I always thought that it was a universal feeling, that everyone, on some level, felt unlovable. Because how arrogant would a person have to be to believe that they are lovable? That the love people have for them isn’t conditional, but inherent? It hurts to even think about. It makes me feel like a scab on the skin of the earth.

I think that’s why I keep following it. I lose sight of it most of the time. I take its directions by following the moans and roars. When I do lay eyes on it, even, I don’t know what to think. Black hair bordering on purple and those milky, yellow-green eyes. I’ll catch eye contact with it for the briefest of moments before it whips its head around.

I don’t know how to feel about it. The longer I walk behind it, the more I think about, just, well, desperate things. Like love and self-value and fear and sadness. It’s like it casts a wake behind it that’s not just the smell, not physical in any means. It’s emotional. It’s like how my dad describes hangovers.

One last time. It’s been forever. He had been trying to get me to go look for morels with him for years since I was a kid. Well, a little kid. I’m still a kid now, I guess, legally. I used to like it until I didn’t. I never felt less graceful than I did in the woods. Spider webs, sticks, bugs, creeks, the little jumps and sliding down hills, well, it made me feel like shit. I wasn’t good at maneuvering through it so I just felt like a clown, always falling, tripping, feeling like something flew into my mouth. It wasn’t for me, and I knew it. And if he ever paid attention to me for a second he would have seen it too. But he liked it too much for me to bother to tell him.

I did feel bad for him, though. He said we never do anything together anymore. He was right. I was getting older. I’m changing. So I said yes.

Now, look at me. In a parallel dimension following around a nine-foot-tall ape walking on two feet. I call it Bigfoot just because it hasn’t given me it’s real name yet.