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The vegan muffin worked at NASA
Her ingredients included spelt, agave, vanilla
She was vegan technically because she didn’t eat
Her main feeling, most days was vague, low-level despair
which she usually experienced as a mildly distracting awareness
that she had a worried expression on her face
She recently had read an article that said
loneliness could condense organizationally
into microscopic points of physical density
the presence of which could feel like a constant, internal prodding
In this way, the article had said
loneliness could physically insist that its subject find a companion
At NASA one night the vegan muffin meaninglessly typed in Gchat
that she wanted to move to Alaska
(She usually returned to her office at night because she had no computer or internet at home)
"Everyone lives in Alaska now," responded the muffin's friend
who lived in Massachusetts and had two jobs, on Gchat
"It’s kind of crazy, I think"
The vegan muffin looked at the word “crazy,” feeling nauseated
Her eyes became unfocused
Staring abstractly at the computer screen
which still sometimes seemed absurdly big
like it had when she began working at NASA
the vegan muffin began to feel self-conscious about her existence—
that her body, made of all organic ingredients
with no artificial or natural flavors
was currently occupying an amount of space inside NASA's research headquarters at Cape Canaveral
seated on an eight-hundred dollar chair
with egregiously bad posture and no concrete purpose in life
The vegan muffin vaguely began to consider how
in social situations, if she wasn't bored or nervous
her focus would almost always be on suppressing a nearly uncontrollable urge
to pretty much beg the other muffin, or muffins
to tell her exactly what to do with her life—
what food she should eat at what times in what amounts
if she should learn to play clarinet or flute or some other instrument
if she should convey more insecurities on the internet (and on her face) or gradually less
if she should focus on the muffins she liked most or that liked her most
Or what. And, she’d want to know, why?
The vegan muffin’s posture was so bad that she was sliding off the chair
She fell to the floor, where she lay motionless, below her desk
She wasn’t thinking about anything, it seemed
She concentrated on her brain. What was it doing?
The vegan muffin realized, a few minutes later
that she was trying to suppress her nausea into nonexistence
and began to feel sympathy toward it
which made her feel less alone
But nausea, she knew, had no consciousness with which to sympathize
which meant, it seemed, that she was trying to suppress herself into nonexistence
The vegan muffin felt completely alone
"Complete," she thought after a few seconds
She usually felt good after completing something