“this is how babies die”A short story from my prose collection,...

“this is how babies die”

A short story from my prose collection, i won’t be happy until the sun is unhappy

Now available from Thought Catalog HERE.

I woke up this morning before my alarm woke up.

My three cats were asleep beside me. They looked like Orion’s Belt but if Orion’s Belt were made outta cats.

I liked looking at them, my cats.

I felt like I coulda looked at them forever except I knew I couldn’t look at them forever because, if I did, if I did look at them forever, I woulda been really, really late for work.

I rolled outta bed only wearing boxers.

I felt sexy.

I wondered if my asterism cats thought I looked sexy too.

I hope so, I thought to myself. Guys like “feeling pretty” too.

After just standing around in my boxers for a little bit, I realized my three cats were all too asleep to give me any potential compliments, so I opened my dresser drawer and took out a new pack of ankle-high, black socks.

Fuck yes! Fuck yes, man! I fuckin’ love new socks! I thought to myself.

“Partay on your feet!”

That’s what I call wearing new socks because that’s what wearing new socks feels like to me (and fuck you if you don’t get at least moderately excited when wearing new socks. We could never be friends if you don’t. We’re just too different…).

The socks were all connected to this flimsy strip of cardboard packaging. I ripped the socks apart from their cardboard packaging but this small piece of t-shaped plastic got stuck in the toe-region of one of the socks. It was caught/somehow tangled on a thin, singular thread coming undone from the sock and, as much as I tried, I couldn’t free the sock from the thread and began getting frustrated in the process of trying to do so.

This is how babies die, I thought to myself.

I began laughing out loud. The thought made absolutely no sense in regards to what I was doing. It was like a thought I was supposed to have about something else a long time ago but, instead, the thought arrived to my brain really, really, really late and when I was getting ready for work on the day of June 17th, 2014 and when I couldn’t get a small t-shaped piece of plastic unstuck from one of my new black socks that I was totally bonered up to wear to work and when I wasn’t doing/seeing something that was even remotely threatening towards the life of an infant.

This is how babies die, I repeated over and over inside my head. The thought was like some bizarre, internally-spoken, reverse lullaby that was keeping me awake in this elevated state of consciousness where everything was okay and nothing hurt because there was nothing to be hurt over, rather than letting me fall asleep and, therefore, sink back into my usual frame of mind where everything was bad and where everything was painful and where I always found ways, no matter how good things actually were, to create some kinda suffering for myself.

This is how babies die…

I was still laughing as I finally freed the piece of plastic from my sock.

I got dressed.

I smelled pancakes with syrup even though I knew I was the only one awake and, therefore, no one was cooking them. I went to the kitchen just to make sure.

No pancakes, though.

No fuckin’ pancakes…

Typical…

Whatever.

This is how babies die…

When I was in the kitchen, I looked through the window and saw two empty crock-pots on a table on our deck. They had been left out over night without their lids on after having been used at a family party the day before and they had both been rained on and were filled to their brims with water.

This is how babies die, I said to myself, shaking my head while looking at the crock-pots left out overnight. Then I laughed and grabbed a Peach Diet Snapple and left.

On my way to work, I listened to a Motion City Soundtrack playlist. There were so many dead deer in the road/on the side of the road that morning I began counting them on my forty-five minute drive. Whenever I sped through a yellow light that was on the verge of turning red, I thought, This is how babies die… to myself and then I always smiled. It made my speeding through yellow lights even more enjoyable than usual.

And four.

Four was the total amount of dead deer I spotted on my way to work.

It was me, an ex-Marine, a twenty-two year old ginger with thick-rimmed, black glasses and a cute but married technician at work that day. It was a Sunday, and the hospital was closed on Sundays, and so only a few of us were needed to take care of the animals we had in the hospital.

The cute but married technician took care of the cats in the cat room (which I didn’t like because I liked taking care of the cats in the cat room) and myself and the other two kennel workers took care of all the dogs in the kennel.

There were about twelve dogs or so. First we walked them all. Then the ginger fed them as the ex-Marine cleaned bowls and racks and as I cleaned cages.

“I bet I’m wearing the newest socks outta everyone here today,” I said while removing piss soaked newspaper from one of the small, top cages like some kinda weird vacuum with hands.

“Haha, what?” asked the ex-Marine, lining up all of the bowls he had cleaned to dry.

“How new are you socks?” I asked him.

“Haha, I dunno, man. Not very new. I mean, they don’t have holes or anything in them but, ya know…”

“I knew it! I knew I had the newest socks here! I put these mother fuckers on this morning. They feel great. Fuckin’ partay on my feet!”

The ex-Marine laughed. The ginger with thick-rimmed, black glasses was too busy/focused feeding the dogs to pay attention to me.

I didn’t care.

I knew I had her beat.

I knew my socks were newer than hers.

“Hey, Meg.”

“What?” the ginger with thick-rimmed, black glasses replied.

“Did you walk Crumb?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You forgot to give him water.”

“Haha, oops…”

I sighed overdramatically. “This is how babies die, you guys…” I said, shaking my head. “This is how fuckin’ babies die…”

The two of them laughed.

I laughed.

The truth is funny.

Truth in comedy.

After cleaning up lots more shit and piss, we all finished up and went home. I thought about marshmallows on my drive back and pondered the simple yet authentic happiness they brings into people’s lives. I also recounted all of the dead deer I saw in the road/on the side of the road.

Four.

Still four dead deer.

No more casualties.

Some things never change.

When I walked into my bedroom, my cats didn’t look like Orion’s Belt anymore. One was lying on the bed, another on the floor, and the other off somewhere I couldn’t see.

This kinda scattered belt would never hold Orion’s belt up… Scattered belts are how babies die.

I lied down in bed with my clothes on.

I felt sexy even though I wasn’t only in my boxers.

I felt calm and peaceful.

I felt myself in this rare state of heightened awareness where I was physically able to see the emptiness we all shared and lived in together, and how simple life was when you were able to look at this emptiness and have it look at you in return.

One of my cats began purring. I listened to him purr and began thinking, This is how babies die… over and over to myself until I fell asleep.

I dreamed a series of dreams, a TV mini-series of dreams, but I don’t remember what they were about.

If my dreams were turned into a TV mini-series, I wonder if people woulda watched them.

Tom Hanks.

People would totally woulda watched them if we got Tom Hanks to star in them.

People will watch Tom Hanks in anything.

He’s captivating.