cartoon people
by Mileva Anastasiadou
It’s all fun and games and laughter in cartoons. No one talks, no one hurts, no one dies. Hearts aren’t broken, but even when they are, they aren’t shattered, but even when they are, the pieces are glued back together and hearts beat loud again, they’re as good as new. Things are simple in cartoons.
My shrink doesn’t write, but if she did, she’d write stories, because what she does best is intellectualize things, she analyzes things, cuts them into tiny pieces, then puts them back together and says, ha, that’s how it works, and I nod because I find it soothing, to know how things work. I ask what went wrong, because she’s the expert, and she shrugs, she says, nothing, like my divorce isn’t important, but it is, I didn’t come here to talk nonsense, I want her help to fix things.
I wanted to talk, and he didn’t. He’d talk for a while, then he’d stop. I asked about how things had been at work, he said, fine, and turned on the TV and stared at the screen. Anything specific, I asked, because I needed him to open up and I needed to open up too. You can only talk to me about this fucking show, he said. He was watching cartoons for fuck’s sake.
My shrink wonders if it’s the language barrier. English must be your second language, she says, and I shrug, I don’t answer because I don’t want to lie, but I can’t tell the truth either, she won’t get it if I say that Greek isn’t my native tongue either, that I only speak silence fluently and all other languages are exhausting, I make mistakes all the time.
My husband talks in silence too, like in cartoons. Cartoon people don’t talk much but they make noises. They argue but words don’t matter, they speak and we don’t hear them, they speak in words that don’t make sense and what they say doesn’t matter, because all that matters is who wins. Then comes a new episode and all is repeated over and over, and the show runs endlessly but we keep on watching and we’re never bored. Language is never a problem in cartoons.
My shrink remains silent most of the time. I’ve seen it in movies, I tell her. People lose everything but once they get better, they get everything back. She says this happens only in movies. She stares at the wall, then back at me. This doesn’t work, she says. What doesn’t work, I ask. This negotiation thing, she says and makes a gesture like it is obvious. It’s a stage through grief, and we made movies about it because we really want it to work, only it doesn’t, not in real life.
I watched Tom and Jerry with him. I’m now Tom and he’s Jerry, but it wasn’t always like that. He used to be after me, when we first met, and that was the best part of my life, but things change. Once I gave in, he lost interest. I started chasing him, only I wasn’t fast enough. I never caught him, but my best friend did, and now they have started a new life together. Things don’t change in cartoons. Tom has been chasing Jerry since forever.
My shrink does her best but she’s tired. There’s some kind of subtle wisdom in cartoons, but it’s not what I think it is, she claims. She says I don’t miss him, I miss the game. What game, I ask. She rolls her eyes as if I’m a lost case. You always miss everything, you even miss the characters from books you didn’t even like, she says, and she spits out the words, like I exhausted her, but then takes a big breath, she says that love is beautiful despite heartbreak, not because of it, like life is beautiful despite hardship, not because of it. I suffer, therefore I am, I think but I don’t speak. I heard that, she says.
My shrink claims I should move on. Like what cartoon people do in cartoons. In cartoons no one gets hurt, but even when they do, they don’t die, but even when they die, they come alive again. A bomb explodes in your face, a train runs over you, or you fall off a cliff, but things never end in disaster. In cartoons, you get angry when bad things happen, but you shake death off of you and you start over.
Photo of Mileva Anastasiadou
BIO: Mileva Anastasiadou is a neurologist, from Athens, Greece and the author of Christmas People and We Fade With Time by Alien Buddha Press. A Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction and Best Small Fictions nominated writer, her work has been selected for the Best Mirofiction Anthology 2024 and Wigleaf Top 50 and can be found in many journals, such as the Chestnut Review, Necessay Fiction, Passages North, and others.