With Dana in the corner of my eye, I imagine my own profile, a cutout two dimensions wide. She looks pleased, a face full of anticipatory judgement. Self-aware, my body devolves into rigid mechanisms. I take my pill dry. Dana smiles. ‘What you swallow,’ she says, ‘does it make you happy?’ My throat rasps, unprepared. I tell her that’s not what they’re supposed to do. There’s no satisfaction in it for her. She won’t let go. ‘Why do it then?’ Why do anything. To be like you, I tell her, like everyone, to make the lie more bearable.
Nic
Nic Addenbrooke is a freelance writer, editor, content creator, radio broadcaster, part-time poet and sometimes artist. Nic has been coming to terms with existence for years. He currently lives and works in Brisbane where he struggles to turn the cacophony of voices in his head into things of substance. It doesn’t always work but occasionally produces a nice veneer of sanity.
A Few Short Words 
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