Cackle

by Rachel Harrison

“Fate is just another invention to trick us into complacency. Inaction. If one assumes that they cannot change their circumstances, they won’t try. When you think about it, really, there’s a myriad of ways we’re conditioned to passivity. Women, especially.

I wish it were possible to catch a compliment, to hold it in the cage of your hands like a firefly and never let it go. But . . . it isn’t. The high is transient.

And what if Pascal sucks? What if he chews with his mouth open or watches golf for fun? What if he owns a red hat?

“I get sad. But emotions become . . . less and less over time. I feel things. And at times, I feel them intensely. But there’s a perspective that comes with age. It’s all fleeting. I savor the joy. The sadness, I let it pass. Crying takes a lot of effort. Not a lot of things inspire me to exert myself.”

What is it about a woman in full control of herself that is so utterly frightening?

Sometimes it’ll trick me, and I’ll think that I miss him, that I still love him, that I’ll never fully amputate him from me. Usually then I count to eight, because I remember once reading about how, after people were beheaded by guillotines, their severed heads could blink and twitch for up to eight seconds. By the eighth second, I’ll have regained my composure and reunited with the truth.