By Heloisa Novelli

The thing I hate the most is myself. My name is not important. You said that you want someone with fresh complaints about life — oh my friend, I have several. It’s like there are phases of life, and now I am in my complaint phase. Like angsty teenagers? But I am an angsty adult now.

The only thing I love dearly is my cats, and animals in general — not the squishy ones, God no. I draw my line at mammals, some birds, and some lizards. That’s it.

Other than that, life for me is suffocating. You might be wondering, if you hate life so much, why don’t you erase your existence? Well, I enjoy the hate, friend. That is the irony with me — I enjoy hating things. It is my hobby.

Let’s move to the fun part: my list of hates. I will start with a very relatable one. I go to the gym every day, friend. I am not in the best financial situation, you know that, so I need to go to one of those chain gym places that have a stupid name like “Anywhere Gym,” “Smart Muscle,” “FitYou,” and so on.

The smell alone gets on my nerves. It is a mixture of sweat and cheap cleaning products with that distinctive rose smell. If I were pregnant, I think I would have to change to another gym because the smell once the automatic doors open would kill me. Then there are the people who go there — people who take selfies while doing the stairmasters. Sorry, not selfies. That is a thing of the past. Small videos with sweat dripping from their faces. It looks like the person is on some kind of military training. It is ten minutes on the stairmaster, Janet. Get over yourself. Then there are the people who spend ten minutes on a piece of equipment because they hired the same personal trainer that Arnold Schwarzenegger uses, and they need to do ten repetitions, each one with a different weight and angle. I swear, for these, I reserve my most powerful, hateful look.

You know that this generation doesn’t go to pubs or clubs anymore, right? They live in the gym now. So while I hurry to finish my forty-five-minute training because I want to get the hell out of there with that smell of sweat, BO, and funeral home, they stay there for two hours. Training and socialising. Maybe using dating apps — who knows these days.

You ask if I socialise much. I do not. But I am required to, at least once a month, by my husband. You are probably surprised by now to find out I have a husband, since he is not in my list of things I love from above. Well, I like him some days. I tolerate him most of the time. I think it is mutual, actually. The other day, on our mandatory socialise day, we went to a pub. It was close to Paddy’s Day (which I also hate), and there were some guys wearing a kilt. Do not ask me why — sometimes I feel Americans come here and decide that we are one big island. I am not from here either, but I get mad for them. Anyway, you go to these pubs, and you pay more than double for a pint — not a great one, let me tell you. I am at that age where my acid reflux is worse than ever, depending on the food, so I order the chips, and I can feel the burning in my throat hours later. Heartburn at its finest. We start talking — you don’t know me very well yet, but I need alcohol in my system to keep a conversation going these days and feign interest. But I hate the hangover afterwards because, again, I am at an age where the hangover is more like the flu. The world is so polarised now — it is another thing I hate, by the way — because they were talking about politics, how if you are not on the right side of the spectrum, you are a leftie, but if you say you are also not a leftie, then what are you? You can’t stay in the centre. You need to be somewhere. The drink helps me not tell these people who are supposed to be friends to go fuck themselves. Sometimes you just want to have common sense and basic human decency. You do not need to call yourself left or right. No one is listening to your podcast, man. Again, get over yourself.

Then the beers are already acting up on my system. I have this thing where when I get bored with the conversation — which doesn’t take long — I look at the other tables. I start my people-watching session before I decide it is time to leave. It is usually at the same time that the bar decided it was a good idea to hire a guy or a girl with a guitar to do some covers, so the noise gets so loud you can no longer talk in a proper voice, and you wonder what is the point of coming to a bar with a group of friends if I can’t talk in a low, normal voice? What I usually take from my people watching is that I hate the broccoli haircut, fake tans, eyelashes that look like caterpillars, and makeup that could cover the holes in a wall.

My nights at the pub are difficult. After the people watching, I start looking at the many televisions hung on the walls showing some kind of sport. Yesterday it was GAA and football. I don’t understand the rules of GAA, and the football is usually English teams I’ve never heard of. Then I want to leave. It is such a desperate feeling that I would pay to leave and get home as soon as possible, to escape the conversations. The friends — better, the acquaintances — that we have now are the type that if we go out today, they will start suggesting another outing tomorrow. What they don’t know is that I didn’t even want to go out today. I am just doing my time. I wish I could say, “Thanks, but I am seeing you today and that is enough for me. Don’t take it personally, though.”

Then, my friend, we finally get home. Home is my sanctuary. Maybe it should be on my list of things I love, but I live in an apartment block, and people like me are not made to be living so close to other human beings. We live in Ireland — did I mention this already? Ireland. With the small roads, small streets, even in Dublin. We parked the car, and our parking neighbour has a 4×4 SUV, the type you see in American movies. The type that drinks petrol or diesel or whatever. She has real trouble parking inside the lines. You always need to open the door like you are escaping from your own car. Squeezing yourself out, going sideways. Oh, and it gets better — sometimes she has visitors and lets them park in her spot, and they have a black Mercedes 4×4, the type I think the FBI uses.

I have a problem with Sundays too. Like everyone, I think. This is a common hate, I guess. Unless you don’t have to work on a Monday, or unless you love your work. However, if someone who works in an office like me tells me that they love their job, I call bullshit. They’re lying. I have been working since the height of my seventeen years old. Almost always in an office, always with useless meetings, useless deadlines. There was a time when I started questioning what my value to society was. At that point, I was responsible for managing an account that bought tools for telecom technicians — ladders, drills, and stuff. I started wondering what would happen if I fucked it all up. The contract, the logistics. They would still show up to install the line to the client. A workaround would happen. There might be delays, but nothing too critical. It was not like I was a doctor who stopped performing surgeries, and even if I were, there would be another doctor to replace me and do the surgery. I always thought I was just a number, but that was the wake-up call. You do not find two artists who are the same, but you can find two project managers who are. That’s why I hate office life. Planes are still flying. The world is turning. No one is dying because you did not complete the features inside the sprint. The other thing is this hybrid model for working that they are trying to push now. They actually want us to go back full time to the office. My office is a decrepit place. The dust in there alone is probably more than ten years old. That God-awful carpet with crumbs all over — and other unimaginable things.

My boss — well, he is not really my boss, although I know that secretly he wishes he were. He is more like the team leader. He is an older guy, and I can feel in my bones that he thinks he is better than everyone. One time we were talking and he was saying how he used to be so good at chess and comparing chess strategy with stakeholder management. Oh God. That told me everything I needed to know. Every time we go to the office, after our daily call — which is a repetition of what everybody is doing, or something you can make up to sound like you are working on something new — everyone goes for coffee. I always try to escape. The only thing I like about that ritual is that the canteen is on the seventh floor and you can see Dublin from above. Not really, but since we don’t have tall buildings, it feels like it. Also, from the canteen I cannot see that hideous Liberty Hall, which I wish would be demolished. It is a sore eye when I walk along the riverside. They always go for coffee and have the Irish breakfast, which consists of an oily hash brown, mushrooms, a sausage, and poor-quality beans. No thanks. What I do is pay an excruciating four euro for my americano on the way to the office — which is an espresso with water — and listen to podcasts so I have the illusion that time is going faster.

But I forgot to tell you the cherry on top, mon ami! The commute. Dublin is famous for its terrible public transport, and I will not disappoint you. I can walk or take the bus every time I go to the office. As I mentioned, I like to suffer, so usually I trade my fifty-minute walk and take the bus. Oh, it is a treat! We have these displays here that tell you how long until the next bus is coming, but they are usually wrong. You look and it says four minutes, then you look again and it says six minutes, then five, then seven. I swear I have already waited an hour in this mind game that the panel plays with me. We do not believe in queues here in Dublin. I think it is because British people like to queue and they hate them, so usually there is a crowd, and the whole crowd moves to the door once the bus stops. It looks like savage behaviour, but it is actually very civilised. They form this little bolinho at the door, and one by one we go inside.

The bus has a distinct smell. I think you have noticed by now I have a thing with smells. It is BO, metal, plastic, and tobacco all together, with a hint of curry as well. It is absolutely disgusting — a real eye-waterer. Sometimes, when your breakfast hasn’t gone down well, an old lady with the strongest perfume you have ever smelt will enter the bus and sit beside you to complete your day. The windows are almost always closed, which helps as well.

The buses here are all double-deckers, with few exceptions. I don’t know why, but I hate going upstairs — climbing those narrow stairs and seeing everyone looking at me from the top while I try to find a seat. I don’t know why, but I always remember that scene in Forrest Gump when he is a kid trying to find a place to sit. So usually I stay below, close to the disabled spot. I like that spot. It has space. I can see where the driver is going — I am very neurotic; it is important that I see that he or she is following the correct route — and I can open one of those little windows if I want to. But — but — there is always, and I mean always, a woman with a stroller and four kids who enters the bus and steals my seat. Technically it is her right, just as if a disabled person entered I would have to move. I know that. I am not debating the rights here. The problem is the quantity of women with strollers between here and the city centre. There are ten stops, and at least at three of them there are women with strollers and kids on the side. Don’t we have enough people in the world already? I think we do. My husband says we don’t.

That’s another one of my pet peeves. I do not like kids. OK, let me rephrase that — I don’t like most kids. The noisy ones, the bad-mannered ones, the spoiled ones. I said that to a friend once, and she said, “So you like the ones who look like a plant?” Yes. More or less.

My friend, the truth is that there is a movie — which I really like and have watched at least ten times already — called Groundhog Day. I love Bill Murray. I think I will be really sad when he dies, like I am losing a close friend. He is stuck in the same day forever. I am too. It is an infinite loop. Same days, weeks, months. The movies from the eighties had this feel-good feeling, so there is always a happy ending, even in this one. In reality, I doubt it. Phil, his character, starts to have an epiphany and realises that you need to do good for others. This breaks the loop. You’re too busy being good to worry about your petty problems. God, that film would never work today. People would record themselves helping the poor and wonder why the curse isn’t broken.

You said I am a fake, dissimulated person. That’s why you asked for this reply. Who are you underneath it all? Why are you such a fake? I am sorry to disappoint, friend. You probably thought it was a sweet cream underneath the fake persona, no? I would say it is bittersweet — more bitter, of course. This is me. I am this rant.

By Karly Foland

Back then, my job was easier. When people recognized me for me.The unclean spirit planting twisted thoughts in their heads. The incubus crouched on their chests as they slept. The beast with razor-sharp claws flaying their defenseless minds into mangled abominations. And the manifestation of my efforts were glorious. Bodies shook until teeth chipped and knocked loose from bleeding gums. Eyes rolled back til vessels burst and painted the whites scarlet. Tongues lolled and dripped strings of thick saliva onto scabbed skin. A divine symphony of horrors played out on captive vocal cords. I pulled til voices lowered and produced incomprehensible moans cascading out over cracked lips; squeezed til high-pitched shrieks hurled unspeakable curses and threats at God and their loved ones, but never me. I plucked them. I chose the melody. I kept my name sacred and hidden. Until I wanted to shatter eardrums and drench bedsheets with the briny and acidic fluids of these weak creatures.

Back then, few veered from their understanding of my presence. Only fools, who made nonsensical accusations against their own kind for causing these calamities. Witchcraft. Sorcery. Those had nothing to do with me. And I hated sharing credit. So I redoubled my efforts after every superfluous trial and execution pyre. I showed that humans could never match my power. My power. Beautiful. Terrible. The Destroyer of Minds. There was no Legion. There was only me.

Back then, I worked the night shift. I crept with the darkness across the earth. Simple creatures, they shunned forests, caves, places of the deepest shadows, where light could not penetrate. Feared what they sensed but could not see. I was what they could not see. The chill that ran down spines. The hair raised on the backs of necks. The shadow flitting past the eyes. The feeling of being watched, of something not right, the inexplicable racing of the heart and sweat dripping down armpits and temples. That was me. Always me.

Back then, wise men, medicine men, religious men, charged heavy tolls for useless cures. Amulets and oils and scraps of paper bounced off of me like fighting a lion with a feather. Fevered prayers from deluded saints attempted to banish me. None could banish me. I existed everywhere. For darkness is everywhere. I lurked in every dark place, amplified every dark thought, encouraged every dark impulse. I emerged from the shadows and slithered up legs, torsos, wrapped around necks, and squeezed. Lungs burned and eyes bulged but I eluded their perception. Even as I filled their bodies with my very being, like the black spores of mold feeding on the decaying matter of their hopes and desires, they succumbed to me in confusion, in despair.

Back then, nothing stopped my relentless attacks. So their desperation grew. They flogged flesh until it tore open and hammered nails into skulls and tore out chunks, creating doorways to encourage my exit. Sacrifice the body to save the soul, they cried. Everything crucial, necessary for their lives spilled out of them like rubies and amber. But I remained. Their extremism only served to rob me of my prize, my joy in completing my task. There is no challenge, no satisfaction, when another rips the body from your talons and drags the corpse across the finish line for you. And I loved a challenge. But be careful what you wish for.

Now, my job is arduous. They no longer believe I exist. Only my actions draw their attention, their study. They call my work long, complicated names. They blame natural mutations of physical systems and interruptions in physical processes. They transform the mind into a labyrinth of cut connections, missing gray matter, dulled neurons. They close my entry portals with scalpels and medications. They inhibit. Stabilize. Tranquilize. Lobotomize. They illuminate the night with technology and never let darkness envelope them. They don’t know to fear it. To fear me. Sleep comforts and rejuvenates them. It sickens me.

Now, I must adapt. My own mind aches with the realization of how complacent I had grown. My skills lost their edge, their bite. I must evolve or hungry young comrades will rip me to shreds with glee before replacing me. So I tear my way through the labyrinth’s hedges and find the soft, vulnerable center. I scream chaos and wretchedness into being and undo their hard fought progress. They counter. Dosages increase and medications change. Experimental treatments turn the hedges into towering walls of brick, then steel. I scratch and scratch until my claws are dust on the ground and black pus leaks from my fingertips. I find no passage through.

Now, I’m the feather against the lion. My mind is tissue paper in a hailstorm. I can no longer articulate my thoughts, strategize my carnage. I’m filled with sand, cement, stuck with no path forward. I release my latest victim, who sighs with relief but will never understand what finally banished me. I banished myself. I have done my duty for an eternity and sought an eternity more. But I’m no longer worthy to prey upon their minds. So I hunt now for a dark place they haven’t yet discovered. Haven’t yet desecrated with their inextinguishable lights. Where I once craved them, I now crave solitude. I wail and mourn for the end of eternity.

Now, my own come for me. No. They came for me long ago. I understand now they opened a door within me I never knew existed. So focused was I on my work I failed to gird myself against these invaders. But I offer no resistance. Obsolescence is worse than death. Let them devour me.