Pride

Let the games begin.

Hi Dad.

Pretty good. How are you?

That looks like a nice hunk of meat right there. Very juicy. The keepers really must have shelled out for that. Weather’s looking grand too, what with all those clouds. Should be some nice shady spots around two o’ clock. And wow, is your mane styled differently today? It’s flashier, combed neater. They must have given it a decent grooming today.

No, not that it normally doesn’t look good. I only meant…

Never mind. Geez. Forget I said anything. 

Look, I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I know it’s your feeding time. I’ve just had something on my mind for a while, and I’m kinda anxious to talk to you about it. Really need to get it off my chest.

Chest, belly, stomach, whatever. Not the point, Dad. I’m not worrying about semantics right now. Can you stop stuffing your face and just listen to me for a second?

Thanks.

I didn’t really know the right way to bring this up. Privacy isn’t really a concept here, what with the people circling and staring and taking pictures every minute of every day. Not that we ever seem to be in one place anymore. I mean, think about it: the cave renovations, the keeper cleanings, the new round of vaccinations, those jerkoff “educational” sessions they drag you to that the humans seem to like so much... Oh, and let’s not forget that sleep cycle crap you pulled last week.

You know what I’m talking about, Dad. You said that the reason we never get to hang out is because younger and older animals have different sleeping patterns? I got up six hours early just to make sure I could catch you awake, and when I asked if we could wrestle what did you say? You said you needed to take a second nap outside, and that I should go roll around in the mud with the other cubs—

Look, I’m not saying you don’t work hard! I know you have long days and you get tired. I wasn’t trying to imply that—

I’m not babbling! Just… just gimme a second. Please.

Okay. Right. Here goes.

I’ve been thinking long and hard about it, Dad, and I’ve made up my mind. I don’t want to live in a habitat anymore. I’m going back to the wild.

Stop laughing! Do I look like I’m joking here?

What do you mean, why? Dad, we live in a prison. It’s a nice-looking prison, but it’s a prison all the same. They feed us processed protein twice a day and hose us down with pressurized water. There are literally bars around the outside of our exhibit.

Yeah right, Dad. Go leap over that moat without falling twenty feet and breaking your legs, and then tell me again how free we are.

No, I don’t think I could either. What’s your point?

I don’t know, I’ll find another way! The keepers come in whenever they want, right? So they must be able to get out whenever they want, too.

They’re our jailers, Dad! How can it be wrong to—

When did I say I was going to attack a keeper? I only meant—

Oh, like your frigging morals are so much better than—

Shit, he was already losing. Maybe he needed to come at it from a different angle…

You don’t get it, Dad, you wouldn’t get it unless you were my age. Things are different now then they were ten years ago, look at all these people walking around with laptops and smartphones and iPads and Google Goggles—

Google Goggles, Google Glass, whatever the hell they’re called. We’re cats, Dad; we’re not even supposed to know technology stuff. That’s a primate thing. Stop changing the subject.

The point, Dad, is that you’re content. You’re contained. You don’t care about any of it. Not like me; my soul is out there in the savannah, roaming nature, chasing down herds of wildebeest and antelope and battling packs of hyenas and angry elephants. Yours is here, munching on an overfed pork chop and taking a piss on trees that don’t even look African. You’ve never dreamed of the wild.

So what if I haven’t been there? It’s a spiritual thing. You wouldn’t understand.

Of course I have! Their exhibit’s just two down from ours. Just because I’ve never hunted one before—

Oh, you don’t think I could? You’re so full of it. You’ve never supported me, not in anything. You know what? I’m gonna prove you wrong. I’m gonna show you what I can do, and then you’ll see, you’ll be sorry you ever doubted me, I don’t care if the keepers skin me and make me into a rug, I’m gonna show you—

Wow, okay, went a little too far there. Scratch, rewind, pause scene. Breathe in and out, nice and slow, focus on the stillness of the watering hole (if you could even call it that). Just make it about the animals. All about the animals.

Time for a different approach.

Look, I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I know it’s your feeding time. I’ve just had something on my mind for a while, and I’m kinda anxious to talk to you about it. Really need to get it off my chest.

Blah blah blah, Dad, screw the choice of synonyms. We did this part already. Just bear with me here and skip ahead a little bit.

Thanks.

I’ve been thinking long and hard about it, Dad, and I’ve made up my mind. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life basing it on your opinions. I’m joining the circus.

You’re not laughing. Why aren’t you laughing?

No, it’s not a joke! I just…you don’t think it’s weird? You’re not angry or upset or anything? You’re not gonna tell me I’m wasting my life, or that you’re disappointed in me, or that I need a real job for when I get out of the zoo, or that circus work isn’t very stable and doesn’t pay well, or…

You’re not worried about me at all?

Yeah, right. Like you would ever be okay with me jumping through flaming hoops and putting people’s heads in my mouth. Like you’re really, all of a sudden, just gonna accept this kind of thing. What’s your deal?

Well I didn’t know I wanted to then, but I know now, don’t I! One day can make a lot of difference. Anyway, stop sidetracking me, Dad. Why don’t you care that I’m basically throwing my life away—

Wait. That’s it. That’s it exactly. You don’t care. It doesn’t matter to you if I end up dead on the streets, begging for table scraps, or mounted on some psycho’s wall. You just want me out of your mane for good. I bet it doesn’t even matter if I do what you want, and follow in your frigging footsteps—oh come on, I know that’s what you want, Dad, that’s what you’ve always wanted, don’t try to deny it!

Don’t you give me that look! See now, that’s it, that’s it right there: that look that tells people what you’re really thinking, the one that tears them up inside. You never had to tell me what you wanted, Dad, because that one look says it all for you. Spells everything out, plain as day. Well I don’t care what you want! I need something more out of life, something besides lying on these stupid rocks all day while people point and laugh at how big my fangs are and how much weight I’m putting on—

I am not being ridiculous! Either I’m a success story for you to be wildly proud of, or I’m a washed-up burnout that you can use as a cautionary tale. Just so long as you have something to tell the world, right Dad?

Because I know you don’t care! You’ve never cared about me. You’ve never even seen me, not really. To you I’m just the same dumb little one-year old, the kid who can’t stop screwing up, who’s never going to make anything of himself, who just wants to finally do something that will make his Dad p—

Damn it! Damn it. Shut up, brain, shut up. This was pathetic; he couldn’t even carry on an argument in his own head. Maybe he should just cut his losses and move on over to the zebra pen (or something easier, like the goats in the petting zoo).

No. He could do this. He had to keep trying. For Pete’s sake, he’d tried it enough when it was with people instead of animals.

This was the only way he could win.

I’ve been thinking long and hard about it, Dad, and I’ve made up my mind. I don’t want to stay in your shadow, and I don’t care if you’re the oldest male in a fifteen-mile radius. Layla and I are getting hitched.

I know lions don’t technically get married, Dad. It’s just an expression. We’ve been talking for a while now and we’ve decided we’re in love. I know it’s sudden, but I just feel like I get her on this whole different level…and I know that you’ve probably gotten her on a similar level because we’re all animals here, let’s be frank, but I don’t care. I love her and I want to spend the rest of my life with her.

Dad, she’s my future now! That’s the whole point! How am I wasting my life by devoting it to her? To raising a family?

Oh, so just because I haven’t known her that long you think it’s meaningless? This is so like you, Dad, to just disregard what I’m saying and chalk it up to me being young and naïve. You might as well be penned up with the rhinos, you’re so frigging stubborn, with your “I’m always right, I know what’s best for you, listen to what I say, as long as you’re in this house you’ll abide by my rules—”

I’ve been thinking long and hard about it, Dad, and I’ve made up my mind. I want to finally tell you the truth, and I don’t care if it hurts to hear. I’m going to just come out and say it: Dad, I’m gay.

I am. I’m completely serious.

I don’t care whether you believe me or not. I don’t need your acceptance or your pity or whatever it is you think I’m asking for right now! This is just a truth you’re going to have to learn to live with, Dad.

So what you’ve never seen me with a guy? There’s a first time for everything. You going to make some dumb joke about me being a virgin now?

Well maybe I just haven’t found the right guy yet. How would you know? It’s not like you understand me, like you’ve ever paid attention to who I am or what I really want. You can’t even say “I love you” without me dragging it out of you, like I’m ripping your jagged teeth out of my own fucking mouth—

I’ve been talking to my friends, and I’m converting to Islam—

Liar, there he went, lying again—

I’ve decided I’m an atheist, and I don’t care if it pisses you off—

Yes he did, that was the whole point—

I know that you don’t want me—

He knew less than that, less than nothing— 

I don’t think our lives have meaning—

Begging for help, pleading to be noticed—

I’m sick of trying to set an example for them—

Proving how easy hypocrisy was—

I’m going to live at home for the rest of my life, or at least until you’re d—

That stupid lump in his throat, why wouldn’t it go away—

I think I’m depressed—

He wouldn’t want to hear about that, nobody would—

I hate you—

No he didn’t—

How could I ever hate you—

SHUT UP! Shut up, shut up, stop it, too close to the meaning, to the reason, to the truth, he couldn’t say it, not to the world and not to himself, no matter what kind of animal his father was, he couldn’t do it, couldn’t give him the satisfaction of hearing, of understanding, of knowing—

I want you to be proud of me.

“Why can’t you just be proud of me?”

I want you to care about me. I want to talk to you about my life and know that you’re going to listen. I want you to ruffle my hair when I succeed and hug me when I fail. I want you to already be at the table, waiting for me to get home, and laugh when I tell you all the little tedious details that make up the days. I want you to take the weights off my shoulders: all the “it’s your faults” and the “you can do betters” and the “you’re not good enoughs” that you taught me how to make for myself. I want you to watch me treading water, out in the deep, and instead of pulling me back I want you to applaud as I swim to shore. I want to catch you beaming at me, so you have to hide your smile—but not too fast, just gentle enough that I can catch a glimpse of it at the end. I want you to take me off the shelf, the one you put me on years ago when I was shiny and new and brimming with praise and you didn’t count on all the dust I’d end up collecting. I want you to look at me with the eyes of a father loving his son. I want to know that you’re proud of me.

“Isn’t that enough?”

 Silence.

No answer. Not that he’d expected one, but…well, multiple personality disorder might have been a welcome relief at this point. Either way, he’d tried. He’d done his best, as un-therapeutic as his efforts might have been. Time to go. He could see Dad waiting.

The lion lying near the edge of the moat, the big guy, was sniffing the cub. He supposed he didn’t know whether the two were actually father and son. Hell, he didn’t even know whether the little one was male. He’d never taken a class in cat genitalia before.

The lion wasn’t paying attention to the cub anymore. It was looking right at him. He wasn’t next to anyone, so it had to be looking at him. It was standing off of the ground, legs slightly bent and paws curled around the rocks, as if poised to leap out of the prison and pounce on him. It was staring him down, unperturbed and unmoving, yellow pupils boring into him and past him and through him all at once. He felt fear, and discomfort, and a strange sense of familiarity as well. Its expression wasn’t softening at all—its eyes spoke of hunger, and anger too—but it was almost as if he could sense something behind the glare. Past the creature’s confusion, past his own insecurities and doubts, there was something connecting them. Maybe, on some level, a basic form of understanding?

Or the possibility, however slim it might be, of acceptance.

The lion blinked a few times and the moment was gone. It spun on its heel and padded gracefully off, undoubtedly heading towards one of the more expansive (and shady) trees. He considered a moment before turning and leaving as well. Back towards the world of regular conversations and normal animals. Back to his Dad.

He didn’t know why, but it felt like some of the weights on his shoulders were gone. He shrugged, and smiled to himself. Perhaps the two of them would have something to chat about after all.

Limbo

            “The world is not quite the world,” she said, in a lilting, playful tone that seemed to imply he was being let in on a long-kept inside joke.  

            He blinked rapidly for a few seconds and scratched his head. He had no idea where or what or who she was replying to. She’d just plopped herself down on the bench next to him; he honestly didn’t think that he’d done anything to attract her attention. But there wasn’t anyone else nearby, so she had to be talking to him...right? He cleared his throat, hoping quietly that the woman—she looks and smells vaguely homeless—would leave him alone so he could pretend to keep staring at the big granite guy in chains on the raised pedestal.

            “You don’t listen very well, do you?”

            He inwardly cursed his luck, and met the gaze—whoa, what color eyes are those? grey? green? silver? variations on a theme: hazel—of said disheveled hobo. Her brow was crooked, her hands hung loosely off the edge of her seat, and she was smirking at him under faint wisps of mustache hairs. She was regarding him with the gentle apathy and casual ridicule that heralds a close friend. Yet he didn’t think he’d ever seen her before. Maybe she’d been stalking him through the park.

            “Sorry?” he said, praying again for the lady to take a hint and learn the definition of personal space. Her clothes—more like rags, if rags had the consistency of wet sponges, Jesus—were ratty, tattered, and saturated with grime. There was a long, half-unraveled scarf around her neck that might once have been called blue. That is, before being caked in layers upon layers of thick, claying dirt. Her nails were long and faintly yellowed, he could pick out one or two grey hairs amidst the rest of the dark, wiry tangle, and there was a mole adorning the bottom of her chin. She grinned, and he could see through her mud-stained teeth that she was chewing some kind of thin green leaf. Once you got past the whole getup, she was actually kind of pretty. He found himself idly wondering whether there were curves somewhere under all the mess.

            “I’m sorry,” he began, “I don’t think I heard you—“

            “Oh, you hear fine,” she continued, chuckling to herself. “You just don’t listen. There’s a difference. We can fix that, though.”

            Now he wasn’t sure whether to be cautious or confused. “We?” he said, glancing quickly over his shoulder—nobody there, so maybe I won’t get mugged in a group but nobody’ll be here to help me if I do—to scan the grass. She clucked her tongue off of the roof of her mouth and rolled her eyes again.

            “Not really the relevant question right now, is it?” she said, shaking her head as if to give him the response. “A better line of inquiry would be, ‘What exactly are you talking about?’ or ‘What world are you referring to?’ or ‘Are you a recovering alcoholic?’ and ‘If not, can I buy you a drink?’ or ‘Do you consider yourself mentally unstable?’ or ‘Are you considered by others to be mentally unstable?’ or ‘Where is the treasure buried?’ or ‘How many elephants does it take to change a lightbulb?’ or even ‘Who are you, some kind of crazy hobo?’ I would have accepted any of those answers.”

            “Don’t you mean questions?”

            She shrugged. “Same difference, really.” She seemed to be waiting for a response.

            He supposed he might as well oblige. “Alright, then, who are you?”

            “Name’s Hare. Don’t worry, I won’t ask to shake hands. Pleased to meetcha. I mean, I know aBOUT you of course, or OF you I guess, but I’ve never actually MET you. This is the first chance I’m really getting to pick your brain, find out what makes you tick. I wish it were under better circumstances, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers. See what I did there? Reminds me of the time that—“

            “Do you mean Hare like the rabbit?” he interrupted, more baffled than ever.

            “Nope!” she replied, cheerfully. Her eyebrows waggled when she smiled.

            He kneaded his forehead between his hands and sighed, wondering how much spare change it was going to take to make her go away. Maybe he could just buy her a bar of soap—lemon-scented antibacterial, for all the good it’ll do her—and some flea powder. Or some lice repellent. Or both.

            “Okay, so…what exactly are you talking about?”

            She let out a long-suffering hiss of exasperated air. “Hey, not like that, come on now! Spoon-feeding, spoon-feeding. You need to be more specific. Use your meat slab, call on the power of human critical thinking, write me a dissertation if you have to. String some basic thoughts together at least. Come on, show me how much mileage you can get out of that college education!”

               He ground his teeth together. “Fine. Are you saying that the world we know isn’t really the world that we exist in? Is it almost the same, but with a few minor differences and unknowns? Or is the world not what it used to be? Something about time marching on, progress eroding tradition, oh the times they are a-changing? Maybe you think that there’s some kind of underground layer to the world, and that only conspiracy nuts like you have a clue about it? Or is it the statue’s world you’re talking about, that his world is separate from our own because he’s going to be in chains forever? Unless you’re saying that he perceives time differently? That for him there is no world because for him, time is always frozen? Do you mean that every person experiences the world differently, and that none of those individual experiences can ever be reconciled with each other? And does that imply that there are billions of different parallel worlds, all existing at the same time and in the same moment? Or are you just high as a hot-air balloon and feel a pressing urge to spout your little half-baked, cobbled-together philosophies?”

            She stared. “Like I said. You don’t listen very well.” He was astonished, and slightly mortified—why should I care, she’s a side-of-the-street straggler, a stranger, not like I’m going to see her again—to see a profound sadness reflected back at him.

            “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—“

            “You ever read that one Charles Dickens book? It’s a big-type traditional thing over here. The one about the grouchy old guy, loses all his friends and lives a lonely life, dragging his feet on death’s doorstep, then three spirits come to visit him and he learns the true meaning of Christmas?”

            He swallowed and looked away. “Um...I’ve seen the movie?”

            “Well, this is going to be a lot like that. Minus the Christmas part.”

            When he turned back to ask what she meant, she was gone.

            There was a Ziploc bag full of bread in the space she’d left behind. He supposed she’d brought it to the park—as if she couldn’t have been any more of a caricature, what kind of a name is Hare anyway—to feed the birds. He realized that he didn’t really have anybody around to talk to, or anything to do, or anywhere else to be, so he reached his hand into the bag and threw out a handful of dry crusts. A solitary pigeon alighted onto the paved path, silently inspecting the offerings before fixating its gaze upon him.

            “Go for it, little guy,” he said, with a tone that he hoped was encouraging. “Eat on up. You probably don’t get fed a lot, do you? Not that you’d be able to tell from looking, am I right?” He allowed himself a genial smile.

            “Fuck off,” said the pigeon.

            Silence. Then, “Excuse me?”

            “You really are a dumb motherfucker,” said the pigeon.

He nearly fell off the bench. this is impossible this is all a dream right this has to be a dream I don’t understand what the hell is going on what the fuck? what the fuck! what the FUCK FUCK FUCK

            “I’ll take steak if you have it,” said the pigeon. “Pittsburgh rare is best, but honestly I’m not too picky.”

            Somewhere deep down, in a place that felt like it hadn’t been used in a while, he discovered his voice. “You’re…you’re a talking pigeon. A bird. I’m talking to a bird.”

            “You wouldn’t even be giving a shit if I was a parrot,” said the pigeon. “Must be nice being a constant and colossal fuckup, huh?”

            “Stop swearing!” he yelled, digging his fingers into his palms as if the pain could will away the vision before him. “This is a contact high. That’s all it is. That lady was on some seriously messed up shit, and some of it rubbed off on me. You’re not real, and she was a wackjob, and—”

            “Listen,” said the pigeon, “you talk about her in a disrespectful manner again and I will eat your eyeballs. I wouldn’t even be here if not for Krishna. She and I go way back. I’m doing this little gig as a favor to her.”

            “Her real name is Krishna?” he said, baffled. “Isn’t that from Hinduism? You cannot expect me to believe that she was Indian, she didn’t even look—”

            The pigeon perched on the seat next to him—is that blood on its feet? what the hell kind of fever dream is this—and the rest of the sentence crawled away to die in his mouth. It didn’t seem overly concerned with him, however, choosing instead to preen out a few flecks of filth from its feathers.

            “Got a light?” asked the pigeon.

            He shook his head. The pigeon click-clacked its beak irritably and pecked at the railing a few times, sending jolting vibrations up and down the bench. After a while it cocked its head sideways, regarding him with what he assumed to be quiet disdain.

            “Right, then,” said the pigeon. “I am here to tell you that blah-blah the end is fast approaching blah, blah-blah-blah stop being such a massive asshole, change your ways and mend your soul and blah-de-blah-de-blah-de-blah-de-blah. Basically you need to get your shit together because you, my friend, are on your way out. Am I making any sense?”

            He gaped for a moment or two. “I’m an asshole?”

            “Don’t take it personally,” said the pigeon. “Practically everybody is.”

All he could do was stare at the ground, the only sound the pigeon’s occasional shift from one foot to the other. A light mist had begun to descend over the park. Finally he found—implying I’ve ever had it in the first place—his courage. “Are you going to take me back through the past now and show me all the mistakes I’ve made?”

“What do I look like, your fucking spirit guide?” said the pigeon. “Figure ‘em out for yourself.” It shook its plumage, gave a lazy flap of its wings, and took off. In seconds it had vanished into the distance.

A sudden panic struck him, and he began to sweep his gaze across the fields and trees—they couldn’t have given me any kind of warning?—for the glimpse of a watching figure, the hint of an approaching noise, any sign of a person or a ghost or a talking cricket or whatever. He just needed some way to prepare himself, fortify himself against the insanity that was taking over his life. If he could just have a moment to collect his thoughts, gather his wits about him, nothing would be able to surprise him.

When he looked back to the path, just for a moment, he lost his mind.

There was a massive shadowy something undulating in the mist before him. It was like a gaping void in the air, darker than dark, shapeless and formless and roiling in on itself like the eye of a hurricane. He realized that every second it was growing larger, manifesting from nothing and creating itself and replacing the very molecules and sucking away the light and wrapping itself over the park bench and coiling inside him and through him and around him and part of him until there was nothing but the gloom, nothing but the indistinct and the murky and the lack of possibility, and he knew that this—this is it, this is the end, this is how I die

When it spoke, the world trembled.

WHEN THE SECOND SON RETURNED TO HIS FATHER’S HOUSE HE WAS DESTITUTE. HE HAD SQUANDERED HIS FORTUNE IN A DISTANT LAND. HE HAD BEGGED WITH PIGS IN THE FIELDS. HE HAD SLEPT IN THE STABLES FOR MONTHS ON END.  HE HAD THRICE GONE MAD WITH HUNGER. HE SOUGHT ONLY TO SURVIVE. TO FEED HIMSELF. AND SO IT WAS THAT HE TOLD HIS FATHER OF HIS SINS. HE WAS SELFISH. HE WAS DISHONEST. HE WAS SLOTHFUL. HE WAS WEAK. HE WAS BROKEN.

please this isn’t real none of it is real please

YET THE FATHER TOOK PITY ON HIS WAYWARD CHILD. HE BATHED HIM. HE CLOTHED HIM. HE OFFERED HIM HIS RING. HE BUTCHERED THE FATTEST CALF. HIS HOUSEHOLD CELEBRATED TO SEE THE BOY’S RETURN. AND ALL THE WHILE THE SECOND SON WAS BLIND. HE THOUGHT ONLY OF HIS GOOD FORTUNE. HE HAD LEARNED NOTHING.

            I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m

NOW THE FIRST SON RETURNED TO THE HOUSE. AND HE ASKED HIS FATHER WHETHER HIS BROTHER DESERVED SUCH TREATMENT. THE FATHER REPLIED THAT HIS SECOND SON DESERVED MERCY. NO MORE THAN THAT. NOT ENLIGHTENMENT. NOT TRIUMPH. NOT BIRTHRIGHT. NOT HONOR OR LOVE OR HOPE OR FREEDOM.

ONLY MERCY.

            The thing was gone, then, but the void left in its absence still ached. And he could feel the cold shame of sin—a thousand thousand tiny sins, all the little lies and fuckups and second guesses and do-overs—oozing tarlike out of every pore in his body. He wanted to throw up, but was terrified of what might come out of his mouth. He didn’t want to feel anymore, he wanted not to be, to fade away, to find some escape from the nightmarish morass he was living in—

Someone tapped him on the shoulder.

“Mind if I sit?”

He nodded wordlessly, mouth dry, and the figure took a spot evenly spaced away on the bench. He stared, desperate and unflinching, into his own face.

There was a dense fog now, hanging over the rest of the park. He couldn’t remember if the sun had been there to begin with.

“So…hi.”

“Hi.”

“This is a little awkward.”

“I don’t understand. You’re me?”

“Mostly. Surprise.”

“How is any of this possible? How can this even be real?”

“Well, strictly speaking it’s not. This is all in your head.”

“Could you be more specific?”

“Your body’s gone, it’s just waiting for the rest of your mind to catch up.”

“You mean…”

“I mean. Yeah.”

“No chance of revival, or just being in a coma, or…”

“None. I’m sorry.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

“With the logic of it, kinda. It’s all still a little hazy. No pun intended.”

“How did it happen?”

“It wouldn’t make you feel better to know. Trust me. Trust yourself, I guess.”

“So then what is this place?”

“It’s where you’re waiting. I don’t know why it looks like a park.”
            “Shouldn’t you know, though? Being me?”

“Don’t make this any more confusing than it already is, please.”

“And you’re here…”

“To help you, yes. Move on. Cliché, I know. Because it’s time.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s over. Because other people need this place. Because we’re ready.”

“What was it all for, then? What was the point?”

“You mean of life?”

“Yeah. Life in general, I guess.”

“How should we know? It happened and we’re here and that’s that.”

“Huh.”

“All we can do now is—“

“—try to make the best of it?”

“There you go.”

“I think I get it now.”

“All of it?”

“I don’t know. Are we going to have time to figure it out?”

“I don’t know.”

“I get the statue though.”

“Ha. Small mercies.”

“I’m scared. I’m so so scared. And I’m sorry.”

“I am too.”

“Does that matter, in the end?”

“…I’d like to think so.”

“When does it…?”

“We have until we stand up.”

He waited there, for a long while—how will I know when I’m ready? how does anyone know?—listening to the silence. 

How to Bleach a Friendship

You turned around quickly, professionally

And

Stabbed me with your silent laughter

And

As you walked away, you said, None Of Your Business

And

Oh-so-casually ground my murmur into graveyard dust

And

You carefully, calmly, cruelly, closed yourself off

And

Rattled my eardrums with the inevitable tick-tock of a swinging door

And

You didn’t know, but I could feel you roll your eyes through the wall

And

Shrug off the fragments you’d collected on your jacket

When you tore up my question.

The rest was dirty windows, shuddering tires, jostling strangers, rhythmic tapping

Crop circle text, invisible strings, chokeholds and staredowns and blood vessels

Refusing the alcohol, faking the cigarettes, refilling the water

Kicking the brick wall over and over and over, brass section blaring in my ears and screaming WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY FOR YOURSELF until the pain ran up my legs to the scrape on my knee, a dull ache from a tumble on freshly mown grass—

What’s the point, says the tightness in my chest?

Trust pouring out of me like sand from an hourglass, what’s one more stain?

I wonder if you truly heard me, understood me, after you’d given up?

 Were you able to translate all those profoundly long pauses?

(I was holding back the urge to scream into the receiver)

Just know that I’m languishing in the machine you built

And I’d rather you aired me out, folded me up

Next to your T-shirts, and your jeans, and your blue scarf, and your shrunken socks

Instead of leaving me spinning

With the rest of the loose change.

Success Story

Catalogue of evidence found in Room 123, Dulles Greene Apartments, Herndon VA 20710. Please note that all items have been bagged and stored, and may only be retrieved by investigators specifically assigned to the case of Thomas Trigger. Requisition forms A4, C10-C12, and F7 required for viewing.

-Buffalo chicken, bleu cheese, and habanero pepper sandwich from Joey’s Sandwich Shoppe four miles away. Half-finished and several days stale. Apparently a common order for the suspect.

-Boggle board game, set up on the floor of the suspect’s room next to a list of words. Highest scoring word was “squandered."

-Thirteen identical button-down shirts: pressed, ironed, and hung in the suspect’s closet.

-Samsung Galaxy phone, dark blue case, found on the floor behind the suspect’s dresser. Location, angle, and damage to the screen and casing indicate the phone was thrown. Analysts were able to retrieve some data from the device, including its last call to one Mary Williams. Ms. Williams lives about fourteen miles from Mr. Trigger’s place of residence.

-Copy of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, dog-eared and coffee-stained.

-Map of Washington D.C., marked in red with the route of Senator *******’s limousine.

-Series of handwritten and unfinished letters addressed to one Austin Trigger, brother of the suspect. Mr. Trigger currently resides in Colorado and is employed at a ski lodge. He appears to have little to no connection to his brother’s case.

-A single ammunition box matching the caliber of the murder weapon’s bullets. Found underneath the suspect’s bed. Empty

Titanic

Me and Time, we stared at each other

Skipping stones across the trembling lake of the gymnasium floor

Considering the risks, calculating the half-life of the student body

Through the rippling reflecting tiles

And muted babbling.

Time and me, we glared at each other

Spitting spite and acid and Mountain Dew onto the asphalt

Eye to mocking eye locking us in place, even as the lines surged forward

Through the densely muttering air

And mindless chatter.

Time and I, we ignored each other

Gluing our gaze to the dried-up-macaroni figures at the podium

While all around us eyes rolled, nostrils flared, lips smirked, hands raised

Through the clashing camera constellations

And monotonous droning.

I and—

No…

No, just I.

Helplessly frozen in the sinking iceberg labyrinth of flashbacks and shitty yearbook photos and dusty artifact moments that cocoon the caterpillars in my stomach with nostalgia and regret and untouched wine bottles and crushed soda cans and homemade sandwiches and rambling rambling rambling trains of thought at a station where Time has finally grown tired of waiting and jumped onto the tracks—

And the second of eternity is over, and I am stepping onto the ragged grass

Through the lazily drifting parchment speeches

And polite applause