The most difficult question in the world

Every day, I get asked the most difficult question in the world.

Not maths. 3 little words. How are you?

Tough question...the hardest.

The answer...nearly always a lie.

I'm okay. I'm fine. Well, you know, surviving.

Is it just me?

You can never tell the truth, the whole truth, so help me God.

You may even have to check...how am I?

I'm awake, I'm alive, I'm just...trying to retrieve an appropriate platitude so we can move on to the great weather we're (not) having. Did I take the blue pillow the red one this morning?

And is answering I'm good grammatically correct?

(A little aside about grammar: the correct answer is yes because of the difference between action verbs and linking verbs. Action verbs, you know, run as fast as you can, jump through hoops, swim against treacle, it's all about the action. Linking verbs however, do not express action but a state. You see, being is not something that can be done...grammatically speaking.)

So tell me, tell, me, tell me. 3 words. How are you?

Well, if you have the time, to listen, no harm, no crime, I'd tell you true, not lie to you. If you could only guess, take a stab, I'd confess. If you could only try on my shoe, feel the sharp stone I've put in there, to remind me of the times where I didn't walk with a limp, the times I wasn't a wimp.

How are you?

That question, so every day, so mundane, so gently invites me to a precipice, where the voices speak to me as if I'm sane. That person, asking me, isn't taking the piss...maybe, I could share my insides, explain...only I'm too afraid that, again I will miss, shoot far too wide, far too deep, and gain...

the usual blank face

vacant stare

grin fixed.