The Illicit Happiness Of Other People

by Manu Joseph

But then the fate of shy people is that all their fears usually come true.

The most foolish description of the young is that they are rebellious. The truth is that they are a fellowship of cowards.

The bus arrives fully packed, spilling a swarm of tiny starved young men who would not have made it this far in life if it had not been for all those free vaccinations.

When girls toss their hair and hold clips in their mouths, when they run their hands down the back of their skirts before they sit, when they shift a lock of hair from their face and stuff it over their ears, or cover their mouths when they have to laugh, when they do these things that have no name, and when he hears a female chorus sing ‘I have a dream’, Thoma’s chest fills with ache and he wishes them well in life.

People who do not drink do not understand drunkards. He does not have to buy his drinks, he has many friends who want to buy him liquor. That is the quality of drunkards, they have a lot of friends. Because what men find most endearing in other men are their tragic flaws. That is why alcoholics never run out of friends.

The tragic defeat of the unusual, and so the triumph of the normal.