Suicide is no longer my next career move. Now it’s telemarketing.

I realize this is only a minor improvement, but I’ll take twinkies over starvation. Perhaps. It would depend on the severity of the hunger (if there were grizzly-like growls) and the intensity of the hallucinations (if there were sheep in bikinis).

Anyway, I go in every day with a black nylon briefcase from my father’s basement, the plastic clips practically chewed off by our last dog, a terrier who liked swimming in my grandparents’ pool. The morning after the night he was hit by a car, my mother carried him into the front yard like he was a premature newborn. It was one of those few moments where the grief was so deep it had to be rooted, so I lowered myself unto the ground. Not prostrate, but everything bent and pulled inward. I spent the last few months of my life in New York in that position. Now I get so angry I can’t form anything in my mind but four-letter words, I get so apathetic that I have to prep myself whenever it’s time to piss, or eat lunch, or brush my teeth. I must be the next Manchurian candidate. I keep imagining myself as a skull wearing a wig and makeup. Or maybe one of those whitewashed tombs God talks about. I wonder when sorrow becomes a security blanket. I’m past that, it’s life support at this point.

The first thing that bastard in the basement (or Satan, whichever you prefer) takes is our perspective. Suddenly we think we’d gladly accept anyone’s struggles but our own, without understanding that we’ve been allowed them because they’re just within eyesight of what we can’t bear, so that we shrink back and bump into God.