same thing every time

a recorded dialogue of all of the small talk interactions that she had attempted and failed in the last year would, she was sure, serve as proof that she was unfit for human interaction, and conversation in particular. perhaps if this could be indisputably proven, she continued to muse, god would exempt her from the general life expectation of communication. sometimes she daydreamed about waking up one morning to find that she had no vocal chords. then she couldn't speak even if people wanted her to - and, even better, they would feel sorry for her, and grant her sympathetic smiles without extraneous commentary.

she stacked up the examples in her mind until they got so high that, like a towering pile of books of cassette tapes or some other precarious resource, they began to waver and tremble with all their weight and height. she would have written it all down on a list, but she had no pen, no paper, and no person to share a list with.