THREE
     
     Sounds Good? Sure Does.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     Before my second semester of college began, long 
before the call from Cheryl interrupted an evening of 
adventure, the Skulsmasher was still alive and embarrassing, 
and the Easter damsel was still living it up with her 
bowling alley boyfriend. Meanwhile, I’d gone from listening 
to Nine Inch Nails to enjoying Neil Diamond. I liked 
“Solitary Man” and “September Morn.” “Forever in Blue 
Jeans” made me all misty-eyed. 
     And, listening with heartache as “I am … I said” 
finished off another album, I typed on my laptop, online to 
people and places far, far away. At the time, I was typing 
to Beth, who’d left college and gone back to the largest 
state in the continental US. Typing was a good way to 
interact with the outside world. Through the wonders of 
superhuman technology, I didn’t have to pay long distance 
charges to pout, and she didn’t have to hear sappy whining 
to listen. 
     I complained about the Skulsmasher and his bride, 
about the Easter damsel and her brainless bowling buddy, 
about how much I’d like to kill them all. At length, I told 
her my intricate plan to kill them. And she admitted it was 
a dandy plan. But she had other plans for me. She intended 
to cheer me up.
     “Other than killing people,” she asked before 
heading out to a big Texas kind of New Year’s party, 
“what’re you gonna do with this brand new year ahead of 
you?”
     “I don’t know. Nothing good. Probably lose my 
friends.”
     “You won’t lose your friends, silly.” 
     “Yes I will. Megan will sweet-talk her way back 
into the gang. Then they’ll all start lying to me, because 
they know I can’t stand them being with her.” Megan was the 
Easter damsel. 
     “Melodramatic much?”
     “It’s true, though. They always end up lying to me 
in the end.”
     “I won’t lie to you,” Beth offered. “I love you.”
     “I know.” Beth’s love was about as inspiring to me 
as my dog’s apparent affection when I have a bacon-treat in 
my hand. “That makes one person.” Then I added, “Thank 
you. That means a lot to me,” because it’s easy to lie 
boldface online. All you have to do is string the right 
words together, and the machine delivers them without a 
twitch.  
     “And Mark won’t lie to you.” Mark was Beth’s 
boyfriend. 
     “That’s nice of him. Tell him I love him as well.”
     “Mark says you’re a faggot.”
     “No. No. If I were a faggot, I’d want to have sex 
with him. I just want to give him a great big bear hug.”
     “Aw… that’s so sweet. Can he have a kiss too?”
     “Just on the cheek. My lips are reserved for 
someone special.”
     “Is Tasha there?”
     “Nice transition.” Tasha was my family dog. The 
same one that was especially affectionate in exchange for 
bacon-treats. “Yes, she’s right here. She wants something 
to eat.”
     “At least you’ll have someone to kiss at 
midnight.”
     “Oh. You’re a riot, Beth.”
     “See, there you go. At least you’re laughing again. 
That’s something.”
     “It would be, if I were laughing.”
     Instead, I sighed. I looked up from the screen. I 
looked around at the room. The blinds were pulled; the black 
windowpanes beneath were exposed. The lighting was right; 
they were as reflective as the still surface of filthy oil. 
In them, I looked pale and green. I looked mute. I looked 
blind. And the room looked as still as a mausoleum. 
     “Hello?”
     “You know, Beth, I’m just not any good at being 
alone.”
     “Oh Simon.”
     “Oh Beth,” I replied mockingly. I’m not sure if I 
was mocking her or myself.
     “You really need something to go after. You need a 
goal.”
     “Revenge isn’t sufficient?”
     “You need something that will make you feel good.”
     “Revenge isn’t sufficient?”
     “I’m serious. You really need something healthy to 
think about.”
     “Like what?”
     “Something exciting.”
     “I’d like to be happy,” I offered to Beth.
     “Well, that’s obvious. But you can’t always control 
that.”
     “Tell me about it.”
     “So what’ll you do to make yourself happy?”
     I thought about it for a minute. But my answer 
didn’t change from the reflex response.  So I answered 
flatly, “I’d like to lay a bunch of chicks at the same 
time.”
     “Well, that’s noble.”
     “I know. But I miss sex.”
     “I know … sex is nice.”
     “Is was.”
     “Mark says that he could hook you up with a friend 
of his.”
     “Is his friend a he or a she?”
     “We don’t know. But you could find out for us.”
     For a synapse-too-long, I considered. And that 
scared me. That drove me to it.
     “I think I’m going to go get drunk now,” I said.
     “Sounds good.”
     “Sure does.” 
     “Bye.”
     “Good-bye.”
     
     When you’re alone, you spend a lot of time talking 
to yourself. Inside your head. In broken sentences. In 
repetitive chants. Sometimes, loneliness is nothing more 
spectacular than getting fed up with your own company. It’s 
that dark moment when you just don’t have anything 
interesting left to say to yourself. 
     You cry out, “Would somebody please make me shut 
the fuck up for just one minute! I tired of hearing me 
complain and whine!”
      And, “Sure,” says the booze. “I can do that. Try 
some Vodka shots, with Red Wine Chasers.”
     “Sounds good.”
     Sure does.
     ***
     
J. WILDER KONSCHAK
BURYING AMELIA WAVERLY
5