it, but she was my trophy, and I hadn’t cared. After two years of doting at least a million dollars of plastic surgeries on her, she walked out on me.
“Listen, Wolfgang, it’s been fun. But I can’t emotionally handle all of this. As the media sleighs your name, they are coming after me. This is the only way I can survive. I already sent out a tweet ostracizing you. Now, I must leave. I am sorry.”
Was she sorry? She didn’t look it. Did she have another millionaire waiting to leach onto? Probably. She was nothing before me, but I had given her a name, a name she could dupe another smuck with.
The cancel culture destroyed my businesses, and they soon turned their back on me, just as Saria had done. It wouldn’t be long before my assets were seized, and I would have nothing.
“Maybe you can find yourself in nature,” my friend Mike had said.
“Me. Nature. We don’t mix.”
After my failed suicide attempt, I contemplated Mike’s words. I had to do something. I went to an outdoor supply shop and equipped myself with a backpack and all the essentials they said I would need. I hoisted the heavy pack on my back and took off into the forests of Oregon. My soft body rebelled over the weight. I hadn’t done anything physical since high school gym class.
I don’t know how I survived that first week. The rain never stopped, and I froze. I only moved about a mile a day, and then I would just slump under a tree and cry. The syringe of freedom called to me from my pack, and I had held it many times. But I could never inject it.
I was about to return to civilization when I recognized the area. I had been there before to Craig Hofman’s retreat.
Craig Hofman. A slime of a man. I had partnered with him in several entrepreneurships. The second society turned its back on me, he joined them; no, he led them. He went on several talk shows and crucified me to the public.
I found his cabin and the dark monster of revenge entered me. Craig had been a key cog in my demise, and I couldn’t understand it. We had been perfect partners up to the tweet. The tweet didn’t affect him, but he didn’t hesitate to jump on the bandwagon to destroy me.
Rage consumed me, and I picked up a rock and chucked it at a window.
“Smash.” The glass shattered.
I looked around to see if anyone heard it, but there wasn’t another cabin for miles. I looked into the cabin through the broken window and could see exquisite furniture on the inside. I took another rock and threw it through the window of the front door.
“Smash.” I slipped my arm into the opening. Razors of glass slashed open my arm. I bloodied the window as I undid the locks.
“Squeak.” I opened the door and went in. The warmth of the cabin welcomed me. And it was dry! I flipped on some lights and wandered around.
“I haven’t been to my cabin in two years,” I recalled Craig saying. “Just don’t have time.”
The empty fridge had nothing to offer, but the cupboards burst with food. I opened a box of cookies, and nothing had ever tasted so wonderful. I emptied my backpack of things I hadn’t used and filled it with food.
Perhaps I would spend the night, take a shower, get warm, and then leave in the morning.
That night, as I sat in front of a burning fire, I had an idea.
“Craig betrayed me. I will betray him.” I held a container of firestarter. I would drench his couches and drapes and, in the morning, burn his cabin down.
“He probably wouldn’t even notice,” I told myself. But it would feel good to destroy something of his. I could hardly sleep as the adrenaline of what I was about ready to do flowed through me.
In the morning, I dumped the firestarter on his couch. I flicked the lighter and was about to set the couch in a blaze when another idea entered.
“Wolfie, maybe you should just hang here for a while. You know. Clear your head. It is in nature, after all, without the raw part of nature.”
I let the fire die on the lighter. I had a good idea.
I decided to stay until my mind cleared and I figured out my next direction in life. The fumes from the couch gave me a headache, so I pushed it into the yard behind the cabin.
I tried to go into my head to make a plan, but I didn’t like it in there. My depressive thoughts never stopped. They consumed me.
“Try meditating,” I heard Saria say in my head.
Saria lived for meditation and yoga. She had even dragged me to that awful meditation retreat. The only thing I had gotten out of it was a hefty bill and wasted time.
“To really break away from the stresses in your life, you first have to work on your breathing,” our guru had told us.
How did that breathing go?
“Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Do those forty times, then hold your breath.” When the guru guided us through it, I usually fell asleep.
I lay on the sheepskin rug on the cabin floor. I had nothing more to lose. Why not try it?
I took in several deep breaths and exhalations. Then I held my breath. The longer I held my breath, the more fantastic the experience became. I seemed to enter into my body. My fingers and toes tingled. I felt like I was levitating. And then, I became one with myself for the first time in my life.
I spent the next month in serious meditation, and a miracle happened. I detached from the Wall Street Wolfgang and discovered the true me.
I wasn’t the man who owned a Lamborghini, three homes, five businesses, a huge stock portfolio, and all the other materials I had used to define me. I wasn’t the man who treated those inferior to me with disdain. I wasn’t the man who needed fine food and beautiful women.
I was simply Wolfgang.
A long time ago, before I lost myself, I liked to swim at the local pond with my friends. I had a bicycle that I sped around the neighborhood on, loving the freedom it gave me. I was the boy who would curl up to a good book and a dog. I helped my mom prepare meals to take to the neighbors. I was the boy who drew comic books and went on weekend hikes.
Where had he gone?
I had let my pursuit of wealth consume me and wipe away my soul.
When I wasn’t meditating, I started devouring Craig’s library. I went on walks, not minding the rain as I mindfully felt each drop touch my skin. I journaled about the animals and plants I saw. I journaled about my feelings.
What were feelings? I had driven them away from me, only thinking obtaining and spending were feelings.
Even though there was food in Craig’s cabin, I learned how to eat off the land.
Six months had passed, and I was sitting outside on the porch when I noticed a spider. The magnificent creature labored to fix its web. Its beauty and work mesmerized me, and I watched it for hours. As the sun set, it hit me. I realized I was happy. I mean really happy. Not the fake happiness that money buys. I had joy and peace in my heart. I knew myself and was true to it. Life was good. I also noticed that the anger was no longer in me. Instead, I felt love and joy. I couldn’t believe it, but I was glad I had lost everything. For in actuality, I had nothing.
Here I am a year later after my demise: my title, a squatter. The only thing I really own is my backpack and a few hiking supplies. Yet I am happier than I have ever been.
Who was the man they crucified in the headlines a year ago? Someone who deserved to die so the real me could break free.
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Deplatformed
by Stephanie Daich
