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Women have been left carefully husbanding the scant resources of a planet stripped bare by men.
The men are all infected with a terrible indifference. Nothing to be done about it, though, that’s just how men are.’ Hang on. That doesn’t seem right. I’m pretty sure if I was locked up in a place like that for my whole life and never allowed to leave, I’d end up apathetic too.
I answered without thinking. For me, a conversation’s just a series of reactions, reflex responses. I’ve got a habit of saying whatever the other person wants to hear. I’m a real people-pleaser. I know it’s probably not a good thing, but I accept myself – devil-may-care attitude and all.
I couldn’t help but feel like I was just some human-shaped receptacle, there to receive her emotional excreta.
Like most people these days, I don’t overthink things. I’ll go along with whatever. No firm beliefs, no hang-ups. Just a lack of self-confidence tangled up in fatalistic resignation. Whatever the situation, nothing ever reaches me on an emotional level. Nothing’s important. Because I won’t let it be. I operate on mood alone. No regrets, no looking back.
In the waking world, I obsess over the superficial. I devote myself to the acme of emptiness.
‘The thing about you is that you’re never satisfied.’ Emma knew that he wasn’t talking about any rational satisfaction – he was talking about her spiritual condition. Now he wrapped her in his arms.
‘What happens when you get it?’ ‘All the shitty stuff stops bothering you. Like, you realize that there’s a simple way of dealing with everything that’s been weighing on you up till now. You can just tack on an illogical ending to the story, like a deus ex machina for life. Reality feels like a TV show, and TV shows feel like reality. It’s like the boundary between them breaks down, like you’re living in a dream.’
Even in this day and age, we still revere truth. But at the same time, we devote ourselves to the task of erasing the distinction between truth and fiction.
