I sleep well because I need the dreams | Kevin Sterne

We think the designer doesn’t know a 2x4 isn’t a 2x4. Or a 2x2. We measure and measure, but it’s not us, so it must be the designer. They must be fooled by the simplicity of names. If you don’t know you don’t know and I know that I didn’t know before I knew. But that still doesn’t make me feel better about walking in the office and saying Hey boss, take a half inch off the 2 and the 4. Shave it off the top. 

In this economy? 

For two days my friends and I have argued over whether a hamburger is a sandwich. I say no and this fits me in the minority. I stand my ground even if over the course of the argument I realize I’m wrong. That is my identity. My partner says I’m stubborn. I have the spirit of an old man. But not a creepy old man. One who has chickens and fights racoons. I do imagine what life would be like if I went around interviewing people about hamburgers and sandwiches. I daydream of learning not just where they fall on the debate and the details of their rationale, but also their untold stories, the real Americana of these people and the minutia of their lives, and I imagine the more I do this the more I’ll see myself in these people. I’m talking about real empathy. The stuff worth packing in a letter. 

I should mention I wrote one to my dead friend, tied it to balloons and let it float on and on and on. 

And he replied in screws. I’d find them in cupholders, under the toilet seat, in the silverware drawer. They were always different, a drywall screw, rusty finishing screw, one of those tiny ones from a TV remote. I started drilling them into things. It makes sense to me. We don’t have enough hardware because the lumber numbers are wrong and every time I go into boss’s office he’s working on engine parts for lawnmowers and we’re not even a landscaping company. I imagine he’s talking to someone through his ghost engine and the gearwheel zip of a ratchet he works with his hands over and over and over. 

Kevin Sterne is the author of the story collection All Must Go (House of Vlad, 2020). He is the winner of the Phoebe Journal 2020 Fiction Prize. He loves trees. He has a dog named Kodi Bear.