The Faster I Walk, the Smaller I Am by Kjersti Annesdatter Skomsvold & Kerri A. Pierce

Author:Kjersti Annesdatter Skomsvold & Kerri A. Pierce
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Contemporary, Adult
ISBN: 9781564787033
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
Published: 2009-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

“EUREKA,” I SAY when I read about exposure therapy in the newspaper, that’s obviously what I need. Anne Norunn (37) is terrified of bacteria and gets scared to death when her husband—he’s actually younger than her—Kent (35) sneezes. Anne Norunn spends a fortune on soap and detergents and is even considering divorcing Kent, who’s a walking time bomb of filth, she’d rather have an air purifier for a husband. “Exposure therapy is what you need,” the psychologist says. “You have to gradually expose yourself to bacteria more and more until finally you can be with Kent again.” “I don’t think that’s possible,” Anne Norunn says. “But it is,” the psychologist says.

I need to expose myself more and more to death—without going too far, it’s a delicate balance—but then at last I’ll be able to live with the fact that I’m going to die. I figure this can be done in two ways and so I draw up a list.

1. I can visit graveyards, go to funerals, or I can plan my own funeral. When I told Epsilon which song I wanted played at my funeral, I was laughing because I wasn’t going to die. I stopped laughing when he took out a pencil and wrote it down in his almanac.

It must be terrible to plan your own funeral. It’s probably easier to plan other people’s.

2. I can begin living dangerously. I can cross the street without first looking left, then right, then left again.

The last possibility I can think of is to “forget” to turn off the hot plate, and I decide to get right on that. In the news, you read about houses and apartments burning down because old people forget to turn off their hot plates, but then again, maybe they don’t forget, they “forget.”

I switch the hot plate on high and then I sit on a kitchen chair and wait. I wait a long time, but my fear of dying doesn’t let up, I just get hot, like Pol Pot. In fact, the whole apartment is getting warm and oppressive, and I’m tired of the green carpet and brown wallpaper, I want to get out, I want to live, I want to go to the salon, but I can’t go to the salon, I went there before my wedding and every time the hairdresser dragged a comb through my hair and it hit my ears, I flinched and thought “never again,” but I have to get out out out, and I stand up and run out the door without bothering with the peephole, I couldn’t care less about the peephole, and I take the stairs in slippers, I throw myself against the heavy outer door and run over the sidewalk to the grass where I lay down.

I go back inside.

There’s no one in the foyer. The flier for the community gathering is still up, and so is the one for the get-together at the senior center. I feel sick again. There are a bunch of new fliers too.

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