My head is a frozen Christmas turkey, at Target. Extra pounds and revolting scent with a saggy frozen skin.

My midriff is a stump of rock, just covered with human skin on the outside to keep the unsuspecting eyes unaware.

My legs are construction heavy breezeblocks.

I am a part of the couch which is the only thing that is watching a 25 minute narrative video about the preservation of dams.

I have discovered that, depression can be like a badly cooked family dinner which leaves a sour taste in your mouth, accompanied by the post dinner heaviness that goes nowhere.

It has something to do with everybody in little bits and also with a man named Arutro Gilbert whose obscure first name could also make him a woman.

Currently, gender isn't a problem. The article is.

It's headline is written in bold, Times New Roman font which is the fruit of a computer's work and not a carefully crafted typewriter's paper tongue.

"HOW TO LIFE"

Jan, the Newshouse director, was the one on the phone when I walked into the house, with unchanged PT shorts. The muddy slide of a dodged dodge ball left an earthy slash on my back, as if I was leaking mud instead of blood.

I was standing close enough to hear the love affair in distorted fizzes, unwilling to hide.

"No, J—Julia. Julia." Hearing this, Mum giggled out like a school girl, as if she was being given a bouquet of her favorite flowers.

"It's mine, Jan?"

"Well, he begged me to send it to you. At first, I said, my best is already busy with her precious endeavor, her book. And I don't want a short time socialist to wiggle its nose into any of our prints."

The pair of word "Precious endeavor" made me wonder if Jan knows that I, a Gotfrey Newell, Julia Newell's son, exists.

"I wouldn't mind. I mean, the more the merrier."

"Oh, Julie. Do you think I'm that naïve? Of course, I know that you want this. You want everyone's opinion on everything!"

"So, what did you tell him?" Mum's hand tightened on the counter corner, eager to pounce.

"I told him that if he leaves his so called, 'Seminar Papers and statistics sheets' in for 3 days. And . . . and if only the stars align, then maybe he can get a little bit of exposure."

"So, you said no?" Her cheeks deflated like an air balloon.

"I said no and I sent you the papers."

"What?! When?"

"Oh, you didn't get it yet? That's because I sent Larsie and she certainly tends to take her time . . . well, with everything."

"By 7?"

"If she doesn't get lost first." I kept my comical eyes on my face but on the inside, I was thinking what kind of influence Jan is working on mum, with her silly sadism.

"I . . . really can't wait."

"Oh, you'd love it. Hamp knows nothing and he got intrigued. Besides, with Mukato, I also sent you some of the rejects . . . you know this and that parental guidance, health and wellbeing, books and foods . . . you know, grief and loss. The usual yada yada."

"Jan, you're a peach!"

And a subconscious sadist, I thought.

"Oh, darling. I'm just the woman who gets all the mail but cannot do anything with it. Err . . . by the way, how's Jerry? Off and out again?"

Mum made a face, like she pricked her fingers by the camouflaged thorns of the rose.

"You guessed it."

"Ah, don't feel bad. You got this, right, hon?"

"Yeah." She said, unsurely.

"Besides, look at this from this way. You can get more stuff done, right? In the meantime. And, by next December, when we'll be popping champagne bottles on the Priors desks and reading your reviews from The New York Times, you'll be glad that Jerry was gone for a week."

Why wouldn't my mother be best friends with Jan? She says everything mum's thinking or subtly hoping to hear.

"Yeah. Don't count on next Christmas, though."

"Oh, you'll get it done. I know you! And now I can understand that the conversation has gone random and you're secretly aching to get back to work."

The speaker dished out all tones of laughter. Maniac first, lowering to sensible and then formal giggle.

"You do know me."

"I'll let you get back to it. Oh, and if Larsie does get lost, and by that I mean, if you don't have it by 7, just give me a call or tell anyone to pass it through and I'll make sure of it."

"Yeah, that's . . . thanks, Jan."

"Cheers, hon!"

At 6:13, from the agape front door, I spotted a woman. Midget sized and hair like a half eaten cupcake as she handed Mum a large cardboard box, filled to the brim. Then speed walked back to her car without a proper goodbye.

Mum was typing the first and reading Mukato whilst I was on top of the kitchen counter. Reading the rejects and trying not to act too strange. Then Arutro Gilbert's bold font, caught me off guard.

I found the bullet points interesting especially the third one because it was angry and explicit.

"Coping mechanisms: A loser's way towards accepting rejection."

1. Lack of attention: The first step towards social shunning.

If Jan did not exist, if Mukato, the socialist, did not appear out of thin air and if my mother interacted with me a bit more than asking about dinner, then a healthy conversation would be possible, eradicating one problem, along with Arutro Gilbert's passive aggressive bullet points.

I would like us to be in the living room, away from the typewriter, the bundles of papers that can cover the whole house twice, the twangs and nicotine smelling coffee mugs and packets of saltines that are sitting like desert dust.

I'd wallow down to the cushions and mum would sit on the sturdy, wooden coffee table.

Stance to ensure power and authority.

"Things haven't been going well at school, mum." I'd say, cheeks fluffed and darkened dispositions.

"Anything specific or widespread?" She's a doctor, taking inventory of clues.

"I'm being ignored. Clay took forever to respond. Even during baseball and one match of dodge. He didn't even call out when he lobbed one at me."

"He's being like this . . . for, how long would you say?" She would be like dad, who's lips are made to sprout professional interactions.

"From the last time we fought. The fight wasn't even any brutal. The inside cut is gone."

She wouldn't be angry to hear about it. There would not be any Julia Directive, Moral's stronghold. But mum, the supportive pillar.

"What does your gut say?"

"I think, he thinks he's better than me. He must and I can't blame him because he read the Dolorous letter. We struggled and I cursed him a lot. I said a bit too much of a bad thing about Rommery."

Mum wouldn't list the downside of teen love and ignore my increasing record of misbehaviors.

"Oh, dear." A common phrase that my mother never says.

"Everyone's at school is like this too. They liked me at first. I even got a nickname Shakespeare because the letter was good. They are probably realizing it now that it was a bit too psycho and I'm not right in the head for some reason."

"But was it honest? The letter I mean?" At this point, she would take a seat beside me. Hunched down towards my general direction. Like the people on AA posters always look like.

"It was honest. I liked Dolorous. I thought she was the kind of girl who liked the competition. I think I took it too far. I didn't want to. I just wanted her to like me, that's all! It felt like the right thing to do."

Her arm would be lobbed over me, on cue.

"I just wanted to be loved, mum. It's a not . . . it's not a bad thing to ask, is it?"

"No, Frey. It's normal. It's humane. It's on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Level 3, I think. Love and belonging."

"That—that must be it!" Tears are things that cannot be on cue.

Never.

"So, it's not sexual intimacy?" She'd crack a loud snicker, poking me in the neck all the while.

I'm thinking about Ms. Eden.

"Jackie thinks I'm a dickhead now. Mel probably would call me an asshole if she was a bit more juvenile."

"You're none of those things, Frey." She wouldn't shun me on cursing. Name callings are allowed.

"I wrote another part of Jackie. In Blue Ridge. You don't know about the Free Hand writing class. I dropped the grammar. I don't need it."

In reality, my mother has no clue about Ms. Eden and free handwriting with 10 other bunch of amateur hooligans because Ms. Eden helped me switch the forms.

"I wrote about Jackie's mother. It was very insensitive. Everyone laughed cause they thought it was a joke. Except for Winnie. He's really uptight."

"You should have come to me before, Frey."

There would a person off set, showing white boards filled with commands, like 'Hug'.

"You're always busy with that thing. And Jan's spoiling you with socialist and sadism."

"You're top priority." She'd say, not stuttering and pure.

"You don't act like it."

"Is it too late to start?"

After that, we would talk the whole night through. Scheming, hatching plans, marking out enemy territories, minefields. Breaking in the arsenal of social advises and grand gestures of apology and understanding.

And after tomorrow, everyone, everywhere will be happy, including me.

"Frey! Mind turning the volume down for a bit?"

My haze breaks off with a spasm. I'm a narcoleptic patient.

"Well, don't watch TV all night. Get some dinner. I'm starving."

I examine the papers on the cushion that are being manhandled by my tightened grasp; clawed and peppered with salt water.

"Frey, bring the reject folder back, will you?"

For dinner, we ate mash and I sweated heavily in the dining table because the windows were nailed and all the drawn curtains with the overhead yellow halogen turned the quarter into a low powered oven.

From quick scrolling, mum easily discovered Arutro Gilbert. Like me, she's a sucker for confident and Bold fonts.

When she read the pointers out loud, the coping mechanism sounded more pathetic than the first time. Like a bad comedy drama on repeat.

She laughed out of arrogance and Gilbert's misused on various points.

Somehow, mum found out the lack of my banter and took it as a sign of distress. I don't know why but then and there I felt like, keeping her out of it so I choked on half steamed beans and felt obligated to crack a joke.

"Those coping mechanism sounds like calculus, mum."