a propensity to spin yarns

He told me life could be worse. He said he couldn’t stand the people at his house, but his roommate told him that some babies are born without a brain: “Think about it, there are people out there that evolution gave the finger to: no brain, allergic to the sun, there is a kid who is allergic to absolutely everything (he has his meals scientifically developed without allergens he takes shots instead of meals), allergic to water (we’re made out of water), the list goes on.” I think he was trying to tell me my life could be worse. I could have been born without a brain. But I wouldn’t be alive right now if I had been born sans brain. I looked at pictures of these brain-less babies and I wondered why their parents kept them alive. No, the baby wasn’t alive, it was a machine. How does one love a machine? Then, when I remembered my miscarriage, and how sad I was when I flushed a fetus down the drain, I understood how someone can love a baby without a brain, because I managed to love a fetus in my toilet. 

You told me in my dreams you got a sunburn at night, “the moon was so bright.” I could only think how wrong “sunburn” sounds when, really, you got a “moonburn,” but you always got on to me for correcting you. Then you told me our neighbor’s best friend’s father just died in a car accident in front of the restaurant where I work. Business was booming. The whole time you were catching me up, I was smacking meat together for hamburgers. I hate hamburgers. Methodically, fold, fold, push together, pinch, pinch, push, platter. I felt like throwing up, I felt as though little meat worms were crawling up my sides, my hands were covered in a thin film of meat-goo. “Katie,” you said, pulling me away from the worms, the film. “Remember when I came home from the hospital? Mom and Dad wouldn’t let you take me to the park, you had something important to show me, but I never saw what it was, because I was sick. Do you remember what you wanted to show me?” No. Yes, I do, but I won’t tell you. I gathered every flower growing on Housing (this is why the lady with the big oak tree was so upset with you, she thought you were the one who took her roses), I put the flowers in the tree where we learned how to climb before you left. I can’t tell you, you never saw the flowers. The rain washed them away. I was so mad, but I couldn’t tell anyone, because it was supposed to be a surprise.