Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead

by Emily R. Austin

Despite both my car and my arm being broken, I am driving myself to the emergency room. I resolved not to involve an ambulance because I do not like to be a spectacle. I would rather be run over by another van than be surrounded by paramedics touching me inside such a conspicuous vehicle.

start to picture a world where Jesus had been killed using a different murder device. I picture little ceramic guillotine figurines. I imagine miniature nooses hung above children’s beds. Electric chair necklaces and earrings.

spent the next three years calling people atheists, having no clue what it meant, thinking I was a cutting trash-talker. My teacher gave me an F on a spelling test, and I muttered, “What a freaking atheist.” Gemma Igmund started a rumor that I was gay, and I confronted her. “Shut your God damn atheist mouth, Gemma.” My mom made me go to bed early, and I screeched from the top of the stairs that I was living in a family of cold-blooded atheists.

Sometimes I wonder if I have really been the same person my whole life. I stare at the picture, and think: Is that really me? I have this bizarre feeling like I was a different person at every other stage of my life. I feel so removed from myself then. Sometimes I feel like I was a different person a month ago. A day. Five minutes. Now.

I wonder if anyone really identifies as the adult they’ve morphed into.

It turns out the crackers I stole are the body of Christ. After eating more than half the bag, I googled the cracker brand and learned that I paired marble Cracker Barrel cheese with God’s transubstantiated body. I had originally googled the crackers so I could leave them a review. I planned to write: BORING. Whoever created these is unimaginative. These crackers are tasteless and bland.

I wouldn’t mind knowing whose big idea it was to install organs in God’s so-called houses when they were clearly manufactured by the devil himself. Organ music reminds me more of Halloween and demons than it does of heaven and cherubs. This is the instrument played in every Dracula movie, I’m sure of it. Are they meant to scare us? Are we supposed to be frightened?

Ingrid and I are not close friends anymore. She isn’t the same person. She’s a grown-up. I don’t know her; I know the teenaged version of her. I’m at this party because I feel indebted as a friend to the shadow of the kid that she used to be.

I feel nauseous and thirsty. There’s a fountain at the back of the church, churning holy water. I fantasize about taking a big swig. Baptizing my stomach lining. Washing away the sins of my gut.

I am on the third book of the Bible. This one is called Leviticus. I turn the page and read: If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death. That strikes me as pretty extreme. Do they mean curse as in use obscenities toward, or curse as in hire a witch to perform a solemn utterance intended to invoke a supernatural power to inflict harm on them?

I can’t help noting the use of the male pronouns. I wonder whether this directive applies to me. Am I subject to a womanly loophole? Whoever wrote this book prioritized men so much, he forgot about the other half of humanity. It seems like I can curse my parents with no repercussions at all.

It’s bizarre that a body can be animated one second, and then turn lifeless permanently.

“Isn’t it crazy how people get murdered?” I probe. “I mean the whole concept of murder. Isn’t it nuts?” “I guess,” he replies hesitantly. “That’s sort of a dark topic, though, isn’t it? You shouldn’t allow that kind of bleak energy into your lifespace. Think about things like living and vivacity instead.” “All right,” I reply, while thinking intensely about dying and listlessness.

“Ignorance is bliss, Giuseppe, have you ever heard that? If you ever find yourself feeling particularly blissful, take a moment to appreciate it’s probably because you are incredibly stupid.”

I am excessively aware of the way my hands are sitting in my lap. I keep repositioning how I have linked my fingers. The woman beside me isn’t aware of her hands at all. She keeps accidentally touching me with hers. Maybe she is aware of her hands, and has no personal boundaries, but I don’t think so.

I can’t tell if I am dreaming or not. Am I in a store? I feel like I am on a movie set. Everything is familiar to me, but it’s different. It feels like a plastic backdrop. It is all off and sort of otherworldly.

I think about how reality and make-believe are blended together because nothing matters, and it’s all illogical. Maybe all of this is a dream. Maybe I don’t exist at all.

I can’t have a pet for the same reason I don’t want to make friends, or get close to people. It’s not just because they’ll die someday. It’s also because I am a bad pet owner. I can’t muster the energy required to be a positive part of anyone’s life. I can’t even muster the energy to apologize for that.

It’s easy for me to accept that I am bacteria, or a parasite, or cancer. It’s easy for me to accept that my life is trivial, and that I am a speck of dust. It is hard for me to accept that for the people around me, however. It’s hard for me to accept that my brother’s life doesn’t matter, or that old women who die don’t matter, or even that rabbits or cats don’t matter. I feel simultaneously intensely insignificant and hyperaware of how important everyone is.