Persistence

                But wasn’t that a very American sort of lie…love, or the idea of love that was rooted in a total subjugation or understanding of two selves. It was certainly more complex than that, more involved. People didn’t just travel about the world finding soul mates. No, they found people with whom it was possible to make things work, and then they worked really hard at making it work. The persistent myth seemed strange given how aware most people should have been of their own shortcomings, aware enough he hoped to not expect a kind of perfection from a mate that they would never achieve themselves. And yet, in love, it seemed, self-awareness was not considered a virtue but an impediment to emotion. He listened to friends describe the ways in which their partners was not fulfilling them and rather than feeding into the grand American narrative he’d always ask them if they’d done anything kind lately for their partners, reminded them of their fidelity or love or ability to make wonderful biscuits that rose just perfectly, like angels on the day of Reckoning, those biscuits. The answer had a disturbing tendency to be no. How is it that people expected to be loved in a way that they wouldn’t dream of loving themselves? No. Love was not imperfect. It was a Platonic form, something that provided a goal with which wretched humans could seek to attain while mucking about in the mud.

He wondered after they’d finished talking if he’d said anything irredeemably stupid. He wondered if she’d enjoyed his company as much as he’d enjoyed hers. This was an impossibility, he understood, no two people could ever feel exactly the same way at any point in time, which is why it was a dangerous game that he was playing.

On Monday his boss gave him a project that involved moving information from two separate spreadsheets into one complete spreadsheet. He was encouraged to use the utmost diligence in his task, as it was apparently massively important that the data arrive on this new spread sheet as if it were pure driven snow. In the morning he worked like a banshee, sucking down his morning coffee and deftly sliding the information together like a magician with rings. By 10:14 he felt himself slowing and took a walk around the office looking for anyone interesting. He found no one, and so returned to his cubicle, not refreshed at all, but still faced with a day or more worth of work to do. Was he the only one who was being driven insane by the work? The people around him, in various cubes, seemed to be in various stages of Maslow’s hierarchy of happiness. John was listening to 80’s music and processing new materials, Randy was staring intently at his computer, like it might have stolen something from him, before typing furiously. They were all engaged in work, and seemed to not feel what it is that he was feeling, or he wouldn’t have been the only one walking around the office looking for something to do. It was like one of those zombie movies, being at work on a day like today, when everyone else seemed to be buying the illusion.