An Honest Piece from an Insomniac

A journal of mine from October 2021.

Gas station at night vibes are weird. 3am after not being able to sleep, and I went to go get some fast food to get out of my head. The air is silent. The only thing I hear when I’m filling up my car is the little TV on the gas pump talking about the “breaking news” of the world that has probably been playing on the same loop at the gas station for months. The same commercials playing over and over again about the next hot thing I need to be accepted by the society I live in.

All I’m really hearing from the robot is

“You’re not good enough.”

“You need to spend your hard-earned money on this product to be worthy in this society. Because I told you so.”

“You need to be angry about this world event that you would not have even found out about to begin with if I were not involuntarily infiltrating your mind while you pump your gas.”

All while the numbers on the gas pump trickle up, snatching close to $100 out of my account.

The people inside Whataburger look like zombies at this hour. They look miserable and like they are not fully there, just trucking along and doing what they have to do to survive. There’s ketchup splattered all over the floor and trash everywhere, and, honestly, I don’t even know what these fries are truly made out of, but I guess I’m just eating them to suppress whatever emotional baggage is too painful to face at the moment. This can’t be reality or the true meaning of life. It feels so dystopian to me. At the same time, I begin to feel such a weird peace and calmness take over my body, just accepting it, brushing it off, and reminding myself that nothing is really that serious in this clown show of a society.

See ya next time, Whataburger.