Tuesday, November 21, 2017

The Only Thing I Know How To Do



I’ve only fallen in love at the bars. A total of 57 people, men, women, anyone, checked off. 
          In this town, I wear it like a gold medal. But I guess gold can have its lonely side, too.
          I don’t like being alone at night—it’s a little secret I haven’t told anyone, and maybe that’s why I bring them to their homes. 
          I float back to my apartment at around 6am. 8am in the winter. Can’t sleep, usually—paranoia of strangers, I guess. Always thinking I’ll get shot in the head, and that’s probably just because of a cyst growing in my brain, like what happened to dad.
          Or at least that’s the excuse I give for most things.
          I wasn’t always like this. I used to be a genius. I was the talent of the articles. I made devices—holograms and portals and stuff. I talked pompous. My family was rich. 
          But then I got friends, and I guess that set me up. 
          Living a couple hundred years longer than your peers isn’t exactly the greatest thing. Not quite the beautiful treachery of life’s shortness or the incomprehensibility of immortality. 
          I suppose it’s good that no one knows; they all smile at me and we can bond over the latest popular song and some 2am chicken wings.
          But not the coldness of the gold. Not how they all just turn to particles and disappear to some other dimension where I can only see their laughs but I only want to see their resentment. 
          They couldn’t just spare me that.
          The relapses only appear at night for some reason. I look away. I take home one person after the next. I tell them I can’t stay because of the cyst and the paranoia and how much work I have.
          It’s the only thing I know how to do.