What Kind of Animal Would You Be if you Were Happy

Dumbass arts outreach volunteer guy doesn’t realize she’s concussed doesn’t realize she can’t read right now can’t write right now and even if she could it sure as hell wouldn’t make her heal. Writing to Heal the packet says and she resents it because she got a headache reading such stupid fucking words. God she could just die she could die right now.

But no. Nope. No you can’t. She shouldn’t have even thought it. But now she’s thought it.

It’s funny how before this all dying seemed like so much effort. Like God, so much research put into it all. You could shoot yourself straight in the face and still not die. She looked it up when Gus suggested they use guns and she didn’t want to go through the effort of getting one and she had to give him some reason. So even guns weren’t perfect, hanging might not go all the way, drugs—they had this whole superiority complex about this—drugs were for people who wanted attention. Not people who wanted to die.

Running off the side of the road into a tree wasn’t in either of their plans but Gus has still decided to be a bit of a bitch about it. He wrote:

guess you had to jump the gun

He wrote: 

you promised you wouldn’t leave me alone until quark and pizza died

Hallie wrote, with her eyes closed:

in the hospital

not supposed to be on my phone

So they aren’t talking when she gets the packet and desperately wants to explain how writing won’t make her heal, how it will be the opposite, how the doctor will get mad at her if she writes. But Mom took her phone and she’s bored so once the dumbass clueless arts outreach volunteer leaves she reads it anyway.

The first prompt is:

Imagine the place you most want to be. Write about that place.

That one’s easy because the place she wants to be is not the hospital. Anywhere but the fucking hospital where the lights never go out, only dim, so she has to sit with her head in the pillow and listen to the old fuck only a curtain away who keeps asking her kids to sneak her cigarettes. Makes her glad she will never get to be that old except now Hallie has to chase that thought from her head. Okay next question,

If there was an ice-cream flavor named after you it would be called…

Hallie Barton

When was the last time you laughed? What made you laugh?

She did the nose exhale thing once or twice at a meme before Mom stole her phone but that shouldn’t count enough to write about so? So? This one hurts so next question:

When was the last time you cried? What made you cry?

What the fuck sort of question was that. Next one next one:

What kind of animal would you be if you were happy?

Fuck it costs so much headache to read it again but she has to know what it means:

What kind of animal would you be if you were happy?

It’s impossible to read that question and not want to show it to people so she runs through her list. Can’t show it to Mom because she’ll be too mad about her looking at her phone. So Gus, maybe? Ring ring press the nurse button. “Sorry, I can’t reach my phone,” with a pathetic half-twist of her bruised chest.

That’s when Hallie sees the texts.

was legit an accident

super icy ran off the road

into a tree??

yeah

there’s a lot of those

wasn’t like a special tree

It’s a good idea for the list though, she thinks, before she’s too busy thinking no no no I don’t want to die.

show me a picture of quark

?

if you show me he’s okay i’ll know you aren’t lying

i’m at the hospital

ask your parents

She starts tying out a response explaining how she can’t tell her parents because she isn’t supposed to have her phone and she’s already calculating how she’ll throw it to land back where Mom left it before she gets here but she deletes it all and puts

can’t keep talking too much of a headache

And she closes her eyes and almost adds “sorry” and doesn’t.

#

Quark is a good luck cat. It’s because he’s all black and when Hallie was a child she decided damn (the worst word she was comfortable using) damn people who think black cats are bad luck. So she sees him and she’s certain that as long as he’s in her sight she’s safe.

That was the deal with Gus. Once his rat dies he’ll have nothing to live for and once her cat dies she’ll have nothing to live for and so that was the contract they made. Like a deal with the damn damning devil, Hallie was going to die without Quark, she knew it. Now it’s set in stone. But as long as he’s alive she’s alive. For once, that is good.

She gets home and first thing the big gentle guy is in her arms up on the couch while she talks to Mom and Dad about school and things. She only halfway went to school anyway so that’s fine.

She always used to think about them being at her funeral. And they’d say “Look at all the things we did wrong” and “we were so cruel” and “we should have listened to her.” But now she imagines them at her funeral and they’re just crying.

She texts Gus about how she’s been thinking and he texts back:

good for you then

guess it’s just me

thank fuck rats don’t live that long

don’t say that

???

you’re tempting fate

you’ll make it happen

And she imagines her at his funeral and puts her face into Quark’s fur even though she knows Gus is outside of his providence.

wait gus

She writes, in an outpouring of love at the contemplation of his death. So she doesn’t stand at his funeral bemoaning what she should have done differently.

gus what kind of animal would you be if you were happy

wtf

it was in this hospital packet

of prompts for writing “to heal”

just the absolute dumbest shit

especially since I couldn’t even read

wtf having trouble even parsing this

what was the whole question

She shuffles through her hospital bag for the packet and takes a picture.

holy shit that’s great

“if you were happy”

okay but what animal WOULD you be

idk

roadkill, probably

stop! it!

i was almost roadkill gus

wasn’t very fun

That’s the point where he stops responding.

#

When she gets up in the middle of the night to look at her texts she sees it and she has to go downstairs and find Quark and squeeze his paw and she asks him in little cat-sized tones what he would do in this situation. 

He has a bit of gray fur around his muzzle which Hallie presses his whiskers to as she’s petting him. Under her hand his bones feel just a little hollow. He sits next to her and she cries about death and about how there’s only one thing she can think of that will make someone want less of it

hey think we should go watch the new star wars or something

i’m good enough to drive i think

and reallllllll cooped up

#

Quark. Where’s Quark? She sets down her phone and looks around but he’s not in the room even though she leaves her door open now. She looks outside to decide if she needs a jacket. The thought of needing a jacket fills her with a chill of remembering so she smooths it over the chair to her desks and grabs her phone just in her hand. No ice today it’s fine it’s fine where’s Quark?

She says his name out loud even though that’s no way to search for a cat. The cat will hear you say his name out loud and make sure that he is outside out of earshot. Cold outside though—chilly—not warm but not icy—but he should be in. What if today’s the day he doesn’t come back? Not today when she’s about to do something stupid.

But Gus is here, waving lazily. When he unwraps his scarf to speak, the knit gets caught in his nose ring, and Hallie cackles. He manages to look angry for a little bit but once the struggle is resolved and the scarf is all flung over his shoulders a little laugh puffs visibly from his nose. “The reviews say it sucks.”

“Perfect for someone who loves complaining about things.”

“God, Hal. You sound like Mrs. Jenning.”

“No, don’t say that.” Hallie clasps her hands over her mouth. “I take it back I take it back.”

The steering wheel is cold and clammy. Gus hooks his arms behind his head. It was relaxing wasn’t it, being like that. Almost mean almost cruel what she’s planning on doing.

“You never gave me an animal,” she stalls.

“Can’t be an animal if I’m not happy.”

“Have some imagination.”

“Well it will be easier for you, since you’re all better now.”

Hallie’s pulse thrums cold through every part of her. “I don’t know.”

“A cat?”

“Being a cat seems like a lot of work.”

Gus, in misguided counterargument, jabs the windshield in the direction of Quark lazing towards them. “Where are you going?”

Leaving the car is so much easier than getting in and maybe she’ll just stay out here forever patting his head and hoping the lucky black cat energy will warm her hands and make sure she doesn’t fuck anything up. That anything doesn’t fuck anything up that maybe something will be in control of all the fuckups of the world. 

 It isn’t enough so she picks him up, right to her face, and he hangs there like the gentleman he is until she heads back towards the house. While he’s still confused about being tossed back onto the floor she puts a box of boots in front of the cat door. Just while I’m out, she says, just while I’m out. I’ll be back. And it’s true, because there’s no way—

Well there’s always a way he can there’s never a way to be completely safe never for anybody. The thought screams at her as she leaves through the front door and dodges the icy steps down to the car.

The road is clear and empty.

“I’d be a rat, though.” Gus says. “If Pizza wasn’t happy I’d let him die.”

“But he is happy. And alive, right?” 

In what could have been a mistake, Hallie swerves off the road. Either of them could have died though anything could kill you did pets have guardians too where do they get their luck? Fuck fuck fuck and then the pain and the whiplash and the confusion take over the magical thoughts until the car hits something—a moving thing—and stops with one final jolt.

Gus is fine he is crying so he is fine. Hal was crying too and look at her now perfectly fine.

But there’s fur and meat in the front grate and a twitching mass of limbs on the ground and—

Hal what did you do Hal I’m calling 911 Hal Hal did you hit your head oh fuck Hal what did you do. It’s not dead yet Hal. Fuck we’ve got to find some way to kill it Hal Hal.

She can’t respond can’t say anything but when he takes the stealing wheel from her and the gas pedal from her and he steers the car delicately over the deer’s head she pulls her limbs up onto the seat and does nothing and thinks that’s enough that’s probably enough.