May cause drowsiness: day 18

I am a liar and a cheat, but only to myself. I can’t help won­der­ing, how­ever, if I am even lying — to myself or to you — if no one is mon­it­or­ing these air­waves and tun­ing in to the dis­tant num­bers sta­tions broad­cast­ing through the bewil­der­ing inter­fer­ence, hiss and garble that we have cre­ated for ourselves.

Tree. Falls. Forest. Sound. Et cetera.

I am also a neat­ness freak, bor­der­line obsessive-compulsive. Ord­nung muss zein. It would keep me awake at night to know there was a miss­ing digit here, a blank space amidst the white­ness, an 18 that lost out on its chance to become an adult and do all the fun things in life that it was pre­vi­ously denied by law. I would worry. I would toss and turn and tie my duvet into a knot, beneath which I would lie — ter­ri­fied, numbed — like a nightshirt-clad crucifixion.

So. Kill me. Do it slowly. Lots of blood. Please.