Mel Talks To The Little Pink Soap Man

"Honestly, I don't know what they're fussing about," Mel says, to the little pink soap man. The little pink soap man stands on her desk and doesn't say anything. His belly button looks like it wants to wink. She frowns. "I don't think they understand. They seem to think something must be horribly wrong for me to go and delete everything. They don't see that it's very good." The little pink soap man doesn't disagree.

"They don't understand that it just didn't work out right for me. They don't understand how I am about things, that I take too much until I can't take anymore. They don't understand how it was keeping me from going on and doing things. I'm not sure why; I think it's just me. I'm just that way. Something screwed up when they made me." She twists her hands in the light, admiring the way the sliver rings flash.

"They don't understand how I was wearing out the refresh button, and how I sat on IRC for hours just to see who I could talk to. And when I talked to them, it all seemed so fake. They don't understand how I felt like I was competing for comments, for attention, for people to worry about me. I did it all so no one would ever worry about me again, and now they're all standing around wondering and I think they're worrying again."

The little pink soap man's squinty pink eyes look at her and she knows what he's wondering. "It's because I never write things on good days, so they must all think I'm made up of bad days. I'm made up of bones and skin and things though, and all my poetry is too angsty. So I took it all down. And all my stories didn't seem right either. So now when I have bad days, I just have them." She picks up the buck knife, still sticky with slivers of rose scented soap. Little pink soap man was born just a few minutes ago. She holds the knife in her hand and breathes in that feeling.

"I don't even think I can cut anymore, even if it would make me feel better on a day like this." She watches the color of the blade change as she swishes it back and forth. "Doesn't matter anymore, I guess. Seems so stupid, all of it, everything, even camp does sometimes." The little pink soap man's round belly protrudes over the edge of the desk.

"Go on, anywhere you want," she tells herself, her grip on the knife tightening, "anywhere." She looks up at the little pink soap man, "I don't even have this anymore, I guess." A quick one, diagonal across the shin exactly like the first one she did so many months ago.

It stings. She still feels tired and fat and decidedly un-useful, but she decides, this too, will pass. She should try and find something more to delete, to get that delicious feeling she gets when she throws things away.

"Except sometimes I feel like I'm throwing my life away." The little pink soap man doesn't look impressed, rather he's looking at the cut which is beginning to bleed a little. "All this time, I feel like I'm waiting for something, only I don't know what I'm waiting for. I thought maybe if I didn't spend time on the computer like I did before, I'd finally do something, and I wouldn't be waiting anymore. I guess that's really why I deleted everything."

The little pink soap man squints his eyes at her, as if to say, "you're going to go post all of this on wiki and listen to sad songs, feeling lonely and cut off from campers, I know it."

The little pink soap man is very wise.