I'm Thinking of Ending Things

by Iain Reid

I’m thinking of ending things. Once this thought arrives, it stays. It sticks. It lingers. It dominates. There’s not much I can do about it. Trust me. It doesn’t go away. It’s there whether I like it or not. It’s there when I eat. When I go to bed. It’s there when I sleep. It’s there when I wake up. It’s always there. Always.

We both laughed, and it felt like we were alone together in there, in that pub. I drank some beer. Jake was funny. Or he at least had a sense of humor. I still didn’t think he was as funny as me. Most men I meet aren’t.

When I could tell he and his teammates were getting ready to leave, I thought about asking for his number or giving him mine. I desperately wanted to but just couldn’t. I didn’t want him to feel like he had to call. I wanted him to want to call, of course. I really did.

As it turned out, I didn’t have to wait for chance. He must have slipped the note into my purse when he said good night. I found it when I got home: If I had your number, we could talk, and I’d tell you something funny. He’d written his number at the bottom of the note.

Once he called me therapeutic. I’d never heard that from anyone before. It was right after we’d fooled around.

Each time I remember it, it seems worse, more sinister. Maybe each time I remember it, I make it worse than it was. I don’t know.

The wave changed everything. It had an effect of malice, as if he were suggesting I could never be completely on my own, that he would be around, that he would be back. I was suddenly afraid. The thing is, that feeling is just as real to me now as it was then. The visuals are just as real.

After that, I thought it would reoccur. That he would appear again, watching. But it didn’t. Not at my window, anyhow. But I always felt like the man was there. The man is always there.

“Keep doing that. It feels good. I like when you touch me. You’re very tender. You’re therapeutic.”

There’s only one question to resolve. I’m scared. I feel a little crazy. I’m not lucid. The assumptions are right. I can feel my fear growing. Now is the time for the answer. Just one question. One question to answer. And then . . . Now I’m going to say something that will upset you: I know what you look like. I know your feet and hands and your skin. I know your head and your hair and your heart. You shouldn’t bite your nails.

—Was he depressed or sick? Do we know if he was depressed? —Apparently he wasn’t on any antidepressants. He was keeping secrets, though. I’m sure there were more. —Yeah. —If we’d only known how serious it was. If only there’d been some signs. There are always signs. People don’t just do that. —This wasn’t a rational person. —That’s true, that’s a good point. —He’s not like us. —No, no. Not like us at all. —If you have nothing, there’s nothing to lose. —Yeah. Nothing to lose.

This stuff’s appealing. It makes a good life. He’s tall. He has his clumsy physical appeal. He’s attractively misanthropic. All things I would have wanted in a husband when I was younger. Checks in all the boxes.

—Some of the rooms were vandalized, I heard. —Yup, paint on the floor, red paint; some water damage. Did you know he put a chain on the door? —Why did he do it in here? —To make some selfish, twisted point, maybe. I don’t know.

His hands were those of an artist, a writer, not a driving instructor.”

“I read aloud the words that were printed on the inside. I remember them word for word: ‘You are the new man. How delicious cannot forget, special taste. Return the turn flavor.’

He told me he unwrapped candies every now and then, not to eat, but just because he liked reading the verses, to think about them, trying to understand them. He said he wasn’t a poetry man but these lines were as good as any poem he’d ever read. He said, ‘There are certain things in life, not very many, that are real, confirmed cures for rainy days, for loneliness. Puzzles are like that. We each have to solve our own.’ I’ll never forget him saying that.”

The fact that she was the best kisser in the world made her the center of the universe, in her words.

I didn’t know what to say. So I told him what came to mind, that kissing involves two people. You can’t be a singular person and be the best kisser. It’s an action that requires two. ‘So really,’ I said, ‘you would only be the best if the other person was also the best, which is impossible.’

“My answer seemed to bother him. He was visibly upset. He didn’t like the idea that alone, you couldn’t be the best kisser, that one was reliant on another kisser. And then he said, ‘This is too much to overcome.’ He said that would mean we’d always need someone else. But what if

“So you’re saying that it doesn’t matter if the story I just told you is made up or if it actually happened?” “Every story is made up. Even the real ones.”

Jake laughs at this. Not a big laugh, but a small, sincere, ingested, Jake kind of laugh.

“The most attractive thing in the world is the combination of confidence and self-consciousness. Blended together in the proper amounts. Too much of either and all is lost. And you were right, you know.” “Right? About what?” “About the best kisser,” he says. “Thankfully you can’t be the best kisser alone. It’s not like being the smartest.”

My heart, my heart alone with its lapping waves of song, longs to touch this green world of the sunny day. Hello!

There’s so much we don’t know about what really happened in there. —And the only one who could tell us is gone.

“I actually want to be older. I’m happy to age, seriously.” “I keep hoping for some gray hairs. Some wrinkles. I’d like to have some laugh lines. I guess, more than anything, I want to be myself,” he says. “I want to be. To be me.”

He didn’t just pull out two pills from his linty pocket. He handed me a small ball of Kleenex, all wrapped up in itself and sealed with a single piece of tape. The package looked like a large white Hershey’s Kiss. I undid the tape. Inside were my pills. Three of them. An extra, in case I needed it. “Thanks,” I said. I went into the bathroom for water. I didn’t say anything to Jake, but to me, the wrapping was significant. Protecting the pills like that. He wouldn’t have done that for himself. It threw me off a bit, made me rethink things. I was going to break up with him that night—maybe. It’s possible I was. I wasn’t planning to. But it could have happened. But he put my pills in the Kleenex.

As he talks, I’m studying his face, his neck, his hands. I can’t help myself.

I want to kiss him as he drives.

If the conversation went any further, he would call. He likes talking and listening. He appreciates discourse. It was weird to be all alone again for those two days when he was away. That was what I’d been used to, before, but after, it felt insufficient. I missed him. I missed being with another person. It’s corny, I know, but I felt like a part of me was gone.

I woke up in the middle of the night and my foot had fallen off? It made me worry, too, about what’s important. Like, why isn’t the tail an important part of the lamb? How much of you can fall off before something important is lost? Right?”

“Why didn’t it last?” “It wasn’t real.” “How do you know?” “You always know,” he says.

I think what I want is for someone to know me. Really know me. Know me better than anyone else and maybe even me. Isn’t that why we commit to another?

think that’s it. Maybe that’s how we know when a relationship is real. When someone else previously unconnected to us knows us in a way we never thought or believed possible. I like that.

He wasn’t married? —No, he wasn’t married. No wife. No kids. No one. It’s rare these days to see someone living like that, entirely alone.

It seems to me, maybe for the first time, that there are varying degrees of dead. Like there are varying degrees of everything: of being alive, of being in love, of being committed, of being sure.

I assume it’s his mom who collects the ornamental figurines. Most are small children dressed in elaborate attire, hats, and boots. Porcelain, I think. Some of the figurines are picking flowers. Some are carrying hay. Whatever they’re doing, they’re doing it for eternity.

“Who’s this?” It’s a child, a toddler, maybe three or four. “You don’t know?” “No. How would I know?” “It’s me.” I lean closer to get a better look. “What? No way. That can’t be you. The photo is too old.” “That’s just because it’s black-and-white. It’s me.” I’m not sure I believe him. The child is barefoot and standing on a dirt road beside a tricycle. The child has long hair and is glaring at the camera. I look even closer and feel a twinge in my stomach. It doesn’t look like Jake. Not at all. It looks like a little girl. More precise: it looks like me.

Yeah, I remember regretting hiring him. And not because he was incompetent. Everything was always clean and tidy. He did his job. But it got to the point where I had this feeling, you know? I sensed something. Like he wasn’t quite normal. —This sort of justifies your feeling. —It does. I should have acted, done something, I guess, based on my gut. —You can’t start second-guessing after the fact. We can’t let the actions of one man make us feel guilty. This isn’t about us. We’re the normal ones. It’s only about him. —You’re right. It’s good to be reminded of that.

Her hair is dyed an inky black. It’s glaring against her powdered-white complexion and varnished red lips. She also seems a bit shaky, or delicate, as if she might at any moment shatter like a dropped glass.

He’s not mocking me; he’s mimicking me. He’s using subtle but accurate hand and facial gestures, brushing invisible hair behind an ear. It’s startling, precise, off-putting. Unpleasant. This isn’t a gag impersonation. He’s taking this seriously, too seriously. He’s becoming me in front of everyone.

Because Jake is such a good conversationalist, one of the best I’ve ever met, I thought his parents would be, too. I thought we’d talk about work and maybe even politics, philosophy, art, things like that. I thought the house would be bigger and in better shape. I thought there would be more live animals.

I remember Jake once telling me that the two most important things for quality intellectual interaction are: One: keep simple things simple and complex things complex. Two: don’t enter any conversation with a strategy or a solution.

If it can’t fly anymore, there’s no way it’s getting out. It can’t climb out. It’s stuck in there. Does it understand? Of course not.

I’m still looking at the squished fly when I get a feeling that someone has followed me to the bathroom. That I’m not alone. There’s no noise outside the door. No knock. I didn’t hear any footsteps. It’s just a feeling. But it’s strong. I think someone’s right outside the door. Are they listening? I don’t move. I don’t hear anything. I step closer to the door and slowly put my hand on the door handle. I wait another moment, the handle in my hand, and then I fling the door open. There’s no one there. Only my slippers, which I left outside before entering. I’m not sure why.

I leave the door open but step back toward the sink. I run the tap to wash the bits of dead fly away. A drop of red blood lands in the sink. And another. I catch sight of my nose upside down in the reflection of the faucet. It’s bleeding. I grab a piece of tissue, ball it up, and press it to my face. Why is my nose bleeding? I haven’t had a nosebleed in years.

It’s not just this Dairy Queen—it’s this place, this town, if it is a town. I’m unclear what makes a town a town, or when a town becomes a city. Maybe this isn’t either. It feels lost, detached. Hidden from the world. I’d go moldy out here if I couldn’t leave, if there was nowhere else to go.

The only book Jake has given me, and he gave it to me about a week after we met, is called The Loser. It’s by this German author, somebody Bernhard. He’s dead now, and I didn’t know about the book until Jake gave it to me. Jake wrote “Another sad story” on the inside cover. The entire book is a single-paragraph monologue.

“To exist means nothing other than we despair . . . for we don’t exist, we get existed.”

Did I really need confirmation to end things? I’m going to be single for a long time, probably forever, and I’m fine with that. I am. I’m happy on my own. Lonely, but content. Being alone isn’t the worst thing. It’s okay to be lonely. I can deal with loneliness. We can’t have everything. I can’t have everything.

It’s so rare for others to know everything we’re thinking. Even those we’re closest to, or seemingly closest to. Maybe it’s impossible. Maybe even in the longest, closest, most successful marriages, the one partner doesn’t always know what the other is thinking. We’re never inside someone else’s head. We can never really know someone else’s thoughts. And it’s thoughts that count. Thought is reality. Actions can be faked.