The Pursuit of Unhappiness
I just wrote this.
Elyssa didn’t know how to sleep. Elyssa didn’t know how to do a lot of things. Every night, lying in bed, left to her own wandering mind she would grow sick of herself and the places her train of thought took her. She didn’t know how to choose her thoughts and so her thoughts chose her. When she couldn’t take it any longer she would stop breathing. She would stop breathing until she passed out and her body no longer knew how to retain consciousness. She would wake up four hours later to the same mind-numbing thought ramblings she was trying to escape. She would stop breathing once more. The next time she would wake up she would step out of her bed, her nightgown, and into a tight pair of Daisy Dukes. The same pair of Daisy Dukes she stepped into every day. Because Elyssa didn’t know how to step into anything else. This is not about the Daisy Dukes. The Daisy Dukes are just a “quirk,” something silly that a person subscribes to. Some people have to put their right shoe on before their left. Always. Some people don’t know how to turn left. Some people don’t know which gender they are attracted to or even are. These are minor psychological disorders that are (usually) easily forgiven and over-looked. But behind each of these compulsions, ticks, habits, obsessions there is something deeper. This is about those eight hours of each night when Elyssa is not awake.
Neither is she asleep.
Neither is she Elyssa.
