Out There

by Kate Folk

I savored these instances of human selfishness.

Sam’s inattention was a kind of freedom. I could say anything, and he’d simply nod, and a moment later begin talking about something else.

I saw the world through the eyes of a recently fucked woman.

I’d been single long enough that my tendrils of attachment had dried up and ceased issuing their commands.

Such uncertainty was the nature of existence. We brought things into our lives, and time passed. Things exited our lives. That was about all that ever happened.

I was used to getting to know people by learning about the painful experiences that had shaped them.

I would have what other people had after all, in a surprising twist of fate.

Save me, I thought.

The task of accounting for my life to a stranger filled me with an acute self-loathing.

The Last Woman on Earth feels truly alive in these moments. She instructs her cameramen to zoom in on her as the man spews his vitriol, capturing the subtle pain that flickers across her stoic face.

They all claim it’s worth it to be in a relationship, despite the risk of permanent deformity.

The more someone loves you, the more he’ll want to meddle with the most vital parts of you, and vice versa. The only way to not hurt someone is not to love him enough, to remain unmoved by the thought of his organs pulsing beneath a thin layer of skin.

It’s hard to find a partner who’s open to the idea of even localized paralysis.

My dream is that we will marry and he will allow me to take his brain from him, year after year, a tiny bit at a time, through shock treatments and partial lobotomies, until he can’t function on his own and I have to care for the drooling husk of his body until it expires.

“Wouldn’t you rather think that your parents are in heaven right now?”

Robert stared into her eyes as he strummed the guitar and sang in the style of Bob Dylan. She was sure it was a joke, but then he played several more songs and she realized it wasn’t.

she took small pleasure in watching his face disappear.

Her pussy carries almonds in its purse to tide it over until the next meal.

A parallel version of herself trapped inside, clawing the concrete walls until her fingernails broke off.

I texted this guy Chris and was like. Hey Chris.

Sometimes I look over at him and wonder what fundamental and overpowering sadness there is inside of him that compels him to stay here with me while the head rises from my floor.

We don’t put the towel back over the head. It seems like now there’s the matter of like. Human rights.

So like I won’t have to tell my landlord after all or adjust in any small way the constituents of this miserable life that is after all my burden and no one else’s.

But a childish part of me feels possessive, as if these men belong to me.

They are staring at Olivia with a predatory hunger that turns my stomach; how obvious and crude it looks, when directed at someone else.

I hate her for how she could ruin my life, without malice, simply by being herself.

I have rarely felt a person’s absence so acutely.

I almost convince myself that it’s a relief, to no longer have something to lose.

Immediately, I regret it; there is not even a moment of satisfaction, only horror at the damage I might have caused.

His fingers press my pelvis and thighs, molding my supple bones into the shape of his desire.

Perhaps it is possible, though, to revise my idea of love. To remain in the present; to love Bradley now even though I know he will only hurt me, in the end.

So this is how it will happen—casually, their faces masked with benign smiles. They will murder me by walking away.

He knows it’s me, even with the ski mask. That’s how marriage goes.

I feel, proudly, like a wild animal that has survived against the odds by tucking itself into the eaves of a crumbling edifice.

Daylight has scattered my melancholy.

After, I’ll go to the garden shed that doubles as my studio and stare helplessly at projects I will never finish, that mean nothing to me.

You’re still disturbed, but pleased that you now have an easy way to heat up leftovers.

Lord knows where your boyfriend sleep-acquired a hypothetical feature of space-time, but there it is,

You consider jumping into the wormhole and emerging in a universe where your boyfriend doesn’t bring terrifying things to bed in his sleep. But the parallel boyfriend might have some other, even more upsetting defect, such as snoring,

His handshake is an act of aggression.

Chad points out the window at a fictive deer, then punches his grandmother in the stomach. She doubles over, the air knocked from her lungs. “Good one, sweetie!” she gasps.

I stare into his eyes, trying to make him understand that I have hurt myself in order to hurt him; that in this one act I have fulfilled both of our obligations.

she’d always hated how the only certain way to evade a man’s overtures was to reference one’s possession by a different man.

“Fantastic,” he said. “I will send you a text message within the next seventy-two hours.”

He drafted emails that informed people of wonderful news: they had been chosen as the recipient of a one-million-dollar inheritance, or there were many attractive people in their area who wanted to achieve sex with them.

It filled him with joy, telling people their lives were about to change for the better. He was grateful to be engaged in such meaningful work, though the people to whom he sent these emails rarely responded.

He’d achieved sex with Marisa, and now Roger kneeled at his feet, helping to extract Marisa’s data from his penis.

“I remember my aunt’s boyfriend, who rode a motorcycle and smoked methamphetamine, and who once forced me to murder an owl that had roosted in the eaves of our porch.” “Oh dear,” Steve murmured.

She was used to surrendering to the relentless forward momentum of male desire, a swell she could lose herself in, like being pulled out into the ocean.

She had recoiled when he told her he loved her, and Roger resolved to never do this again, though it was the truest thing he had ever known.