Interesting Facts about Space

by Emily R. Austin

I hate being startled. I prefer controlled forms of fear. I like my podcasts, horror movies, and ghost stories that I can pause and rewind. I handle fear sort of like a warhorse. I could charge bravely into a planned battle, take in the sights of bombs and corpses, but I would still be spooked by an unanticipated barn rat.

I can tell that I wouldn’t be attracted to him, but that is true of every man except for a few very specific celebrities, and some fictional male characters who were written by women.

I don’t think I am what someone would envision if they cut into a cake and saw pink. If I saw photos of my mom, teary-eyed at the thought of me being a girl, I would feel even more guilty for being born the way I am.

Sometimes I think I have a parasite. I feel like there is a creature crawling inside me, trying to migrate to my brain. I picture him like Plankton from SpongeBob SquarePants; a malevolent little mastermind who is trying to use my body like a Trojan horse. I worry that I am a shell for something bad. That deep down, in the spot where most people keep their souls, I keep a weird little bug.

Whenever I see my mom watching her food cook in the oven, I sit next to her and look in. You can’t kill yourself in modern ovens. Well, I’m sure you could. You could kill yourself with anything if you tried hard enough. When we sit there, though, I feel like we are moths drawn to the memory of what an oven can do to sad women.