Ecotone

The cute little robot had been lying there for almost three hundred years now. It was very scuffed and partially buried in that rich California soil and certainly less blue than it had been, but beyond that it had held up surprisingly well. If someone had come across it -- no one had -- they would have found the face irresistibly adorable, because it was designed that way, to appeal to humans' innate sense of the cute and cuddly and vulnerable: huge eyes, small mouth, a sly smile, all precisely calibrated to elicit coos and skirt the uncanny valley. This particular model, the PR-Companion, had been raked across the coals by all the tech blogs when it first came out, especially as compared to both its predecessor -- "It's disappointing, given the Earth-shattering impact of the PR-Hello just two years ago, to see Sony taking what is in effect a half-step backwards in its sophomore effort" -- and its successor -- "Sony has bounced back resoundingly. The PR-Advance more than makes up for the sour taste left in the mouths of robogeeks ever since the Companion haltingly trundled off the assembly line five years ago." But still, someone had cared about it, had thought enough of it to bring it hiking with them on this five-mile-long hilly loop overlooking the endless expanse of LA. Maybe they told it things they were terrified to tell their friends. Or maybe they didn't have any friends, but liked the feel of someone/thing walking alongside them. But something happened and it ended up being left all alone, not more than five meters from the relatively popular trail, but hidden by rocks and trees and a dip in the terrain and therefore fated to be ignored for the next few centuries. Three hundred years already, unmolested by the local wildlife because coyotes and hawks and mountain lions have little appetite for aluminum and nickel. Three hundred years and there's really no reason to think it couldn't spend the next millennium lodged into that hillside. Just lying there.

But it never goes down this way for guys like us!

I'm not used to sleeping with a girl like this. I thought I was in for a one-drink OKCupid date, max, at that sleazy place by the Financial District, after the initial sizing-up. Just seemed like she was used to dating assholes in clubs and I was used to dating girls who didn't spend an hour primping to go to a fake-Irish dive bar. But liquor has its ways and soon enough we're talking about Dan Savage, whom we both like, and she's looking at me less like I'm an ugly schmuck than like I'm an ugly schmuck who might possibly have a few redeeming, un-schmucky qualities. So at this point it's like, why not? I ask to walk her home and she mentions a boyfriend, but then at her door she asks if I want to come up and I assent and as the lock catches I notice, Oh, I'm in the North End now. And a few minutes later as I'm sliding into her and she is moaning like a porn star, I try to separate myself from the pressing physical needs that are threatening to overshadow less enjoyable but more important realizations that could potentially help me out long after this girl has ejected me from her body and apartment. So hold on I'll be right back I need to (pretend to) make a quick phone call. THE POINT IS that you can go into the bar, see the girl, and say, Aw, shit, not again. No way this is working out. I'm going home. Or you can get drunk with her and see what happens because why not? Why not? You've never been able to give me a good reason why not. All your reasons about why not seem to assume women aren't capable of simply enjoying sex as sex. That's why I'll never get you, man, and that's why I think you're being a massive dick about this. When I'm riding my bike across the Longfellow in the summer light tomorrow morning and can still smell her on me, can feel her nails slicing chunks out of my back in a way 15-year-old me never would have believed could feel so freaking good, I'll remember your sneering judgmental face. I'll imagine myself tossing you in the river because no one as scared as you are of getting wet deserves to stay dry.

The best night ever

Before John A. punched John H. I think we were all overall pretty excited because it was one of those nights where one thing just led to another and we started at Ronny's house pregaming just pounding those Natty Lights and even then had a feeling that this wasn't just any other night, that good things were ahead, and none of us knew there would be fighting at the end of course but there was just this buzz that I can't really put into words and I kept catching my friends smiling at me and even though I'd say What the fuck are you looking at queer? I'd have to look away because I really wanted to smile back, like I knew that they knew that I knew that WE BOTH KNEW something big and great was coming, that sort of crystal-clear like-a-movie moment that you will remember for the rest of your life and repeat over and over in bars even once we don't have to worry about asshole bouncers taking those shitty fakes Marty Chung prints off from his bootleg printer in his mom's shitty house and calling the cops and at that point all you can really do is run to a buddy's house and scream into your cell Dude just let me in and chill in his basement until you're sure you're fine and just pony up the $75 again and hope you don't get caught next time.

A nocturnal transmission

Because even after the Ambien’s brunt hits I’ll have some mind left for you. You’re the kind to scramble neurons and force them into a different set of rules. You’re in other places now and that’s not okay but in those last moments before the Zolpidem drags me under I’ll catch the only glimpse I need, it’ll carry me through for the next few days of sitting and listening and unthinking and my ergonomic chair slowly wrecking my posture and the tiny little constant dopamine spikes of blinking green lights and email pings reshaping my brain in unfortunate and unexpected ways until I am so much more Pavlovian than I ever wanted, just this hulking sweating reacting thing, all objects no subjects, eventually a lever to be pulled or pushed or whatever until something pops out I guess. There really is a parallel universe where you kiss me to sleep, where I’m not ashamed to use phrases like “kiss me to sleep,” where I can even say them to my friends, where I call my friends and really tell them how I feel and tell them I love them, but even now, here in our universe, I feel the embarrassment rising, something like bile but warmer and less acidic, trying to deter me from thoughts of you and the few friends I hit the lottery to have. I feel the weight of pharmacology and my shell-shocked brain pulling me away from all this and all I can say is I hope we talk again on Gchat soon, I hope I can earn the occasional text-on-a-holiday, you have no idea how much five minutes of your voice bounced off a satellite and into my ear, even just telling me about your life in a happier sunnier state, would unscrew me a little, would maybe even make me cry sometime between popping those 10 mg and plummeting down into a leaden dreamless sleep.