Cackle

by Rachel Harrison

Isn’t it classic me? To put faith in something implausible, like a grocery store with an exceptionally friendly staff, like birthday-cake-flavored gum, like a storybook happily ever after, like true love. Whenever I’m let down by reality, I’m simultaneously shocked and embarrassed by my lack of ability to anticipate the completely predictable outcome.

It’s a new kind of sadness. Who knew it came in so many varieties? That it had such range? I’d call this one “the anvil of understanding.”

Early September weather is pure magic.

Only animals have eyes like that. Innocent voids. I’ve held a baby before; as soon as we’re born, our eyes are filled with want.

It’s astonishing what you’ll accept when you want love. When you need it. You’ll welcome it in any form, from anyone, anything, regardless of circumstance, however peculiar. However fantastical.

There’s no one else to consider, and for the first time, that feels like a gift.

I embrace the next morning with all the enthusiasm of a goat entering Jurassic Park.

The old me would have just gone with it, done whatever he wanted. Endured, hoped for enjoyment or, if that didn’t come, for it to end quickly. I wonder how much of a woman’s life is spent this way. Enduring. Waiting for enjoyment or, fuck it, death.

I haven’t thought of him much since his grand exit from my life, but occasionally I’ll experience an echo, the phantom sensation of an emotion that I know is expired. 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.

It’s best not to be specific with wishes. Otherwise, you end up getting what you think you want instead of what you really need. How dangerous.