Topics of Conversation by Miranda Popkey

 

"'I realized that in real life, no matter what' --she shook her head--'people get up in the morning and wash their faces and make themselves breakfast. They tell jokes and they read to their kids and they go on dates and they fall in love and they fuck and they have to wash the dishes and deal with the electric company. What I'm trying to say is, after I left--I mean it was hard, mostly because I didn't know how to talk about it, how to explain what I'd done, what I felt, what I didn't feel. But every morning I got up and I washed my face and I brushed my teeth and I ate my cereal and I went to the office. I went shopping and to the movies, and out to dinner. I dropped clothes off at the drycleaner. On a certain level, it's grotesque.'"