Hey, you! Yes, you!

Sitting up there on your high horse, judging me, judging everyone, judging the world, from the safe confines of your comfortable life. If you don't hate me yet, you'll hate me real soon. See if I care.

I've dealt with your type. The one who knows for sure they'll act a certain way in a certain circumstance. The ones who are so confident in human morality and their own loyalty, loathing those who don't follow or fit.

I know you can hear me. I know you’re listening. So listen. I got a question.

Have you ever asked yourself:

Is this it?

In the back of my mind, I’ve been asking myself more and more.

Is this it?

It’s my curse.

You might think that makes me a pessimist. But I’m not. I’m actually quite the optimist. Let me do that hackneyed high school technique of starting this thing off with a definition.

Optimist: a person who tends to be hopeful for and expects the most favorable outcome.

Unless you’re delusional or have the memory of a goldfish, you end up setting yourself up for disappointment because nothing is ever quite as good as your imagination.

Losing your virginity, getting drunk, a college party. Everything seems so empty, so fake, like a meticulously wrapped Christmas present with nothing inside.

I keep hoping there’s something more out there, something real and substantial, something that I can feel, something substantial. I want my heart to sink so far into the depths  of despair, to beat so fast it bursts from my chest, to feel so light that it could drag my body into the floating clouds.

I just want to feel something, anything. Something other than these insignificant, petty emotions swirling around, fogging up my brain with jealousy, crushes, and hate. I want to connect with people over something real, not over who’s our favorite band. Our lives have diminished so much that the music we like, the TV shows we like, the people we like has become the most important connection we can make between two people.

Is that it? Is that all we really are?

There has to be something more. Being an optimist is quite the cruel paradox and the world seems to be full of them.

Like god is playing a joke on us.

I swear I’m not just another angsty teen going through an existential crisis.

I already went through all that when I was 6 and my father killed himself, the selfish bastard. He always told me the world is beautiful and that people are essentially good, that God gave us life so He could see us smile.

He never stopped fucking smiling.

I dream of him hanging in the garage from the motor for the door opener. They never let me see his dangling body, but I checked and there’s nowhere else to hang the rope.

In my dream, while he’s swinging he still smiles at me, an exaggerated swollen smile, like the over inflated smiley face on a bloated blue balloon. In my dream, he looks at me with those bulging eyes and one last time his purple lips mouth:

I love you, everything will be alright.

He fucking lied.

We all lie. We say we’re happy when we’re sad. We say it’s ok when it’s not.

Hi, hello, how are you doing?

Actually not so well, I got fired, my brother’s in rehab, my step dad’s an alcoholic, oh and I’ve been considering prostitution. But thanks for asking, how are you?

Nobody wants to hear that depressing shit. We don’t actually want to hear how you’re doing. We just want you to say good so we can move on and pretend everything’s alright.

Ok, let’s say, it’s a closer friend. You know, the one that does listen to you. What do they do? Say I’m sorry? Yea, sometimes we just need to hear someone say I’m sorry.

Fuck that. You know what I need? Money, a job, someone to kill all the heroin dealers in a 50 mile radius and lock my step dad in a room for a month till he’s fucking sober.

So what do we end up with?

A life full of shallow relationships, a world full of people who don’t really know each other and don’t really want to. Is that why we go around pining for romance, for that one true love that we can tell anything and everything to, the one we can spend the rest of our lives with?

Bullshit. It’s all talk. You can’t trust someone with just words. Words disappear into thin air. Literally.

70 percent of people, both men and women, have cheated on their partners. You think I’m lying? Look that shit up. I did.

Oh sure, but your perfect relationship is different. You know exactly what your love is thinking, sometimes it’s like you can read each other’s mind.

Then, you both A are super fucking shallow or B don’t know shit about the depths a person has.

We never scrape the filthy muck buried at the bottom of the soul. We live our pleasant agreeable lives only seeing that pleasant agreeable side, paddling around in the shallows of our leisurely lives, never having to drown in the dark, deep end.

That’s why when the black box first appeared, it was a jolt. The color a foreboding black, screaming silently that it mustn't be ignored. It was neither a shiny pebble on the side of the road nor a yellow speed bump but like all the inked paths on the map were washed away into black.

That something so strange would distort everything around it, wrench insides out, like it was a piece ripped straight out of the mighty clutches of a black hole, where no light escapes.

Yet there was some kind of gloss, a shining coat over the swirling black, reflecting the light, the world, as if it were some corrupt mirror reflecting only the black of our shining souls, an excavator, unearthing the entombed human from beneath the chasms, cracking the casing, for all to see.

Yea, that sounded emo as fuck, but I could just feel a certain grim gravity, a kind of keen evil emanating from it’s depths.

An anomaly.

It looked out of place. Like it didn’t belong in the classroom. Matter of fact, it looked like it didn’t belong in this world. But there it stood, as big as the table it sat on, the black box, gleaming like a beetle shell, as if the metal were from some alien species.

The class was abuzz. Was it new laptops for the class? iPads? High tech projector? Holograms? Some kind of science experiment? Government monitoring device? Was there snakes inside? A robot?

But Mr. Turner waved away all box related questions. Unable to figure out what it was, the initial torrent of whispers quickly faded and conversation turned back to the norm. Taylor broke Brandon’s nose cause his hand magically found itself down the wrong pair of pants at Ashley’s party. Grant aggressively threw a bag of Baked Lays chips at Evan during lunch. Cause unknown. Basic high school gossip.

Idiots, the lot of them. We felt so secure in our safe lives that we had no survival instinct, nobody was on edge even when something so obviously evil watched us.

How everyone could just ignore the menacing monolith massively sitting at the front of the class, I had no idea. You could barely see Mr. Turner’s balding head bob behind it as he wrote the day’s lesson plan on the board.

That’s why nobody noticed when it cut his head off. You wouldn’t believe me, but it took a full eleven seconds before somebody screamed. And yes, I counted.

Exactly twenty one minutes prior is when I first caught a glimpse of the mysterious black box.

Huddled behind a wall which offered protection from both the biting wind and prying eyes, I stamped out the burning butt of my cigarette. The last of the embers hissed in the dirty snow.

Yes, I know smoking causes cancer and I’m killing myself slowly, but at least it’s better than killing yourself quickly. I mean, what else can say “cool badass rebel” in one swift suicidal puff. By the way, that was sarcasm. You'll get used to it. Plus, I’m avoiding my girlfriend.

The loading bay for the cafeteria food trucks forms a sort of inlet, providing cover from inquisitive teachers and goody two shoes. These days people take it as a personal affront when they catch me smoking, as if they’re the ones I’m killing. Can’t even kill myself in peace.

I could go across the street to where the rest of the “cool badass rebels” safely smoked away, but there was some other people I was avoiding.

Mainly, everyone.

Each year, the number of people I can tolerate declines exponentially. Given the current rate, I estimated in five years, I can officially take the title of crazy cat lady living in that run down house all the kids think is haunted and dare each other to go ding dong ditch.

I peeked around the wall to check if the coast is clear.

ROAR. The back end of a truck thundered past, almost running me over. I landed on my ass, scrambling backwards, and hid myself behind the row of industrial sized waste disposals.

The food delivery’s every Monday, why is it one day early?

The loading bay is more like a loading porch, an elevated ledge that leads to a pair of double doors. Through those doors, the two janitors Jeb and Eddie came outside and guided the reversing truck.

Two men in suits climbed down from the cab and disappear into the back of the truck with Jeb and Eddie. Their size and straight backed posture screamed government agents straight out of a TV show.

After a minute, the two men reappear, each pushing a dolly stacked with black boxes. But now they were dressed not in suits but in the janitor’s uniform, the navy blue cloth stretched too tight over their muscular frame. They roll the boxes into the school.

I wait. A minute, two minutes. Still Jeb and Eddie stay in the back of the truck.

What’re they doing? Maybe they’re just loading up more dollies inside or maybe they're dead. Not my problem. I take the opportunity to make a break for it.

I am not the good guy.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

If I were in whatever comic book universe, I would never be the superhero. I always end up sympathizing with the villains what with their banging costumes and tragic backstories.

The heroes are all boring. Way too perfect and cliche. Even their struggles are perfect and cliche.

Just compare the Joker and Batman. Batman’s an orphan just like every Disney princess out there who inherits a multi billion dollar empire. The Joker’s a standup comedian whose pregnant wife is murdered while he falls into a vat of acid. I mean being a stand up comedian is bad enough.

I get it, I get it. The heroes are who we should try to be or aspire to. But we’re not and never will be. We’re much more like the villains. Flawed and insecure. And one mean word away from blowing up a whole city. By the way, that’s a hyperbole. I do not condone terrorist activities.

You can definitely consider this not a normal everyday occurrence. I hope Jeb and Eddie weren’t dead. I'm not sure why I keep thinking that. My mind does tend towards the dark, but there was just something weird about the circumstance of it all.

Well, if they were, there was nothing I could do about it.

What were with those boxes, anyways? Probably just some new equipment for the Advanced Placement classes.

But what was with those suits? A novelty trucking company where drivers must be fashionably dressed?

Before I can chuckle to myself, Adam, a skinny skater kid, complete with the beanie and Vans, nudges me with one of his exceedingly sharp elbows, the pain like a blade to the ribs.

“Incoming.” He nods towards a bobbing brown haired girl, her glare like a freckled heat seeking missile, weaving her way through the hall. Her brown ponytail swaying back and forth so rapidly, like a propellor driving her even faster towards me.

A me-seeking missile.

I think about running for a second before I think better of it. She’ll catch me eventually. She barrels into the middle of us, stopping right in front of me.

“I thought you weren’t at the party?”

“I wasn’t.” Deny. Deny. Deny. Advice courtesy of a mediocre comedy from the 60’s: A Guide for the Married Man directed by the great Gene Kelly.

“Isabelle just told me she saw you there.” Loudmouth bitch. Stop talking about other people and get a life. The fucking lesbian has had the hots for Soph since the third grade. “So were you there?”

“Where?”

“At the party.”

“Why couldn’t you just text me?”

“I wanted to look you in the eye when I asked you.”

“Asked me what?”

“What were you doing at the party?”

“Which party?” I know I’m just being annoying.

“Stop being an idiot. At Casey’s party on Saturday night.”

“Oh, that party. I had to pick Julian up.” She stares at me and I stare straight back at her. Always look them in the eye. Adam looks around awkwardly, but she doesn’t care.

Finally, Julian coughs and intervenes, his lanky frame over exaggerating his already theatrical movements.

“Yea sorry, Soph. I was way too drunk. Almost got in a fight with some Ridgewood motherfucker.” He mocks a fists up, guard stance. It’s a good excuse cause everyone knows Julian’s a lightweight and how often he blatantly ignores that fact.

“They’re all preppy rich kid punks anyways.” Adam adds. “Tried to sell us some bad coke.”

She doesn’t say a word for what had to be an entire minute, before walking away in a huff that only girls can pull off, her ponytail wagging disapprovingly at me.

“Thanks for the morning grill session! Now I won’t need breakfast!” Yea, I’m a dick.

“Dayum. Sophia’s ass lookin’ mm mm good,” Julian can’t help but stare at her disappear around the hallway, craning his neck rather comically.

“I think you mean Sophia’s ass lookin’ so fine.” It’s not even a great pun and it’s definitely been said before, but we laugh anyways, high fiving each other. Such is the life of high school.

“Hey, that’s my girl you’re talking about.” I feign offense.

“And you’re girl’s got a fine ass. Thank god for volleyball girls. Whoa, look at that shit!”

“Chill, man. We’ve all seen Sophia’s ass before.”

“Nah, nah, man look!” Julian points out the truck driver wheeling a dolly full of the black boxes down the hallway.

“What are they? They look like speakers.” Except there’s no driver, no fuzzy area where the sound should come out. It’s completely solid. No latch, no cover, no lid.

“Maybe we’re finally getting laptops for everyone.”

“This is a public school. There’s no way.”

“Probably for the smart kids. They get all the cool shit.”

“Yea, how are they gonna make us smarter if the smart ones get all the attention.”

“At least, Mar’s got Sophia. She’s smart and bangin. Whew, I thought she found out for a second.” Julian sighs as if he was the one under interrogation.

“Found out what?” Adam asks.

“You don’t know? Ohh sheeiitt. My man here hooked up with the arguable number two girl in the school.” Julian theatrically proclaims, more excited for me than I am for myself.

“Whaaatttt? Kailee?”

“No you dumbass. Jenna!”

“Jenna’s not number two. She’s unproportional.”

“What’re you a fashion designer?”

“He’s shown me some designs. I think he could be the next Tom Ford.”

“Well, he’s already gay so he’s halfway there.”

“Fuck you, guys.” Adam shoves Julian. “Wait, so hook up as in like make out?”

“What’re you in middle school? Who the hell ‘hooks up’ anymore?” Julian throws up the air quotes.

“So they did it?”

“They did it. You fucking virgin. They banged, they fucked, they fiddled, they boned, they went all the way to home base or as far as two girls can go, which I guess is third base so fiddled is probably the most apt term.”

“No you didn’t. For real? Jenna with them big ol’ titties?”

“With them god like, bigger than triple d’s, I-wanna-bury-my-face in them fluffy pillows, the original golden globes, big ol’ titties.” Julian motorboats ghost titties in his hands.

“Nice. Poetic as always. You know she was considering breast reductions for gymnastics?”

“Heresy. Those are gorgeous breasts bestowed upon her by the heavens, a true god-given gift to all of humanity.” Julian spreads his arms wide as if he was god. He’s also the dramatic one.

“Miracle tits. Took two hands to hold one of them.”

“Just like you should hold the holy grail.”

“I kinda like small titties. Like Kailee’s.” Adam interjects.

“Man, shut the fuck up.” Julian punches him in the shoulder. “Even if you like Monet, you should still be able to appreciate Picasso.”

“I’m just saying, Monet is a classic from every angle. Picasso is nice from a distance, but too much Cubism and it just looks all out of whack. Overwhelming.”

I like hanging with guys. We talk about either sports or girls. It's simple.

I mean who else can describe a sack of fat so endearingly as to compare it to genius painters and disagree over the top 5 hottest girls in the school at least twice before the first class. By the way, it’s Mia, Jenna, London, Diana, and finally Sarah, from first to last, and Sophia’s like way down there, number 15 at best.

Fifteen's not bad but now you know why I couldn’t pass up an opportunity on the couch with Jenna and them big ol’ titties. I told you, I’m not the good guy.

So why do I even bother with Sophia? There are advantages to having a girlfriend. First and foremost, sex. But also social legitimacy. It’s a sign that someone normal accepts you and therefore you must be socially acceptable.

The transitive property of social acceptance.

It’s also the main reason why I’m talking with these idiots. Once everyone starts thinking you’re a loner, your branded for life. That’s why everyone loves those cheesy YA dystopia movies. In fantasy land, you can overcome and break free of the life of an outcast, destroy the system, and arise as the hero celebrated by all those who once spurned you.

But reality is a much harsher mistress.

The bell rings. Five minute warning before first period starts.

“Come on. If I get another late, Mr. Turner’s gonna lower my grade again.”

“Well, an F minus is still an F.”

“You’re late.”

“Awww. Come on, Mr. Turner. It was ten seconds.”

“Why do you cut it so close? Just come early and this wouldn’t happen.”

“I was early! But then I had to go to the bathroom.” Good one. But it’s not gonna work.

“This isn’t the first time. It’s not even the second or third. This is the fifth time.”

“I’m sooo sorry, Mr. Turner. But you don’t even start class right away.”

“I’m sorry, too, Julian. You know that’s no excuse. Rules are rules. I can’t let this slide.”

“Please? It won’t happen again.” Julian pleads.

“There’s rules that I have to follow as well.”

“Fuck. Come on, Mr. T.”

“Do you also want detention for profanity?”

“No, Mr. Turner.”

“Then, please go to your seat.”

Every morning, Mr. Turner took the first ten minutes of class to write the ten important dates in history we would be learning that day along with their corresponding events on the board.

I don’t know why he's doing it today because the box blocked the board, but he did it anyways. Routine, I guess.

We all immerse ourselves in a routine. He was old and his hand shook. So he took painstaking care to write it neatly. Plus, he had to readjust his suspenders every 30 seconds.

Everyone loves him for it because it meant less class time which meant more time to waste talking about nothing. Our routine.

“The chainsaw would be so boss.” Fat Sam always thought things were boss. He isn’t that fat, but he's definitely the fattest on the soccer team. That’s why he played center back. Julian was striker, Adam was a left back, and Henry was goalie.

Yea, our soccer team wasn’t that great. I would’ve definitely made it an improvement but there were no girls allowed. Like some elementary schooler’s treehouse club.

“Yea that would rip everything to shreds.” Henry agreed with everyone and ended up contradicting himself a lot. He’s never noticed. I had a suspicion that he might be a slightly more advanced parrot hiding as a human, but there was no way to confirm this hypothesis.

“Machines malfunction. You run out of gas or the chain snaps, you’re dead. You need something reliable. Like hammers.” Adam disagrees.

“Yea, hammers are probably better. Chainsaws might break.” Can you tell that it's Henry?

“Like that guy in Walking Dead. He had double hammers. That guy was so boss!”

“But he fucking died. That shit’s way too close for comfort. I’d have to go with that fucking thing with a curved blade at the end of a pole.” Julian adds his favorite.

“A naginata.” Shit, I play too many video games.

“Whatever the fuck. That shit’s like optimal zombie fucking up range.”

“Where the hell are you gonna find a spear? If hammers are too short, baseball bats are probably the best.”

There’s something strangely refreshing about a zombie apocalypse. Limited number of rules. Simplicity of survival.

Is it fucked up that I sometimes wish for that kind of shit to happen?

Yes, I would kill off 90 percent of the human population to relieve my boredom.

And I’m really fucking bored.

Bored of being trapped for 16 years in the same town, living with the same family, going to the same school with the same friends. It’s a prison sentence. Absolutely nothing happens and I’m going crazy. People dream of true love forever and I’d rather shoot myself in the head.

So when Mr. Turner’s head fell off or rather the box cut it off, I couldn’t help but smile. Just a little.

Ok. When it happened, I admit I wasn’t looking at the black box either just like everyone else. But I had a good excuse.

My latest obsession: Gessica.

Gessica the violinist and swimmer. Gessica with a G, like her parents knew she wouldn’t be like all the other Jessica’s.

The girl, or more aptly the indifferent pale angel, who sat right in the front, practically glowing in the backdrop of the inky black box. Who had pale blue eyes and pale blond hair as if the years in a chlorinated swimming pool had stripped her of color. Who uses those spare morning minutes to read a book and not just any book, but the gore filled tragedy that is Battle Royale.

Instead of just settling for the vanilla version Hunger Games is, she went back to the unadulterated source before Suzanne Collins mutated and mutilated the raw and real story into a twisted Twilight/Disney fairytale that everyone has come to know and love.

Or at least that’s what I hoped she believed. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never talked to her before.

I know, I know I have a girlfriend. But Gessica’s a special case. My god, you’re uptight. You’d do the same if you knew her like I do.

Out of the corner of my eye, Mr. Turner’s head stops moving, then disappears behind the box.

One. I figure he’s bent down to pick something up. But beneath the table, instead of an arm, I see his head bounce off the floor and roll. A moment later, blood splatters the whiteboard like a Jackson Pollick painting, or is it Pollock?

Two. His body oddly stands erect for a couple seconds, before collapsing to the ground with a thud. Still nobody looks up.

Three. The head rolls to a stop in front of Gessica’s desk. Glancing over top of the book, her eyes meet Mr. Turner’s dead ones.

Four. She traces it back to the neck and finally finds the absent body. I watch as her face slowly transforms in realization that the head is detached.

Five. Her eyebrows knit together, her face scrunched in concentration, as she tries to figure out some kind of logic behind it all.

Six. Having found no rational explanation, her face relaxes into a slack jawed disbelief. It must be fake. Some kind of sick joke.

Seven. Looking around, she finds the body peeking out from behind the table, blood staining the blue carpet maroon.

Eight. Somehow, paler than pale, her face stretching back into that openness of pure white fear, skin tightening around her jaw and cheekbones.

Nine. Her eyes bulge and her mouth opens impossibly wide but no sound comes out.

Ten. She chokes, her scream caught, collecting somewhere in her throat, building up before it erupts.

Eleven. A shrill scream bursts forth, piercing everyone’s ears, stabbing their heads.

With this, I knew things were gonna be real fucked. And fun.