• Vol. 08
  • Chapter 02
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Beach Read

You don't know what you want. Your whole world is in that phone and you want to throw it in a lake. There are not even any lakes around. Fine, the sea then. Drive to the beach, throw the phone in the water, drive back home. What would that do? Someone gave you a book of essays, very well written essays and you appreciate that they're well-written but also they are sad, too sad and you don't need or want any sadness. You don't need to learn empathy. Or how it feels to be a woman in this world second hand. You already have the first hand experience. Someone else should read this book. Maybe you should take it to the beach with your phone, but leave it on the sand for someone to find. A beach read. Ha ha. Maybe a man will find it and read it and have an epiphany of what women go through. Maybe. But you're not holding to that hopeful thought for too long. Empathetic men don't get that way by reading. Do they? Maybe if they were reading as children? You honestly don't know. You think of this often, not just about men but also about women and children. What would it take to have no more Nazis in the world already? No xenophobes and homophobes and billionaires? You couldn't punch all of them in the face. Or, joke aside, it can't be that you could just sit down and talk them into being better human beings, can it? Now you feel tired and want to throw the world in the lake, or in the sea as there are no lakes around. The world is in the phone anyways, so that would work. No extra trips necessary.

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