She said: you may have him, little girl, if you can fulfill these tasks for me. Find the color of thunder, a room made out of fire, and a bird whose voice wrings diamonds from the air.

The world hates me baby, oh yeah it does. The Gods hate me too, or so it seems, unless their charity is of an entirely odd nature. But it doesn't matter if you love me, doesn't matter at all.

You are in the ANGST ZONE! Dragged in by demons or deposited by well-meaning angels, kicking and screaming, quiet as a mouse, however you got here it doesn't matter because you are HERE!

So, intrepid traveller, you wish to know my tale? What landed me smack-dab in the middle of the ANGST ZONE? Could you believe, my friend, it was a mere idle message from AOL. Well, that, and other factors. But that little insignificance - that cosmic insignificance - triggered one of those black waves that carries my poor rubber raft right into the shark-infested waters of the ANGST ZONE.

Elias, where are you? Where are you?

Laugh at me, Gods.

I hate this. I hate the mind-shattering boredom of my life, interrupted only by dark flashes of paranoia and depression, and occasional sunbursts of elation. They are like some unreadable morse code on the grey, featureless page of life.

"Oh you know I love you, yes you do, why you don't love me I'll never know..."

Does he know? Would he be a damn fool not to know? Why don't I ever know if he's flirting with me or not? Why do I assume that, since he is married, all his quips are perfectly innocent? Am I right in assuming this? Wrong? Both? Why, when I see his words etched in electrons on a computer screen, do I grin like a fool and get just the littlest surge of dizzyness through my system? Why, when I hear him, do I smile and smile like a villain?

Who matters, you ask?

What can I tell you about him? Sweet, funny, handsome in a strange sort of way, adorable accent, wife, kids. I have never met him in person, yet I think I am in love with him. Call me stupid: I don't care. We need a name for this person, this prominent character in my drama, don't we? Let's call him Elias.

And then there is her, my strange and irascible best friend. No shelter in a storm is she, but I could not live without her. If she wasn't ridiculously heterosexual, I could pursue her. She is beautiful. But she'd be more fun as a friend anyway. Refer to her as Dee.

Little sister person - not biological, but spiritual. We are terribly alike in temprament if not in tastes, which makes me fear for her later fate. The teen years are gonna be hell, my friend. Call her Helen.

Then my mother, bane and boon of my life, who pays my rent and makes me pay the price, who encourages me while squashing my dreams. A typical mother, no? Mom will suffice for her.

Content, my audience? Sated? Of course there are many more, bit players and old hams on my stage, but they will be described and given nomenclature when they make their (always brief) appearances in the theater of my life. Dance, puppets, dance!

No peace without proper moral structure? Let me tell you something pal, 'moral structure' never game me any peace. Not when I thought it was morally wrong to fall in love with a guy over twice my age. Not when I thought it was morally wrong to fall in love with a girl (a straight girl with a future, no less). Sensing a pattern here? No fuckin shit, a pattern. And now that I am falling in love with a married guy, my upstanding morality gives no comfort. Of course, it is merely a morality of convenience. Were he in the next county over instead of miles away, how morally upstanding would I be? Would I rely on my shyness to keep me from "sinning" like I have done before? Yes, good little girl, hide behind your diamond mask of quiet interrupted only by tiny barbs of sarcasm. Call it morality.

Bitter? Damn right I'm bitter! I'm bitter that every time I fall, I have to hide it. Well, have to is a relative term. Let's just say that every time I've really liked somebody, it was "socially prudent" not to tell them. Not to tell anyone. I'm bitter that when I heard his voice for the first time I lit up inside like a thousand candles and I couldn't tell him how he made me feel, couldn't even say how much I loved hearing his voice because I was afraid my own would crack and give me away. Everytime we talk and he comes up with one of his ridiculous, romantic sayings I want to scream because I can't reiterate with the ones singing through my own head. For him it might be a joke, a lark, but I am not so lucky. Most of all, I'm FUCKING BITTER that stuff like this can't be a lark to me. I take my feelings too seriously, you might say. In terms of eternities, of the cliches of poets, of fire and burning darkness. Yes. That is what "love" means to me, ladies and gents. I wish it could mean roses and sunshine, I really do. But some of us aren't born that way. Some of us aren't that lucky.