It's Kind of a Funny Story Read Online Free PDF

vet didn’t know what to make of it. He told me to keep giving him the supplements and the vitamins, but that basically he’s a medical miracle.”
    I look over at Jordan, the Tibetan spaniel. Pushed-in shaggy face, black nose, big dark eyes like mine. Panting and drooling. Resting on his furry front legs.
    “He shouldn’t be alive, but he is,” Mom says.
    I look at Jordan more. Why are you bothering? You’ve got an excuse. You’ve got bad blood. You must like living; I guess I would if I were you. Going from meal to meal and guarding Mom. It’s a life. It doesn’t involve tests or homework. You don’t have to buy things.
    “Craig?”
    You shouldn’t be able to be alive and you are. You want to trade?
    “I… I guess it’s cool.”
    “It’s very cool,” Mom says. “It’s by God’s grace that this dog lives.”
    Oh, right, God. Forgot about him. He’s definitely, according to Mom, going to have a role in me getting better. But I find God to be an ineffectual shrink. He adopts the “do nothing” method of therapy. You tell him your problems and he, ah, does nothing.
    “I’m done,” Sarah says. She picks up her plate and trots out of the room, calling to Jordan. He follows.
    “I can’t eat any more either,” I say. I’ve managed five bites. My stomach is churning and closing fast. It’s all such inoffensive food; I shouldn’t have any problems with it. I should be able to eat three plates of it. I’m a growing boy; I shouldn’t have trouble sleeping; I should be playing sports! I should be making out with girls. I should be finding what I love about this world. I should be frickin’eating and sleeping and drinking and studying and watching TV and being normal.
    “Try a little more, Craig,” Mom says. “No pressure, but you should eat.”
    That’s right. I’m going to eat. I slice off the top of the squash, in streets and avenues, a big chunk, and put it on my fork and get it in my mouth. I’m going to eat you. I chew it, soft and yielding, easily molded into a shape that fits down my throat. It tastes sweet. Now hold it. It’s in my stomach. I’m sweating. The sweating gets worse around my parents. My stomach has it. My stomach is full of six bites of this meal. I can take six bites. I won’t lose it. I won’t lose this meal that my mom has made. If the dog can live, I can eat. I hold it. I make a fist. I tense my muscles.
    “Are you okay?”
    “One second,” I say.
    I lose.
    My stomach hitches as I leave the table.
    What were you trying to do, soldier?
    I was trying to eat, sir!
    And what happened?
    I got caught thinking about some crap, sir!
    What kind of crap?
    How I want to live less than my parents’dog.
    Are you still concentrated on the enemy, soldier?
    I don’t think so.
    Do you even know who the enemy is?
    I think… it’s me.
    That’s right.
    I have to concentrate on myself.
    Yes. But not right now, because now you’re going to the bathroom to throw up! It’s tough to fight when you’re throwing up!
    I stumble into the bathroom, turn off the light, close the door. The horrible thing is that I like this part, because when it’s over I know I’ll be warm; I’ll have the warmth in me of a body having just been through a trauma. I bear down on the toilet in the dark—I know just where to go—and my stomach hitches again and slams up at me, and I open up and groan. It comes out, and I hear my mother outside, sniffling, and my dad muttering, probably holding her. I grip the handle and flush a few times, alternating filling the toilet and flushing it. When I’m done I’ll go to sleep, and I won’t do any homework; I’m not up to it tonight.
    And I think as I’m down there:
    The Shift is coming. The Shift has to be coming. Because if you keep on living like this you’ll die.

seven
     
    So why am I depressed? That’s the million-dollar question, baby, the Tootsie Roll question; not even the owl knows the answer to that one. I don’t know either. All I know is