Brain Matter

Split myself into two and talked to myself

Pink sits on the counter, swinging her legs, crossed at the ankles. She notices the individual pieces of wood which make up the ceiling of the garage. She fantasizes that, if she studied the structure long enough, she could make something like this garage herself. How hard could it be? Beside her, Grey types away as she goes page by page through some book for some class.

                A thought bubbles up into Pink’s brain and spills out of her mouth. “Oh, did you hear about Sabrina? That girl we went to school with, the one who had a locker in hall B?” Pink’s eyes fall to Grey as she turns another page.

                “Sabrina? Oh. Yeah, there was a car accident or something,” Grey types another note, the flat tone of the keyboard matching that of her voice.

                “Yeah, there was. I guess it was pretty bad.” Pink’s gaze drops. There are splits in the floor from age. “It’s so sad,” she says.

                Grey utters some sound between a laugh and a grunt. “Yeah, I guess.”

                “You guess?” Pink’s eyes squint at Grey, as though that’ll clarify her apparent indifference.

                “Well, yeah. I mean, it happens. People die.” Grey sets the book down and points at a line, careful not to lose her place, and studies it.

                Pink’s indignity grows. On behalf of Sabrina or herself, she’s unsure. “Yes,” she says, tone sharp as broken glass, “it happens. That doesn’t mean it’s something to dismiss.”

                Grey looks up from her book, maintaining her place on the page with a spread hand. “I’m not dismissing anything. She died. I know.” She sees that Pink isn’t mad, and looks back to her book as she adds, “But I don’t get the point of dwelling on it. We weren’t that close anyway, and who knows? Maybe she’s better off. She lived the good parts of life.”

                Pink watches Grey and her mind is in five places. How could Grey be so callous? Sabrina was their age, after all. Grey should feel the threat of mortality weighing on her, too, if she’s anything like Pink. And that last string of words..

                “Maybe she’s better off?” Pink shifts and her legs stop swinging. She’s quiet for a second, then asks, “What makes you think that?”

                Grey inhales deeply, then exhales twice as long as she flips the book onto its pages and closes the computer in front of her. There’d be no escaping this conversation, so she might as well dive in. Honestly, the assignment bores her anyway. “Why do I think she’s probably better off dead than here?” Her eyes meet Pink’s and there’s a message there, one that she’d like to understand but her sentiment is a few thousand miles from her own. “Think about it,” Grey says. “All the years she has lived, she’s never had to worry about money. She’s never had a serious breakup. She never had to work, hours upon hours upon hours, for slightly more money than it costs for gas to get there every day.”

                She sees by Pink’s unchanged expression she isn’t sharing any conviction. Pink blinks and says, “Okay?”

                “She’s lived the whole bit of life that’s adventure and fun and easy.” Grey waves a hand, as though revealing a display. “Like birthday parties. She’s been to a lot of birthday parties. The good kind, I mean. Nobody’s wasted and they’re still having a good time.”

                “Okay,” Pink’s posture slacks and she crosses her arms. “So she had nothing else to look forward to?”

                Grey nearly rolls her eyes at the question, but controls herself to keep the peace. “Who can say that? I’m sure she would’ve seen a lot of good and a lot of bad,” she says. “My point is, she doesn’t have to stick around for the moment most of those things turn bad.”

                “Like what?” Pink’s arms hold her up. She leans forward and feels the defense inside her climbing, bricks being stacked upon bricks around her brain.

                Grey sits back. “I don’t know. Paying bills. Wondering how you’re going to afford nice Christmas gifts when you have to pay insurance on your car a week before and you’re on minimum wage, for example.”

                “Oh, come on,” Pink reels. “Not everybody pays six hundred dollars on car insurance like you do. Maybe she’d be better at budgeting anyway.”

                Grey shrugs, any offense deflected by her agreement. “Yeah, maybe,” she says. She leans against the desk and glances at her book. It has a picture of two children on the front, twins, and their faces are identical save for their mouths. One is a sunny little smile and the other is a downturned crescent. “But the fact is, she’d have to pay it,” she tells Pink. “Every day becomes the same as the last. It gets boring. And she’d just have to deal with ‘the real world’ in general. Nobody needs that.”

                Pink nearly laughs. “My favorite place!” She crosses her legs now, too, and whispers in a voice of mock-grandeur, “The real world!”

                “I’m serious though!” Grey reaches for Pink’s attention again, now firmly engrossed in this discussion, and her ideas are growing like a fire. Pink asked for it, didn’t she? “What’s the point of it, anyway?” Pink’s smile drops into a horizon of its own and Grey continues. “Really. I mean, look at me. I’m certainly nothing special. I’m a typical person. And here I am,” Grey’s finger taps the smiling twin on the cover, “reading this book I care nothing about for a grade I care nothing about, for a class I care nothing about and for a credit nobody cares about, so I can eventually collect enough credits to have a piece of paper that says I can get a job.” Grey almost laughs. “So I can get a job!”

                “A good job, though,” counters Pink. “Not like some retail job.”

                Grey nearly falls out of her chair with the force of the next words that leave her lips. “Maybe!” she says, expression livelier than ever. “So I can maybe land some great job that’ll get me loaded, so I don’t have to bag groceries and instead I can just pay off student loans for half my life,” she laughs, cynicism dripping from her tone.

                Pink feels the corners of her mouth slant downward at these ideas, and she tries to think outside Grey’s narrow vision. “Won’t it be a job you like, though? Why wouldn’t you go for a job you like? You like writing, right?”

                “Yeah, okay, I like writing,” Grey shrugs. “So do a million other people who are a billion times more qualified, better than me. Like I said, all this effort is to just hope I find work.” Her expression grows more serious. “All of this, for the ‘not-really-a-promise’ promise of money, all so I can do what? Buy things?”

                Pink throws her arms out. “So you can do things!” She counts on her fingers as she goes, “So you can travel and see new places, so you can afford a beautiful house, so you can adopt a dozen dogs.” She almost smiles at the idea of Grey in a field of puppies. This time Pink gestures toward the book on the counter and says, “You’re working toward a life of experience and reward,” she tells Grey. Pink swells with her own belief. “You’re alive to just live.”

                Images of a pretty house nestled in some woods flash past Grey’s brain, and the book under her hand reminds her that she would like to just write things someday. No pressure at all but to think and feel and record it all. Then she says, quieter now, “That’d be easier if I got a good job.”

                “Yeah, well,” Pink shrugs. “So what if you don’t? There’s no such thing as the right way to live. You could work some terribly paying job forever and still be alright, right? You could work retail until you die, but maybe the last customer you ever have is some sweet old lady who says you made her day. You’ll still be living. There’ll always be something to think about, to write about. It could be good. That’s a part of the ‘experience’ thing, right? What fun would it be if this were all predictable?”

                Grey finds herself stuck on that last sentence, and she agrees. “I guess so.”

                They sit in silence for a few seconds, and Grey breaks out of her web of thoughts by reaching for the book once again. Pink’s voice stops her hand midair.

                “You know what the funny part is?” she asks, already smiling at some joke in her head.

                Grey looks at her, both amused and perplexed.

                “The ‘real world,’” Pink says, giving it some of the grandeur as before, “has nothing to do with this.” Her finger taps the frowning twin on the book cover. Her eyes meet Grey’s. “It has nothing to do with bills or drunk people at parties or falling into a routine.”

                “No?” Grey tries to mirror her energy �" or recognize it, at least.

                “It’s about the experiences,” Pink says, like it’s obvious and there’s no room for elaboration. “Even if we don’t all get the same amount of chances.”

                Grey smiles. “What fun would it be if this were all predictable?”  

    “Quality over quantity, right?”