SandScript 2020

ESSAY
priorities, but sometimes it’s nice to have
some time to yourself. You head to a café
and find a table on the patio. You decided
to start reading more Hemingway a few
weeks back because it felt like the Real
Writer TM thing to do. Turns out even after
finishing two whole books you still don’t
like Hemingway. You’re reading The Garden
of Eden and you feel uncomfortable at his
depiction of what you assume to be a queer
woman. She’s manic and chaotic in all the
worst ways. And then you begin to wonder
if your friends view you as this type of
manic and chaotic.
You think about when they say, “Hey
sister!” when greeting you. You can never
tell if they’re being genuine or not because
for so long, they poked fun at it. Now all
you hear is the irony those words were once
laced in.
You sit there, drinking your iced
coffee and reading some cis-gendered
straight man’s view on the queer experience
and you wonder if all straight people think
this way. Surely, it’s not, but suspicion still
clings to your thoughts anyway.
You notice the looks you get from
across the patio, the looks of older women
who whisper things about your skirt. The
looks of men who don’t like the face you
meticulously painted on for them all. The
looks of children who wonder why a boy is
wearing girl’s clothes. You notice all of them
and wonder if your friends ever notice when
people stare at you this way. Why would
they? They’re not socially conditioned to
look out for these stares. They haven’t
trained themselves to know when these
stares are just looks, and when they’re about
to be threats. They never felt the need to
know how to throw a punch in case it ever
came to that. You make eye contact with
one woman in particular and you smile back
at her. You’ll catch more flies with honey
than with vinegar. The line from a movie
you watched over and over as a child plays
through your head. She sneers a bit and
begins to talk to the women at her own
table. They all slowly turn to look at you,
one by one.
A group of friends want to go out for
some drinks at the bar down the street later,
you text them back that you’ll be there and
go back to reading your book. You decide to
go with them because they’re your friends
and you love to spend time with them, but
they don’t realize they picked another place
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