from Nostalgia Has Ruined My Life
“We can go get dinner. Or we could throw ourselves into the harbour, what do you want to do.” I had bought a cabbage from the grocery store earlier and I still had the cabbage with me. I placed it in the third chair at the table at the restaurant. I don’t know what to choose from the menu because everything is dangerous. Everything is mucus forming. Grains and nuts contain phytic acid which interferes with mineral absorption and meat is high in fat which is bad for the liver and legumes contain lectins which impair digestion.
“You have pretty eyes,” my date says, “I think you’d feel less depressed if you had a full-time job and didn’t have so much time on your hands.” But he’s wrong. Every time I’ve had a job, I’ve felt more depressed. And I don’t feel encouraged when someone says to me, ‘you can do it!’, I just feel patronized. More than a job I just want someone to love me so much that they write an entire book about me. Or create a whole series of paintings about me.
My date is a good kisser but in the morning when we wake up he just gets out his laptop and sits up in bed replying to emails and booking flights instead of giving me any attention. “Gotta make money,” he says. His friend also says this to me when I see her in the kitchen. We are at a luxurious apartment in the city where they are dog-sitting an anxious, medicated dog. “What breed of dog is that,” I ask. “Why do you want to know, you don’t care, you don’t even like dogs,” he says.
Kitten heels in the mud. I wish meditation and prayer were easier… I tried to listen to some relaxing music and started hyperventilating. When I went home with him, I felt like I had to tell him what was wrong with me. “I have this illness, I have to be careful with my legs,” I said. I thought I heard him say, ‘so do I,’ but he actually said ‘don’t worry.’ “Have you ever done one of those online tests to see if you’re a psychopath? Sometimes I think I am one. I haven’t cried in over 7 months.” I said I hadn’t done one. He said he didn’t know if other people thought in the same way as he did. I said going to a therapist might be a good start if he thought he was a psychopath. “Oh I have been to therapists,” he said. “I don’t genuinely believe I am one, but I would be interested to find out.”
He says I should meet him in the city and we can go do something. I’m surprised he wants to do something. I take the bus into the city. When I arrive he messages to say he hasn’t left yet, he says he’ll meet me later. I walk around trying to decide where I should eat. I don’t want anyone to see me eat though, I feel too earnest when a waitress asks me what food I want to eat.
“I like your outfit,” he says when he finally arrives. “Thanks,” I say. “Do you realise you look good right now?” he says. “I mean, I like this dress,” I say. “Well, good for you,” he says. I suggest going to a bar nearby and he says he doesn’t like the look of it. He suggests going to a bar in another suburb thirty minutes away. “But you only just got here,” I say. He says we could see a movie instead. We walk to the movie complex. All of the movies seem boring. “What about that one?” I say. “Actually, I don’t really want to waste money on a movie anymore,” he says. We sit on a bench. “Should we just go home?” he says. “I don’t know, I guess so,” I say.
Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle lives in Auckland. Her first book, Autobiography of a Marguerite, has recently been published by Hue & Cry Press. The footnotes in the work here use found material from novels by Marguerite Duras and Marguerite Yourcenar.
