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The night my friend died I stayed up late watching YouTube. I watched a video called "Ten Things Chris Pratt," and the typo made me laugh. When I laughed, I laughed like someone crying in a movie. I pushed my face in the pillow, and I laughed, and I forgot what was funny.

 

I tried turning off my phone and lying there, in the dark, simple and flat, but it didn't work. My hot little phone fit perfect in one hand, and the video had two million views, and he'd killed himself three states over.

 

I guess they'd found him waiting tables at a restaurant. He was living in Hawaii. I never knew that. When the casting director asked if he could act, Chris Pratt said "fuck yeah," and he quit his restaurant job.

 

He quit, and he made Parks and Rec. That's what the video said. The video said Chris Pratt was awesome. It said that acting is so hard, and then it listed every movie that he's ever made:

 

Zero Dark Thirty

Avengers Infinity War

Guardians of the Galaxy

Jurassic World

The Lego Movie

The Garfield Movie

The Mario Movie

And I was so tired, and sleep felt vulgar. It felt wrong to leave like that, to disappear, when I could wake up whenever I wanted. But the video kept going. There were 40 seconds left, and it said that Chris Pratt had played a supporting role in the movie Moneyball.

 

I had totally forgotten that movie, but he was, he was in Moneyball. Chris Pratt plays that baseball player who gets a second chance after his elbow injury. That part always makes me cry.

 

When he's in the kitchen with his wife, and he gets the offer, and he learns it's not all over. There's still more time. I almost cried thinking about it, it's so fucking sad, but then the video ended.

 

My screen went dark, and I saw the reflection of my eyes, and I waited, and the next video played, and another played, and I watched another after that.

 

My sheets were cold, and the room was cold, and I lay there flat and simple. I imagined I was sleeping, and I watched another video after that.

 

image: Joe McPhee


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