A Few Scenarios
There are a few scenarios I can imagine in the dead silence following my text message to you.
First, the tragic one: you fell, contracted necrotizing fasciitis, and your fingers detached unceremoniously. It crept all the way up. Now you’re left with two shiny, flesh nubbins where your arms used to be. You’ve had the sleeves of your vintage band shirts sewn shut to keep the nubbins warm through the gray Oregon winters. You’ve mastered countless tasks with your toes, but alas—texting remains beyond you.
We all drank too much in college and smoked more than anyone should. I remember my first “wake and bake,” and your curiosity at the novelty of it—as if it were meant to be part of my daily hygiene routine. You were already calling yourself an “aspiring alcoholic,” which at the time seemed funny in the way that red flags sometimes do. Your heroes Jack Kerouac and Henry Miller were a sign. Perhaps the fall was from a drunken night of mischievous acts.
Or maybe you wrote me an epic letter—typed on a 1950s Underwood, naturally—but you haven’t yet cracked the code of how to translate a hand-typed note into the digital realm. Perhaps you’ve developed a severe allergy to Wi-Fi. You break out in hives at the faintest ping of a notification, and now, conditioned like Pavlov’s dog, you sprint naked into the wilderness at the sight of a glowing screen. The nearest river—behind the art buildings at the University of Oregon, teeming with ducks, nutria, and invasive blackberries—has become your baptismal font.
I remember that river. The night we took a blanket there, attempting romance while I swatted mosquitoes and cursed at the sand. You were chasing transcendence; I was chasing a comfortable sitting position. But I digress.
More likely, my text failed to meet your specific criteria: too few inside jokes, not enough cryptic charm, an unacceptable ratio of irony to sincerity. I used to spend entire afternoons fine-tuning that balance—working overtime to seem effortlessly fascinating. Maybe you only wanted me because I was distracted by someone else. Emotional unavailability does have a certain shine to it. My affections were tied up in another silent non-relationship, and you were easier. Interested. Enthusiastic. I adored that. I adored being adored, so briefly.
That day you’d set up a tent in your room and we fooled around behind your locked door. But when he came in with your roommate I recoiled from your embrace, horrified we’d be discovered together. It was not my finest moment.
The simplest explanation, of course, is that you saw my message, rolled your eyes, deleted it, and continued merging your flesh with the bicycle you rode across the country—your buttocks forever fused to the seat in an act of holy devotion.
I’ve kept light tabs on you through the years, as one does. I wasn’t your first serious relationship, but you were mine. We had some sweet and mutually hilarious moments, though it wasn’t until I read He’s Just Not That Into You that I finally understood what, exactly, had transpired between us. The only thing I regret is not being kinder—especially that one cruel text I sent years later. Everything else was just young love behaving as it does: messy, unbalanced, sincere in its own limited way.
No, no. Let’s be real. The most likely scenario is that you saw my message, shrugged, and moved on with your perfectly normal, happy life.
Leaving me to mine.
Jessica Stapp is an author, artist, and lifelong storyteller from Sacramento, California. She has spent most of her professional life in the animal welfare and service industries, always making art along the way. Her writing blends humor, surrealism, and quiet moments of human connection. Mundane Mysteries is her debut fiction collection.