[Tape Begins]
I:…ck. Nick. Nick. NickNickNickNickNick…..
Me: Oh my sweet [expletive][expletive] on a [expletive] flying package of crisp and crunchy [expletive] edibles, what do you want?!
I: I’m super crazy bored.
Me: [Sighs] Do so completely get away from my personage.
I: No way, you’re totally trying to bogart this righteous emotional spiral you’re in and I’m bored as hell.
Me: So then find something decently enjoyable for us to think about.
I: How? The few milliseconds you’re not busy feeling like a sentient wrist slash all you give me to work with are an abundance of pathetic-ness thinking about [name redacted] and your weird hetero man-crush on Brad Dourif.
Me: Like it’s weird that I find finding versatility sexy.
I: [Pause] Can I try and help, like with the…
Me: Oh, god, no. Like… categorically no.
I: How come?
Me: Ok, just… like including the basic fact that I emphatically don’t like you or, like, in addition to that?
I: Sure.
Me: Sure, like, meaning…
I: Just go, for [expletive] sake.
Me: I’m really feeling so very much not into this.
I: [Mutters] Or anything, you psycho.
Me: What?
I: Huh? Ah come on, when I bum you out I get a tiny endorphin rush from you binging on those apple pie Oreos.
Me: They discontinued those.
I: [expletive], seriously?
Me: [Pause] I don’t know what’s going on. Things just suck out loud, but… I don’t know, in a different way this time. Things were better and now they’re not. Like, not like things were all spectacular but I was alright with it. Like I felt broken but differently this time, like I was… kind of ok with it.
I: What’re you, Peter Travers? Quit saying ‘like.’
Me: Shut up, li… I’ve felt run down and alone and all that before, but this time it didn’t bother me so much. I felt like nothing’ll ever be different and I’ll die by myself and whatever, but I was able to, just, I don’t know… be ok with it. Like it was a relief, like I was finally able to just quit fighting it when I know it wouldn’t get me anywhere.
I: So what made it all gross again?
Me: I’m not [expletive] Yoda, how the hell should I know? I thought I was finally done! I lost to life again like I always do but I was finally KO’d, I didn’t have to subconsciously get back up again out of pure muscle memory just so I could get my mental back broken all over again. I was flat on the ground, but at least I got to be permanently somewhere. Like one of those movies where dead people keep getting brought back to life against their will when all they want to do is just sleep. I’m sick of these momentary windows of positivity and self-encouragement that come out of nowhere that I can’t control and just end up disappointing myself because it never ends the way I hope it will. It’s like the [expletive] type of momentum in the universe and I can’t get out of it.
I: You don’t have any muscles.
Me: Ok, well, obviously I do, because I’m able to bathe upright and use straws and whatnot.
I: Well yeah you have like motor functions and stuff, but you’re still rocking the whole amorphous bacterium physique thing.
Me: [Muttered expletive]… I mean [pause] just come on. Quitting’s supposed to be the easy way out so why can’t I just do it? Seriously, all I ever hear is how easy it is to just lay down and quit but getting back up takes real whatever blah blah blah. But I keep setting myself up to get disappointed all over again. God… what for? If life’s just all bent on shoving my head back under water every time I actually feel encouraged enough to come up for air than why can’t it just do the decent thing and let me drown? Why does all of existence get its sherries off on pushing me to the edge, letting me step back and then doing it over and over again?
I: I don’t know, why?
Me: That was rhetorical.
I: I know, so was that.
Me: So was what?
I: My question.
Me: What question?
I: ‘I don’t know, why?’
Me: Because you just asked me a ques… forget it.
I: Ok… well, what do you figure’ll get you back to at least that tolerable bit?
Me: [Pause] I don’t know, if I didn’t have to lose my mind trying and gloriously failing to go after something I really want just one time, maybe?
I: You really think that would fix anything?
Me: I don’t know, I want to think so. At least a little, anyway.
I: Oh. [Pause] I didn’t think you’d say yes.
Me: Ok… why?
I: It’s just for a thing, don’t worry about it.
Me: You know that’s the exact opposite thing you tell somebody when you don’t in fact want them to do that, yeah?
I: What if it did come easy, though?
Me: What do you… I don’t know.
I: If something you burned for like mad just fell right on you with no effort do you really think that’d be enough? I mean, you’re you, it wouldn’t be I don’t think. You’d get it but then you’d be all like ‘ah come on, just one more and I’ll be all groovy forever.’
Me: I never say ‘groovy.’
I: That’s… really, that was the takeaway?
Me: I… enough, just enough, why is that so much to ask for? Yeah, ok, I want significance and to be important and be needed and all that, but I don’t want any more than that. So many other people want absolutely everything and it’s nauseating but they still get it, so why is just wanting what I need to be not [expletive] miserable all the time something I always feel like I’m being punished for?
I: Because there is no ‘enough’ for you, you finely coiffed horse’s ass. Even when things are halfway decent you’re always edgy because you’re always looking around waiting for a rug to get pulled out from under you. Honestly, you’re too insecure to have enough. The second you get anything you pine after you get all paranoid and guilty because you’re all like ‘I don’t deserve it or I feel pitied or I’m waiting for it to just up and abandon me or hurt me or whatever.’
Me: [Pause] I don’t have any hair, how can I be coiffed?
I: Wha… you’re not coiffed, the horse’s butt is.
Me: Why would you coif a horse’s ass?
I: Ju…I’m not…rea…can yo…just…what?
Me: All I want is for some fundamental change in life to beat upside the head like it apparently does for literally every other lifeform in this [expletive] universe.
I: Well, maybe you’ll get a third act turnaround like…oh… what’s his ass, Antigonus?
Me: [Extended pause] Antigonus was eaten by a bear.
I: Ooooooh, right. Yeah, that’s not terribly likely.
Me: What, which part?
I: I don’t know, either? Both? All of it?
[Slapping sound, presumably on the forehead based on resonating echo]
[End of tape]
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Photo credit: iStock
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This Post is republished on Medium.
