Milk Outside a Bag of Milk Outside a Bag of Milk Review (non-trivial homomorbism)
when i was eighteen, i came home from college over summer break. i had already thrown away the old me. or at least i thought i had thrown her away, you know? maybe i packed her down somewhere. at the bottom of one of the suitcases full of dirty clothes. or underneath all the books in the cardboard boxes that had started to gather dust. the cardboard had ripped when i tried to carry it to the bookshelf. isn't that funny? a moving box that can't be moved. dad had told me not to pack it so full, but i trusted it, so i guess i was the one that really got hurt.
i don't think the box felt anything. the tear was clean and fast. one moment it was a whole box, and the next, just a corpse of one. cardboard corners and bones and wavy insides and a hundred books in a stomach that would never finish digesting them. gross. the acid must have gotten to the pages by now. no point in trying to clean the carcass.
i guess it'll just stay there another day.
sorry. i guess i got distracted. anyway. when i was eighteen, i came home from college over summer break. and i didn't really know how to act. i had already thrown away the old me, you know? or at least i thought i had. maybe i packed her down somewhere. i always forget to unpack whenever i travel. the suitcases just keep filling up and the clothes get dusty. dad always got so angry over it, too. he'd talk about how bad the smell was, and it was all because of me. but i really don't think the smell was that bad, because i always kept the bags zipped, and when it was trash i bagged it up and kept it by the door so that when i had switch houses again i could take the bags and throw them all away. did anyone else have to switch houses?
...sorry. it happened again, huh?
when i was eighteen, i came home from college over summer break. i'd... i'd sort of forgotten how to act around everyone back home. like i'd already thrown away the old me.
right. the old me was in the trash, so i would have taken her out when i switched houses.
okay. that's a relief. i was worried i'd run into her again.
because she was gone, i didn't really know how to talk to all the people i used to talk to. mom and dad thought i was someone i wasn't and i didn't really know what to tell them so i just didn't. i tried to smile and laugh like they wanted. but i did it at the wrong times, and they got really mad. not mom! mom told me she wasn't mad. so i guess it was dad that got mad. dad mad, mom sad. i think she was sad. she started crying once, when she asked how i really felt and i told her. but she said i wasn't in trouble then, either, so maybe she wasn't sad or mad but something else.
i didn't really want to leave my room. my room had the computer and the other rooms had mom and the floors that made my feet black and the wall with the screaming face and the other house had dad and he'd scream and the bed wasn't right there either. it was in the middle of the room and anyone could crawl up from underneath it and i couldn't keep my back against the wall. i just used the computer until i couldn't stand it anymore and then i'd pass out. and before you ask, it wasn't sleep! i was unconscious. i didn't dream, so i knew i hadn't slept. smart, right?
i think i managed to exist for two weeks like that. almost two weeks, actually. thirteen days. i remember because one of the few times i managed to put myself together and exist i just spent the whole time thinking how unlucky it was to stop existing on the thirteenth day. i thought i could make it two whole weeks and fly back to where the real me was, but i disintegrated on the last day. dad would've yelled at me if he ever found out. he always hated when i quit early. i didn't really think disintegrating counted as quitting but i'm sure he'd yell at me for it anyway.
anyway, i stopped existing for a few days. and while i was gone i didn't shower or leave or eat or talk to anyone. i mean, i tried! you can't be mad, because i did make a real and honest effort! but it just... didn't work. i turned on the shower and turned it off because the water wouldn't hit my body. and i tried to open the door, but i didn't have a hand, so i was stuck. and i typed to people on the internet, and they typed back, and for a little bit i thought maybe that would make me exist. but isn't that kind of stupid, when you think about it? nothing in the computer is real. i mean, it's real, it's electrons and led displays and microchips, but it's not REAL. not real enough, at least. it's text and emoticons and asterisks next to a name and maybe a display picture if the internet loads well enough. not real enough. you can't exist off of that. it's just not enough.
what saved me? huh. i guess...
you're probably going to laugh if i say this, you know?
promise not to laugh.
promise me, okay! i'm serious! i'll know if you don't!
well... it was a lot easier than i thought to exist, actually. i ended up finding a picture of eyes. a bunch of eyes all looking out at me from the screen. and that wasn't real either, but it was just a little more real, you know? just real enough. when the eyes were looking at me, i knew i existed, and that meant i was there again. i could shower and eat and go out where my dad was as long as i had their eyes watching me after. it wasn't easy, though, i can tell you that much! it took me almost an hour to open the door, even with my hands back. but i managed to eat eventually. thanks, mom.
this is a game about people like me.
maybe you don't understand my words, but you're curious enough to want to.
or maybe you do understand, and this is the first time you're seeing someone else who understands, and even if it's not REAL it's real enough and you can exist for a little bit longer.
or maybe you just want to point and laugh at someone that's different.
but you can't. you promised me, remember?