A Cosmology of Monsters

by Shaun Hamill

there is no such thing as a happy ending. There are only good stopping places.”

Margaret, a “good girl” and still a virgin, imagined that real love ought to be a full-contact sport, intense and dangerous, the kind of thing that happened on railroad tracks or forest floors, two bodies struggling to express purity of spirit.

“I love you until the end of time, and whatever comes after that.”

Please don’t think this is your fault. I’m sorry about what I said to you, and I’m not mad that you took the car. It’s important to say these things, because there’s only one word that matters in these situations: Why? If you don’t lay out your answer (or answers) with lawyerly precision, the people you leave behind blame themselves. People are selfish and self-centered that way. When I wake up in the morning, I hurt all over. It’s like I have the flu, but without the fever and puking. Just an overwhelming ache, and sorrow at surviving another night. I know what you’re thinking: Eunice, we’ve known about your depression for years now. That’s why it’s important that you take your medication. The problem is that the medication doesn’t work anymore. I take it every day and still I hurt. When I look in the mirror, I don’t see my own face. I see a slowly disintegrating thing with dark circles under bleary, unfocused eyes and cracked lips that bleed when they try to smile. Sometimes when people talk to me, I can’t hear them, and when I do, I don’t know what to say back. Usually it’s the wrong thing. As I demonstrated tonight. I don’t mean to be like this. I’ve tried to get better, but I’m never going to be normal. There’s always going to be something wrong with me. No matter how hard I try, no matter what I do, I will always fail. I won’t be pretty or athletic, and boys won’t like me.