Then she wondered. Maybe it was just life. Maybe most people had a place, like her shoddy, cheap stool, where they spent most of their days with fairy dust for brains and money and cement for feet. And maybe when they looked around, they too saw the exact same objects every day—slightly dustier, more faded, nearly vintage now—and perhaps they weren’t even aware of the changes that altered the insides and outsides of their bodies: Subtleties that culminated in the ugly end. One day they would fade away, their delusions with them, only to be replaced by someone new with the same thoughts, feelings, and struggles, on the same, shoddy stool. That was it, she told herself. That was all there was to it, and the less you were aware of it, my God, the better off you’d be.
It was a long sit through faded dreams, drooping skin, brittle bones, atrophied muscles, mutated DNA, debt collectors, bad news, and loves lost—all stiff, meat suits shoved in rectangular boxes under piles of worm-infested dirt. One was lucky to get there with as little pain as possible.
Though it made religious people squirm and clutch their Bibles, there was merit and logic in wanting to take control of that process, though she’d never say it out loud.
