Fictional Account

It was then that she decided that she would throw herself into the task of writing jokes. She scanned the room looking for traces of humor in otherwise humorless faces. She began to wonder if she should see a movie instead. Maybe laughter begets humor. Her throat felt tender, as if she were getting sick, but she knew she wasn’t. What if the joke was on her?

She simultaneously wanted company but was hiding from it. Anonymity is its own kind of company. She knew one thing. It was convenient to blame things on other people even as she realized it was really her fault. Precisely because she felt she hadn’t needed them any longer, or that even their presence had become somehow irritating, they had realized they did not need her. Now that the illusion was dispensed with, she desired them more than ever.

Wasn’t that all just a round-about way of saying: you only desire what you can’t have? Knowing her inclination toward the sentimental, she decided: of course it was. She struck this from her notes and began again. It was then that she decided that she would throw herself into the task of writing jokes.