We Need to Do Something

by Max Booth III

The way they act around one another, it’s less like a marriage, more like an epic rivalry. Maybe that’s what all relationships are like. Maybe nobody actually loves each other. They just argue and fight and have babies and scream and break things and eventually everybody dies. The outcome will always be the same, no matter what anybody tries to do. Everybody dies. The end.

“I guess, maybe, I don’t know, thinking back on it, it’s all so blurry, you know? If I could still bleed, then I could remind myself that it wasn’t real, that I was still alive.”

She told me she knew it was all going to be okay because it had to be. You get it? It was going to be okay because it couldn’t possibly be any other way.

“The truth is, Mel, you can’t prevent the inevitable. No one can. All you can do is delay it for a little while.”