Misanthropy: Part One
It came easily, she found, the descent into misanthropy. Like slipping into an old denim jacket, frayed around the cuffs and collar, but familiar, comforting. Hello, darkness, my old friend.
A slight prickle of irritation at the person in front of her in line at the grocery store who took too long packing her bags. An exasperated sigh at the driver who slowed to a crawl before making an unimpeded blinker-less right-hand turn.
Why, it seemed to take no time at all for the minor ranklings to turn to full-blown rancor.
People and inanimate objects alike became sources of violent rage. Jesus fucking Christ, just GO already!, she growled at the car in front of her as the advanced green turned to yellow. Suck it!, she snapped, as the left half of the top dishwasher rack collapsed for the umpteenth time. She pounded her fists, she swore, she rent her hair and gnashed her teeth.
She found her empathy for the suffering of others draining away, slowly at first, but ever more swiftly, a dirty whirlpool in her breast swapping milk for gall.
Her usual forgiveness of others’ foibles and weaknesses, understood and therefore pardoned, flickered and blinked out like a pilot light in a forty-eight-year-old furnace. People, with their ignorance and excuses, their whining and wallowing and incessant complaints. Misspelled comments on online news articles. Social media “stories,” which, to her dismay, weren’t stories at all, just an insidious feature designed to keep followers logging on for fear of missing something crucial. Facebook. Fucking Facebook.
I hate you all, she thought murderously.
She watched a lone moth cling desperately to the patio door, absorbing residual heat through the glass. You’ll be dead tomorrow, she thought at it.
She wondered if everyone thought this way. Was everyone secretly seething with anger? Or were there people in the world for whom life really was all kitten memes and gluten-free vegan cupcakes and binging the latest Netflix series, their daily experience tarnished only by the occasional use of a cartoon representation of anger? Rage, but innocuous, inoffensive. Cute.
What would such an existence be like? The classic conundrum of ignorant bliss versus knowledge and suffering. Look what happened to Adam and Eve, poor bastards.
