Getting Over It

Johnny’s going through a difficult breakup with his boyfriend.

Johnny adopts thirty birds in one day.

Johnny’s made a mistake.

He has eight parrots, three doves, three cockatoos, five macaws, five finches, three canaries, and three parakeets. Their collective squawking makes other tenants in his apartment complex complain to his landlord. Working two jobs, he cannot keep all their cages clean. It smells.

All the birds are named Ryan.

Johnny teaches part-time at a community college and also stocks shelves at his local Walmart. When Johnny was a young boy, he thought he’d become a pilot.

Today, a drunken student shows up to the midterm exam wearing nothing but underwear, boots, and a pirate hat. A drooling shopper with twitching eyes asks him where all the guns are. Ryan (cockatoo number two) has explosive diarrhea. The landlord emails him a reminder about community guidelines regarding permissible noise levels for each unit.

Late at night curled up in bed, Johnny scrolls through social media until he passes out. As he snores away, his phone endlessly loops some meme about tops and bottoms, gluten-free hors d'oeuvres, and all you put up with when falling in love.

Eventually, Johnny receives an eviction notice.

He unlatches all the birdcages.

On the night before eviction, Ryan (human number one) knocks on Johnny’s door.

Johnny answers the door. He cannot believe his eyes. “Honey?” he asks.

Ryan is drunk, but not drunk enough to ignore the stench unleashed out the opened door. “Um,” Ryan mumbles. He coughs and backs up. “Is now a bad time?”

Johnny shakes his head. “Not at all! Come inside!”

A few parrots, finches, and a macaw burst out the door.

Ryan’s eyes shift into a look Johnny knows. Johnny hasn’t seen that look in a very long time.

“I’m sorry.”

Ryan walks away.

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Johnny’s going through a difficult breakup with his boyfriend.

Johnny adopts six puppies in one day.

Johnny’s made a mistake.

They are a litter of border collies. They all love Johnny so much. They wake him by licking his face in the morning. They will be running in circles one moment and then snoozing on his lap the next. Johnny loves them back.

All the puppies are named Ryan.

Johnny is a janitor and handyman at a local high school. When Johnny was a young boy, he thought he’d become an astronaut.

Today, a student vomits all over a bathroom stall—gross, but bizarre: Johnny has never seen so many colors in puke before.

The chunks almost twinkle.

Later that night curled up in bed, Johnny and most of the Ryans snuggle beneath the sheets. Two Ryans (puppy number one and puppy number four) insist on playing tug-of-war with a rope, spinning about the floor.

Johnny feels well enough to call his ex, almost. He could apologize. Tell Ryan how he truly feels.

Most of the puppies start to get a handle on potty-training. Students keep vomiting in different bathroom stalls, and all the pulsating colors begin to make Johnny laugh.

But then one morning, after so many Ryans licked him awake, Johnny is mindlessly scrolling through social media. Johnny discovers Ryan (human number one) is engaged. Ryan is engaged to some trust-fund twink called Thunder.

Weeks later, Johnny’s landlord keys into his apartment. Too many complaints about non-stop barking and a weird odor seeping through the walls. His landlord has called the police. She’s seen this sort of thing before.

She unlocks the front door and steps aside, letting the officers enter first.

The puppies are dehydrated and starving, but alive. The bathroom door is shut and locked. The officers have to break it down.

“Jesus…”

One officer bends down to the bathtub and snaps a picture. The flash is bright as lightning.

×

Johnny’s going through a difficult breakup with his boyfriend.

Johnny adopts a baby.

Johnny’s made a mistake.

The baby is always crying or pissing itself.

But Johnny is determined to love the hell out of this kid. To be a better dad than his dad was to him. To teach this kid how the world really works.

In his penthouse on a sofa by the window, Johnny rocks the baby and reads from a storybook out loud every night, until they both fall asleep.

The baby is named Ryan.

Johnny works in the Ministry of Dreams. It’s exhausting and often nauseating work, scrolling through others’ minds, looking for illegal content. Plugged in, he feels new and strange sensations, experiences he could never have dreamed of. Thankfully, like everyone else in his department, Johnny can initiate a memory scrub before clocking out. And it mostly works.

Though, you can never entirely forget that feeling.

You can’t say where it’s from or what triggered it, but sometimes someone or something somewhere will cause a twist in your gut, a spasm of this indescribable instinct that almost makes you puke. And sometimes you do. But that’s just life at the Ministry of Dreams.

When Johnny was a young boy, he thought he’d become God.

But then today while scrolling, Johnny lives through a dream that features himself. He’s young and tan. Still lean. Sad excuse of a beard. On a boat, in a bed. The dreamer makes love to Johnny, and so now Johnny makes love to himself. It’s jarring, to have sex with a version of a younger you, but then Johnny recognizes the body he’s in. Johnny knows who the dreamer is.

When the dream ends, Johnny unplugs, weeping.

He sits in his office chair for a long time.

Johnny clocks out early.

He doesn’t initiate a memory scrub.

He doesn’t for weeks.

And it’s obvious. His co-workers can tell. So can the nanny. Johnny loses weight.

Ryan (human number two) continues to cry and piss. Johnny can’t think straight anymore. He calls Ryan (human number one). Some lady answers instead.

“Hello?”

It’s Ryan’s mom.

Ryan is dead.

That night, Johnny dreams he’s giving the baby a bubble bath.

Pinkish foam won’t stop growing, gurgling, twinkling.

He cannot believe his eyes.