Portrait of a Gator Named Daniel


Denial wants to be a wolf when he grows up but is already a grown up. Denial lives in a swamp amidst reeds and marshland. “It feels like my house is slowly sinking” Denial thinks to himself. Denial’s house is slowly sinking 0.1 inches every other month. Denial wakes up at 4am each day to go to work as a clerk at a grocery store but his shift actually starts at 7am. Denial likes to spend the extra time watching the sun slowly rise from his porch while sipping black tea, smoke slowly rises from the nearby factory which sometimes blocks his view entirely. Denial thinks “it’s ok that I have no friends at work”. Denial likes to put small sticks upright in his mouth to see if he can use his jaw to snap them in half, using bigger and bigger consecutive sticks until he can’t break one. Denial keeps the vase his mother gave him for flowers besides his bed on the nightstand, Denial never puts flowers in the vase. The only time flowers were in the vase was on his last birthday 6 or 7 years ago when he was first gifted them. The flowers were yellow right? Or were they red? Denial sits by himself at lunch eating a sandwich, an apple, and a small piece of chocolate. Denial goes to restaurants by himself on the weekends and sometimes pretends the other patrons are his family. Denial thinks “it’s good to be around other people sometimes right?” At work a co-worker says “Good Morning, how are you today?” to Denial, Denial can’t think of what to say and says nothing. Denial binge eats food whenever he goes to restaurants. Denial’s favorite part of the sunrise is the slow imperceptible shift of colors, until suddenly the world is light and bright and new. Denial bought his kettle on sale at the store he works at, Denial saved 3 dollars. Denial smiles to himself whenever he remembers this. Denial collects firewood twice a year and sets aside many sticks for later use. Denial’s family at the restaurant asks him how he’s doing, “Everything’s fine, things are getting along smoothly.” Denial says to himself quietly.


Denial eats 4.5 burgers at the restaurant and saves the rest for later. Denial spends a lot of time sleeping on his days off, his feet are sore from standing all day. After napping til noon one Saturday Denial went out to do some shopping and errands. Denial happens to walk past a flower shop, he stares at the flowers displayed in the stall for a second before quickly moving on. Once a robber tried to rob the grocery store Denial works at, Denial looked at the robber very confused and said “Good morning, how are you today?” The robber felt very awkward and quickly left. Denial keeps a journal but nothing interesting has happened so he never writes in it. During lunch Denial sits by himself eating 0.5 of a burger and 5 servings of french fries. After lunch Denial is cleaning up spilled milk in grocery aisle 4 when a customer suddenly comes up to him to angrily ask him where the milk is located, Denial imagines one of his sticks snapping in half then accidentally steps into the puddle of milk. That night Denial dreams that he is slowly sinking into the ground with his house, he reaches out his hand for help and can’t breathe, smoke fills his lungs, suddenly he hears the sound of a vase shatter. Denial wakes up in a cold sweat and looks down at the shards of glass on the floor.

—

In the morning Denial watches the sunrise but later can’t recall the color. Was it yellow? Or red? At work a co-worker says “Good Morning, how are you today?” to Denial. Denial opens his mouth to respond but before he knows it the interaction is over.
“Everythings not fine, the truth is I’m deeply unhappy.” Daniel says to himself quietly.