Giraffes, Gay Bars, and Purple Cabins

According to the map, the treasure is about 4 giraffes from here. Said no one, ever. I hated these short story writing sessions that my parents and therapist forced me to attend. Whose idea was it that writing about your feelings made anything better? They just didn’t get it. No one got it. So, in order to stick it to the man, I spent about a half hour every day writing about giraffes, gay bars, and purple cabins. Let’s see Dr. Punjab Kapoor read into that.

My parents were idiots. They spent thousands of dollars on daily private counseling sessions with an Indian therapist who spoke as if he had learned English from scholarly journals. As if I was going to tell him anything—he literally wouldn’t and couldn’t even understand. Maybe that was part of the problem, my parents spent more money than time on problems. “We just don’t know what’s going on with you right now, and frankly neither do you,” they insisted. “Wouldn’t you like to talk about it with someone?” “Yeah, you guys,” I thought to myself. It shouldn’t take a PhD to realize I had been struggling. But between my father’s cheating, my mom’s denial, and the most perfectly kept house in all of Huntington Beach, you go crazy. We were the best looking dysfunctional mess anyone had ever seen. So why actually admit our struggles when you can send your hormonal teenager to India every day.

“Karissa, have you completed your daily writing task? If you need more time you can have it.” “Oh, crap,” I thought. “Umm… can I read over it really quickly?” I asked. “Sure,” he replied kindly. “Take your time.” I hurriedly glanced at the page, nervous about the fact that I had just written about five pages front and back about feelings, real feelings. After about 6 months of working with Dr. durka-durka Indian something, I had become really good at hiding my feelings. I had always written ridiculous stories into which no one could read and nothing personal entered. However, today I accidentally wrote the truth without realizing it. For a moment, I panicked. I quickly tried to edit out the parts about a dysfunctional giraffe family looking for treasure in all the wrong places until it hit me—no one, not even an Indian genius, would be able to decipher this one. Genius, pure genius.

By Jordan Wilson

First Line by David Lake