Wrong name

17Apr08

I am sitting there inhaling the musty trapped sun in your room and trying really really hard to stop laughing at something. I’ve forgotten why I originally started, which makes me laugh harder, and I hide my grinning mouth behind a hand. It seeps out from beneath my fingers. Two hands, the fingers pinching the edges of my lips together. I am laughing so hard I am crying.

I have been doing this all day.

So I am sitting there, and have given up holding my face together

when you ask me a question.

You get my name wrong.

Completely wrong.

Not just any kind of wrong.

From out of nowhere you pick the name I have been stamping on with the hard heel of my heaviest shoes for a while.

I almost slide from my chair in horror. My forearms prickle coldly, and you are utterly oblivious. I think, maybe I have it engraved into my forehead, very faintly, and you have impeccable eyesight. Maybe you can read minds. Maybe you caught the torn out pages of my diary.

You look puzzled and say, I don’t know anyone else with that name. Sorry. How completely random. Your lack of justification is not reassuring.

I’ve stopped laughing, and next time you get my name right.

Filed under: To Whom It May Concern   |