((Found scrawled in pencil between notes on Voltaire's Candide, a stick drawing of a monkey in a tutu, and a rough thesis statement on the Genius of Hannibal Barca))

Sometimes I wonder why I even bother. It seems that the most stifling force in life is the only one we can’t avoid. Those actions which we perform out of necessity, the little daily things, the rituals. We seek out luxuries that we can only enjoy momentarily. If humans are visceral creatures, then our desires are entirely fictional. They are fed to us, I can see it everywhere. Smiling faces touting this or that. “The best part of waking up”, “Diamonds are forever”, “Pamper yourself.” It’s everywhere, never-ending. We want these things, but in the end what happens? Once they are gone we are the same miserable asshole we were before sans a few dollars.

Why am I writing this? I as a sensory creature am prey to the purveyors of false happiness. I grasp at it a junkie who needs a fix, a starving person who needs food, a garden slug who has trailed over a trail of fresh salt. The need bleeds from me, I reek of it. They say one cannot smell one’s own scent, well not us humans anyway. Animals can creatures not full of guile and smiles. I recently smelled my own.

The smile it stays plastered on my bruised beaten face. It’s not even a thought anymore. It’s just there. I work. My battered ribs remind me of my own mortality, the crinkling of stitches on my face as the smile stretches the cheek. Funny it might leave a scar, if I could relax those muscles while I heal it won’t, but that is not something I can do. I will be marked by my own insincerity, I’ve hidden it so well, but now it’ll be plain to the world. Maybe a child will pick up on it. Point to me and whisper, “Mommy there goes a liar, see!”

So I pour the drinks. I flirt; push my curves out as far as I can, I let my voice seep honey. I like the attention, it’s helpful. I can sometimes pretend the smiles I receive are actually for me and not for the fermented liquid that sloshes into glasses and down into stomachs. You see I too am a purveyor of false happiness. Does that make me a predator? No, it makes me a storyteller. Even as my customers remind themselves of their own importance, they flex, fawn, play and tell their stories, I enable them.

But what about my story? Is it important? No one wants to hear about back home. The summer when I was 13 spent working in a field with the migrant workers my jaw wired shut so I could earn money for school clothes. The boyfriend who’d beaten me unconscious when I couldn’t pleasure him with my jaw wired shut, broken fingers when I wouldn’t use my hands. The bruises, cuts, scratches, bites; all menial, all gone. I still see them, you see I know where I hide them. The left corner of my lip right where it curves up into a grin they are hidden there almost invisible to the naked eye. I just shake my head and the grin widens. No one wants to hear about it and I convince myself that I don’t want to talk about it.

I just have to shrug, it’s not important really it’s not. My mantra, I repeat it over and over, “Best Part of Waking up”, “It’s nothing”, “Diamonds are Forever”, “Not Important”, “Pamper Yourself”, “It’s stupid and no one wants to hear it.” Repeat, wash, rinse, repeat.