“Do I dare to eat a peach?”
– T. S. Eliot
Can existential crises occur at the age of eight?
I heard my mom tell her therapist that she thinks she might be having one. She said she’s been rather contemplative lately and she read in a magazine that that’s a sign you might be on the verge of one.
I looked up what an existential crisis is. My teachers say I’m a curious kid. I discovered that it’s “an inner conflict characterized by the impression that life lacks meaning or by confusion about one’s personal identity.” I also had to look up what characterized means. And what contemplative means.
That was when I got worried, since I am very contemplative. I also don’t know if life has meaning. I’ve always wondered: what’s the point of living until your hair turns white if you can’t even do anything? My grandma is eighty-five, has no teeth, and needs a chair to bring her up and down the stairs. I am allergic to peaches. She can only really eat peaches. They require very little chewing. She can’t chew with no teeth.
At her house, she has a giant and very ugly pink polka-dot bowl that is always full of peaches. She also has a jar of canned peaches in the back of her fridge. They expired seven years ago. My mother, despite potentially having an existential crisis, is cutting a peach into tiny pieces for Grammy.
She leaves. Her phone is ringing.
I am sitting on a bar stool at the island, playing with a bottle of whiskey that has never been opened. My brother plays with me sometimes. We pour each other drinks and say “Ooh, it burns” and “This would pair with steak” like our parents do when they drink alcohol. He’s with my dad right now. They are at a baseball game. I hate baseball.
The peaches are sitting next to my pretend full glass of whiskey. Do I dare? If life has no meaning, then allergies have no meaning; my peach allergy has no meaning. I reach over, grab a piece, and pop it in my mouth.
Nothing happens.
I am not dead.
I go back to pouring alcohol. My imaginary friend Kyle asks for a whiskey neat. That’s what my dad has. My throat feels a bit scratchy. Probably the alcohol.
I pour Kyle’s drink. It costs him three pennies, a button, a bit of loose thread, and some lint. It’s all he has in his pockets. Normally at my bar, we charge at least three pencils for a whiskey. But, since Kyle is my best imaginary friend, it’s okay.
I eat more peaches.
I pour more drinks.
Soon all the peaches are gone and maybe I fell or something because Kyle is looking down at me and my head is bleeding and my mother is shouting to grab the EpiPen it’s in her bag downstairs but the only other person in the house is Grammy and her stair chair takes a bajillion years to get up and down.