We Could Be Rats

by Emily R. Austin

I felt sort of trapped inside my new adolescent form, and worried about how torturous the rest of my life would be, jailed in a grown-up’s body.

Everyone was becoming a shell of their former selves. She felt like she was a shell.

I’m sure it’s common to feel distressed when you mature, stop daydreaming, and begin spending too much time considering the shape of your bones.

I’m dead, and you could probably live your whole life exhausted, nudging people in the ribs, making up swamp-monsters, but I wouldn’t choose that for you.

She and I used to talk about how a lot of life felt like that, like we were never the target audience for any of it, like we were always on the outside of something.

If the world worked for us the way it seemed to work for other people, we would have had fun at prom. We loved parties and being places with crowds of other people. We loved feeling like we were a part of something.

It’s occurred to me that everyone needs someone who understands them and believes in them. Having even one person who really gets you, and likes you, feels sort of vital for survival.

Who am I writing this for? Am I just writing this for myself?

It’s nice to know that someone was happy before they died, right? I was happy before I died.

Sometimes I thought she and I caught each other right on the cusp of leaving our childhoods, so the bits of us that were still kids could cling to each other for the last moments before our boats sank.

I have never been particularly good at explaining myself. Sometimes, I thought it was better to lie to spare people having to endure my attempt to explain myself.

Generally, I prefer honesty. When you lie, you have to uphold the lie with more lies. It can get so complicated. You end up doing things like missing your own birthday party and hiding your name tag at work. You risk upsetting people.

Every time she snorted dust off a key in front of me, I thought of it as a joke. I thought she was just trying to understand what it felt like to be the character she was playing.

I’d brush my own hair and start over. I’d do things differently. I’d make things better.

When we age, and we learn more about the world, and about what’s possible and what isn’t, we are supposed to start seeing things as they really are. The make-believe fog is supposed to settle, and everything should become real.

I think if it went on, you might have found me dead, floating face-first in a creek, thinking I could breathe there. That would be worse than this, right? I didn’t want to die screaming that I was a fish.

It was as if someone died, the way I thought about Greta. This hollow, hopeless feeling would flare in my chest whenever I was reminded of her. She didn’t escape Drysdale. She dug deeper into the bog, and got trapped there.

Even if I got extreme plastic surgery, covered myself in tattoos, buzzed all my hair off, amputated a leg, or gained or lost a hundred pounds—there were parts of me I could never change. I was assembled with the bones I came with.

I felt like my dress rehearsal had ended, and I had grown up. I was cracked by the trauma of losing my friend, I felt isolated and resentful, and I couldn’t picture any future for myself.

I think dying is less scary than growing up. I’d rather die than grow up to be a shitty person.

One thing I really wrestled with was feeling like there was less love in the world for me.

I wasn’t just mourning her life. I was mourning her love for me.

“The point is, our actions don’t just have to be violent; they should also include positive acts of improving the human condition.”

When I watch a prof give a lecture, it feels like watching a performance. When I’m in an audience, I’ve never considered that the performer might be watching me too.

I used to joke, “I wish we were rats” because, if I could choose how the world worked, we would all be rats at a fair. We would all live well, sampling every possible ounce of happiness. We would roll around in garbage and suck on sour keys.

I had to hide who I was around them. I felt disconnected from them. Like I was a stranger. I felt lonelier around them than I did when I was by myself.

I couldn’t stand to be around them. I felt at odds with them. It made me worry they were bad people too.

Maybe if I had practiced being a villain as a kid, I might be able to handle it now. I don’t feel equipped to be a grown-up or a bad person. I don’t want to be.