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wellmeaningshutin · 8 years

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Short Story #57: Theatre.

Written: 3/5/2017

Look, before I start telling you about what happened, I’m going to be very honest. I do not understand theater at all. I just don’t get the appeal of it, but it always seems like there’s something I’m missing out on, because everybody keeps making a fuss about it, so I’ve tried very hard to understand the appeal. Maybe its just hard for me to suspend my disbelief, so every time I see a play, reenactment, or whatever, I just see a bunch of actors in costumes saying words that they’ve memorized, and the whole thing is just so alien to me. Maybe I don’t understand why people would spend so much time trying to memorize movements, words, etc, like you have so much time in your life to do what you want to do, but these people spend most of their time trying to perfect like an hours worth of events, repeating them over and over. Its like they’re stuck in some strange time loop, where they’re cursed to keep repeating the same events in their lives, screaming inside at the horror of their cyclic existence. What kind of person would you have to be to do that, what had to go wrong in your life? I could be wrong about that being the reason, because, now that I think of it, I don’t care very much for improv either, so maybe I just hate people, but if I hated people then why would I care about their interest in theater?

Maybe I don’t understand people, especially since I can’t even form a clear reason for not liking theater. Maybe I just haven’t seen a play that has been good enough to spark my attention, especially since Shakespeare reminds me of being bored in high school, and most of the shows that I’ve been to have been reproductions of his work. Also, how come there always has to be a scheming, drunk character in his shows? What’s up with that? And how come people just walk around, saying their thoughts out loud, explaining stuff to the audience that they should be thinking to themselves. Yeesh, I can go on about this for a while, so let me just talk about what I meant to talk about. Sorry for wasting your time, officer.

So, because of this desire to understand this questionable form of performance, I started seeking out more and more forms that diverge from the normal expectations. Wow, that sounded pretentious. What I was trying to say, is I wanted more obscure and experimental stuff, I wanted to see what it was like with the more underground theater. Its the same way I got into books, because what I learned in college is even though people will talk their heads off of the importance of them, the classics can be boring as hell. Have you ever read the Inferno? Its just a guy walking around in the dullest version of hell, talking about all sorts of figures at the time. Like, its basically just fan fiction. However, I did find this not very well known book about a dog who knows the true meaning of life, but like it can’t tell anyone, not even other dogs, since evolution has only left it with the resources to communicate vague emotions. That book made me realize that I love reading, but I just hate the classics, the shit that everyone is supposed to agree is good. However I’m rambling again, and I need to get back to the point.

I think it may be a side effect of these anti depressants that I’m on, mainly since after my father killed himself life has seemed, right, thank you. Actually if you could keep doing that it would be great, reminding me whenever I’m getting off track, and going on and on about stuff that won’t make it on to the report. Because I know your time is very valuable, and this should be as quick as poss- oh, right, thank you again.

So, I end up going to that show, it took place in some large house, and it was one of those shows where the actors go about their business and you follow them from room to room, watching the drama as it unfolds. It was supposed to be the opening night, and some girl, with plenty of facial piercings, had told me that it was going to be really great, like a modern masterpiece, and I figured why not? Thinking about it, I’m not sure if she had reliable opinions on theater, and I could’ve just been attracted to-oh, okay, sorry.

The show was about some family drama stuff, like the typical things that people feel are so raw to talk about, so off limits, but really its the same things that everyone mentions when they want to feel like they’re covering taboo issues. So basically, some couple is fighting because the girl had an abortion, there’s a character that’s addicted to heroin, one of their dad’s turns out to be gay and its a big shock, that kind of stuff. I didn’t know it at the time, but that was actually supposed to be the point of it all, it was supposed to be like one of those typical dramas, but then again I’ve only seen one or two of those dramas, so who am I to say what they’re all like? A lot of them can be pretty good, probably, and how would I never know it if I haven’t seen it?

Don’t worry, I’m starting to catch myself. I can tell when I’m drifting away. Actually, could you write “THE PLAY” on a piece of paper and put it in front of me? If I could stare at that, it may be enough to keep me on track, enough to keep me focused on the issue at hand.

Thank you, this is perfect.

So, the play keeps going on and it gets pretty boring, like I can tell the other spectators know where this is all going, and the acting is melodramatic, so its hard to even connect with any of the characters. I know I have trouble doing that in general, but I was whispering with another spectator and that’s what they told me, and they seemed like they were able to appreciate the art. At one point, the heroin addict is giving this long monologue, and then the gay dad has to reply and its really confusing, like it didn’t make any sense as a response to the speech that was just given. Then, everyone realizes that, hey, the guy just skipped a couple lines, and it looks really, really bad. Unprofessional would be the best word to describe it. And you can see that the actors are pissed off at the actor playing the dad, and they’re trying to stay in character but oh man does it seem tough for them. Gay dad is trying to improvise an explanation, but its really just pretty pathetic, his embarrassment really didn’t help him, and that’s when the heroin guy broke character and tried to attack him.

The addict chased the dad around the house, threatening to kill him for ruining the show, but for some reason I’m completely out of it, and still kind of confused about what’s going on. That’s how I realized it might be part of the show, and I was whispering with some guy, he had a mustache I think, and we were trying to figure out if we should leave, intervene, keep watching, or what. It was really pretty confusing, especially when the other actors looked scared, but then they tried to keep going with the show to calm everyone down, and so the daughter is giving a monologue to her husband, who is addicted to online pornography, about something, I couldn’t even hear it, all I could hear was one of the actors screaming, “I’ll kill you you son of a bitch! This was supposed to be my big break you rat bastard!”

As somebody who doesn’t understand theater, I can tell you that the show was really not helping with that. What was the point of all of this, these actors pretending that their show was falling apart, like if I wanted to see a bad show, wouldn’t I go see a bad show? There was a rock opera about Anne Frank opening on the same night, and I was figuring that I might as well have gone to that. Yet, maybe its just me. My ex wife could have been right, maybe its just hard for me to see meaning in anything, but then again that was only because she was trying to get me to join that new age cult of hers. She wants to follow some guru to some walled off compound where she can survive off of roots, do intensive farm work, all to harness positive energy, but I’m the bad guy, right? I’m the one who is broken because I don’t want to join some wacko cult. And then she has the gall to bring my dead father into it, and tries to get custody of-

Oh yeah, sorry about that. It was my fault. No, no, the paper really is working, but I looked up at the clock to check the time, and then I forgot about the play, but I’ll get back to that now. Again, I’m sorry about that.

So, the actors are still trying to continue the story, and the one guy is chasing the other around, and then finally the frantic pair starting yelling in weird ways, so most of us decided to go check out what was happening, because we couldn’t even hear the other people. Seeing that actor get stabbed to death, and all that blood that spilled out everywhere, that was when everybody started to wonder if it was a part of the play or not. I think some guy fainted, he was build like a pickup truck, but he must have been afraid of blood or something, because down he went. It was like somebody chopped a tree down. Even the other actors came in and freaked out, and the murderer is standing there, knife in hand, covered in blood, trying to tell everyone that its okay, and not to worry.

Somebody, I think, called the police around this point in the show, I think that’s the reason the call went out in the first place. I’m only guessing it was here, because some crying woman had went out the front door, and it would make sense if she was the one who dialed 911. She missed the best part, though, because the only time I had a laugh when I’ve been to a show, was when that wild eyed, blood soaked, knife wielding man, with the body at his feet, started to try to get back in character and tried to continue their show. The other actors weren’t having it, and they just had their hands over their mouths, too shocked to even respond to the situation. And the guy starts yelling at them to say their lines, but the don’t even move, so he starts trying to do their parts for them, even the parts of the guy he murdered, and it was great.

A lot of people judged me for laughing, they thought it was real and were just starting to react. Hell, one guy questioned if he should try to restrain the one man show, but somebody else pointed out that he was armed, and who knew if there were any diseases in the blood he was covered in, so most people went into the living room to figure things out, even the other actors did. I know that the actors mentioned something about calling the cops, but that was also part of the show, but I’ll get into that later. Meanwhile, me and this older woman, like in her 60’s, an aged hippy type, are the only ones watching the guy’s performance, and we’re just cracking up at it. He starts to forget the other people’s lines, and the woman explained to me that it was probably because it wouldn’t make sense for the actor to remember every line, since they mainly just knew their own, and the ones that they were supposed to respond or react to.

So, while he’s messing up these lines, he starts to pretend to get mad at himself, and he does this comical routine where he starts slapping himself on the forehead, insulting himself with these asinine names, and you can see the actor who is playing dead trying not to laugh. Like, his body is shaking and everything because the other guy is just being so ridiculous, but the whole time all of the other spectators are taking the whole thing very, very seriously. In order to not get the dead body to explode into laughter, which I’m not sure if this was a part of the show or not, the madman starts shifting gears and recites some scenes from some Shakespeare play, putting on a deep voice, using all of these exaggerated movements, and it just killed me.

And then the police came in, but I think it was the fake police at this point. They started talking about how they received a call about a murder, that whole routine, and all of the audience members are freaking out, saying stuff like “Yeah he’s in there, go get him” “Please do something about it” and all of that panicked behavior. I probably don’t have to explain it to you, huh? You look like you’ve seen your fair share of trouble, you look pretty tough and seasoned. I know you probably get this all of the time, but I really have to ask, have you ever shot anybody? No? Really? Huh. It seems like cops have to kill people every day, every day it sounds like there’s some big violent crime out there that you guys have to deal with, or there’s some incident where you guys shoot somebody that was minding their own business, but-

What? What do you mean that you mostly just talk to people? Taking statements, filling out paperwork? No, that can’t be right, what about the high speed chases, the junkies who threaten your lives every day and- no shit? Are you messing with me? So, really, you really spend more time giving people tickets and directions than you’ve ever spent in a dangerous situation. Well what was the most dangerous- oh okay, I’ll get back to the story then..

So, the fake cops come into the kitchen to see the whole commotion, and the blood soaked guy is down on one knee, saying “Out, out brief candle. My whole country for a candle, doth it be so-” or something along those lines, I can’t remember it word for word. They take a look at the scene, like a long, real hard look, and they turn to the crowd behind them and demand to know who made the call. The guy is still doing the bit during all of this. A woman in the back raised her hand, which confused everyone, but I think that was because she was the one who actually dialed 911. And one of the actors raises their hand, and one of the fake cops starts lecturing them about how much of a nuisance it is to make fake calls to 911, and how you could go to prison for it, and the actor is looking really worried.

Then, one of the cops pulls out their fake gun, and puts it right against the temple of the actor who was supposed to call. He says, “Does this seem like a joke to you? This is how it feels when you make prank calls, not to funny is it? What if I killed you, would you think that was funny? Huh?” The audience started to freak out at that point, and everyone started yelling, cell phones were pulled out to record it, and I was lost once again. I couldn’t hear what the murderer was saying, due to all of the commotion, and this whole new layer seemed to have lost me. And then things got more confusing when more fake police showed up, but this time it turned out to just be you guys. That’s kind of the gist of everything that lead up to your arrival.

Is that all?

Oh yeah, the reason why I’m in the hospital in the first place. Well, if you knew the general theme of everything leading up to you guys getting called, why did you let me ramble on about the play? I can start to believe that your jobs really aren’t that interesting, if you let me talk about all of that thespian nonsense juts so you can put more time between now and when you have to write up all of that paperwork. I had a cousin who used to work for the IRS, and his job doesn’t seem too far off from what you guys do, like the main difference is you guys get to go outside and carry guns. I never understood why they never gave IRS agents guns, though, because they always get all sorts of threats, and you think they would need some way to protect themselves when they were out in the world, but then again the suicide rate would probably sky rocket due to the tedium of the job. That’s why I think my father did it, like he was so sick of his job, but they made it so that he would have to work five more years if he wanted a decent retirement fund, and he just couldn’t last that long. How’d he do it? Oh, well he was a simple man, and he just leaped right in front of a train, it was the most exciting way he could think of dying, he wrote that in the note, but it was too good of a jump and both of his legs were torn clean off, so he sat there at the side of the, the..

No, no I don’t need a tissue, I’m fine. Lets just talk about something else. Like, I get that we’re nearing the end of what you need for the report, and you really don’t want to write it, but I think its time for me to finish. My antidepressants are wearing off, and so is the pain medication, and I’d really just like to rest as soon as I can. No, the doctors aren’t aware that I’m taking-but no more stuff to get me all sidetracked. What happened to the officer who kept trying to get me all focused on the story, now why are you suddenly causing me to be distracted?

Okay, so when you guys came in and were confused by the scene playing out, with the fake cops and all, it really just got too confusing for me, so I decided to step outside and smoke a cigarette, just to wait it out until there was a point in the show that would make more sense, but after I was finished smoking I probably would’ve just left. However, and this is the reason I’m lying here, some crack head comes up to me and starts demanding that I give him some money, or he’s going to have to do something that he really doesn’t want to do. I start fishing around in my pockets to comply, but he says I’m taking too long and just starts jabbing at me with something that was really sharp, I think it was like a screwdriver or something, and it was hard for me to react to it because my hands were in my back pockets.

So, the fucker doesn’t even try to get my money, because somebody starts to come out of the house, and he just scurries off into the night, leaving me to bleed out for no reason. He was about five foot four, had a round, swollen nose, Caucasian, shaved head, scar on the right side of his lip, that’s all I can remember. Now, what you should put in that report is that the convoluted play created a dangerous environment for me, because not only was it in a bad neighborhood, but because of the whole way it was set up, the people who came out and saw me just thought it was still a part of the whole show. So I’m lying there, full of holes, bleeding out all over the plays, begging for them to call an ambulance, begging for them to get the police that are inside, to get the man who stabbed me, and the whole time they just watch and talk about how crazy the show is, and how many levels there are, while I’m grabbing at their feet, crying because they won’t listen to me, and I really thought I was going to die. It really seemed like the end.

#Free Write #Short Story #Writers on Tumblr #Theatre #Acting

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anthropophagusthebeast · 4 years

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nothing is worth talking about but what else is there to do. yesterday was totally miserable, i failed at everything, and then as usual, as throughout my entire life, my own feelings about my own experience are a burden to others and that makes me a bad person. i wish i had just stayed in bed all day, then i wouldn’t have had to get into anything that just winds up directly engaging me with the fact that i’m beyond help and it’s a problem for everybody else, who would all be having a great time if it wasn’t for me. my whole stupid life. i just don’t want to do anything because i know how it turns out but i just feel so obligated. people get just as mad at you for “not trying” as they do when you try and it’s a big mistake. there’s no way out. nobody gets how all the “little things” amass into one big monolithic thing that only has one message and one character: your life is hard because it’s a waste of time. when you’re a shitty person, one of the problems is that people treat you like some new form of liar, like you’re just making it up that you can’t do anything right, it’s all a routine for the benefit of your captive audience, to disguise the fact that secretly you’re great and capable of anything. as if anybody has ever had a reason to fail on purpose, as if anybody has ever just refused to indulge in their own greatness for some perverse and unknowable reason. it’s so frustrating that while i’m trying so hard and failing so theatrically, there’s this perception that it’s all my choice, i could just Be Better if i didn’t insist on being so stupid and incompetent and uncomfortable. god it’s so fucking funny too that right in the middle of this day that was just one compound failure after another--failure to do something, and failure to simultaneously act like everything is perfect--my parents would bring up humiliating early childhood shit, and some of it not even early ENOUGH childhood shit to justify how stupid it was. i hate thinking about that stuff. while they were at it i should have busted out the story about how i submitted something for this special writing test and the proctor made an example of me in front of the whole entire room filled with my classmates, to show how even someone who you think is “smart” can be a really awful, boring writer with nothing to say. everyone thinks it’s funny that i’m depressed and everyone thinks that the things i hate myself for, i’m doing on purpose and could just stop at any time. i mean if i were capable of being at all different or better, i wouldn’t have to feel like this. i care about my family but so often i just feel like i’m sick of talking to them. i want to just leave them to their own devices so i don’t have to sit there conspicuously looking out the window with nothing to say while they gush over the news of the day or some celebrity event or just like, what it’s like to be a published writer and an overachiever of great talent. like what the fuck am i ever doing in that room, besides anxiously struggling to keep my behavior in check so nobody gets mad at me for having the wrong look on my face, which i invariably fail at. like if only i could just be nominally involved and send a warm greeting card whenever they’re getting together to share their amazing successes and everything. count me out. i get up in the morning and i feel pretty sick, which i announce, and i kind of wish it had factored in to how the rest of the day went, like maybe i could have at least gotten some forgiveness on my energy level or whatever, but it didn’t matter. nothing matters. for some reason i cannot communicate to my husband that i’m trying to plan our trip to the liquor store. i’m trying to say that i can either do groceries now and he can go later if he wants, or if he doesn’t want to do that, then i’ll just do my whole trip later, and for some reason he tells me that he can go AND that he doesn’t have a good reason to go, at the same time, and for several minutes there was just nothing i could do to get my point across so i could get a real answer. then i make this remark about someone having red hair, and honestly most of the reason i said it is that i can never get on the same page as him about what constitutes red hair, so i adjusted my identification to what i think he always says, and he disagreed with me AND explained why i was wrong. it just got me thinking about all the basic material things in life that we cannot agree on, like “what tastes salty to me tastes sweet to him” sounds like a ridiculous hyperbole but it’s a literal example that happens all the time and it just makes me feel so stupid or like i’m going insane, that we can’t even agree on black/white up/down type of designations. i sat there thinking about every example of this and thinking about how i have to stop caring about this, i have to stop caring about this, i have to stop caring about this. i have to stop caring. i’m always telling myself this because it’s the only thing that makes any sense. just stop caring. my caring about anything never makes the slightest difference in the world except that i get upset, and then other people are upset at me for being upset, like it’s something i’m doing to them. and of course while i’m gazing at my bookshelf thinking about my list of things to never bring up again--don’t say who has red hair, don’t say what things taste like, avoid every single topic where your husband is reliably going to say an inside out version of what you experience, just don’t talk about any of this stuff again, it doesn’t matter anyway--he of course is suddenly at my side with deep concern in his voice about whether i’m annoyed because we disagreed about the redhead. i was actually honest and remarked that we’ve never agreed about whether someone is a redhead in our entire relationship, and then we went on to disagree about some more redheads, and i GUESS it was good that i was honest because supposedly that’s always good, but was it really? did it matter THAT MUCH that i didn’t just absently refuse to say if something was on my mind? i mean what difference did it make? i have these fantasies all the time about just never speaking again because i’m always wrong and i always have to back off, but then it’s also “wrong” to not speak, or speak less, that is ALSO something bad and abusive that you are doing to other people in the process of just trying to avoid unnecessary and irresolvable conflicts that don’t go anywhere. then we have to play this game i made him get me for my stupid birthday, or more specifically i caused him to get an extra controller by suggesting that we could actually play together, which i should have known would be a bad idea; things had been ok the previous day but then all of the sudden he started playing to shut me out completely, he cleared every single screen by himself before i even got my crosshairs on anything, i was totally incapable of landing a single point and when i decided to just stop trying as an experiment, it didn’t change anything that was going on on the screen, he just completely took over like i wasn’t even there. it seemed like i had two choices: either quit and just let him have the thing all to himself which is what was effectively happening anyway, OR try to remind him that this is a cooperative-not-competitive game and i don’t really want to play if he wants to score every single point while i just sit there, which would have resulted in him sitting around politely twiddling his thumbs while i struggle to catch up, which sounded even worse to me. so i bailed and somehow that had to be controversial too. i mean i forced him to get this extra controller somehow, and now we have this thing in the house that he went out of his way to get, that we can’t use because i’m not good enough for that activity, or not even a good enough person. yet another fuckup of mine that cost effort and money to accomplish. more things to feel guilty about. like yet again i’m not allowed to just NOT do something where i’m only going to humiliate myself or waste someone else’s time. like what is this societal obligation to just grin and bash your head into the wall over and over again so nobody has to be mad at you for not participating. then we talked to my family and i guess i made an asshole out of myself by trying to escape attention, and i FELT like an asshole while i sat there with nothing to say while my husband led this whole conversation with them--except for the times that we had to talk about my bad, sad, failed children’s art. like i tell this story about an object that i thought was mercifully long gone, but my stepmother brings it up, a “book” i made at a library event when i was a little kid, which i remember so well because the librarians were desperately trying to get me to string more than two ideas together and i just couldn’t, i just couldn’t think of a story at all, not even a ripoff one like some of the stuff i would write later when i was trying to live up to the accusation of being “gifted”, even with them getting visibly frustrated with me and breathing down my neck trying to explain to my little retard self about what “beginning” “middle” and “end” mean. maybe they thought my parents would be mad because probably they paid for me to do this little workshop and if my thing came out bad then they’d be pissed, like when the school photographer jumped up my ass about how i wasn’t smiling enough and i was supposedly acting like I was “angry at the world” when all i was trying to do was not take a picture with my big stupid hideous toothy grin that i felt terrible about, but he was probably just trying to protect himself from angry parents. anyway and for some reason my father’s response to this is to bring up this unbearably pathetic story i did when i was a little too old to be making shit like that, this miserably serious x-men fan fiction that included a talking crayon. this seems to come up whenever i try to bow out of the idea that i’m “talented”, whenever i try to say that i’m not creative, which is really true, somebody wants to mention like the saddest most pathetic thing i’ve ever done in my life. i’m 39 years old and i’m still hearing about it. it makes me feel like garbage every time, at least for the reason that something terrible i did when i was 12 or something is still the most memorable work i ever produced, and everyone laughs and i’m supposed to like, enjoy this somehow, or take up the mantle of amusing everyone with what a piece of shit i am, and do it with a smile and a good attitude. like everyone knows i’m a piece of shit but i’m not allowed to FEEL like a piece of shit about it, what kind of life is that? so finally i removed myself from all of this and just hovered in the kitchen trying to do the one thing that i almost do right every week, which is make this one dinner when otherwise i totally fail year after year to contribute to the meals in this house, and i completely fucked it up. my husband could barely choke it down, it was terrible to see. i really don’t want to do it again, ever. and of course i made some remark about how he doesn’t have to eat it, and that was a bad thing to do too, that also made me a piece of shit, an even bigger one. ruining dinner. ruining the game. ruining my family’s good time. ruining groceries. ruining everything. all i want to do is kill myself but everyone would be mad at me for that, too. some of my most moving fantasies are about people telling me it’s ok if i kill myself. it’s just ok. i don’t have to feel bad about it and everyone understands that i have come to the mature and reasoned conclusion that my life is a huge waste of time; if i don’t like it, and neither does anybody else, then it’s obvious that i should end it, everyone will understand and forgive me and be glad that it’s over. but of course that would never happen. i just can’t win, i’m not competent to just get through a day uneventfully, and whenever i show who i really am or how i really feel everyone hates me for it. i hate myself. who wouldn’t hate themselves for, day after day, failing to do anything good, and then everyone treats you like it’s funny and you should be laughing. there’s just toil and misery and it’s fruitless. the paradoxical insistence that you make a clown out of yourself AND act like you like it AND act like actually you are also capable of great things just like everybody else, OR ELSE you have a bad attitude and everyone has the right to hate you for it. i just want to die, all the time. nothing works and nothing helps. i fantasize about having a brain aneurysm and dying in my sleep, or getting hit by a car, or catching a stray bullet, or anything where i just spontaneously expire and i don’t have to do anything ever again. like right now my husband is fucking grinding coffee in our bedroom which is totally and completely abnormal, just to avoid me. what the fuck am i supposed to do. literally what the fuck am i supposed to do. communicate better than i can communicate. play better than i can play. be more creative and successful than i can be. cook better than i can cook. don’t be sad. don’t be confused. don’t be angry with myself about the same things nobody else likes about me either. don’t kill myself because then everyone else will be pissed off even more. like what could i possibly do to ameliorate things. just don’t be yourself, at all costs, do not ever be yourself. don’t escape. don’t forfeit. don’t quit. don’t have feelings. don’t have a hard time, ever. don’t stop trying to do things you’re bad at. don’t stop humiliating yourself. don’t stop acting like you like it. i wish my mother had had an abortion and i’m sure so did she. just kill me, please. or do i not deserve the fast death, either. i don’t want to do anything. just thinking about how i spent about $100 on trash bags because i was too stupid to figure out what to do. just thinking about walking out in the rain to “help” take the trash out, realizing that there was a problem, and having my husband yank the bad wrong bag i stupidly bought out of my hand and leave me standing there doing nothing while in front of me he dragged all the trash across the sidewalk by himself, shouting and cursing. and this is it, now he’s working in the bedroom. never happened before. it’s me, i’m garbage. i’m shit. maybe i’ll die. i ruined everything. because i ruined yesterday, i also ruined today. maybe it will turn out that yesterday i also ruined tomorrow. and on and on and on it will go. nobody knows what it’s like to just be trash. i’m afraid to stop typing because there’s nothing else to do. i can’t imagine going to yoga tonight. the only thing i feel in my body is this cortisol response. a cold rock in my stomach. imagining people laughing at me writing things like this and talking about what a pill i am after i’m dead. yesterday i was so upset that i started imagining animals, being deep in a forest somewhere and just taking comfort in the company of animals. it was alright until somehow the question came up of do i want to feel better, why don’t i just choose to, and i couldn’t respond to that. i just feel so bad. intellectually i’d like to feel better because then i wouldn’t have this exhausting problem. but it’s hard to imagine from where i’m standing, when i feel like i have this bottomless supply of grief that i can’t just pretend isn’t there. maybe i would like for people to feel more sorry for me, is that it? when i try to admit this stuff i start comparing myself to my most intensely selfish friend and it disgusts me but maybe that’s why we’re friends, because secretly i want everyone to pity me just as much as he openly demands pity. i guess it makes him better than me that he’s more honest about it. but like i don’t need people to somehow uplift the idea of me or anything. i just want to be dismissed. i want people to say “ah yes, claire can’t do this, she can’t do anything, we’ll just leave her out of it,” and then i want them to really do that and not roll their eyes at me or laugh at me or yell at me or treat me like i’m secretly depriving them all of something they deserve. just leave me alone. just believe me when i describe how i’m incompetent, or even demonstrate it! that’s probably the worst thing, just not being believed. when you’re trying desperately to explain your sense of reality and everyone just turns it inside out because it’s not convenient for them. because nobody in the world feels the way you do. i hate the way people treat the suicidal. i hated that documentary where the kid kills himself and his stupid friend dissects his suicide note to explain that it was all bullshit because all teenagers feel that way. well obviously all teenagers do not really feel that way because all teenagers do not kill themselves; they have good days and some bad days, they don’t REALLY hate themselves, they strive to be liked and have friends because they realize it’s possible, they get over it, whatever “it” is. just because someone isn’t eloquent enough to explain to you convincingly that their life is agony doesn’t mean that their agony isn’t authentic, that it’s just shallow childhood bullshit. nobody truly believes that you’re in pain until it’s too late, and then even after that, they develop all these theories about how your pain was inappropriate and flimsy enough to have been dispelled with a cup of coffee and a hug, so basically it’s your own fault for not “reaching out”. and now we’ve reached the desired conclusion, that it’s ok for you to be angry at people who experience lethal psychological pain because they were just being shallow lazy selfish jerks to rudely spoiled your day by choosing to make sure they never lived through another meaningless day again.

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