the lightning bolt on my phone flickered on and off repeatedly as the blender started to grind and whirr. i stared at its screen as it brightened and darkened. i hate it when symbols of things act like the real thing, like when petals of fake flowers fall off, or you accidentally rip a picture of yourself when you’re upset, or you’re running away from a wedding proposal but you forgot to give the ring back to him and then you drop it in the mud.

brendan pulled his finger off of the blender button for just long enough to pompously declare, “people are like water.” i opened my mouth to ask him to clarify, but he slammed it back on before i could get a word out. he had that drunken everything-i-say-is-genius grin forming on his face. i busied myself by messing with the outlet my phone charger was plugged into. the electricity in the house was ridiculous. it’s like there was only enough room for one thing at a time, and when you tried to throw anything else in, the whole thing shut down.

when he finished with the blender, he fished around in the cupboard for the cd player, plugged it in, and sat down. i didn’t really want to ask, but i knew i had to.

“how are people like water?”

he leaned back luxuriously, crossing his legs at the ankle and propping them up on another chair. “water has like, these different states, right? it reacts in pretty much predictable ways to certain situations, but you can manipulate it by changing the environment. just like you can make people float or freeze.”

i looked back at my phone, pretending to consider his theory. he still had that aggravating look on his face. i couldn’t see it, but i could almost hear it: the saliva smacking between his teeth and the inside of his cheeks as he grinned wider, his tongue clicking against the roof of his mouth in a cocky affirmation of self. he pressed play on the cd player and my phone started to flicker again.

“no,” i said, “i don’t agree.”

his grin faded slightly. “what do you mean?”

“people aren’t always predictable or malleable. people have more than three states. people are infinite, brendan.” i ripped the plug out of the wall, wrapping the wire around the phone tightly. “people are fucking infinite.” the cd player skipped as i brushed by the table and stepped over his legs to get out the front door. i didn’t bother to look at his stupid face.