TheLateOne

What Happens When Zookeepers Have Too Much Time On Their Hands

Look at this wolf

they showed up on a tuesday. hey bud, are you okay? in the sugar. did i write this to myself in a fugue state again. i scooped the words into the sink and bleached the counters and then went back to bed.

we’ve been trying, on wednesday, you won’t do anything. at night i hear screams. often they’re mine and sometimes they’re not but that’s not news and it’s fine. i get these urges that crawl inside of me that won’t stop bleating, little shouts of what i should be doing.

sometimes i spiral back out. on thursday i feel too confident, slam myself into the climb, try to make friends with strangers, turn in papers before i edit them, unbuckle my seatbelt. on friday i sleep with a stranger at their place, puke in their bathroom, carry myself back to a haunted house.

months pass. what are we doing wrong? at first in latin. i think these are notes i wrote myself the way i have been doing since the eighth grade: wake up, be better, what is wrong with you. i scribble them absently. i go back to sleep. my days pass like roller coasters - i binge in pasta dinners after forgetting to eat for days. i don’t shower for weeks. i get angry for no reason, get greedy and try to force my life back into me. 

i ignore them when they show up. in my faith it is not right to commune with spirits i see them over the bowl of soup i microwaved. gluttony has got wide pupils and a tiny stomach. my mother used to say “you eat with your eyes”.

i made you eat it writes to me in my alphabet soup. 

i go back to sleep.

lust meets me when i’m coming home again. he looks the same as i expected, oily, twitchy, trench-coated. you got laid lights up on the graffiti of a passing bus. i throw up in the bushes. when i close my eyes i see the words like a red exit sign in front of me. 

one by one they come to me, step out of the house for me. i know each because i was raised in the vault of a church; i know what the lord is sending to come for me. was not jesus tested in the desert. i stare at greed in the reflection of someone else’s tv. when i wake up we’ve taken their speakers. i finally yell back at my boss and wrath grins at me while i pack up my cubicle and leave. pride won’t let me find a new job, nothing is good enough for me. envy when i open my computer to see faces, smiling. that could be me. that could be me.

i tie a knot when sloth shows up. my favorite of the seven. i’ve been kissing her since i was young. she pushes me back into bed. keeps me from getting further than the span of a footstep. her voice is the prettiest to me. we have been trying, she writes in the bedsheets. we have given you everything shows up in the mist of the morning. why won’t you be happy.

there are seven cardinal sins and seven virtues to vanquish them. in another life i am full of these, of kindness and charity and humility. in that world maybe i don’t have bursts of negative energy where i break all that is around me.

i am not supposed to commune with spirits. but she follows me with those heavy talons locked in my chest. why aren’t you happy. why aren’t you happy. we gave you all of it.

my body has been haunted for a long time. the things i did to remove spirits were all sins. i look at the bottom of my life and i think: aren’t they right? isn’t this what you wanted?

i go to church. my ears ring. at night i hear her sobbing, or maybe we both are, because we are both failures, and yet addicted to trying. is she restless like me, i wonder, always driven but too tired to do anything, instead lying in a swamp where lightning bugs eat at me.

the seven of them find me over tea. i touch my crucifix gently. why aren’t you happy? on the widows, on the walls, in the leaves of my tea.

maybe it’s wrath that finally wins me. i throw the cup. i stand up. i stare at them in all their glory. how can i tell them that this isn’t how it works, that you don’t get better because you get the girl, you don’t get better because you’re overly confident, you don’t get better just because things go right - you don’t get better because of the things you get in life.

they gave me what they wanted. what others think i want. they gave me every pleasure of the body, every desire of the heart.

you don’t exorcise a haunted home by letting demons run wild and you don’t exorcise a mind by keeping them in kind.

So my roommate, Dale, has a gf who does not live with us, but she’s here all the time. So Sunday when my gf was her we were on the couch and we kissed (scandalous, I know) and she saw it, and I’m pretty sure that’s the first time she’s seen us be affectionate, that’s neither here nor there.

So today she tells Dale she’s “uncomfortable” here and wants him to move out because she thinks me and my lady are going to hit on her or something, she doesn’t like living with lesbians, cause it’s not “normal”, so now I’m pissed. Then, Dale goes, “well you don’t live here, so it shouldn’t be a problem, just stop coming over”…things escalated and Dale is trying to break up with her, but she won’t leave our house….she locked herself in Dales room.

So, Dale barges in my room wearing a bathrobe and goes, “call every lesbian you know, we’re smoking this bitch out!” Then turns around and whips his robe like a cape…

- that man really salts my melon!

- you know what they say, it takes a bushel of corn to feed one chicken

- a louse will live on any head it lands on

- don’t put down a salt lick and say you ain’t got cows

- there’s a guy who eats half the berries and says the pie shell’s too big

It takes a bushel of corn to feed one chicken: Even if something might seem like a small ask, over time it might add up. A single chicken might eat a small amount of corn in a single day, but over time you’ll find you’ve bought lots of corn. Therefore, something that seems miniscule may in fact be a large commitment.

A louse will live on any head in lands on: Everyone can suffer through bad times and ill luck, regardless of their lot in life. (ie, anyone can suffer from depression, even if they haven’t got it “bad enough”)

Don’t put down a salt lick and say you ain’t got cows: There are multiple possible meanings for this. My favorite is don’t take time fixing a problem you don’t even have, ie, if you don’t have cows, you don’t have the problem of your cows needing a salt lick.

There’s a guy who eats half the berries and says the pie shell’s too big: Don’t blame circumstances for a problem of your own creation.

Like digging a pond and hoping for ducks: Don’t just hope something will turn out after one step, actually follow through all of them. Your pond could attract ducks, sure, or you could just go get ducks to live in your pond.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Article 23.

(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. (2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.

(…)

Article 25.

(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

Superman followed the direction of Batman’s gaze. A crow had landed on the rooftop beside them, and dropped a bottlecap near Superman’s feet. “Oh! Hey Francis. Is that for me?”

“Caw,” said Francis.

“Do you have a pet crow?” Batman asked.

“No, I don’t have pets,” Superman said as he bent down to retrieve the bottlecap.

“You named it.”

“Not this specific one,” Superman explained. “I just call all the crows Francis.”

“… why.”

“Caw, caw,” said Francis with a flap of its wings.

“I don’t know. Just calling them ‘crow’ felt rude after a while. I’d name them individually but I can’t actually tell them apart. Except for Old Francis and One-Eyed Francis.” Superman tucked the bottlecap into a small pocket on the back of his pants.

“Why Francis?”

Superman shrugged. “It’s gender neutral. I don’t want to misgender them just because they’re birds.”

“Of course you don’t,” Batman sighed, looking back out at Metropolis.

“Caw,” Francis added.

“Do you keep dog treats in your utility belt?” Superman asked.

“Why would I do that.”

“… in case you meet a dog that needs to know he’s a good boy?” Superman suggested. Batman shook his head, but opened a small pouch on his belt and held out a small treat. “See, it was a yes or no question, I don’t know why everything has to be such a production with you,” Superman said as he took it. He tossed it over by the bird’s feet. “Here you are, Francis. Keep up the good work.”

“Caw, caw,” Francis said. When it realized no more treats were forthcoming, it flew away in a flutter of black wings.

“You’re unbelievable,” Batman said, shaking his head again.

Superman took his eyes off the departing crow to look back at Batman, and frowned. “You know,” he said, “it’s really weird seeing you in costume during the day.”

“Don’t start.”

“It’s like seeing your teacher at the mall.”

“Don’t think I won’t take care of Poison Ivy without your help, if I have to.”

Maybe he tries to convince his coworkers that everyone is friendly with crows in Smallville. That the farmers discovered how smart crows are and decided to make friends with them instead of chasing them off.

Maybe he tries to talk the crows into palling around with him as Superman but going their separate ways as Clark Kent.

some straight ppl who wanna act like they’re good and not homophobic in this regard will say that touching between gay/bi women and their straight friends is alright, but only “as long as you’re 200% sure you’re not attracted to them” even though that logic is also super harsh?? tons of straight girls have friendships with their unrequited guy crushes and are still close enough to hug or jokingly touch or be affectionate and they aren’t deemed predatory for it. I remember having a crush on a straight friend in middle school and I knew it was unrequited so I never tried to act on it, I just continued to interact with her in normal friendship ways (which for us included things like linking arms and hair braiding, but since I knew she didn’t know about or return my feelings I never sexualized it in my head at all), and when I confided in my other (also straight) friend about my feelings for this person she yelled at me and said that if I knew she was straight I should never touch her again because that’s creepy and invasive. the next time the girl I liked asked me to braid her hair or wanted to link arms with me I teared up and pushed her away.