The impulse to die and the impulse to start over are really the same thing. I'll do the one so long as I can't do the other. The reasons why I can't are many. And the reasons why I can't are not impressive. Maybe my house is too messy. Or maybe it's wet outside and I like rainy days. But the dialogue. This either/or proposition. It runs like a soundtrack. And seven years ago, with it playing at full volume, I sat in my car with my daddy's gun, which was now my gun, which I'd taken as my own when I found it in a shoebox in his closet after his own tragic ending, and I thought about my boredom and how I felt betrayed by it, and how the day before, for whatever reason, had been the best day, and how today it wasn't, and I put my lips around that hard steel choice. And my mouth watered a little the way it does before you're about to vomit, and after some amount of time that might have been minutes and might have been hours, I decided that, instead of dying, I would start over. Because I remembered that today was the day they served my favorite soup at the sandwich shop down the street. Corn chowder. And so I took the gun out of my mouth. And I put it under the seat. And I applied some lip balm to my dry cracked lips. And I went to that shop, and it was hot that day, and it was even hotter inside the shop, and I told the guy behind the counter, who I think was the owner, You know, your soup saved my life today. And he had sweat on his forehead and he smiled and he said, Thanks. Because he thought I was simply paying him a compliment. Because he thought I was just making some friendly conversation about corn chowder. Because he didn't think I'd just been in my car with a gun in my mouth.

The phone woke me from a sleep that was in no way natural. A sleep that had been brought on by a number of chemicals, some of which, if you want to be technical about it, do occur naturally, I suppose. But if you think, like I do, that you should define sleep as something that happens organically, like when you're tired, something that you fall into as a result of natural fatigue, a byproduct of natural activities—you know, like talking and engaging in the world and going for walks and stuff—well, then this sleep wasn't that.

I didn't look at the number. I just answered to stop the ringing.

"Hello?"

I heard Mike's voice on the other end and winced.

"Rita? Hey. Were you sleeping?"

"No...yes."

"Should I call back?"

"Yes...no...fuck."

These are good responses to sufficiently kill a conversation. There was silence, save for the timbre of my own slow-grinding thoughts. My head was a rock. The shades were all drawn and it was dark in the room and I was sweating even though it was cold. I felt around my nightstand for my glasses. "What time is it?" I asked.

"It's five."

"Jesus. In the morning?"

"No, it's five in the evening."

A better question might have been, What day is it? But I let that one lie.

"Look, I was just calling to see if you wanted to head into town," he said. "Get dinner."

"Dinner?"

"Yeah."

"Like, together?"

"Yeah."

"Now?"

He didn't respond. I searched my heavy head for an answer.

Finally, I said, "I don't think I can make that happen."

"Okay."

"I'm sorry. You caught me at a bad time. I'm just in the middle..." I didn't finish the sentence. It was one of those sentences you don't really intend to finish.

Mike said, "Sure. Sure. It's last minute, I know."

I put my hand to my forehead.

Then he said, "Maybe tomorrow?"

"Yes. Maybe tomorrow. Call me tomorrow."

"Goodbye, Rita."

"Goodbye."

I got up and went to the bathroom. I set my glasses on the basin and brought cold water to my face. Then I looked at myself in the mirror. The puffy eyes. The lines in the forehead that weren't there last year. My stomach had some kind of storm swirling in it, so I sat on the toilet and wished for it to be gone and I waited and I put my head in my hands.

You don't escape yourself. Or the people you've learned to find. You just keep waking up and they're there. And maybe the point is to dive head-first into them and see what you can. While you still can. While you've still got your wits about you. And there in the bathroom with the cruel lights on, having dinner with Mike seemed like a great thing. To let this thing happen. There would be dinners and conversations and sex. And over time, he'd tell me the story. Because I was stuck, after all, and he was there to hand it to me. I could use him for that. He could be my goddamned hero.

The decision to put the piece in my mouth seven years ago had been just as arbitrary as the decision to take it out. People want to blame others. An abusive parent. Or lover. A misunderstanding world. White-hot intolerance. Or the hollow demons of a tortured soul. People want to point fingers and do forensics on the whole thing and put order to it until it becomes a neat little story with a headline that's easy to swallow. Like all good fictions. Because the truth is way too messy: that some people are just biding their time until there are no more good bowls of soup.

Category: Fallout