Yes, it’s that grim. I’ve got a cart full of stuff to make a pizza for me and my mother. That’s when I see her. You know who I’m talking about.

I’m like one of those guys with no legs and one arm, but nimble as a chimpanzee. I can make a halfway decent show of it, but I’m living with swords run straight through me. Yes, swords. Amazing, isn’t it? I’ve learned to compensate. Compromise is the name of the game. The day of Judgment will never come. Never.

She looked so content, that’s what hurts the most, I think. It’s been so long, after all. Three years. She was with someone else, naturally, as if I didn’t even exist, as if I never existed. Well, really, do I? Did I? If she can’t see me, where am I?

She’s moved on…she moved on a week later, so you can only imagine how far away she is by now. I could be king, staring off into the desert for a thousand years, unblinking, ossified, outliving all the lizards, and still I wouldn’t see her. I’ll never be able to see my own heart either*, though nothing’s closer, though you’d think its keeping me alive.

I’d like to end this; really I would. But it will never end. I can turn the page, change the channel, go to sleep ten thousand times, but it’s still there. It’s always still there. It’s me who’s not.


*Barring a neo-Aztec sacrifice, of course.