"You're Probably Just Tired," short story excerpt

Like I said, it's good.

At least I don’t have to think that much to know that their father couldn’t have done any better, even if that’s too low a bar to try and salvage. Call in the archeologists, where’s the excavator, you want a core sample while we’re down here?

Small mercies are like rain your body can’t verify is falling when you hold your palm out after you see some drops in the headlights of a car that’s come to a stop near where you’re standing. There they are. But if the car hadn’t stopped to let you cross, you wouldn’t have known. And it was because of the light that the driver braked and not you anyway.

Tired for wasted years, more tired looking for what’s hard to believe exists and investing in it all the same. Saving up for the babysitter to go out on another date that’s bound to be bad. I half expect this girl who is nice and very put together and brings her AP homework and who has raised her rate a second time in the last year to say, “That’s capitalism, I learned all about it in econ, and in America capitalism is king because no man is,” but in a sweet voice like she’d expect me to do the same with her and she knows I wouldn’t want her to make less than her friends.

I used to like the snacks. Seemed too good to be true that they were free. Like can I really make a frozen pizza and eat these cookies and oh my God you have the double-stuffed chocolate ones! It wasn’t hard not feeling tired then. Felt grown up and like I made a difference while getting to eat all the things we didn’t have at home.

But I feel the energy draining from my body just thinking about sitting in a restaurant across from a man with a soft chin I could live with if he had anything of substance to say and it wasn’t a token hour-long game of twenty questions with someone I know won’t remember my name a week later.

“Who was that woman you had the shitty date with who you said you knew right away you wouldn’t be getting any from if you no matter how many times you went out?”

“Couldn’t have told you by the time I got home. At least it wasn’t a long drive.”

“She had that name like that singer…uh…what’s her name…”

“Oh, right. Belinda. Lame.”

And the people who already have all the people they’ll ever require who say, “You need to put yourself out there or you’re just locking yourself away,” and have no more of a clue that it’s actually closer to both at the same time than you have a chance of getting them to understand that if you even had the energy to keep trying.

But if I wasn’t so tired maybe I’d have some energy worth matching. People aren’t confident unless they’re getting something back. Talk a big game on the other side of whatever they’re on the other side of until they can’t get away with it just being talk anymore and there you are four feet apart and needing to make someone want to do that again, and then again, and again, as long as you both shall live, if that’s what you were doing.

Feels like I’m losing my mind without the ignorance is bliss part. When does that kick in? It isn’t like the second time you smoke pot after the first did nothing for you, that’s for sure. Still waiting here.

Never used to envy old people, but I bet it’s comforting if you aren’t dependent on anyone and live on your own terms. Clean yourself. Get the names of your kids right every time. Drive to meet a friend for “a nice little lunch.” At least you’re nearly done. Take your chances after that.

That’s what slaves did, right? Sang spirituals looking forward to the next world. Were they that confident? What did they know and how did they know it? 

Is it faith that makes you know? What’s that like? Faith. Is faith hope? Or is having hope an act of faith? Can there be one without the other? Which is stronger? Or is it which is crazier?

Or can you just be that miserable that you’ll try to believe anything that makes you feel the smallest amount less?

Delusions. Lies. The more general the better, so you don’t feel left out. Behind. Irrelevant. Gross. Worthless. Unloveable. Unimportant. Unheard. Unseen. Nonexistent. Undeserving. Worse. It’s easier to project than to be found, so you go with the better odds. The bird you can force into your hand instead of needing it to land there. You squeeze it, feel its beak dig into your skin as the blood runs towards your wrist and you take the blood and paint whatever the fuck you want to paint on the whiteboard and say, “This is true! So says me! I drew that and you can’t deny it’s there!”