Lake.

The world is blue. I realize this as I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling fan swirling above my legs, sending gobs of brown dust floating out to the perimeter of my room. Trees, grass, people; they are all blue. Like looking through tinted lens. That misty, seaish tinge. If I were a boat, which unfortunately I am not, I would ride the cyan swells of my carpet out into the hallway and down the white rapid staircase and out the wide open front door to greet the bright blue world with arms like flat paddles and hair a full canvas sail. A piece of dust flies off the fan and lands next to my eye, making me feel like I have to sneeze. They say that the water is blue from reflecting the sky, and its kind of like that. Only its not the sky; its me, bouncing off of everything. My mom is downstairs cooking dinner. I dont know what it is but it smells like rosemary and basil, but the rosemary scent could be wafting in through my windows since we have lines of green and purple rosemary bushes parading up our driveway. Come to think of it, we also have a basil tree on our front porch. But the smell is definitely coming from downstairs so it must be from the food, whatever the dish. I hate my room. Everything in itmy moms guitar in a black leather case leant against my dresser, the plastic strobe light perched above my desk, the fanciful circus pattern on my duvetmakes me feel unsettlingly childish and ignorant and as though I will never learn to accept responsibilities where responsibilities need accepting. It is astounding how such trivial, material things instill such a profound sense of foolishness behind my ribs. This feeling, this hopelessness, fuses itself to my cells and churns through my veins, unrightfully plugging up passageways where serotonin and dopamine should be leisurely passing through, but are not. I am poisoned. My vital functions are toxic. I hear my mother call out for my dad, who is probably watching a documentary on television, to come help her with the meal. She is so beautiful, my mom. I swear she glows. It shines right through her skin and you cant help but stare, no matter how cross of a person you may be. You never see it quite like this, so clean and true. I wouldnt break that sort of beauty for the world. Dust sprinkles from the ceiling fan like arid snow. I imagine what the individual particles must look like up close. Probably akin to dandelions, I reckon. I sigh.

Not for the whole damn world. My problem is not that I do not understand, but that I understand too much. I think that is the way that every depressed person feels. Like they have too much knowledge for their poor, once blissful heads to hold. My biggest problemthe ultimate problemis my constant inclination to think. Think, think, think. Think until it is no longer a word, void of all purpose and meaning until it becomes just an empty crust of a way to pass the time. I think about thinking and not thinking and I think upon my every crummy action until I am no longer a boy, but the hollow trunk of what a boy used to be back in middle school when the worst thing in the whole world was not fitting in. Now, the hardest thing about life is just living it. Its not like this for everyone, I dont think. Everyone else looks so effortlessly happy. Maybe I dont know everything; they must possess knowledge of something of which I am unaware. My body is a figurehead, null and vacant inside. I find it impossible to let loose for all of this nonessential thought. I have tried, seriously. I recently went outside with a pogo stick that I had bought at a swap-meet, determined to have fun. I hopped about four times before it started again: How many times am I supposed to hop? How many times do normal people hop? By the sixteenth hop I was so utterly confused about how many hops I was supposed to hop that I dropped the pogo stick on the driveway altogether and just walked back upstairs with my arms limp by my sides and fell askew into the bed where I initially came from, as if I had never left the bedroom at all. I am a train with smoke churning out from my ears with all the gears and sprockets grinding and chugging away inside my skull, eyes as blank and those of a sheep, trying to wish some sort of glimmer upon them like a fairytale. I am not an only child. I feel like this is important. My brother and I, Albert, we dont talk much, and its usually only when we need something from each other. What do you want for your birthday? Or, do you happen to know where we are going for Thanksgiving? Favors like that. He lives in Cambria with his girlfriend, both of them thirty-two. The worst thing that Albert has ever told me was that he liked me better when I was three-years-old; and it stuck.

Lying here, I have come to the conclusion that I am a ghost. A small and sad and crumbling ghost in desperate search of a life, for some glimpse of meaning and happiness in my small and sad and crumbling world. I feel like I could just fall right through all of the relationships that I have. They too are like ghosts. Thin and transparent that I walk through and feel a quick, cold rush of air, and then nothing. No strings attached, just balloons floating away in the wind. Nothing even feels solid anymore. Hector, my mom shouts at my dad. Yep! Do you know where that one thing with the metal rim and the glass is? That thing for cooking? Mom often loses her words. When I had a hamster, she called it a giraffe. Did you feed your giraffe today? I dont see any water in your giraffes cage. Your giraffe stinks. Dad calls out: The lid? The large, deep pan lid? Yes. I used it to trace a circle at the shop. I forgot it. Hector Just cook without a lid. Hector. What? Flat on my back, my hands grip the bedclothes beneath me. What is tying me down? I have no anchors. My eyes zip shut and I begin to purposely hyperventilate because I feel like right now I should be having a panic attack. Everything is intangible and far away, like a distant dream or unattainable wisp of smoke. I feel so lost among all of these strangers, like I cant ever connect or give my all to any single individual because they are nothing but smoke to me. Sweating, pink and over-oxygenated, I let go of my bed with one hand, the other furiously keeping hold, and reach it up above my torso with the fingers spread as far apart as they will go. The webs of my fingers hurt, stretched this far. An unattainable, smoky, transient breeze. My hand just goes right through them; I cant even touch them at all. Is your giraffes cage supposed to be open? Hanging on the wall above my bed is a replica of Frodos sword from the Lord of the Rings. It is wide and silver with bright blue splinters glinting through it like it is partially glowing from the Orcs. I check inordinately often to make sure

that it is held up securely so that it does not impale me in my sleep. When I die, I want it to be my own fault, not some fluke. I am that guy who lies in bed straight from school, staying put until six in the morning when the alarm clock screams and it all folds over like baking batter. Shoving down a handful of stale potato chips in my sleep when my body starts to curl from neglect. I am not a stereotype. I am nobody. Me. Is your giraffe supposed to be missing? Hold my arms vertical in the air, clenching and unclenching my fists, watching the blood dissolve and reappear on my knuckles. When people look at me, they just see mousey brown hairnot even brown, but a colorless smudge and this small, crooked nose. Thats all they think about me and my life. My cruddy hair defines me. I am my twisted snout. But they probably dont even glance long enough to notice. Do not worry: we found the hamster cowering behind my bedroom mirror. Spine sinking into the mattress, watching the way my body operates, is my escape. Its not really that I need an escape. I mean, everything is good. But when I hold still and start thinking about chemicals and anatomy, it firstly sends me whirling into a frantic depression, but then upon further examination, its calms me down. I realize that I am not crazy. And even if I am, it is only because my brain has an imbalance of neurotransmitters and the wrong amount of hormones are being released. Overactive norepinephrines. Imagining little molecules swimming around allows me to breathe again, restoring at least one regular function. I am polluted. Poisoned. Contaminated. It is entirely chemical, not situational. I am extremely aware of its presence. It runs much thicker than any customary emotion. Life is good. Very good. But it doesnt matter who I am or how great my life is or how good of a person I am or whatever, because it has absolutely nothing to do with the matter. I am depressed. Thats all there is to itbut I am determined to control it. Control my mind and train it to be happy. And as grotesque as it may seem, this is where it begins: lying flat, collecting wads of dust, examining the wonder of my fists. It is a phantom sadness, a ghost of a diseased emotion. I can do it. I can make it disappear. The brain is capable of such terrible and such miraculous things. Why couldnt I?

Lake.

This couch I am on, its that classic model that you see in older films with the gold, sloped frame and red velvet wedge-shaped cushions. Her chair is really ugly and green with rounded brass studs as trim. One whole wall is filled with bookshalf of them mismatched and lopsidedly stacked childrens bookswith a squat plastic kids table and two matching chairs; that plastic with a sort of freckled gritty texture to it. Sandy, the counselor, she opens her grin. How are you today, Lake? Her voice is soft and clean, like she washes it. Scrubs her voice with soap every day before she sees me. Just for me, just to sound like that. I dont really answer. I just sort of think. Thats all I ever do, you know, think. She smiles, lips painted a nude maroon. Human lips, they evolved specifically to imitate the female labia. In order for groups of primates to become more structured, they began to form monogamous sexual relationships. This was to instill a sense of organization in the group and to erase conflict by assuring that while the males were out hunting, their committed female counterparts were not sleeping around. To further solidify this monogamy, copulation had to become more frequent and sensualhence mutual clitoral stimulation was conceived. In order for copulation to seem more intimate, couples instigated face-to-face positions, where lips soon developed their present shape as a means of a more personal visual arousal. Its true. That nude maroon stainit was manufactured with the intent of making Sandys lips appear plump, full, brightsuch as her genitals would look when deeply sexually aroused. This is my third visit. Her mouth, it asks me: how are things going today, Lake? I shrug. I tell her: things are going fine. She nods, her bright earrings swinging. Those facial labia, they pucker and wilt, shaping sounds into words that I am and am not listening to. I hear: How have things changed since we last met? How are you feeling? I stop. I think. Thats all I ever do, you know. Think. What a cheese-ball therapist question. The way I sit here bouncing my leg, rubbing my fingertips together like flint and friction, averting eye-contact; those all mean Im weak. They are signs of an appeasing submissive nature when in the presence of dominance, so as not to

challenge its authority. Tugging my ear, pinching my neck; I dont want to encourage conversation. Barber shops, nail salons, beauty parlors: they are our civilized flea-picking. Mutual fur-scratching. Bug-eating. True story. This is how I think all day long. Useless observations. Improvable hypotheses. Textbook jargon. Its not until I hear a bemused sort of huh from Sandys direction that I realize I have mentioned this out loud. I squirm. The pillows around me keep shifting, their one-way grained velvet skins scratching my arms. Civilized flea-plucking. She repeats, squinty-eyed. This whole time, she has not once looked anywhere other than my upper face. Flea-pickingI correct. It has only been twenty minutes of the allotted sixty. You want to know the way I feel? She winks. I feel null. Despaired. A hole, pink and glistening, has been punched through my chest and I never even felt the blow. This subway through the top of my torso, it just carved itself out. You cant tell now, with my shirt on and everything, but it is definitely there. I guarantee it. I would not lie to you. The edges, they are dry and shrunk like dinner leftovers not put into a plastic baggie, sitting in the fridge for days, oxygen hardening its outer layer; my shirts are left with a dark crusty ring on either side. Try explaining that to your mom when she does your laundry. It is what? Well no I wont lift up my shirt to show you. Because Im self-conscious, thats why. What? Well because Im no movie star, you know. No, my selfconsciousness has nothing to do with thisthe hole, it is a slimy wormhole to other worlds, a living train tunnel, a horizontal rabbit-holeNo, I dont actually believe these things! They are descriptions, for Petes sake, since I cant actually shoPete? What do you mean who is Pete? Are you being serious right now? Youre pulling my leg. Youre joshing me. Only twenty-eight minutes left. I dont even know a JoshI really hope youre joking right now, you have got to be kidding meno one is pulling my leg, its an expression, you have got to know that. This is ridiculous. Youre just trying to get me flustered, arent you? I see right through you, Sandy. No one named Josh or Pete has ever pulled my leg. I have not been tripped, dragged and molested by people named Josh or

Pete. What? Of course not! I have not ever been molested by anyone! Are you honestly serious right now? Seriously? These pillows she has on this couch, they are driving me nuts. Sewn into the hems are these gold tassels, ropy and burnt on the ends to prevent fraying, and the hard, melted fibers keep scratching my skin leaving flaky white lines. The lampshade by her elbow, the one on the edge of the little end table, it has small fish and tendrils of seaweed embroidered up from the bottom. Throw pillows, home dcor, bumper stickers, wall artwe are just marking our territory. House paint, landscaping, embellished doorbell face-plates; its all hot, stinking urine. Paintbrush in hand, its us lifting our leg. Reaching way up far above your head to coat a cornerman, your hips sure are flexible! Look at that stream precision! When I become overwhelmed with all of the trivial little details, I remind myself that I am just an animal and none of it really matters in the end. It helps. It does. What is the point in doing your hair, your make-up, driving a nice car and wearing expensive leather shoes? You are an animal. A creature called human. And I do not mean this in a derogatory way. Do not think now that you are without purpose, that nothing really means anythingthat it not what I am saying at all. What I mean is, what I meant to say, is to live your life unbound. Untie those puppet strings. Sever your attachment to cinematic romanticism, material popularity, anxiety, embarrassment. So you danced like a tard-bucket when you were excited and got some strange looks. Who cares? Dance some more. Wink at the lot of blundering fools who dont respect themselves enough to allow themselves to do what youre doing. Be stupid. Be yourself. What have you got to lose? You will always regret the things you never allowed yourself to do. So do it. Go crazy. Be a dork. But dont forget yourself. Life goes on. People, they move on. Just laugh. Just go with it. That verse about not worrying yourself with a speck in someone elses eye when you have a log in your own; I know. I do. Just because I am not able to do it myself doesnt mean I cant see clearly. The pills I pick up after I leave, they are real tiny and sea-foam green, barely visible in the palm of my hand. I take the first one with a glob of spit, feeling it slip down my tubing, too dry for comfort. I sit on my bed and wait, setting the rest next to my alarm clock and twiddling my thumbs in my lap.

Obviously they are not going to work immediately. I know that, Im not an idiot. But what else am I supposed to do, you know? Its not like I ever do anything different, anyway. I may as well just sit here and wait to feel them assault my brain. So there I sit. And wait. And wait. And close my eyes, and there they go.