So a guy comes up to me as I was standing under a tree and says "I feel dead inside."

“I wrote a joke about that once,” I told him.

“Are you a comedian?”

“No, I’m a writer, but the ten or twelve people who read me on the internet think I’m fucking hilarious.”

“These drugs make me feel dead inside. It’s weird. There’s….there’s just nothing there. I want off them. I would rather be nervous and paranoid all the time than dead. My name’s Don.”

We shook hands and he lit up a cigarette. “So what’s the joke?”

“How come you never see golfers smile?”

“I don’t know. How come?”

“Because they’re all dead inside.”

Don looked at me like I was crazy, which I was, officially and everything. “That’s supposed to be funny?”

“I laughed when I wrote it.”

“Don’t quit your day job.”

“Already did. I’m in a mental health facility, ain’t I? No one’s paying me to be here.”

“This place makes money hand over fist,” Don said. “Everybody’s crazy.”

“My pills make me feel kinda drunk, not dead inside. I’m a little dizzy and relaxed.”

“I’m totally dead inside.” He looked up at the tree we were standing under. “My soul is a tomb,” he said.