Zen Buddhism has a girlfriend. The girlfriend is YouTube fame.
Tweeted by Magical Realism Bot (@MagicalRealismBot) on March 7th, 2020
I don’t know why this Twitter bot makes me so happy, but it just does. It creates the strangest scenarios I could ever imagine, and sometimes, I just want to see them play out. Especially when they’re love stories…because, you know, they’re kind of a thing for me. And you, I’m hoping. I’m going to write some of these goofy little love stories. They will be bizarre. You have been warned.
“Are you ready to go?” Zen Buddhism poked his dark head into the bathroom. She’d been writing on the mirror with red lipstick again, the hairdryer was smoking, and it looked like her clothing had somehow exploded based on its scatter pattern. He sighed. It shouldn’t surprise him anymore, but it offended his sensibilities. Fame was still sitting on the closed toilet lid, half-dressed, scrolling through her phone, her wet, blonde curls falling over her shoulders.
“Almost,” she said, not taking her eyes off the screen.
He should’ve meditated a full hour instead of cutting it short; he wasn’t going to make it through the night without losing his cool if they didn’t get on the road soon. Zen massaged his temples, closing his eyes.
“We’re gonna be late, Fame.”
She looked at him then, and her coy smile lit up the small room. “People are happy to see me whenever I show up. You know that, hon.” She snapped her gum and went back to her scrolling. “Besides, it’s my party. I’ll be there for the main event. No point in showing up sooner.” Fame checked her Cartier watch. “She’s not drunk enough to do it yet. Don’t worry, sweetheart.”
“It would just be nice to get there in time for me to enjoy the party, too.” Once everyone was drunk, no one wanted to regulate their breathing or paint or drink tea or think about nature at all. Contemplation went right out the window when the keg came out. And strangely enough, alcohol really seemed to attract YouTube Fame…amateur musicians were a close second. He didn’t mind them as much.
Fame put down her phone, tapping her long nails on the counter. “You’re right. I’m being selfish. I’ll be ready in five.” Fifty-five? That he could believe. She stood and looked around the bathroom. “How does it get like this?”
Zen laughed. He couldn’t help it. His shoulder shook with it, his chest ached with it. She pulled him close by his collar and kissed him hard to shut him up. Her chaotic, transitory nature would always be a mystery to him, but he wasn’t going anywhere. She was wild, unpredictable, flitting like a bumblebee from flower to flower, and he burned to feel her life with him always. If there was a couple in the universe with a greater unity of opposites, he couldn’t…wait, no. That black hole was still dating that possum from Arkansas, and James Carville was still married to Mary Matalin. But they were a close third, and he hoped they would be for a long time.
Fiona West 