I wanted my friend to draw a picture of me the day we accepted the house had a problem. We made it clear that it was not us that had the problem; it was the house. We had no problems.

It started slowly, as many major problems do, then grew.

I grew a dread lock over the period of the four months I had been away from the house. People with dreadlocks had always been scary to me, and now I am one of them. I always asked, How do you think I would look with dreads, and people said they could not imagine such a thing.

I wouldn't have imagined fleas taking over the house. I would have thought it would be fairies or some other mythical creature, but not something real, living in our couches, eating our legs, crawling up our arms. I can't stop itching.

For a change, I am resting. I am not the same person that left last March. I have no interest in crystals, for instance, and I am not in love with anyone. I stay out as long as I can, and avoid crowds and any loud mobs. My friend has a talent for designing things and makes these beautiful drawings of houses. He built one once, though it still has no roof. I wanted him to draw a picture of me. I also wanted him to do other things to me.

Drawing is different from designing. I am planning things. I am planning to leave here.

Sometimes, I sit near the window and feel that I am part of the conversation people are having outside. This usually happens on cloudy days, when I can actually see them. I sit at the distance I would have anyway, if there were no windows between us.

Most of the time, I do not mind being alone because I can do this. The people outside are my friends. Their names are Brad and Tom, and I have known them forever. They know I am mute, and I have been since the second grade for unknown, mysterious reasons. They don't need to include me in the conversation because they know I actually can't hear either. This is a more recent development, so they haven't had the chance to learn how to communicate with me yet. Not many people have, actually there's only been one.

Since I cannot hear, my accent changes daily, actually my entire personality changes daily because I suppose I do not have one of those either. Some mornings, I am a Russian spy and other mornings a cowboy. I like to perform deaths, particularly the suicide of Natasha, a Russian  woman I created one time in a diner.

Oh, Beel! I say. I die!

Things weren't always this way. I tried to change my lifestyle and went on a soul-searching journey, only to find that my whole life up to that point had been performance art. I have Greyhound in my phone in between Gina and Hally, and neither of them know I have never been a real person. Bill is not a real person either, and he does not actually love me.

Natasha believes in love, but she always dies. The season in Bellingham has changed; I feel it in the wind, in the clouds, in myself. The thought of committing to school again or to anything makes me want to ride off on my horse to Montana, to somewhere unsettled.

Growing up, the fall season came with cold and here with rain. When I could walk without pain last August, I walked to the ocean and watched the strange summer rain create circles on the water and felt a change was coming. Now the sky is cloudy, and I am not myself.


Oh, fall.

Things I Say in Econ Class

I fell in the mud. I was walking down a hill, and I fell in the mud.

I'm sorry.

No, I liked it. You know? It was exciting.

I don't know.

My life is falling apart.

What?

Don't you ever feel that way? Like everything is just falling apart and you don't know what you're doing with your life, and everything is ending then you start to think about death, and then the afterlife and how, even when you are alive you can experience the afterlife? When things are dying, and you are dying every fucking day, and what happens when you don't love anything or anyone anymore?

No.

Well, I think I'm experiencing the afterlife.

Okay.