How I Nearly Fucked Satan

Look, he’s going to try to force my hand. He’s already putting words in my mouth, when there’s nothing to say. That would make so much more sense.

I don’t understand you, Dan, and I don’t care to, anymore. You can immortalize me all you want.

“Because it’s just not the way of the world?” you’d ask.

Because I don’t want to, Dan.

“I respect your answer, but I still love you,” you’d say.

“Why?” I wouldn’t ask.

I think I know the reason why, though, I don’t care what your answer is. You love an idealization of me, Dan—literally a psychotic one.

“I know it’s unheard of,” you might say, “to carry on so long after dead and buried, in knowledge of the reality, aware of the mores, but there is a reason your memory speaks to me, whether or not.”

Then find someone else.

“That makes even less sense,” said Dan.

Than what?

“Than talking with Bastet,” he says.

You don’t want to find someone new?

“I’ve found a dozen ‘someones new.’ I still love you,” he says.

“Why, Dan?” I wouldn’t ask.

“You’re the best one of all of them,” I wouldn’t even believe.

Do you hear me, Dan? You can’t. You made the whole fucking thing up, with a lilting tone in your voice, and I didn’t even hear it.

“Look, I don’t get it, either,” he said, “and I know it looks like a Molotov cocktail thrown at your house, but what am I supposed to do?”

Make the rational decision and give it up, Dan. It’s hard to believe that’s even sincere. It’s because you believe I’m literally an Ancient Egyptian cat god, which is cute, but it’s an instability I don’t need in my life.

“Wanna pretend?” I could imagine you saying.

No, I don’t, Dan.

“Neither do I,” you’d say.

Done with the head games, Dan. I don’t know what you want me to say, either. You’re Jesus, Dan.

“Obviously not.”

You don’t get to say that! I don’t understand it, and you don’t get to put words in my mouth!

“Can’t claim innocence.”

You certainly cannot.

“Then let’s drop it.”

Fine, yes, let’s. (I’d think, “Fuck you,” but he’d hear it.)

And that would be that. That’s the end of the conversation. Twenty years later, he’s built a statue of me the size of the Colossus of Rhodes, with cat ears. He’s written exactly 333 Shakespearean sonnets about me. Wow, man, it’s really a wonder you can’t get laid. It’s really a wonder.

“You owe me nothing,” I swear the asshole would say.

And I’d let him have that. And he’d save the world for me.

He’d try to save the world for me, because his illness latched onto me. He’d say I indirectly or directly saved him, or both, multiple times—why? Don’t say that to someone!

We met in a garden supply. He worked there, and I came in for an application, and I swear to you I was not the least bit attracted when I kissed him.

“She was this petite goth girl with long black hair—”

What color are my eyes?

“Brown?”

You have to guess?

“It was less important.”

Than what?

“Than whatever this conversation is, right here,” he said.

Oh, yeah, fucking award winning conversation in five minutes between marathon make-out sessions. Have you heard of this thing called a “date,” Dan?

“Well, by now I have,” is all he could say, “and I’m sorry.”

Dan, let me point something out: this was ten years ago. I could have a partner and a family by now.

“Tell that to Bastet,” says the nut.

Is that it? She’s not real.

“Then, I’m up shit’s creek,” I can’t understand how he’d come to the point of saying, but he has to.

Tell me I’m your soulmate, Dan.

“That crap doesn’t work.”

Tell me I’m your goddamned soulmate Dan, if that’s what you believe.

“I just said that crap doesn’t work.”

And in spite of yourself, you’re laughing. What about your brand of crap?

“Works half the time,” you’d say, “roughly.”

Oh, okay. So go away.

“You go away.”

Because she won’t?

“Ask her,” I don’t want to hear you saying anymore.

This conversation goes nowhere good, or right, or even sane.

“I have trouble imagining you falling in madly and deeply with me, honestly, at this point,” you say.

Then you understand, Dan. Say, “But what if she’s real?” Dan.

“But what if she’s real?”

My friend, at least a part of me wishes I could say she was. She is not, Dan.

He’ll say, “I’m not gonna argue with you.”

No, Dan, we are not having this conversation right now.

“This is getting creepy.”

By the gaslight of the moon, Susanna.

“I’m willing to treat it as a fantasy,” would at least be true.

You’ll make someone else very happy that way.

“This is what I live with on a daily basis, except I don’t want her to go away,” he says.

I ask, “How far would you take it, Dan?”

You don’t want to know. It’s not the way you think.

“Then, how is it?” I wanna know.

“She is someone unlike any other person I know,” you say, “or don’t know.”

She fills your inkwell, Dan? She’s a convenient unattainable? You’re a nut!

“She’s worth it!” Dan says.

“You can’t even know that,” I say in a parallel dimension.

“Something tells me you two aren’t actually so different, in ‘reality.'”

By the time I started the job at the garden center, he was already coming apart at the seams. We flirted a bit, my first fucking day on the job, and I think I was over at your house that week, wasn’t I?

“We went for a walk,” he’d say.

It was a walk to remember, Dan. Coming back to your house, you grabbed my hand—

“I asked if it was alright,” you’d point out.

You asked if it was alright to do so, as you grabbed my hand, and I said, “Yes.” We made out on the couch in his basement for the next nine months, and then I dumped him.

“You’re skipping all the good parts,” you’d say.

What good parts? The dates you never took me on? The sex we never had? Pray tell, Dan, what were these supposed “good parts”?

“You gave me an anatomically correct sculpture of a human heart in a black coffin shaped box.”

You didn’t even appreciate it.

“I still have it,” you’d say without irony intended.

That’s even worse, Dan. You probably still have every little knick-knack I brought you.

“Half of them, up in the attic or back tucked away,” you could probably say honestly.

You’re obsessed. You wanna act nonchalant, but this isn’t normal.

“We’d both say, ‘Fuck normal,’ Katie,” I can’t hear you say anymore. “I got you a plush Cthulhu doll for Valentine’s Day.”

I threw it out, Dan.

“I didn’t throw out the Teddy Bear you made me, with the eyes stitched over and a third eye open on its forehead.”

You’re creepier than that bear.

“Nearly as creepy,” you’d think. “I named him ‘Tachyon.'”

Because you had these bizarre ideas about quantum physics! You practically ran around shouting at people that they were “quantum computers!”

“And then I got a degree in physics,” of course. “I was going to research topological quantum computation for my doctorate, but my advisor was a total asshole.”

So you became a crystal healer, instead.

And you’d say, “That reminds me of the mix CDs we swapped, for some reason.”

I hope you at least lost those.

“I did, but they’ve had a lasting impact on my tastes,” I could imagine you saying, or something.

Go take some Dexedrine, Daniel.

“I got that joke literally six years later.”

I don’t care if you ever ‘got it.’

“She brought me a rabbit, to keep me company—”

No one is ever going to get that joke but you.

“I’m sure you found at least another person or two who would,” you’d say anyway.

But that’s why your love for me is eternal, right? Dan, I remember you as this virtual Looney Toon with an ax to grind against the world and against God, who was really rather laughable in retrospect!

“At least it’s not the only dimension of my personality, anymore,” he says.

But I never said it ever was. Give me a little more vicarious credit, by proxy, Dan, since I picked a winner like you.

“Isn’t it truly to your personal credit that you supported someone incapable of helping himself, at the time, largely for the sake of your own moral compass, without expectation of reward?” you actually asked me.

“That’s a double-edged sword Dan!” I yelled at him. “That’s another golden apple I don’t want to eat!”

I know what you’re saying, but it’s true.

“So, corner me, and have your way with my imagined point of view!” I wanna scream in his face.

“I’ve thought about this conversation a thousand times,” he said, “and I understand why you’d rather not have it.”

Then we’re not having it.

“Best conversation I never had in ten years,” you bastard.

He never even took me on a single date. You never wrote me that poem, Dan, until I was long gone.

“You’re right,” he’d admit.

Well, it wasn’t so special. It wasn’t real, Dan. It was a gesture made at me, for you, like everything else.

“That last part isn’t true,” you might have half a right to say.

Dan, regardless, it was completely unrealistic.

“Katie, your ‘idealization,’ who is my closest friend, is just as sick as I am with the false ‘realism’ that underscores our alienation and every nuclear bomb,” I could maybe imagine you saying.

It’s not that big, Dan. It’s not the extinction of humanity, and it’s not the meaning of life—and I’m not her.

“… Are you sure?”

Eighty percent, Dan.

“Don’t let me put words in your mouth!” he says, right.

Take a guess whether I feel the same way sometimes, Dan.

“That’s why, Katie. You don’t know how hard that actually is to find.”

It’s not hard at all, Dan. I’ve met plenty of people who do more about it than you, or me.

“It’d be in poor taste if I gave you a list of the concrete actions I’ve taken toward that end,” you’d have the balls to say.

That’s already in poor taste, though.

“I started to realize that the posturing and ideals weren’t enough, at some point, I’m sure you could understand, but that’s just growing up. The Peace Corps wouldn’t take me, Katie, for an obvious reason. I’m also not the most social and disarming personality, by nature, but there are other avenues besides personally ladling soup.”

Because you’re full of yourself? So you throw money at it, you’re saying?

“I’ll never stop, however it’s perceived,” you say anyway.

Dan, that’s far too easy, but I admit that it might actually be slightly more to your credit than I gave you, but it might not even be. I guess I didn’t think about it, because why would I?

“You basically convinced me to go vegetarian, delayed. My primary reason is energy efficiency and emissions. I’m vegan, at this point,” I’m sure you’d wanna tell me. Let me make a mark on the scorecard, Jesus.

That’s nice, and I actually appreciate it, in a certain way, but it doesn’t matter, Dan.

“That’s not why I’m doing it,” I’m sure. Oh, of course, not Dan.

“Look, neither one of us wants it to be a dick measuring contest.”

You’re damn right, buddy. It also has nothing to do with why I’m not gonna talk with you.

“The less important part is whether you ever talk with me,” I don’t completely believe or understand.

Then what’s the important part, Dan? A book of sonnets for me that I’ll never read?

“You’re getting warm.”

A book of sonnets that my idealization will like?

“Um… Yeah, probably,” half blew my mind.

Then take it up with her!

“Do any of these characterizations not fit?”

Yet, you’re not sure what color my eyes are.

“Must be ‘true love,’ with ponies and rainbow sprinkles,” I could picture you saying.

Well, it’s not reciprocated.

“That’s your decision, and it’s okay, but it has no bearing on the way I feel about you.”

You’re literally the craziest person on the planet. I finally see. You’re completely batshit.

“We’d ‘win’ the Prisoners’ Dilemma,” might sound like yet another non sequitor, but you’d go ahead and “mansplain” it anyway, and I’d probably at least accept that’s actually a pretty high compliment, coming from you.

When I broke up with him, as a teenager, it might have been one of the hardest things I ever had to do up to that point. To his very limited credit, he tried his best to make it no harder for me than it had to be.

“You had a bright future, and my life was a shambles. It wouldn’t have been fair to you.”

It’s moot, Dan. We never even had sex. I couldn’t pick his penis out a lineup if a rape charge depended on it.

“That first part, I still don’t think it’s as important as people make it out to be, in the particular way most people think about it.”

It’s not a small part, Dan.

“You’d probably at least remember that much.”

Fuck you, Satan!

“I wasn’t ready,” you might actually say.

I don’t know what to think about that, Dan, but it’s never gonna fucking matter, anymore.