Jettison

There comes a time when this must happen to everybody who has been ensnared by us. There is no hope for anything different. In the way that the world keeps on turning and the planets waltz around the sun, we will always cast you to one side. Of the many cruelties which we exact against you, this ranks as one of the worst. You might think that it is a blessing that the daily machinations and manipulations have ended but you will not see it that way when you are dis-engaged from. Indeed, you may not ever realise it.

You are given no warning that you are about to be dis-engaged, although if you know to look for them, there are actually signs that point to what is about to happen. Invariably you are unable to see them because you cannot see or think clearly for the maelstrom that continues to rage around you. There are times when the dis-engagement takes place that it is almost as if we have vanished into thin air. Yesterday we met you for lunch as normal and today you have no idea where we are. You have telephoned but our number is no longer in service. You call our work but you are told that we are unavailable as our assigned gatekeeper keeps you at bay. You wait around trying to catch a glimpse of us in order to speak with us and find out what is going on. You see hide nor hair of us and rather than be angry you are worried and concerned both for us and our relationship, or at least what was once our relationship. This form of the dis-engagement is swift and brutal. Here yesterday and gone today. We put in place a ring of steel which we will not allow you to penetrate. When this form of dis–engagement has been effected you are actually receiving a double whammy of discard and an absent silent treatment. This is designed to reinforce like a hammer blow that you are no longer of any use to us. We do not want to see you, we do not want to hear from you and we do not want to read your e-mails, messages and texts. At least not yet. This form of dis-engagement arises because we have already replaced you. We have found a new primary source of fuel and he or she is a thousand times better than you. We have brought down the shutters, raised the drawbridge and built our castle walls thick and high as we now sit in the throne room with our new, wonderful and perfect primary source by our side. You have been struck from the record, deleted and erased.

We do not want you distracting us from this most precious person that we have found. The truth is that the memory of us being linked to you irritates and infuriates us. We thought that you were the one who would supply us with positive fuel always. Despite the other failures that had gone before you, you showed such promise and we gave you everything in order to seduce you. Now you are placed on the appliance pile, rejected and broken, of no current use to us. You let us down and we bristle at the thought that we even considered you might be of use to us. Your failure and the fact we chose you means that we feel criticised and the ignition of our fury results in a cold fury that creates this icy hinterland that we place between you and us. We want nothing more to do with you.

Until we decide of course it is time to hoover you.

This sudden and unexplained cessation of the relationship is only temporary. We will look to reinstate it at some point in order to extract hoover fuel from you, but you do not know this. All you know is that we were once there and no we are no longer and it hurts. Your soul has been wrenched from within you. It does not matter how badly we hurt you, you still wanted that golden period and our sudden departure has denied that from ever happening again, or at least that is what you are led to believe. Your pain is absolute, combined with the confusion and bewilderment.

Another way in which we cast you to one side is akin to being repeatedly dunked in a barrel of icy water. Each time your dunking lasts a little longer and you fear you cannot hold your breath any longer and this time this is it, you are on your way out, only for us to haul you out and that sweet and precious air fills your lungs, if only for an instance before you are thrust back into the water. During that interlude, as the water cleared from your eyes and you gulped great lungfuls of air you saw someone else stood by our side, watching you with a look of curiosity on their face. This is your replacement but we have not yet decided that they are to replace you as we are giving you the chance to prove yourself and provide some further fuel before we push you away and leave you spluttering and gasping on the ground beside the barrel. We never finish you off. That would be pointless.

We always need to come back, not that you will realise that as you lie panting and shaking on the ground, cold and soaked, watching as we stroll away, our arm around the new prospect. This steady and controlled discard takes place as we lose interest in you but we have no desire to make our departure sudden and swift. We want to hedge our bets as we firm up our arrangements with your replacement, fine-tuning that seduction as we continue to extract fuel from you through this dunking. We push and pull, toying with your emotions.

This is not part of the devaluation even though we exhibit a similar behaviour during that time when we denigrate you and then grant respite. No, this is different. When this is undertaken in an accelerated fashion then you know that it is a form of dis-engagement. We may give you a week of hell and then several weeks of the golden period before hell again. That is the push and pull of devaluation. When this technique is applied as discard it is disorientating as one day is fine and the next is not and then fine again. You feel like you are being figuratively bludgeoned and as you try and get your bearings you stagger across the boxing ring away from us only to meet another opponent who continues the beating and then sends you on your way to the next one.

These are just two forms of the way we will dis-engagement you. Why do we do it? As ever it is all about fuel. With the first it is because we have new and brilliant fuel and no longer wish to be reminded about your faltering and weak fuel. In the second we have not yet confirmed that the new source is as potent as we require and in the meanwhile we decide to continue to extract further fuel from you as your severance from us takes place in typical salami-slicing fashion. In every entanglement with our kind you will eventually be dis-engaged. You won’t see it coming but it is always in the post, coming along the highway, wending its way towards you.

Don’t be too concerned though. No dis-engagement is for ever. We always come back for more.