Gods Aren't Real

It’s 6:45 AM and I’m already in a bad mood. Despite going to bed at 10:30 last night, I feel like I’ve barely gotten any sleep, and my head is too foggy to even think about getting up. I slap the snooze button on my alarm and go back to sleep.

At 7:10 AM, after several more snoozes, I begrudgingly roll out of bed and stumble over to my dresser. Opening a random drawer, I stare blankly at its contents for a few seconds before reaching in and grabbing a pair of socks. I look around my room, trying to find somewhere to put them, and eventually decide to just put them on my bed. Then I turn back around and close the drawer. Opening and closing the rest of the drawers in quick succession, I pull out more clothes from each one and drop them on my white bedspread. A minute later, my entire school uniform is sitting in a pile in front of me.

I look at the navy blue hoodie and khaki pants, blinking a few times. Eventually my brain makes the connection and I remember that I have to get dressed, and then I remember that I have to get undressed first in order to do that. Taking off my pajamas, the cold air closes in around me, causing my arms to prick up with goosebumps. I quickly pull on my clothes before I can start shivering. Despite having my school uniform on now, I can still feel sleep calling me, but I force myself to pick up my pajamas from where I left them on the floor and stuff them in the dresser. Then I stagger out my door and down the hall to the bathroom. Once I’m done, I head downstairs to breakfast.

“You got down here pretty late today. What happened?” my dad asks from his seat at the kitchen table.

“Bad sleep,” I answer groggily.

“Oh, I had a pretty bad night too,” he responds, rubbing a hand through his graying hair. “I only slept for four hours.”

“That sucks.”

“It’s what happens when you start getting old.”

My mom turns away from the stovetop and raises an eyebrow. “You’re not that old, James. You’re only forty-five.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re the same age,” I interject.

She turns to me. “Watch out, Scarlet. You’re sixteen; you’ll be getting gray hairs before you know it.”

“Right. Just let me eat breakfast.”

“Oh, your mom made pancakes,” my dad mentions. “You should have some. They’re excellent.”

“Finally something good happens today.”

“Finally? The day’s just getting started.”

“I’m tired. I just wanna eat,” I say, getting a plate and putting a couple pancakes on it.

Once my pancakes are completely smothered in syrup, I sit down at the table and start eating. My parents continue talking about something but I tune them out in favor of concentrating on the sugary bliss I’m consuming.

Pancakes are probably one of my favorite things to eat. Sweet, soft, easy to make; they’re great. My dad and I usually make pancakes on the weekends, as a sort of father-daughter thing. Well, not as much anymore, but we still make them every few weeks. Sometimes my mom joins in as well, but not very often. Our usual recipe is this one called “buckwheat flapjacks” that makes fluffy pancakes that go amazing with strawberries. We haven’t made any in a couple weeks though, so my mom probably thought it would be nice to have some today.

When I’m almost done with my pancakes, my dad turns to me.

“So Scarlet, are you ready for school?” he asks.

“Hm?” I swallow my bite of pancake. “Oh, right, school. Oh god no. I think this will be the day that I die.”

“That bad?”

“Yes. I have so many tests today that I don’t even remember how many tests I have. It’s not even midterms! It’s just random chance! It’s like the universe hates me or something.”

“Well, you studied a lot yesterday, right?” my mom asks.

“Yeah, but not enough. I’ll definitely fail at least one.”

“You know, even if you do, it’s not the end of the world. And you can always make it up.”

I drop my face in my hands. “I’m gonna die, aren’t I?”

“You’ll be fine. Now go brush your teeth or you’ll be late.”

“Okay, okay.”

I scarf down my last few bites of pancake and take my plate over to the sink. Then I pull my pill box out of the cabinet and take my morning pills. I run upstairs to the bathroom where I brush my teeth, and then get my hairbrush out of its stand to brush my hair.

As I struggle to get knots out of my hair, I scrutinize myself in the bathroom mirror. Dark brown eyes stare back at me from a round face with pale skin. My neck-length auburn hair flops back and forth in front of me with each tilt of my head. At five foot six, I’m fairly average height, and while I’d rather be a bit shorter, I’m fine with it. My parents say I look nice, and I can see that with my hair, but in general… I kinda disagree.

I finish brushing my hair, rush over to my room, and start stuffing everything I need for school into my backpack. My notebook, my other notebook, my school computer, my binder, my other binder… I almost forget my phone, but I shove it in my pocket before heaving the heavy backpack onto my shoulders and running downstairs.

“Bye, parents!” I yell, opening the front door.

“See you later!” my mom calls back.

“Have fun!” my dad says as I rush out the door into the rain.

Oh right, the rain. I’d completely forgotten it was going to rain today. I’ve never cared for rainy days; especially not rainy Mondays. They just make me feel all dreary inside. The plants may enjoy it, but I certainly do not.

So, I run inside, grab an umbrella from the umbrella stand, and then run back outside. I race all five blocks to school, dashing down soaking sidewalks, across slick streets, and through hoards of honking cars. The rain patters on concrete while car tires hiss on wet asphalt. Trees drip larger drops of water on me from their sagging branches. Despite my umbrella covering me the whole way, I’m soaked by the time I get to school.

At the main entrance, I’m greeted by the councilor who stands by the door every morning and whose name I never remember. I quickly shake off my umbrella and stuff it in my backpack, wiping my shoes on the mat inside the entrance.

I’m just over two months into my sophomore year of highschool, so I’ve been going to this school for about eleven months in total, not counting summer break. That’s a long time to get used to the stress and relative independence of highschool. I feel like that’s going alright for me, and my teachers seem to agree, since I’m getting good grades in all my classes.

Eleven months is also a lot of time to start doing normal highschool things, like joining clubs, making new friends, and staying up all night being nervous about how many tests are happening the next day. So far, I’ve only done the third one. The most recent time was last night, which is why I’m so tired today. As for the other two, they’re not going so well. I’ve lost all the friends I had in middle school and haven’t gained any new ones, and I’ve never joined any clubs because I never had friends to go with. Yes, it’s a bit depressing, but it leaves me with a lot of time to do things that I enjoy. Namely reading, playing video games, uhh… walking, maybe running, I guess, and… not really anything else. Ok, I might need new hobbies.

As I walk towards class, I look around at the halls I’ve grown so used to during my time in this school. The white walls are lined with wooden classroom doors and sickly looking, greenish-gray lockers. Some students stuff their bags inside their lockers or take papers and notebooks out, while others rush by on their way to class. A few groups of kids block the hallways, chatting about something or other and generally getting in everyone else’s way. I struggle through the crowded hallways, thinking hard about whether or not there’ll be a test in first period and whether or not I studied for it, but for the life of me, I can’t remember.

Stepping into class, I notice that the desks are arranged in rows facing the front of the room, with each desk spaced apart from its neighbors. Mr Reever is standing at the front of the room, handing out a packet to every student who walks in.

“Oh no, there is a history test,” I mutter. “I’m doomed.”

I grab a test from Mr. Reever, absent-mindedly curling the corner of the first page as I sit down at my desk. The dreary gray light from the windows mixes with the harsh yellow light of the classroom, washing over me together. Some students talk quietly while others shuffle through papers, getting in some last minute studying. I sit in my seat, shuffling around and getting progressively more nervous as I look at the size of the packet on my desk. Soon, the bell rings, and I remember to pull a pencil out of my backpack. As I rummage around for it, the teacher begins speaking in his signature bland tone.

“Welcome, class. You should all have picked up a test. Raise your hand if you didn’t get one.” When no one raises their hands, he continues. “The Unit 2 History Test has sixty questions. You will have forty-five minutes to complete them. Some are multiple choice, and some are free response. The final question is a short essay. I trust you all studied, so this shouldn’t be difficult for you. Good luck. You may begin.”

What the hell?

I quickly do the math. Forty-five minutes for sixty questions means an average of forty-five seconds per question. Take out the short essay which will probably take ten minutes, and I get an average of thirty-five seconds per question. That’s including the free responses.

How am I supposed to do this? Are all the questions super easy or something? Well, I guess there’s only one way to find out.

I turn the first page, and start to panic.

An hour later, I’m sitting in biology class, and I’ve finally managed to distract my thoughts from the test I was forced to endure. The questions were anything but easy, and I barely managed to to complete a third of them, but at least I got the short essay done. I’m seriously wondering if something will happen to Mr. Reever for giving it to us. Someone will definitely complain to their parents, or their teachers, or the school. It actually felt like the questions were designed to be as vague and hard to understand as possible!

Wait, I’m getting distracted from my distractions again. I need to distract myself more.

Suddenly, a voice cuts through my thoughts. “Scarlet? You there?”

“Huh? Oh yeah, I’m here, sorry Charles. Just thinking about that stupid test again. What question were we on?”

Charles is an acquaintance I met at the beginning of this school year. I enjoy talking to him, and he’s pretty nice, but I wouldn’t consider him a friend, since we only talk during class and we don’t really know each other.

He looks almost exactly like I would imagine a Charles to look like, with a round, sort of chubby face, short brown hair, and light blue eyes. He’s also a bit taller than me, at around five foot seven. He usually wears a hoodie and pants to school, like me. He also doesn’t seem to have many friends, like me, which is weird since he seems pretty outgoing.

Maybe he transferred? I don’t remember if I ever saw him last year. I guess it would make sense though.

We have two classes together, and we usually partner up with each other for assignments in both of them. Right now, Charles and I are checking our homework against each other. We could just check our homework against the correct answers, but Ms. Barne always insists that we switch with a partner and “have a discussion” first. Since Charles is the only person I know in the class, I always partner with him. I don’t know for sure if he’s in the same situation, but either way he always partners with me, so it works out.

“The last one,” he answers.

“Ok, right, I said the endoplasmic reticulum.”

“Same.”

“Yay, we’re done!” I exclaim. “And we got all the same answers so we must be right!”

“I’m not sure that’s how that works.”

“Ok, we probably got all of them right.”

“Yeah.”

We sit in silence for a few moments before I get the hint that he doesn’t want to talk and pull out my phone. I mindlessly click through different apps for a minute before looking up to find him staring vacantly off into space.

“You okay, Charles?”

“Ugh…” He rubs his eyes.

“It’s just, you’re usually a bit more lively than you are right now.”

He sits up straighter and clasps his hands together, before turning to look at me. “Yeah, sorry, I’m fine. My mom was a bit more… annoying than usual today.”

I blink. “Oh, uh, well, I guess-”

“All right class!” Ms. Barne cuts me off. “Everyone, place your homework on my desk and pick up a quiz!”

It startles me a bit when she mentions the quiz, but then I remember that I actually studied for this one. It was only fifteen minutes, but memorizing parts of a cell isn’t particularly difficult. Biology is also a subject I’m okay at, unlike history.

As we walk to the front of the classroom, Charles starts talking again.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned that. Just ignore me.”

“No, it’s fine,” I pause. “If you want to talk about anything, I guess I’m here… I don’t really know what to say in these situations… umm, yeah.”

Oh god that came out horrible. I shouldn’t have said anything. I guess this is why I don’t have any friends; I don’t know how to talk about anything deeper than the conversational equivalent of a puddle.

Before I can mess up even worse, we make it to the front of the room and trade out our homework papers for quizzes. Our desks are across the room from each other, so we split up to go back to our seats. I quickly start on my quiz, hoping I haven’t ruined another possible friendship with my awkwardness.

Two and a half hours later, I’m walking into the cafeteria, thinking about my day so far. After the quiz in Biology class, we spent the rest of the time watching a video and taking notes. I spent too much time putting my stuff away, so I didn’t get a chance to talk to Charles again before he left. Next came Algebra II, where we continued learning about polynomial factorization. There was also a pop quiz on the same subject, which wasn’t very difficult, but with my lack of sleep, I’m pretty sure I got a few questions wrong. My most recent class was English, where there was another unit test. Unlike the unit test in history, I hadn’t forgotten about it and actually studied for an entire hour… at 9:30 PM last night. Okay, I did procrastinate, but I actually studied, so that’s a win. The test only took thirty of the forty-five minutes we had to complete it, and I took a nap for the rest of the time.

And that leads me to lunch. I sit down at a table by myself, open my lunch box, and pull out my phone. It’s time for my regular lunchtime experience of scrolling mindlessly through social media, or reading webcomics, or both. It depends on my mood. I do look around for Charles to see if I can talk to him and maybe apologize, but I’m pretty sure he has a different lunch period. Or maybe he’s just avoiding me. I don’t know. So, I turn back to my phone and unlock it. I decide to scroll mindlessly today, instead of reading webcomics, so for the next forty-five minutes my only thoughts are about what people on the internet post and whether or not it’s funny.

Finally, lunch comes to an end. First, a few students begin to leave. Then more join them. As I get up and grab my lunch box, the bell rings, and everyone else begins to stand up and walk towards the double doors. On my way through the crowd, I fall in line next to one of my old friends from middle school.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hey,” he says back.

Then we’re through the doors and we go our separate ways.

Physics class comes next, with a marble run project to finish. It’s actually been pretty fun. It would have been more fun if I had a partner, like most of the other students, but I don’t know anyone in the class well enough to partner with them. I like the project anyway, though. For the first thirty minutes of class, I add the last sections of half tubes to my design, drop marbles from the top, and film their descent through the run. My design starts with a steep slope coming down from the wall, which leads into a loop-de-loop and ends with a tube curved to the left that spits the marble into a bin. I’m actually kind of proud of my little marble run made of tape and tubes, and I decide to take a few more pictures to remember it.

When almost everyone is finished, Mr. Clint springs a quiz on us about what we learned from the project. It goes fine, but it’s just an annoying way to end a fun project, and it dampens my mood a bit. Then the bell rings, and I’m off to computer science.

Computer science is always an odd class. It’s a strange mix of very easy and fairly confusing. Luckily, last week was all about binary, which was pretty easy. And today, as the teacher reminded us so many times, is the test on what we learned about it.

It sure would’ve been nice if Mr. Reever had reminded us so much about the history test. Maybe then I would have remembered to study. Ha, who cares? It was an impossible test anyway.

Mr. Carter hands out the tests, which are essentially slightly longer quizzes, and everyone gets to work. A few minutes later I’m already finished, so I put my head down to rest for a bit. Eventually, the time runs out, and the teacher collects the tests. Then we begin a new unit on HTML and CSS, which is interesting enough that the rest of the class passes quickly.

Finally, I’m on to the last class of the day. My sworn enemy. The bane of my existence. A great evil from beyond reality whose sole purpose is to destroy every possible hope of happiness in my pitiful life.

Gym class.

The first part of gym class is getting my gym clothes from my locker. Easy, right? Well, it should be, but it isn’t. If only this school was competent. If only the higher-ups would listen to me. If only there were rules in place for this. I don’t know, there probably are. But no matter the rules, someone is ignoring every request my parents and I put in. Which means my assigned locker is still in the boys’ locker room.

Why do we even have assigned lockers in gym class? That doesn’t even make sense. This whole thing is stupid. Well, at least the boys’ and girls’ uniforms are the same. It could be worse.

Since I don’t feel particularly comfortable with boys (or anyone, really) seeing me changing clothes, I wait outside the locker rooms until I’m pretty sure everyone has left. Then I sneak inside, quietly padding across the white tile floors until I reach my locker. I unlock it, pull my clothes out, and-

“Oh, hey Scarlet.”

I whip my head around, and then sigh in relief.

“Oh, it’s just you Charles. You scared me.”

“You know you don’t have to be so nervous in here, right? It’s not like they gave you a choice.”

“I know. I just don’t want to be here. And someone will definitely make fun of me if they find me here.” I pause for a second. “Oh right, I meant to apologize to you earlier. Sorry if I made you uncomfortable in biology class. I’m kinda good at doing that… Sorry.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I shouldn’t have brought it up.” He smiles awkwardly.

We both stare at each other for a few seconds before I look down and see that I’m still holding my gym clothes.

“Oh right!” I say. “I need to get changed. Uhm, can you…”

“Right. Yeah, I’ll leave. Um, bye.” He gives a little wave and turns away.

I watch Charles walk towards the door for a few seconds before starting to take my clothes off. It only takes a few seconds for me to be reminded of why I hate gym class.

Ugh, I hate this. I look so… wrong. Why am I like this? Why can’t I just-

And my gym clothes are on. I don’t need to think about that anymore. I shove my clothes in my locker, along with my backpack and lunch box. Then I run back out of the locker room and into the gym. The gym, like most gyms, is huge. Wooden bleachers sit on either side of the room, with gray rubber flooring in between. Posters about fitness and banners for school teams line the walls, while basketball hoops hang from the ceiling. Double doors leading outside sit between two bleachers on the left side of the gym. The class is sitting in rows facing the wall at the far end. I quickly walk over to my spot at the back of the fifth row and sit down behind Charles.

I remember a few weeks ago when I met Charles for the first time. It was the second day of school, and we were being assigned our places on the gym floor. Mr. Corvo placed me behind Charles because my last name of Silvers came after his last name of Silven. After that, we had to partner up with someone to play catch with tennis balls, which was apparently testing reflexes? I’m not sure how that worked, but that’s what the teacher said. Anyway, I didn’t know anyone in the class, and I sat behind Charles, so I just asked him if he wanted to partner with me for the activity, and he said yes. Since that day, we’ve talked quite a bit during our classes together. Mostly about school, and nothing too personal. Well, besides the reason I’m in the boys’ locker room, but that was kind of necessary to explain.

As I’m thinking, Mr. Corvo steps up in front of the class and begins to talk.

“Alright class, listen up! I know you’re all excited to play flag football today, but unfortunately, the school wants us to do something else.”

Oh no. Please don’t be the FitnessGram Pacer Test. Please. Anything but that.

“We’re doing the FitnessGram Pacer Test today! I know, I know, you all hate it, but we have to do it. Alright everyone, come and line up next to me.”

As we walk towards the teacher, I come up next to Charles and look at him with pleading eyes.

“Please, Charles, save me from this test. I’ll do anything!” I beg him.

He looks at me. “What do you expect me to do?”

“I dunno. Kick the teacher out the window? Kick me out the window so I can leave class?”

“Those are… interesting ideas. Why do you hate the test so much anyway?” he asks.

I sigh. “Honestly, I’m just really tired. I got terrible sleep and I’ve had tests in… Uhh… Oh god I’ve tests in all my classes today. Holy crap, I think I set a world record.”

“Oh. Don’t they usually try to schedule them so that doesn’t happen?”

“Usually, but I guess they didn’t today.”

Before either of us can say anything else, the teacher starts giving instructions, and I get ready for the test.

Twenty minutes of suffering later, and I’m sitting by the sidelines after the running portion, breathing heavily. I almost wish Charles had kicked me out the window. I pushed myself to my very limits but I could only do thirty-seven laps, while he’s still going strong at forty-five. I watch everyone left in the test running back and forth for a minute more before Charles falls out and staggers over to me.

“How many… did you get?” he gasps out.

“What?”

“How many laps did you get?”

“Oh, um, thirty-seven, what about you?”

“Fifty-three.”

“That’s a lot.”

“I could’ve kept going,” he says. “It’s just the turning around that got me.”

“Ugh, I don’t get it. How did you get so many more than me?”

“Exercise.”

“But I do exercise!”

He turns to me. “Obviously not enough to do fifty-three laps.”

I shake my head. “Wow, so rude. I think you’re cheating.”

“Really? Cheating?”

“Yeah, you’re using your secret magic powers to run faster.”

He raises an eyebrow. “If I had secret magic powers, I wouldn’t use them to cheat on the FitnessGram Pacer Test.”

“Yeah, me neither,” I concede.

“What would you do?”

“Hmm…” I think for a minute. “I’d help as many people as possible, and then… actually what is my secret magic power?”

“Uh, what do you want?”

“Oh, well then I’d just choose everything and use them to bend the world to my will! Mwahahaha!” I do my best evil laugh.

“Heh, what was that?”

“It was my evil laugh!”

“Oh, right.”

“Hey, I think it sounded great!”

“Sure.”

I sigh. “Well, what would you do?”

“I think I’d just use my powers to help people, like you said. Other than that, I don’t know.”

Suddenly, everyone around us is standing up, and I realize the teacher’s been saying something I missed. I try to think back and see if I caught any of it, but I can’t remember. I glance at Charles, who also seems confused. Looking around, I notice some students heading to the bleachers, while others are walking towards the door to the locker rooms. I guess class is over, so I decide to sit on the bleachers until everyone else is gone.

“Bye, Scarlet,” Charles calls as he walks towards the door.

“Bye,” I call back. Then I set my backpack down on the bleachers and start waiting.

Fifteen minutes of trying to sleep on a bleacher later, I’m fairly sure everyone is out of the locker rooms. So, I sneak back in, switch my clothes out with minimal panicking, grab my stuff, and run out of the room.

The halls are empty as I walk through them now that the school day is over. They still have the same white walls, classroom doors, and greenish-gray lockers, but without the people here, it feels different. It’s like I have the whole place to myself now, and it’s actually kind of nice.

Nevermind, there’s a person. I glare at them intensely as we pass by each other as punishment for taking away my nice feeling of being alone, but they keep looking at their phone and don’t notice my attempted retribution.

Actually, why am I not on my phone right now? I usually would be. I guess I’m just not in the mood for it. It's been a long day.

My thoughts come to a close as I walk through the front door of the school for the second time today. Stepping outside, the first thing I notice is that it’s still raining. It’s lighter rain than in the morning, but I still pull out my umbrella. I begin to trudge back home, wondering how I’ll make it through this week. It’s only Monday, and I’ve already had a test or quiz in every class. There was also that crazy one in history I somehow almost forgot about. I feel like my energy is already drained for the week. Maybe even for the month. I just want to sleep through the next four days into the weekend. But I have school to do, and homework too, so I only have time to get enough sleep to wake up in the morning.

Sometimes I really wish I could just take a break from life for a day. Have some real fun for once. Maybe I could go on an adventure, fight some pirates, pilot an alien spaceship… who knows? Or maybe I could just sleep. Yeah, sleep sounds good.

Well, my life may be boring, tiring, and kind of lonely, but it’s also a life I’m willing to plod through to get to the more interesting parts. Just like millions of other people. Besides, there’s not much else to do.

Eventually, I arrive back home. I walk up to the front door of my family’s red brick townhouse, fish the key out of my backpack, and unlock it. After stepping inside, I lock the door behind me and call out to see if anyone’s here.

“Hello? Anyone home? No one? Okay.”

My parents are usually at work when I get home, but I still call out every time in case one of them is back early. It doesn’t look like either of them are back yet today though. I set my backpack down on the stairs and leave my umbrella out to dry, before bringing my lunch box to the kitchen and emptying it out. I put the tupperware in the dishwasher and stick the lunch box into the cabinet where it belongs.

Heaving a sigh, I decide to cook myself a pancake. I’ve never actually made one after breakfast before, but I feel like I deserve it after making it through today. I pull the pancake batter out of the fridge, put a pan on the stove, and turn on the gas.

“Click… click… click…”

The stove doesn’t light.

“Seriously?”

I go around trying all four burners, but none of them work.

“Ugh, did she wash it again? That’s annoying.”

The stove in our house is old and somewhat finicky. One of its problems is that whenever someone washes it, usually my mom, water gets stuck in it and we can’t use it for a few hours until the burners dry. Still, if we really need to use it, we can just use a lighter.

Since I really want a pancake and I’m not willing to give up so easily, I go to the closet to get a lighter. The lighters are kept on the highest shelf, so I have to stand on my tiptoes to reach them. As I’m reaching up, I accidentally lose balance and pull down too hard on the shelf, knocking out its supports. The shelf falls down onto the one below it, which knocks out that shelf’s supports, which falls onto the shelf below it, all the way to the bottom. Within seconds, the entire closet is a mess.

“What the hell?” I throw my hands up in the air. “Why? Why did this happen? I can't even have a pancake without the closet falling apart? Well fuck you too, universe, I guess.”

I don’t want to deal with the closet right now, so I pick up the lighter from where it fell and walk over to the stove. After setting the pan aside, I turn the stove back on, turning the dial past the failed sparking, and then try to light the gas coming out.

“Click… click… click…”

The lighter doesn’t work.

“Oh for fuck’s sake why?! The one day I want a pancake and this happens? This is stupid.”

I try the lighter a few more times, and when that doesn’t work, I go back to trying the automatic sparking on the stove. When that still doesn’t work, I turn the dial for the burner back to where it’s just letting gas out and sit on the floor, staring at it.

It’s not even about the pancakes anymore. It’s about the principle of the matter. I won’t let this stove beat me. It already made me collapse the shelves in the closet and it still refuses to be lit. I know it’s stupid to think a stove is evil, but I know the truth. It’s enjoying watching me suffer. But I won’t stand for this. I can’t let the stove win. I must light the stove.

Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I’m still annoyed. Unfortunately, I don’t really have anything to light a stove with. Yelling at it in my mind doesn’t seem to work. Simply willing it to light seems to somehow work even less- oh there’s something there.

I swear I can feel some sort of something when I think about- What was I thinking about again? Wait- Okay, I think I just have to think about- What? I know it’s there. Why can’t I find it? Wait, it’s there. Am I part of it? What is this? It’s like a connection, but everything- What- Alright, this is probably just my mind playing tricks on me but I’m gonna try to pull this-

And then I’m not there.