some of the only things left on the shelves. Doesn't that speak volumes?'
'What if Matt says something bad about the store?' Shay asks.
'You know what they say about publicity,' Ja-ram replies. 'Besides, he's going after the bigger fish, from what I can gather. Ha ha, I say that like I'm in control. Like I'm giving and telling him what fish to fry even though he's a vegetarian. But he's minding his own business pretty well.'
Matt's still talking, below and a little to the left of Shay's feet. Other people stand directly above him.
'You haven't told me when the audition will be totally given,' Matt says. 'I feel like I'm just taking your time and not giving anything away, but then I realize that that's your job and I don't want to invade your personal space mentally. But does anyone really own outer space anyway? Why simply stars?'
'Do you want to celebrate Christmas?' the voice asks.
'Not on my own,' Matt replies. 'That makes no sense. Yet the presents people get are always individually wrapped. Why is it so thrilling to have something all to yourself? I guess a public gym is different. I need a partner. So when you ask me if I want to celebrate Christmas I wonder if you're asking on behalf of a woman asking me out. Is that in? In this year? But I talk too much. I need help. Get it? Say something.'
'What's your religion?' the voice asks.
'I make it up as I go along,' Matt says. 'Shouldn't we all? Remember how I said I choose my stress [2.]? I tweak the rules for my purposeful engagements every Saturday following my evening shower. As I emerge from the bathroom, as I pass through the doorway, it is at this exact moment that I mentally and independently finalize my weekly resolutions. My heart skips a beat or beats faster, I sweat, then usually breathe a sigh of relief. It's completely mental but it's accompanied by undeniable physical sensations. Therefore I'm sure that my religion is my impermanent routine, and I'm ever open to improvement. Writing, research, exercise, fasting, dieting, and smelling the breath of strangers are my means of worship. I love food too, but I fast so that I love it even more. By the same token, I love women, but I've never had a girlfriend so I'm ready to devote so much of my time to one. Should I find this holy grail then my routine will be altered significantly. This is actually my wish. To find a woman to worship. To find my mental Mecca, and escape my mental death sentence that's mental capital punishment. I know that there's more to life than routine. But now I wonder how long I'll be in solitary confinement, like tens of thousands in the States [4.] alone, alone.
'Doubtfulness grips me, or touches me, smoothly, with rough fingers, as I get a tight feeling in the stomach from a loose hold on my heart, any hand being transient and not quite a foot in a door, just a nail in my coffin. I think. I guess. Does anyone even ever listen to me? I doubt women even recognize me when I approach them for a fifth time asking for directions in Sydney. I'm so forgettable I can't even draw my own lines (I forget how long it's been since my formative years, maybe just seconds), just short straws and they're all I recognize, in my head. Looks can be deceiving but I don't even know if merely my lines are good enough to be or not to be.'
'Have you heard about hypoxia?' the voice asks.
'I think so,' Matt says. 'A lack of oxygen, right? Maybe that can mean more carbon dioxide though, more bad breath, more thoughtful invigoration, energy, a greater breadth of hormonal changes, until I'm drowning in pee because of a woman with low levels of estrogen [7.]...'
'You're romanticizing asphyxiation,' the voice says. 'That's not advisable.'
'I'm not,' Matt says. 'No more than someone who climbs Mount Everest for the thrill of it, with a fetish for elevation to a greater state. But I personally don't even need to do that. So copy me to live better, but only if you get better. Understand? I doubt many will. I doubt women will. How can one love me when there's no one to copy? But bad breath alone is enough to get me high and it will never kill me, unless it's from a Juliet who's consumed a poison, something she would never need around me. It's all about the ethical arrangement of modern and modest marriages. Maybe that's what I long for. But there needs to always be room for doubt, right? Room, floors? How many people in how many houses? I have doubts about monogamy and nuclear families, but more often than not I have doubts about the number of rooms for some doubt left vacant in a standard house. Can Hindus get a divorce, for instance? It's rare. How does a belief in karma encourage or discourage doubtfulness? But that reminds me, in some parts of the world women really didn't even have the luxury of doubtfulness, and karma was a distant dream. There are Yazidi women who escaped the brutal inhuman clutch of members of ISIS [6.], women forced to marry abusive men against their will, eventually finding themselves in a bathroom by rat poison [6.], willing and ready to end it all, without a doubt that life is hell. Then to think that there's a chance that their families will later reject them [6.], their doubts about the morality of these obviously thoroughly innocent women enough to destroy whatever's left of the resilience of the victims, and their social well-being. So the sanctity of doubtfulness is situational. Sometimes I'm grateful just to have doubts, I think. Content moderators, as young and helpless as those their goal is to protect from harm [5.], must choose to ignore or delete offensive pictures from social media and the internet at large, figuratively engorged, one by one, until there's no longer any room for doubt and free will: pictures depicting self-harm inspire them over time to pick up a knife themselves [5.] and take it to their...'
'Lunch! Okay, stop,' the voice says. 'Doubts need to be paired with dialogue to date (what next?). Now you know where the line is, Matt. Your lines. This is a learning experience for you. If there's a need for anxiousness, confusion, restlessness, and minimal oxygen in small doses, symptoms of hypoxia, then our next guest will deliver enough. You're not dying, and neither is she. You're both alive and well and here to help and there's no doubt about that.'
When Sayuri ("hypoxia girl [3.]") enters the house it becomes abundantly clear that the Asian people present were not gathered here today, above Matt, to listen to Matt.
The floor erupts in excitement. The women scream. And it wasn't because of a word Matt said. He's been silent for seconds on end. Doubt has become animated like an anticipated conversation, but Sayuri is yet to speak. It's doubtful whether she knows English.
_____________________
References
1 Future of Food: Is Kernza a Viable Wheat Replacement, https://youtu.be/Lh844qfcTAQ
2 Teen Brains Are Not Broken | Roselinde Kaiser, Ph.D. | TEDxBoulder, https://youtu.be/ZQUBFgenMXk
3 ["Choose your stress"] "Sanketsu-girl" Sayuri, https://www.sayuri-official.com/en/profile/
4 What happens to people in solitary confinement | Laura Rovner, https://youtu.be/8UNCvk9YXOo
5 The price of a "clean" internet | Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck, https://youtu.be/E4FrxvHJlKw
6 Hope and justice for women who've survived ISIS | Rabiaa El Garani, https://youtu.be/oD8Ggp0YsWM
7 The Simon Foundation for Continence, Promoting Continence... Changing Lives, Hormone Changes in Women, https://simonfoundation.org/hormone-changes-in-women/
8 Sandi Thom - What if I'm right? [music video], https://youtu.be/IXzaNw0U1UY
TB Continued
Below ground, Sayuri is wearing a mouth mask.
Above house, Shay shakes her head.
'Well, that's an interesting coincidence,' Shay says. 'That was MY joke.'
Ja-ram
