CHAPTER 10

If moving in was a job Poppy would be an expert. There's a certain productivity that comes with living somewhere new, it makes you feel like you ought to be as well kept as the space is. So the jackalope finally trimmed her antlers, styled her hair, ironed her shirts and washed her bedsheets. She looked rather nice, all things considered.

It won't stay like this for long. She knows it. Maybe it'll be clean forever, with how little she'll be able to live in it. It's close to WSUN, and not too far from the church basement where the fan club meets, and not too far from Amora. Maybe that's exactly the problem, she thinks, Your work is becoming your life. She pushes the thought away, it's not productive. She has work to do.

Monday comes and she's recording the show all day, 10 hours for four 2 hour episodes. The music segment is almost totally gone, people just want to hear her voice. Shame, she bought a lot of CDs for this. Monday night the fan club meets up to listen to the live broadcast. Amora cozies up close to Poppy, but doesn't say much. She falls asleep with her head on her shoulder.

Tuesday is grocery shopping, it's when the store is the least busy so she won't be recognized. She still tacks on an hour to talk to people just in case. That night the fan club meets for a book reading, Poppy of course does all of the reading, and it kills her voice to do all of the impressions of characters. The book isn't even that good, some mass market romance between a horse and a deer.

Wednesday Poppy cleans, meal preps. She takes a 5 hour nap but still feels exhausted. She goes to the fan club for another listening party, except people can pause it and ask her questions. It would be more interesting if she cared about them, shouldn't she care?

Thursday is a press conference and appearing on a morning drive time show. She does her best to sound energetic but the 5am calletime means she biked from the church right to the studio. She goes home and tries to sleep all day, but theres interviews with the national press. People are paying attention to her, she wishes they didn't.

Friday is the live show, she agreed to do one every week. She sleeps all day, Amora asks to join her but she refuses. She's not cognizant enough for romantic advances. Midnight show means she can't go to the bike shop or get dinner like she used to on Fridays or talk to people on the forum. She sees Kelpy again, finally, and almost cries to it before and after the live show. It drives her home, the bike barely fitting in the backseat of its car. The weekend is meant to be free, but Amora insists on coming over for a sleepover one night. Poppy of course obliges and while her fleece is soft and she's a good kisser it doesn't feel like love. Maybe she's too tired. She definitely is.

This schedule repeats itself, every week, for 3 months.

Over that time, Poppy became one of the most famous voices in the country, social media accounts blowing up and the podcast reaching 8 digit listener numbers. It made her a wealthy woman, from ad revenue and merchandise and appearance fees and royalties.

She had never wanted to die more. It was a miracle she didn't.

The paranoia only got worse with how little she slept, the fears of strangers following her around and hurting her. She felt herself isolating from all of her friends, too busy to see any of them. If working a routined job 5 days a week was bad for her mental health then being on call 24/7 was torture. The isolation was insane, even her hours alone were spent worrying about her future and the public and the listeners who relied on her. She was a lot of peoples emotional support, a rock in their lives, quitting would be detrimental to them. These people had faces, attended the fan club, talked to her almost nightly. It would be murder to just quit, leave them hanging. In the process of helping everyone else, she couldn't be brought to help herself.

She went to the recording booth one Monday in the depth of winter, banged out 5 episodes, and fell off her bike on the way home. Both her and the bike were broken. Unlubed chains, rusting gears, handlebar rubbers degrading from the endless wear. She laid there crying in the street while people walked around her. She gave up, fully. If she died there, feet still connected to the pedals of her bike getting hypothermia in a freezing oil-slicked puddle she wouldn't mind. At least her death would be good entertainment. Certainly someone already got her photo, posted it to social media. The world knew about this, and they would all hate her for it. Everyone hated her already. She was better off dead.

After who knows how long she picked herself up and walked her bike back to her apartment. It hadn't gotten dirty, it had gathered dust. The nice living room and kitchen went unused, there was no time to use them. Nobody over to cook for, nobody who wanted to watch tv or hang out. She bandaged up a gash in her arm and wept for hours. This was no way to live.

She booked the first train ticket to Maine, to where she knew nobody would find her, and she ran from everything. She only told one person where she was going, then turned off her phone and threw it in her bag.


--- --- ---