In Honor of Neda Aria

By Sebastian Vice

I’m writing this raw, at the spur of the moment. Hope my language doesn’t obscure the emotional resonance. Hopefully it’s not too janky.

Neda Aria gave me a gift I can never repay. She brought me back to my broken heart. Returned me to me, and showed me I was lost. And it didn’t take much. Just the right string of words at the right time. She said what I needed to hear. She did this all by just being herself. Her words were the mirror I needed.

I’ll tell you a story, and it won’t seem like much. But to me, it meant more than all the gold in the world.

I’m putting together a cosmic horror short story collection. I finished revising a piece called “Only The Numb Remain.” Neda agreed to look at it. I sent it off, went to bed, and woke up to her messages. “This is your masterpiece.” She said. “Your other stuff is good, but this is your best.” To be clear: I’m not saying this. Hell, my self esteem is in the negative integers. My subjective assessment is: this is a very decent story. Period. But she was taken by it. Told me it needed to be longer. She said I had to continue with it.

This story, for better or worse, is an emotional tapestry of my life. And Calix, my protagonist, is me. I don’t want him to be me. Hell, most days I don’t want to be me, but I am. And so is he. Neda recognized that.

This doesn’t sound like a life altering tale I just wove. But I’d pretty much given up on life over the last few months. I had projects that needed finishing, and then I was going to quietly drift away. I wasn’t going to kill myself. That wasn’t the plan. I was just going to slowly morph into even more obscurity.

Neda slapped me in the face, and although she doesn’t know it (yet), awakened something in me. My story’s title, is also a theme. Only the numb remain. This is a chorus throughout the story. I realized it was also mantra of my life. Neda didn’t say that. I discovered that. But Neda opened the door for this realization.

Only The Numb Survive

Only The Numb Thrive

Only The Numb Remain

Maybe, just maybe, my exploration of Calix can teach me how to be alive again. And now, more than ever, I’m reminded of the opening lines from Dante’s Inferno.

Midway upon the journey of our life
  I found myself within a forest dark,
  For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say
  What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
  Which in the very thought renews the fear.

So bitter is it, death is little more;
  But of the good to treat, which there I found,
  Speak will I of the other things I saw there.

I cannot well repeat how there I entered,
  So full was I of slumber at the moment
  In which I had abandoned the true way.

So into hell I go, to find what I’d lost however long ago. And to find it, hell will give no quarter to my contortions of self denial.

You are marvelous, Neda. You knew just what to say to caress a broken heart, then shock it back to life.

I worked this up. I’m not sure when it’ll come out, but it won’t until Neda assures me I haven’t held anything back. Until she’s confident it I haven’t betrayed myself. Until it bleeds me on each page.

Thank you, Neda 🙏