Nothing is Better Than Anything Else

By Ruby Walker

I’m one of those guys who started balding in my late twenties, so I bought a baseball cap, it’s like a normal baseball cap except it’s made of denim, so my ex-wife Lauren called it my “jat”, like a jean hat, same way as “jorts” or “jeggings”. Anyway believe it or not the jat was the cause of our divorce, which is so stupid it made me cry once actually but I always cry about things like that, not dramatic things, just things that are tiny and ridiculous.

We had the argument in the foyer of our house, which is now her house. She said, I’ve figured you out, Davis. She kept trying to figure me out like I was a combination lock on a box and there was a great husband inside, if only she could open it. You don’t respect people. When we spoke to Redding you didn’t take your hat off.

She called it “hat”, not “jat”, because she was mad and didn’t want to be funny.
 
Come on, I said. It’s just my jat, I wasn’t trying to be rude or anything.
 
I called it “jat” not “hat” because I wanted her to remember that we made jokes, and therefore had a good relationship. But she just looked at me with her forehead all pinched up. To be fair we were going through a stressful time. Our son Aiden, who’s ten, had just announced he was a “furry”. Lauren was worried this meant he was a sex freak, and apparently that’s what his classmates thought too because they spread rumours that he fucked a squirrel in the bushes at the end of the football field, which was why we went to see Principal Redding.

Lauren was picking everything apart. It’s polite to take your hat off indoors, especially in the office of an authority figure, she said.

I was sure she’d have a sharp little dart to throw at every one of my arguments, so I took refuge in not giving a shit, and started talking about dinner plans. I hoped this would disarm her but she said, That’s exactly what I’m talking about. If you respected me, you wouldn’t ignore me.

Maybe she really had figured me out. Everything sounds right to me, though. That’s how I got into this mess. When we were in our mid twenties she took the same tone of voice, sort of diagnostic, and told me we were in love.

Anyway she did a whole spiel about how she’s always the one putting in the effort, to figure me out, and I told her, I don’t need to figure you out, you tell me every thought you have.

And she said, Why don’t you try telling me every thought you have, then.

So I did, and she didn’t like my thoughts, basically. It was terrible. I don’t really want to go into it.

Anyway once it had all blown over, I started to sense the rotations of The Machine. I mean, I’d always suspected it was there. But lying awake that night, I knew: deep below, something turns. There’s something there, man. The world’s spinning like a big wind-up toy. I feel it strongest when something happens that makes me go, “What the hell, seriously, why?” And the answer is, “Why not?”

Like, right after something shatters on the floor, and everyone stands there and looks at it. Or when I hear a story about someone dying in a stupid way, like falling off a ski lift. Or when my marriage ends because I failed to remove my jat at a meeting about squirrel sex. It’s all so underwhelming that it overwhelms me, like, everything’s so bullshitty, so so so dangerously thin that I feel the vibrations up through my shoes. The vibrations of The Machine. The thing that churns out this big featureless reality and spreads it flat like concrete.

I dunno. Maybe everyone feels this way when they fail at the one thing they explicitly vowed to do.

It’s been a month since me and Lauren split, it’s December now. Usually, when winter comes, I put away my jat and start wearing a toque, but I still haven’t made the switch. It just feels like it would be a surrender to take the jat off. I’m even wearing it today, despite the fact that it’s negative ten out, and it looks stupid with the jacket I dug out of the closet. Whatever. I’m not going anywhere special. Just taking Aiden for a dental cleaning. And then Lauren’s having a birthday dinner tonight, she’s turning 35, it’s a whole thing, but I’m not going into the restaurant, I’m just dropping Aiden off in front of it.

At the dentist Aiden hangs back when I open the door. Dad can you ask?

We don’t need to ask, it’ll be fine.

Can you please ask?

Okay.
 
So I go in without him. Boots leave slush on the floor, coats are draped over chairs, there’s a car ad playing on the TV, sound off. I say, My son Aiden is here for his ten o’clock.

The Machine is especially loud in places like this. There’s very little meaning to protect you. The more you try to ground yourself, the thinner everything seems, until you’re smack dab in the infinite centre of things. The receptionist click clacks her computer. I go, Is it okay if he wears a costume?

And she goes, Like a Halloween costume?
 
And I go, Yeah.
 
She’s like, That won’t be a problem at all.
 
So I poke my head out the door. Aiden is standing on the blue salted sidewalk, adjusting his clip-on fox tail. He sees me. I’m going to die, he says. That’s what he says whenever he’s nervous.

No you’re not, I say. Come on in. The receptionist said they get furries all the time here, so there’s no need to be shy.

Even though we were suspicious at first, me and Lauren are supportive now, since we found out that most furries actually aren’t sex freaks. They just dress up as animals and roleplay in internet group chats. It took Aiden a while to work up the courage to wear his costume in public, but he says he wants to be his “real self”. I don’t believe in that stuff, I mean, that some things are more “real” than other things. It’s an artificial hierarchy we push onto the big flat world like a cookie cutter. Knowing about The Machine is scary but it simplifies life, in a way.

When people go in and out, a blast of cold hits us through the door, and a firetruck blurs past, sirens weooooweoooo. Aiden is doing math homework. I watch the TV. INNOVATE TO THE EDGE OF IMPOSSIBLE, the car ad says, and then there’s a shot of a scenic mountain road. GO FURTHER.

Dad, says Aiden, I think we should redesign the number five.

I look at him, he’s sketching some unidentifiable shapes. What? I say.

​He goes, I’ve been thinking, when you draw five really fast—  
​
He shows me:

 —it sometimes looks like an S. Like, if you make it too round at the top. But there’s a solution. You see the horizontal line? I think we should make it go on both sides. Like the top of a T.
​
He shows me:

That’s awesome, I tell him.

Everything is flimsy, like a stage set, and behind it there’s this immense power. I try to ignore the gears of The Machine chewing us up and spitting us out.

Dad, says Aiden, and he does that voice where he’s pretending to be a child, I mean he is a child obviously but sometimes he’s doing it on purpose in this sickly sweet way, Dad, you’re not listening, are you?

He wants me to feel sorry for ignoring him, see. Of course I’m listening, I try to save it.
 
Shit. No nothing’s wrong with me, nothing’s wrong with anything, wrongness is just a designation.

I say, Your five is very impressive. We need to run it by the Prime Minister.
 
He smiles, but he looks down at the paper, says, The Prime Minister can’t change the numbers, I know that, I’m not stupid.

I go, I was just joking.
 
Then the dental hygienist walks in, a woman in pink camo-patterned scrubs, and calls his name. He reaches up and repositions his fox ears. He looks at me. I want him to say something but he doesn’t. He walks away, tail swinging, and I can hear him and the hygienist in the hallway, how are you, good, how are you, good. I sit there and try not to think about anything.

After a while I notice that there’s another TV, playing the Winter Olympics, so I move to a different chair to see it better. It’s figure skating. A woman in a spangly blue outfit, and she’s gliding, with feet criss-crossing, then she jumps, spins, lands. Her skates trace lines into the ice. It looks so graceful, a state of perfect flow.

Then my phone rings.
 
Hi, says Lauren. Do you have a moment?

Yeah, what’s up?

She goes, Well, in the spirit of fresh starts, I’m thinking about getting plastic surgery. For the scars.
 
I say something vaguely affirming like, Oh okay.
 
The figure skater goes into a spin, holding one of her legs straight above her. If some things were better than other things, then this performance would be one of them. She doesn’t stumble, not even once.

Lauren goes, OHIP won’t cover it, they say it’s cosmetic. I hear her shuffling papers on the other end of the line, she continues, I wouldn’t normally ask something like this, you know I respect that we’re financially independent— 

I know— 
 
But in this case, since you caused the injuries, I think it’s fair— 

Yeah totally I get it. Uh, how much?

We’re talking about the stucco incident. I don’t really like to go into it but basically, during the argument over my jat, I pushed past her and she grabbed my shirt and I shoved her pretty hard but she fell on purpose I bet, because she wanted to make me feel sorry. Well what happened was she fell into the stucco wall. And her face got raked against it like a cheese grater. There were gouges all over her left cheek. And her big hoop earring came out, kind of ripped out, so her ear was bleeding too. I told Aiden it was an accident, of course.

Lauren says, Well I got a consultation. They told me six grand.
 
Ouch.
 
Six it is, I say. Happy birthday. I’ll mail you a cheque.
 
She laughs. Happy birthday?
 
What’s so funny, it’s your birthday isn’t it?
 
Yes, Davis, it’s my birthday. Sure. Let’s make this into a fun gift and not a fucking obligation to someone you hurt.

The figure skater picks up speed around the outside of the rink, and I can barely feel The Machine anymore, because I’m thinking, maybe she’s good, actually good. It would be ridiculous to say she isn’t. It would be ridiculous to say that her actions and my actions exist on the same level.

Do you even notice? Lauren is saying, When you minimize things like that?

Come on.
​
I wish she’d just stop talking about this. She says, I’m just asking a question.

You don’t need to try to figure me out anymore.

The figure skater is in close-up, waving to the spectators. The Machine is gone and I expect to feel relieved but I don’t, there’s a bad feeling in its place, squirmy and heavy and disgusting.

Okay, Lauren says, and sighs a bit. We can’t get what we want from each other, so there’s no point in trying, and that’s it. I express vague agreement again. She says, Thanks anyway, Davis, for the money, and hangs up.

A guy and his daughter come into the waiting room, he’s not wearing a jat he’s wearing a knit hat like a normal human being in this weather, I bet his marriage is going really well. He goes to sit down but sees Aiden’s homework is on the chair.

Sorry, I say, jumping up, that’s my kid’s stuff.
 
The guy helps me sort the worksheets into a stack. I wish he wouldn’t be so nice. He hands me the papers like I’m a good person. Thanks.
​
The paper on the top is the one with Aiden’s redesign of the number five.

I imagine drawing it. It’s slower than drawing a normal five, because you have to use two lines, and take your pen off the paper. There has to be a way to redesign five where it’s both efficient and clear. What if we take the horizontal line, and put it on the left? I sketch:

But no, it could easily look like a three. And then we’d be right back where we started. Eliminate mess and achieve perfection. That’s what we’re trying to do, with all our hierarchies that we apply to the world. I mean I’m a fine person, I’m not great, sure, but not bad. I salt my pasta water. I clean out the dryer filter. Oh wow you clean out the dryer filter, you’re a real standup citizen you should get an award. I can tell you what’s wrong with you, do you want me to tell you what’s wrong with you? No, come on.

Alriiighhhttt, announces the hygienist, rushing in with Aiden at her heels.

She tells me Aiden has no cavities but needs to floss his back molars, and I turn to him, Looks like you didn’t die after all.

He’s being strangely quiet. I notice he has taken his fox ear headband off.

The receptionist asks how I’d like to pay. I reach into my pocket and there’s nothing, I check both pockets, fuck I forgot my wallet. I guess this morning I didn’t move all the stuff from the pockets of my other coat into this warmer one. I say to the receptionist, Oh my God, I’m so sorry, it’s so stupid.

Stop apologizing so much. Except I really am sorry, nothing can ever go back to how it was before, and my bad feeling is getting sharper and sharper— why did this happen— why did this happen to me in my life— 

Why not?

There it is. The infinite centre. And The Machine comes back.

​The receptionist says, Do you have Apple Pay?

And I say, No, I don’t think so.

I feel the scope of the chaos, where nothing is sharp anymore, because everything is the same. I almost smile because I used to think I wanted The Machine to go away. Why did I think that.

You have an iPhone? the receptionist is saying. You can set it up, if you have your banking information.

I copy my card number, I make my way through the verification process. Aiden is silent until we walk to the car and I turn the key in the ignition. Then he says, I died. He looks away from me, out the window. You said they get furries a lot.

And I say, They do. That’s what the receptionist told me. She’s been working there a long time.

I turn the heat on high, and put my hand in front of the vents, but it’s just blasting cold air so I turn it off again. What’s wrong, did something bad happen?

As soon as I say it I realize, of course, nothing bad ever happens, and I want to tell him that. But before I can explain The Machine, he says, I asked the lady who was doing my teeth, and she didn’t even know what a furry is.

Why the hell did he ask?
 
I know what’s going on, I’m not stupid, he says, and he busies himself unclipping his tail.
 
Jesus. I just wanted to make things smoother for him. I stall by looking for an opening in traffic. I have no defense. I say, I know you’re not stupid, I didn’t say you were stupid, did I?

Fuck my life. It’s hard to cope with the silence where the inadequacy of my response is so heavy, I kind of stop breathing, I know Aiden will save me, either he’ll save me or he’ll dig me in deeper, but he’s taking his time to decide, finally he points to a collection of fast food places on the corner. Can we go to Tim’s? The fluoride tastes really bad.

It’s a perfect out, I take it immediately. Aren’t you not allowed to eat for a few hours?

Just no hot things or sticky things.

I pretend to consider, then I switch gears and turn off the engine. Sure.

And the weight is lifted. Or at least, it’s lifted from me. Aiden doesn’t speak the entire time he eats his banana bread. I make a feeble attempt to feel bad but it doesn’t work, The Machine is too loud. All I can think is, I wish Aiden could hear it too. I want to give him a window to my world free of hard edges. I say, You know, if you think about it a certain way, nothing is that bad.

He goes, I already told you, I died. How is dying not bad?

What do you mean, you died?

He’s crumpling up his brown paper bag into a tiny ball, he says, While the lady was scratching my teeth with the sharp thing, I looked over to the kid in the chair next to me, and it was Allison, from my class, and she was taking a picture of me. She was trying to be sneaky but I could tell from the angle of her phone.

His voice is peaking up, I can feel the sharpness of his humiliation and I remind myself that it doesn’t matter to The Machine any more than the disinfectant used to clean this Tim Horton’s countertop, and then he makes a weird noise like a hiccup or a sob and goes to throw the paper bag into the recycling bin, I hear a customer ask, Can I get a Fudge Brownie Almond Iced Latte, and suddenly I’m really scared, because it’s cruel isn’t it? The Machine, I mean.

Or maybe indifferent. Because cruel implies intention, and The Machine has no intention. It churns out things that bring suffering and things that bring comfort, randomly, and doesn’t have the ability to care, or even notice the difference.

I notice though. I can use a ladder of hierarchy. It might be artificial, but without it everything sounds right to me, even when The Machine kills my son, even when I— 

Sikes is just like me, except more brave, and more of an extrovert, with tons of friends, says Aiden matter-of-factly as he sits back down, he’s talking about his fursona Sikes the red fox.

I scoot my chair over so I can hug him but it makes a terrible metallic scraping noise.

Aiden laughs at me like, That was so loud.
 
And I say, If I had a fursona, he would be so cool, he would never do anything like that.
 
Aiden slumps over and pulls his hood down over his eyes. Yeah, it’s fun to think about that. Ways to make things better. But they never work.

I’ve waited so long, just listening to The Machine, that if I climb the ladder now I’m starting incredibly low down. Is it even worth it? To feel that way?

I tried to be confident, Aiden is saying, and look what happened.
 
I think of the figure skater practicing hundreds of times to achieve the appearance of effortlessness. Every movement filled with the clarity of her intention. Well I don’t know, I say. Sometimes things work out. I mean not often, but it can happen.

Aiden lifts his hood to give me a pointed stare. Thanks Dad. That’s very motivating.
 
At least the ladder leads somewhere. Every rung you’re a bit higher. The Machine leads nowhere, not up or down or anyplace.

Look. I pull Aiden’s crumpled math homework from my pocket. I tried to make my own five. I put the line on the left. But you already tried that, didn’t you?

Aiden says, It doesn’t work.

Exactly. Why?

Because it looks like a three.

Why? Because. The more I focus on that question and answer, I feel The Machine receding.

Right, I say. You failed, but it taught you something. So you could succeed next time.

I guess.

You know, maybe this isn’t so painful after all. In fact I’m just about ready to label The Machine banished, normalcy resumed, goodness and badness reinstated, when Aiden says— 

Dad, in that voice where he’s pretending to be a child, so I know he’s trying something, did you know that mom’s getting plastic surgery?

Yes son don’t worry about it, your mom’s getting plastic surgery because I got mad at her and I— oh come on. What do you mean, come on? I’m telling it like it is. Just leave me alone. But you don’t deserve to be left alone. Yeah, she told me, I say.

Do you want me to tell you what’s wrong with you? Because I can tell you now. The lower you are on the ladder, the less there’s a point to climbing it. You’ll never even get close to the top for as long as you live. That’s already been decided. Look what you did. It’s unfixable.

Jesus. That’s pretty intense. Can’t I chill out for once.

No, not really.

Okay. Listen, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I hardly realize I’ve said it out loud until I notice Aiden looking at me, eyebrows pulled together, mouth slightly open like he’s not sure what to do. For lying to you, I add.

Oh, he says. Uhm. It’s okay.

I wanted you to have a good time, that’s all, I explain.
 
That’s impossible, he says. I worry about things all the time. If there’s nothing to worry about, then I worry about that.

Yeah, well, me too, I say.

What if I tried apologizing to her? It wouldn’t fix anything, but it would be good, right? I told you, there’s no point to climbing the ladder. Well, sure, but what’s the alternative?

The Machine.
 
Hey, I say to Aiden, because if I think anymore I’ll die, what do you say we throw a little surprise party for your mom? For when she gets home from work? Just the three of us?

We pick up a few balloons, and a cake, and we get some girl at the bakery to write “Happy 35th Birthday” on it with blue icing, but with Aiden’s version of the number five, which takes a lot of explaining, but finally she catches on and tells Aiden that he has an entrepreneurial spirit, and Aiden doesn’t know what entrepreneurial means but politely tells her, You too, which cracks me up.

When we park outside our house, Lauren’s house, I ask him, Are you alive yet?

Not yet, he says, after a moment, but not dead anymore, either.

That’s reasonable, I say.
 
I look up at the house, at the window beside the front door, which shows a glimpse of the foyer. I’d been trying to stay on top of my bad feeling but it swamps over me now. What’s even the point of feeling this miserable?

There she is! Aiden jumps out of the car, grabbing a balloon and the cake box.
 
Lauren is walking around the street corner towards us. Her face is the only part of her that’s visible, a pink circle surrounded by her puffer jacket and scarf, topped off with a pom-pom hat.
 
My bad feeling is so sharp that the safety net of The Machine is starting to sound incredibly appealing again. Oh God. I’m never getting out of here.

Go ahead, I say to Aiden.

I can’t make myself move, or do anything, which is probably disappointing but I’ve tried doing things, many many times, and I don’t think it’s for me. Maybe I’ll just sit here in this car until I decompose.

Aiden looks at me, I can’t tell what he’s thinking, then he shuts the car door and runs down the street towards Lauren, balloon trailing. He shows her the cake, then he turns and points back the way he came. She follows his gesture, sees me. Her smile becomes slightly fixed. Even from here I can see the red marks on her cheek. Then she waves.

Right. This is what she wants. She wants us to wave, and smile, and things like that. The performance may be ruined but it isn’t over, the figure skater keeps going, because the longer she stops, the bigger the mistake becomes.

I wave back.

I take my jat off and throw it into the back seat.
 
Lauren hands Aiden something, oh, her house key, and he runs up the porch steps, unlocks the door, disappears inside. Then she walks closer, until she’s next to the driver’s window, and I roll it down.

Hi, I say.
 
Hi, she says. Thanks for the cake. Aiden’s redesign of five, that’s…

​Big.

Very big, she says.

Good. Okay keep going.

I wanted to say, I begin, about, uh, your… face. I wanted to tell you I’m sorry for what I did. It was fucked up. I regret it. Just so you know. I do.

Thanks, she says.
 
That’s all.
 
Do you want to sit? I lean across and open the passenger door. So we can talk?

She shakes her head, looks down. Talk about what?

Everything, obviously, how could she ask that? I thought you’d have questions. Like why I acted so cold after, like I didn’t care. The truth is, there was a lot going on with me…

I trail off.
 
It’s okay, she says, I don’t have any questions.

Not even a theory?

No theories.
 
Wow, I say, unimpressively. That’s new.
 
She nods. I’ve gotta go, she gestures to the house, get ready for dinner, so.

Yeah, I say, Yeah, totally, it was nice…

Talking to you…

See you next week.

I drive away, turn the corner, then keep going through residential streets, hardly paying attention. That wasn’t great. But I climbed a bit up the ladder. Just a little bit. I’ll never reach the top. But it’s not about reaching the top. Then what’s it about? The pursuit of it. How can I make this better. The strategy changes. The goal does not. The figure skater keeps going, every motion falling into the next. That’s grace, forgiveness of movement.
​
I think I’ll go home and find my toque and put my wallet into the pockets of this coat.

---

​Ruby Walker lives in Toronto and writes short stories, plays, and screenplays. Her work has been published in Cold Signal and Pixie Literary Magazine, and received the 2024 Concordia University English Department Award for Fiction.