ihavebeenfloated

“I’m dying.”

“Are you really?”

“No, but it sounds good.”

“Are you even really depressed?”

“Nah, just lonely.”

“Then what’s the deal?”

“I just resort to melodrama to describe my feelings because nothing else fits.”

“I’d try to describe your feelings for you but I’ve got to agree that there is nothing better.”

“At least you agree. That’s nice.”

“I try my best.”

“Yeah. So, what’s up?”

“I’m the one asking the questions here, I am your second voice after all.”

“Yeah, I know, but still, let’s do a bit of a role reversal here, it’ll confuse everyone peering in from the outside.”

“There you go again with the melodramatic descriptions of things.”

“Shut up. Just answer.”

“First off, tell me what you did tonight.”

“Before I started drinking, which is what I was doing just earlier, I went over to Mike’s for a bit to hang out with Matt, Mike, and Robert. They were trying to kick a hacky sack around, but it was far too dark in the street. So, using a big knife I keep under my seat, they cut open a glow stick and poured it over the hacky sack. That only worked so long, until our collective stupidity—which consisted of me, sober; Mike, drunk; Matt, stoned; Robert, stoned—decided that it was a good idea to saturate it with lighter fluid and set it on fire.

“This was fun for a while until we were all laughing so hard—especially since Matt and I took to throwing it at each other, nothing quite like a flaming fireball hurling at your face to make you feel alive—that Mike decided it was best to move to some place a little more isolated, as shouting and screaming on a residential street at near midnight was probably a bad idea.. This more isolated place being the elementary school up the street.

“So we walk up to the elementary school and saturate the hacky sack really good in lighter fluid, light it on fire, and toss it around. Eventually I get a hold of it and throw it at Matt, but I throw it underhand and with so much force I launch it right up onto the roof of the school.”

“That’s no good.”

“No, sir, it is not. Matt and Robert immediately flipped out and ran as fast as they could, leaving Mike and I to decide whether we should run or not. Being that burning down a school is bad mojo, Mike and I ran over to one of the lower coverings for the walkways and he hoisted me up onto the roof. Being that I am quite literally terrified of heights, this was a relatively awful idea, but when faced with burning down an elementary school or facing a fear, I guess I’ll take the fear.

“The hacky sack was in no danger of setting the school on fire, by the time I pulled myself up and walked over to it, it was already going out. I kicked it down, and all was well. Mike directed me over to a place where I could get down by sliding over the roof on my belly, balancing on a light box, and then stepping down onto a narrow patch of brick wall surrounded by really hard looking concrete. I did not like that idea at all. I contemplated leaping into the bushes.

“I walked over further to a bit of roof that was hanging down near a higher piece of brick wall. I slid over on my belly and Mike guided my feet onto a piece of wall that was about four inches square. I managed to drop down safely by there. I was covered in about twenty years of roof gunk. We walked back to his house and I came home.

“I watched some TV, then went to Ralphs and got myself a tallboy of Hurricane, which is basically steelies but sour. I drank a little over half before I couldn’t stomach the flavor anymore. Now, I sit here listening to Year Zero waiting for Uru to update so I can jump in and look at the new pod age.”

“So, what’re you upset about, then?”

“I don’t want to talk about it. You handle it.”

“Pfft, that’s no fun for me.”

“I don’t really give a fuck, man. I don’t much care for you getting your rocks off on my torment.”

“So there’s this girl I fancy. I’ve fancied her for a while and—”

“OK, you’re talking like me, how the fuck is this fair?”

“Hey, if I want to talk like you in order to describe your feelings, I should be allowed to do so.”

“The idea of you is to describe things in basic, straight-forward terms, because I can’t possibly break away from my vagueness and just lay shit out proper, right?”

“Sure, sure.”

“Why aren’t you doing your job then?”

“Because I don’t want to give away too much. What if someone mentioned reads this?”

“Then she’ll know. Isn’t that the idea of writing all this?”

“But, get this, friend: What if she doesn’t read it, and she never gets it, and she never says anything of it? Or what if she does read it, and just doesn’t care, and never mentions it? Wouldn’t you rather candy coat the truth that way even if she does read it, she doesn’t know you’re talking about her, then you never have to worry about inaction on her part? You and I both know that inaction would be far worse than a negative reaction, because at least with—well, you know what I’m reaching at, here.”

“I might as well just talk about it then.”

“If you’d like.”

“So there’s this girl I fancy. I’ve fancied her for a while and it’s gone a whole lot of nowhere because I’ve got no balls, and I don’t think she’s much interested, but every now and then I get glimmers of a little something and I start to wonder if nothing has happened due to my inaction. She’s a confusing bird, all social and outgoing but she’s a Pisces to the core, so I know that she’s introverted and shy but she acts so extroverted I haven’t a fucking clue what’s going on her head.

“Anyway, the point is that every time I see her, my heart is set all a-flutter even though I tell it to piss off and explain that no heart of mine is going anywhere anytime soon, and it’s a pleasure for it to be living in fantasy and all but really if it’s going to effect my mood and state of being then I might as well take a couple of knives to my chest and pull it out, but it only ever listens to such threats for a short while, and by short while, I mean something like five minutes. Then it starts up again, but by then I am usually out of her sight and it’s A-OK.

“What’s not OK is her telling me tonight that she’s interested in some dude she should not be interested in, for legitimate reasons, after being all up in my face and smiling and giving me doe eyes like mad, probably due to all the alcohol she ingested and me handing her 2.2 grams of marijuana—this reminds me, if I had any brains I would start dealing pot to all my stoner friends but unfortunately that sort of business is illegal and I don’t much like jail—her grinning like a chesire cat probably had absolutely nothing to do with me being within a three foot radius of her.”

“If she doesn’t know who she is by now, she’s probably fucking retarded in the face.”

“So eloquent, you are.”

“I try my best, friend.”

“I hate to cut this short, but I’m getting distracted by something else decidedly more important than talking to you.”

“Fair enough, I have subconscious desires I need to to fan the embers of.”

“Take care.”

“You, too.”