Tao Lin - Eeeee Eee Eeee

“We should,” Mark said. “Alfred would bring anti-depressant smoothies each morning.”

“Robin would watch TV and get drunk,” Andrew said. “His dialogue would be, ‘I’m a day-time drunk.’ And they’d show Batman hiding in a cave. It would do a close-up of Batman’s face and he’d be shivering between his eyes, with intensity.”

“You’d like that. You’d like it if everyone in the world was depressed,” Mark said. “That’s the only reason you like me probably,” he said hesitantly.

“No,” Andrew said.

They stared at a red light, and waited, then crossed the street.

“I don’t like happy people,” Andrew said. “They’re already happy; they don’t need to be liked.”

“Wow, so selfless,” Mark said. “You’re a saint. I commend your selflessness. Amazing.”

“Sometimes you get sarcastic like that,” Andrew said. “It’s good. How can you be that sarcastic and still sincerely enjoy Batman?”

“Because I’m not a snob.”

“Oh.”

There was a dark alleyway and Andrew saw an alien, behind which was a moose.

A bear pushed Mark and Andrew into the dark alleyway.

“Watch,” the bear said.

The bear disappeared and appeared three feet to the left.

“What did I just do?” the bear said.

“Teleport,” Mark said.

The bear disappeared and appeared one foot above the ground and dropped to the ground and bent at the knees a little.

The bear disappeared and appeared laying on its back.

The bear disappeared and appeared standing five feet away.

“I’m bored,” the bear said. “I’m teleporting.”

The bear walked to Mark.

The bear shoved Mark’s shoulder a little.

“I’m bored,” the bear said.

Mark took out a twenty-dollar-bill and held it at the bear.

The bear stared at Andrew.

“I’m bored too,” Andrew said.

The bear disappeared.

Something bumped into Andrew from behind.

Andrew turned around.

The alien.

Andrew ran away.

He walked in a deli and bought carrot juice.

Mark walked up to Andrew.

“Hey,” Mark said, and looked at Andrew’s face, then quickly to the side of Andrew’s face; lately he always looked to the side a little. “Are you hungry?”

“Do you want to eat?” Andrew said.

“I don’t know. I could eat.”

“Let’s eat, I guess.”

They went to a Japanese restaurant, a different one. The Japanese had invented female robots, that year, that danced with you, Andrew somehow knew. He had been to Japan before — once. He should be there now. He would walk on Third Avenue in Japan. There would be a Third Avenue there too. Robots would serenade him. “Japan is better than New York City,” he said. He didn’t want to elaborate. It would take forever to elaborate. Someone would eventually realize that the conversation was just a matter of semantics. Was there even a point to talking? “Never mind,” Andrew said. “I don’t know.” Not wanting to elaborate, that was the symptom of something — something bad. Andrew didn’t want to think about it. Maybe he should take antidepressant medicine. (“Alfred would bring him anti-depressants.…”) See a doctor, fill out forms, wait three weeks for it to ‘kick in’—too hard, of course. Why three weeks? Didn’t seem right. Should be gradual. Semantics, probably. ‘Kick in.’ Mark wasn’t talking anymore. It was March. March, Andrew thought. He sometimes felt that life was something that had already risen, and all this, the Jackson Pollack of spring, summer, and fall, the vague refrigeration and tinfoiled sky of wintertime, was just a falling, really, originward, in a kind of correction, as if by spiritual gravity, towards the wiser consciousness — or consciousnessless, maybe; could gravity trick itself like that? — of death. It was a kind of movement both very slow and very fast; there was both too much and not enough time to think. They were staring at their menus. They weren’t talking to one another anymore. They were acquaintances. They wouldn’t hang out anymore after tonight, Andrew knew. He would never see Mark again. Also, Mark would never speak again. The waitress came. They ordered but kept their menus — to stare at.

“They gave me all the bad fish,” Mark said later about his seafood salad.

“No, you have all kinds,” Andrew said. “What do you like then?”

“Tuna, salmon.”

“You have tuna and salmon.” He did; they were both there.

“I have — what’s this? Squid.”

“Octopus,” Andrew said.

“Octopus.”

“It’s octopus,” Andrew said.

“Octopus,” Mark said.

A hamster was on the wall in the bear’s kitchen when the bear appeared.

The bear appeared sitting in a chair.

The hamster ran like a spider across the wall, the ceiling, and another wall.

The bear went to his bedroom.

“My heart is fast,” the bear said to his girlfriend.

“Your heart?” the bear’s girlfriend said.

“Why?”

“A hamster,” the bear said.

“Come here,” the bear’s girlfriend said.

“I don’t feel like sex,” the bear said.

The bear’s girlfriend took the blanket into the kitchen.

The hamster was sitting on the table.

It leapt to the wall and ran across the wall.

The bear’s girlfriend went into the bedroom.

The bear was on the bed.

The bear’s girlfriend lay on the bed.

“I don’t want to exert effort,” the bear said. “I don’t want to move or think anymore.”

“Blow-job,” the bear’s girlfriend said. “Don’t be passive-aggressive.”

“I don’t want one. I’m just saying how I feel.”

The bear’s girlfriend rolled off the bed then ran into the kitchen. The hamster was sitting on the table.

And the bear’s girlfriend put the blanket on the hamster.

The bear came into the kitchen.

“It will suffocate,” the bear said.

The hamster chewed through the blanket.

The hamster stood there.

“I didn’t know they do that,” the bear’s girlfriend said.

“I saw it before,” the bear said.

“You just said it would die,” the bear’s girlfriend said. “You said ‘suffocate.’ ”

“I forgot,” the bear said.

“I was talking about myself,” the bear said. “It feels like I’m suffocating.”

“Your conversation is interminable,” the hamster said.

“I know,” the bear said.

The bear’s girlfriend sat at the table and held the hamster.

The bear’s girlfriend slapped the hamster softly in the hamster’s face.

The bear sat at the table.

“I want to kill Saul Bellow,” the bear said. “I know he is already dead.”

“Do you still hate your novel?” the bear’s girlfriend said.

“My novel is stupid,” the bear said.

“I want to chew through something,” the bear’s girlfriend said.

“I feel like I’m upside down right now,” the bear said. “It feels bad. I feel terrible.”

The hamster was asleep.

“It fell asleep from our conversation,” the bear’s girlfriend said.

“I should take Viagra, anti-depressant medicine, Ritalin, and Caffeine tablets at the same time,” the bear said. “Then vomit in a bucket. And take a bath in the swimming pool.”

“It’s pretending,” the bear’s girlfriend said. “To avoid having to talk to us.”

“It’s making fun of us,” the bear said. “How boring we are.”

“I think I just fell asleep,” the bear’s girlfriend said. “That’s how boring this is right now.”

“I want to slap a moose,” the bear said.

Sometimes moose would be sleeping and they would feel something. They woke and were being slapped by a bear. But they were not angry. Moose had no delusions that year. They knew there were facts and that the world itself was a fact and that facts were not good or bad but just there — a worldview that happened sometimes after you suffered for a long time, alone, in your room, physically comfortable and listening to music — and so had no opinions, feelings, fear, or hatred. They saw the bears with the blankets and they said, “Thank you.”