The Pisces

by Melissa Broder

didn’t want to die. Or at least, I didn’t want to feel myself dying or drowning.

That’s what the Stoics believed—Zeno and Seneca, those ancient fuckers. The trick, I now agreed, was you had to remain unattached to any future wishes or vision.

“You aren’t hallucinating, not really,” he said. “I mean, you are kind of hallucinating in the sense that your perspective has shifted. But in a way you were really hallucinating before you met me—in the sense that there was only one part of life you could see. You believed only that which was in front of you. Most people do. Most people believe that which you cannot see or know could not possibly exist. Humans are very arrogant. I don’t think you are arrogant, but I think it’s just your nature to only believe in what you can see.”

As we kissed I imagined eating his tail with garlic butter.

I felt the Earth rotating around us, or that we were the planet—spinning on its axis.

A passing submarine rang above us. It was my phone. I looked at it. I didn’t recognize the number so I didn’t answer. But I held it up to my ear and pretended that I could talk to Theo through the waves. What would I say to him? How are you? Who are you? Are you me?