Forgotten Bones

It was amazing the things a person could get used to when they really had no other choice.

When people asked about his schizophrenia, Eric, who didn’t exactly flaunt his illness but wasn’t ashamed of it, either, offered up the comparison of alcoholism. Not every drunk is a single bourbon away from skid row, just like every schizophrenic is not a tatty-haired, crazy-eyed gunman who delights in murdering alien-people from clock towers. There are functioning alcoholics just as there are functioning schizophrenics, individuals who work, maintain homes, and have hobbies, goals, and relationships like every other slob on the planet.

Like each morning he was putting his identity on inside out while dressing in the dark.

What is it, he wondered, that compels the elderly to fill every square inch of space with knickknacks, as if each bit of junk they amass will add another year to their dwindling lives?

It was the way they had exploited his schizophrenia to their advantage, wielding it to maim a man who was already mentally crippled.

I really don’t have a plan when I sit down to write—other than having a basic outline. The best way I can describe it is that I just start typing and let the story go where it needs to

He knew lounging was dangerous because he could already sense depression creeping over him like a vampire’s shadow. In the past, he’d found that the best way to combat this feeling was to keep moving, as if misery were a barnacle that couldn’t latch on to him if he didn’t sit still for too long.

And thank God she wasn’t one of them. Danica squinted. “Wha’ Starbucks?

The weirdo existence. Eric had discovered that weirdos tended to gravitate toward each other intuitively, as if they released a unique pheromone only others of their kind could detect.

Eric had discovered that weirdos tended to gravitate toward each other intuitively, as if they released a unique pheromone only others of their kind could detect.