Life on Delay

by John Hendrickson

“I would love the ability to go around and say hi to people and not feel like the world was going to end,” he said. “And I would love to communicate with whoever I wanted to, and speak exactly how I wanted to, and make people happy, and be able to, like, participate in the thing that everybody does so freely, and I would have such appreciation for the spoken word that I wouldn’t want to miss out on what that feels like, because I thought about what it would be like for so long. I would be funny and I would be caring and I would be articulate, and I would learn a fuck ton of new words just so I could say them whenever I wanted to. I would take up public speaking just ’cause I could, ’cause I would be so happy. I would talk to every single person I saw on the street. I would, you know, like, I don’t know—I would make five-hour-long Facebook Live videos where I’d just read the dictionary or some shit like that.”