Brief Moments of Honesty from Otherwise Dishonest People

            Your band sucks. Even through cell phone speakers, barely audible in a crowded bar, she realizes this truth, but her mouth is bound by courtesy. Your band is fucking terrible. It’s all she can think, anticipating the moment when the timer on his iPhone playlist reaches 0:00. She no longer notices the smell of sweat, the distressing and dank atmosphere of her surroundings, the heat, the discomfort of the wooden stool beneath her. All other senses are overridden by the noise, the clamor of countless other conversations around her and the I-IV-V chord progression playing faintly underneath them. Is he bobbing his head to his own song? He can’t be …
            “What do you think”

            “What do I think?”

            “Of the song?”

            “I can’t really hear it.”

            “Do you like it?”

            “It’s good.”       

Basketball for the Heavy Set

He had this dream, this beautiful dream. In it, he and Dirk Nowitzki were paired in a 2v2 game against Mark Burrows, the boy who used to throw mashed potatoes at him during freshman lunch, and Michael West, the boy who used to supply Mark with the potato ammunition. The rules were simple: the first to twenty-one points won, and the winning team got to watch as the losers groveled at their feet before ritually committing suicide with the blade of their choice (this being a civilized society). Even in his dreams, he played the role of sidekick, choosing to take the backseat as Dirk leveled point after point onto the opposition. He could pass well enough that he felt his contribution adequate, though he wished he could nail a jump shot, could drive to the rim, could shoot threes with the confidence of a young Larry Bird, but that would never be the case, not even when his imagination was unhindered. Still, he delighted in the demise of his enemies. He took a devious sort of pleasure in watching Dirk do his bidding and even darker brand of pleasure in watching the blades protrude from the backs of those, to him, perpetually thirteen year old monstrosities.

The Narcissist Conundrum (Or How to Be a Better Narcissist)

If this were to have another subtitle, as ridiculous as that would be, it would be subtitled Or How to Love Others by Loving Oneself. If it were to have a third subtitle ... it would never have a third subtitle. The fourth subtitle, however, would most certainly be The Reckoning.

I feel as though, through my birth, my parents achieved Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream at its logical conclusion—of course, for my existence's sake, my parents had to be more than a little black girl and a little white boy holding hands (though I choose not to dwell on this fact, for it makes me queasy as it should ... or should it? It should.). My sisters are further developments in MLK's revolutionary, wet dream (and I will accept the blame for making the dream a wet one since Dr. King made no references in regards to cross-racial breeding in any of his speeches, but the prospect had to have crossed his mind at some point, hadn't it?). All of this is to provide me with a sense of importance before addressing you as I wish to address you, yet I suppose I'm not the first realization of King's dream--current president notwithstanding. In fact, this dream had been realized prior to MLK's birth if you consider Thomas Jefferson and his slave concubine earlier contributors to the civil rights movement. Still, after tireless deliberation, I have decided that this angle, however overblown it may be, is the best that I've got. This hyperbolic and somewhat crude symbol of racial equality that I have bestowed upon myself leads adequately into the titular conundrum.