Sorry Please Thank You: Stories Part 17

What else can I say? Wish I'd treated people better. Sorry, please, thank you, you're welcome. All human interaction pretty much covered by those four ideas. You're not real, of course. You're the woman I wish I'd met. If I'd met you, I wouldn't be here now, writing on this napkin. You're the woman who was supposed to pull me out of this, help me get over the one I did lose. So, yeah, a little angry. How does a perfectly average-looking guy like me end up so unfathomably lonely by the age of forty-one? It's the day after Christmas. Got one present this year, from my uncle Jim. The widower. A card and a ten-dollar bill. Fixed income, best he can do. He's in a.s.sisted living, room smells like pee. Stares out the window all day. Every year, same gift. I'm a grown man now, but I'm his only nephew and he's my only family. I'm leaving it on the bar as a tip. The card, I'm keeping. Sorry, get well, congratulations. Happy belated. Miss you. Just because. The fundamentals, the basics, all right there, in your drugstore, the greeting card rack. If you'd only said it, if you'd only had one more chance to say it. If someone had said to me. Any of it. I hope you read this, whoever you are, and imagine that there is a hypothetical person out there who needs your love, has been waiting silently, patiently for it all his life, is flawed and downright ugly at times and yet would have just eaten up any tiny bit of attention you had been willing to give, had you ever stopped your own happy life to notice. And then imagine that this hypothetical person is real, because he probably is. Guess that's all. Ha. Here I was worrying about s.p.a.ce, and now I've run out of things to say. Wish I knew a joke to insert HERE. The card says For My Nephew in cursive. No joke inside. That cursive just breaks my heart. Wish I'd met you. Wish I wasn't your hypothetical. But you're reading this, which means a few minutes ago, I went into that bathroom and pulled the trigger. You probably heard it. Sorry. You're welcome. Thank you. And please. Please, please, please, please, please, please, please.

Acknowledgments..

THANK YOU, and also +2d6 coins (redeemable for a whole chicken):.

Timothy O'Connell.

Josefine Kals Kate Runde Alexander Houstoun.

Russell Perrault Edward Kastenmeier Dan Frank Catherine Courtade.

Kathleen Fridella Altie Karper.

Peter Mendelsund All of the other talented people at Pantheon and Vintage/Anchor. It is a privilege to work with you.

PLEASE accept my +100 debits of Grat.i.tude, an electronic transfer system for appreciation: Gary Heidt Howard Sanders.

Jason Richman Arthur Spector Amy Grace Loyd John Joseph Adams.

Ann VanderMeer Jeff VanderMeer Rich Horton.

Carol Ann Fitzgerald Marc Smirnoff Jonathan Liu Marian Leitner Annalee Newitz.

Charlie Jane Anders Tom Chiarella SORRY for not saying this more often: Thank you. Please know how much you have given me.

Betty Yu.

Jin Yu Kelvin Yu Dylan Sophia.

Mich.e.l.le.

About the Author.

Charles Yu is the author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, which was a New York Times Notable Book and named one of the best books of the year by Time magazine. He was a recipient of the National Book Foundation's Five Under Thirty-Five Award for his story collection Third Cla.s.s Superhero, and a finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award. Yu's work has been published in The New York Times, Playboy, Slate, and elsewhere. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Mich.e.l.le, and their two children.

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe is also available.

as an eBook: 978-0-307-37948-1.

Also by Charles Yu.

Third Cla.s.s Superhero.

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe.