The People Persevere

by Angela Townsend

Ryoji Iwata

I can’t give up on humanity, because when I drive by Taco Bell at ten p.m. on a Wednesday, the chalupa line wraps around the building twice. People in friendship bracelets and people in button-down shirts and people in a state of grace are making mischief. People are here because they are hungry and people are here because other people make the food and people are here because visiting hours just ended at the hospital. People arrive in Priuses and people arrive in F-150s and people arrive in the middle seat between stimulus and response. People know they need something that always tastes the same and people know they need something that will make their eyes water and people know they need cheese in a color that did not exist in Eden.

I can’t give up on humanity, because when I am too cool for a shopping cart, and I carry my yogurts in a ziggurat from my navel to my chin, and I inevitably drop them, and they splatter like a live and active lactic apocalypse, people rush to my aid. People young enough to be my daughter and people old enough to remember Moses and people who draw on their own eyebrows abandon their trolleys without being asked. People in holey sweatpants and people jangling three different saint medals and people with pressing appointments fall to their knees on the linoleum even though my cups cannot be saved. People who look like newscasters and people who look like bad news and people who look me in the eye agree that everyone has dropped everything before, sometimes twice in one trip.

I can’t give up on humanity, because when I turn on the television, everyone is still making cave paintings to explain what happened. People are disarming monsters and people are interviewing the families and people are flipping houses and tables and the ends of their hair. People are yelling at their neighbors and people are forgiving their ancestors and people are mapping out the best omelets on the Eastern seaboard. People are behaving abominably and people are sobbing uncontrollably and people are zipping up the backs of each other’s gowns. People are speaking up for the muskrats and people are demystifying souffle and people are asking what NASDAQ stands for and how to talk to God.

I can’t give up on humanity, because when I walk around the block with my headphones on, I am foiled in my attempt to forget the neighborhood. People ask what I am listening to and people tell me what they are listening to and people only pretend they are sorry for their goldendoodle’s enthusiasm. People pop wheelies like Oz’s winged monkeys and people grill frankfurters that smell like flatulence and people sing out loud that they were born on the bayou or born in the USA or born to be alive. People point at their bumpers so I will know they got the license plate that says WOO HOOOO and people point out their flowers so I will know they are called “happy chappies” and people point at me, at which point I point back and realize the whole point of walking around the block is to never give up on humanity.

---

Angela Townsend (she/her) works for a cat sanctuary. She is a five-time Pushcart Prize nominee and the 2024 winner of West Trade Review’s 704 Prize for Flash Fiction. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Arts & Letters, Blackbird, The Iowa Review, Pleiades, and SmokeLong Quarterly, among others. She graduated from Princeton Seminary and Vassar College.