Another Brick In The Wall

"Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken." - Chuck Palahniuk

Another Brick In The Wall

“Why take Paris, when you can have the world?” It’s those kinds of slogans written in some backwater cockamamie romance film to take as a cheesy one-liner by the lead character that got traded off by the girl for another guy. It’s really amazing how they can come up with these things. One moment he’s talking about giving the sun and moon for the girl, the next moment he talks about how he loves her to the moon and back. It gets to your nerves really. An entire generation of whiny bitches eating out the toilet bowl of fiction. We’ve got 13 year olds falling in love, with no concept of actual intimacy, and it’s becoming the norm. I guess I’m different.

I’m no Augustus Waters; I’m no Zac Efron or any fucking Chad Chadinson for that matter. I’m a back-tier lowly piece of infectious toxic human waste by product of society’s most ill-gotten creations. I am the in-patient on the ward of God’s unwanted creations.  I am the underbelly of the human race. I’m not Paris for that matter. I’m the most stinking, disease-ridden, poverty-laden, corrupted city in the world.

                I’m a materials engineering student, it’s barely  a year since I started and you won’t believe how I survive.  It’s not really hard but sometimes the professors can just get on your nerves. But what professor thinks of the toxic by-product of the creation of God? Nobody. I’m just another brick in the wall in brick wall filled with bricks of the same size and shape thinking some mason put the extra effort to put them. Well, I’m the brick that fell first. The first one to fail. And when I was given a shred of appreciation for my hard work, it felt so good. Then I thought, if everyone hit rock bottom, how high would they fly? If everyone believed they were the toxic by-product of God’s creations, I wonder how they would justify their existence.

                The trick with demented people is to be who they think you are. It gives them comfort, it gives them closure. They can’t accept anything else other than yes. In a way, I was demented as well. There was a time when the servile trash-collectors of God’s creations didn’t know that they were. They were raised by people who knew that they were the middle-children of the creator, with no apparent special position in the family. Insignificant. Plain. Dull. But with this knowledge, we’re given the one thing that could even placate the condition. Hope. We are so hopeful that our offspring are going to be the redemption song of their parents, the one thing that justifies their existence. The decorated marble in the brick wall. I was raised to believe that I would become something. A rock star, a president, whatever. I was groomed for success. Why do we not groom our children for failure? It happens most of the time and in the rare occurrence that they do succeed, they don’t know how to deal with it and remain the same. Chin down, hand in pocket. And when I met this girl, with my success-grooming, I believed she was mine. Not yours. Mine. I never knew I would be making the biggest mistake of my life.

                They say, when you’re in love, you can’t stop thinking about that person. What then distinguishes it from addiction? The day I made my move, it was a farce.

                Sweating heat, head delirious, my shivering hands scrambled shakily to take the thermometer sitting on the table. I pin it between my arms. 42 degrees Celsius.  My skull split from the headache, I was sure as hell about to die. I fought sleep, because if I slept, I die in my sleep. So I grabbed the computer, the little gleam of light shone in my freezing room. I messaged her on twitter, and it was the worst thing I’ve ever sent. It was my “Freddy Got Fingered”. But, in an ironic and cruel twist, when I sent her that, my temperature went down, my headache relieved. Then I waited.

                Waiting is cruel. You don’t know how long the nights become. You don’t know how slow the clock moves. Then you get these thoughts in your head, a cruel mix of optimism and pessimism. One moment you’re thinking that she likes you back and she can’t contain herself which is why she can’t reply immediately, the next you’re thinking that she’s showed it to her boyfriend she never told you about. You jump with joy with your hand pointing a gun to your head. That’s how it feels to love. It’s not that John Green shit where some guy gets a girl by bumping into her. That never happens in the real world. In the real world, loving someone is to wrap a noose-tied rope around your neck and waiting for the executioner to pull the lever. All the while hoping for the pardon that saves you.

                Then the moment came. She messaged me on twitter, “Replied to your FB deo”. Clicking the Facebook tab on my browser, I read her message. She said she wasn’t ready for that level of love. She wants me to be happy because I believe that I was going to live my life alone, and she thinks I’m more than that.

We’ve just lost cabin pressure.

Brace for impact.

And then, nothing.

                At that moment, I was no longer me. I was no longer what everyone knew I was. I didn’t know anything, I was nothing. All I know is that I am the washed-out deformed spawn of God. But at that moment was kind of a zen clarity. It all became clear. I no longer had fear. When you know that no one loves you and even if they do, you will still eventually die, your fear disappears. You’re only afraid because you’ll lose the people and things you associate yourself with. But they’re not you.

You are not your name.

You are not your shriveled up wrinkled body.

You are not your clothes.

You are you, and if you associate yourself with those which are not you, then you are not you and you do not exist.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Captain has switched off the fasten seatbelt sign; you are now free to move about the cabin.

                Knowing that you came from nothing and die as nothing is a release. Like being lifted off your burden. You’re no longer afraid to die, not because you hate this world, but because you’ve embraced it. You are no longer you, but you are now the world. Being stepped on by the people above you, feeling so inferior, yet feeling most superior, it is a release. I long to destroy myself by jumping every height, fighting every fight, eating any food, I was an adrenaline junkie, except I didn’t care for the adrenaline. I just yearned for self-destruction. And with what I was doing, you would never believe what happened next.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we’ve just lost cabin pressure and we are losing altitude. Please remain calm and seated; oxygen masks will drop from the overhead compartment of your seat.

                I woke up under a highway in the middle of the day. Everyone was yelling, “It’s over!” And a kid was yelling, “The human race has lost!” I walk on over to the television store across the street, Dan Rather is talking about a mass extinction, a rapture of some sorts. The kid came up to me, said “Hey Mister“, and he suddenly disappeared in a wisp of air. Just like that. Dan Rather is talking about a new virus that eats your cells from the inside and explodes into tiny viruses to spread in the air. The disease was airborne so everyone could get it instantly. But I wasn’t afraid. I wanted to go first. Like the most enthusiastic cow to the slaughter, I breathed in all that I could, and hoped that in my sleep, the virus popped me open. So I breathed, and breathed, and slept again.

Brace for impact.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the pilot has safely landed on the airstrip.

                I woke up under the same highway that night. The cars were dead, the place was silent. The only things that were around were the concrete buildings that were built, the cars that once moved, and the sidewalk that once bustled with people. I was the last man in the city. Every building, crevice, nook, and cranny that I could see was empty. I kicked the dust in mild frustration, I wished to die the first, but I was saved. But I understood. What good is God’s deformed, rejected creation in His kingdom?

                I learned that from every country, everyone has died. CNN aired its Doomsday Tape, and is now on loop on every TV that tuned in to CNN on its final human interaction.

                As the last person on Earth, well, it gets pretty cool from here.

                “Why take Paris, when you can take the world?” 

Hey guys! Here's my new short story, enjoy!