The Hilarious World of Depression by John Moe

Author:John Moe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

And with that I passed the phone off to Mom.

Is it an emotion to want to leave somewhere? On this most horrifying of nights, when one would need to give and receive comfort more than ever, I desperately wanted to be without it. I wanted to be alone because I knew that I, at least, would be there and stay there. Not like some people who shoot themselves in the head at a gun range. Besides, I had work to do. I had to finish that radio story.

What? Yes.

The radio story about cooking with Marshmallow Peeps? That’s right.

How would you even work on that in San Diego? I packed my work laptop.

What?! When?! When I left the office immediately after getting the call from Jill.

When you were in shock? Yes. I grabbed the laptop in case I wouldn’t be coming back.

Are you crazy?! I think this was established some time ago.

But … I mean…? Say it.

WHY? Because I didn’t want people to get mad at me.

Yes, my brother had shot himself that afternoon, but I was still only a few months into my new job. People would be judging me based on the quality of my stories, I believed, and the best way to make sure that this story was as good as it could be was to finish putting it together myself. If I handed it off or it never ran at all, then I would be judged poorly down the line and my boss and new co-workers would think badly of me and then I’d get fired and no one would ever hire me again and Jill would leave me and I would become homeless and then die of an overdose or gunshot. Besides, working on the story even under these circumstances would show my colleagues that my priorities were in the right place: not with my family but with making a fluff story for a low-rated newsmagazine program.

A chef talking about the right way to roast a Peep will not block out 100 percent of one’s thoughts of one’s dead brother’s suicide or said brother’s bloated yellow corpse, but it’s good for about 30 percent, and beggars can’t be choosers. I worked until the Pro Tools software started to blur and I found there were large chunks of the story I couldn’t remember because I had fallen asleep sitting up, headphones on. The sleep surprised me because I had assumed, given the events of the day, that I just wouldn’t sleep again. It was clear to me that I wouldn’t be able to finish the story.

I emailed my editor explaining what had happened that day and providing instructions on which server to go to in order to find the draft version of the story I’d been working on. I apologized for not completing it in a manner ready for air.

I slept.

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