title; all i want.
summary; because real wants aren't stupid and shallow.
wordcount; 3419.

"Follow your dreams. You can meet your goals. I am living proof. Beefcake! BEEFCAKE!"

Sometimes you stare into the sky and you wonder what you really fucking want.

You sit with Kenny somewhere, it doesn't matter where exactly, could be the woods (your woods) or his garage or on top of a car in the school parking lot, night or day, rain or shine, but it's somewhere, and he's smoking a cigarette and you do too, sometimes, and you just sit and wonder. Sometimes you're stupid and you're shallow and want money or power or some kind of race gone from the world. Or you want to prove some smart ass like Kyle or Wendy wrong. Just once.

But sometimes you want things, you really long for them like a normal person with hopes and wishes and dreams. Like when you were little and you cried yourself to sleep because all the other little boys had Daddies to tuck them in - hell, even Kenny did, the bastard - and you were left alone. And when you were older and your mother said she was a hermaphrodite - which you looked up and you swear to God she was lying - you just wished that someone could be bluntly honest with you. Just once.

And then you got even older and everyone was so damn loud and obnoxious and you wanted to world to freeze and reset and just fucking quit it, just once, just shut up. Just make everything stop. Just once.

"You okay dude?" Kenny asks, breaking you from your trance. You look over at him and give him a grunt of response. He's taking a drag - you're not, this time around - and the sky is dark and there's a few clouds and it's night and you're in the woods somewhere (your woods), just lying on the ground. The moon is full, the stars bright. The air is cold enough, but not for Colorado, not really. A light hoodie is all you wear, your friend clad in an orange parka. You stare back at the sky and just wonder again. "You've been spacing out like that for a while now. I'm worried."

"Don't be."

"But I am."

"Shut up Kinny." He stares at you a minute longer, and then shrugs, leaning back against a tree. You're laying on the hard ground, staring at the moon, the one some saw as the epitome of romance, but something you just saw as there. "Kenny?" He makes a noise that sounds roughly like a 'yeah'. "What do you want?"

He turns to face you again, offended. "Pardon?"

"What do you want? I mean, not with me, although that would be a damn good question. I mean… if you could have anything right now, what would it be?"

A weird look crosses his face, but he knows you're dead serious. Blue eyes soften. "I dunno, dude. To get outta here. To pass school. To get some fucking brains."

You shake your head. "You ain't dumb, you poor piece of shit. You're smart in one way and everyone else is just an ass-hole."

He throws some forest debris at you, grinning. "You sound like a faggy goth, Cartman." You make a face; Kenny laughs and then pretty soon you are too. He was always a god tension breaker. That's probably why you two could hang out without murder ensuing. "What do you want, Eric?"

The use of your first name startles the two of you out of your fits of giggles. But you pause to consider anyway, not prepared; no one ever asks what you want. "Honestly? I don't fucking know. Truth? For everyone to shut up?"

"Dude."

"Yeah."

And no more is said. Nothing needs to be. You just laid there.

There is silence.

There is smoke.

And there's the woods (your woods).

Some days you're happy and someone will ruin it.

Some days you'll come into school all high and peppy and Kenny swears you're schizophrenic or bipolar but he's wearing his shit-eater grin that says he's happy that you are. And Butters stops cowering, thinking you're going to hit him or something. He'll point out, in his usual stammering voice, that you're off today, but you don't give a damn.

But then a teacher will make a smart ass comment (I didn't know you could think, Eric!) or Craig'll flip you off or Kyle and Stan laugh at your expense one too many times and you just have to beat the shit outta something. It's usually a little freshman or Butters or someone off the street, and Kenny just sits back and says, "Dude!" And then you'll be done, and he'll pull you aside and chastise you and you just tell him to shut the fuck up. And then he'll ask -

Goddamn, every time -

He just has to ask it -

"What the hell do you want, Eric?"

And you'll say every time, "I don't fucking know!"

But you do know. All you want right then is a little bit of peace. Just once in a while. Just for one fucking day where the universe doesn't hurt you, where there are no mental breakdowns, where people get over their fucking bullshit. Just once.

But it'll never happen.

Some days everyone just hates you. Even your best friends are done. They'll always say the same thing, chanting it like some spell, "You went too far, Fatass." And you usually don't argue about anything, whether because you agree or you just don't care. It's close sometimes, though. Where you just wanna turn around and punch them in the face, like you used to. And sometimes, sometimes it's not your fault. But no one understands that.

Taking out your anger on everyone is usually what sets other people off. Can't they see that you need it? That you hate it too, but it's just one of those wants, one of those things you need to do? That it's their fault, because even though you may have started it 12 years ago, they keep turning around and fighting again? Don't they know you just want them to stop, just one time? Just once?

It's not like you could cry or something. That was such a girl thing, and it was surrender, something you were not supposed to do. Even when your world broke down and you lost your mind, you just had to play pretend everything was okay. It was what you were good at, it was what the world expected, and it was the only thing that kept you going.

It was a gray, foggy Tuesday when you finally said it. When Kyle and Stan had just been a shitty mood, probably due to the weather - those fucking assholes - and had been taunting you all day. Kenny had cleared out as soon as the first Jew joke was uttered, saying he needed to take a smoke break outside. No one stopped him. You kind of (almost) wished someone had.

The rest of the details are kind of hazy, but you do remember throwing a few punches to the face and the gut, shoving Kyle painfully against the lockers, winning, promising his mother would feel the flames on her new silver Taurus. You remember him kicking your shins in wasted effort, and then a teacher breaking the both of you apart. The kids who had watched beat a hasty retreat, even Stan, and both were waiting outside the principal's office. You were still seething. "I hate you, Fatass," he spits.

You whip around; Kyle flinches and you laugh psychotically. "So? I hate me too; but I get more grief about it than anyone else." And then you just get up and leave. Your mother gets a call, and she grounds you, but since you don't have any money to spend or anyone to hang out with or places to go, it wasn't much of a punishment. And you got two weeks off from school. Killer.

Basically, you laid on your bed and listened to music like a gay loser.

You see Kenny again a fortnight later, at the bus stop, and he sympathetically says, "Sorry man." Stan looks away, embarrassed. And Kyle cringes as if he's been burned, rather than his mother's car which mysteriously ended up smoking in the middle of the night last week. Your smirk is your trademark evil one. And Kenny gets pissed at this exchange.

And then he fucking says it again, in front of those assholes -

"What do you want Eric?"

And you have an answer for him this time. "I just want the world to make a little sense every now and again. Is that so wrong?"

Their eyes are wide, but you just face the opposite end of the street, praying something will happen to break of the exchange.

It's an awkward 10 minutes till the bus arrives. Fucking universe.

"You've got problems," says Butters, sounding all serious.

"I know."

"Major problems."

"I'll get to 'em."

"No you won't."

"Shut the fuck up Butters."

"Eric, I'm serious, go talk to someone."

"Stop fucking calling me that."

That's pretty much what you say all day, bar the occasional snarl of 'what?' to terrified classmates. It sends them scattering, but you don't laugh this time. You feel nothing today, just a blank slate ready to be filled. The bell rings, shifting everyone forward even though they were absorbed by the whacky biology teacher's story about deer meat and a baby fetus. It's Algebra next, the bane of your existence - well, people were actually, but still - and you decide to sneak out to the parking lot with Kenny. It looks like it's about to drizzle; the two of you don't speak.

He just wordlessly hands you a smoke, lighting it, and you take a drag. It's not something you do often, just on days like this. Fact: a war zone remains quite bleak, even as the last shot was fired. Even when the dead and wounded were carted away. It was still silent, still hazy, still smoky. Just like today. You look up to the sky once more and you ask, but you know what you want.

You just want to know what you want. Just once. "Nothing wrong with that," you mutter.

"Hey dude?"

"Yeah, Kahl?"

He winces. "Sorry."

"S'okay. S'not like it ain't been said before."

Now it's night again, but Kyle would never go into the woods (your woods). It was just for him and Kenny, it was their thing, but this was alright too, you suppose. The moon was no longer full, just a little sliver in relative contrast, but the stars shined just as much and not a cloud hung over the sky. It was colder; you could see your breath. You were both leaning on a beam that connected the porch to your house, feet dangling off the edge. Kyle, in his orange jacket, you in a black hoodie again. It was your favorite.

"Sorry."

"Whatever." It's like he expects you to say something else.

You suppose it's just guilt that brings him here; he's sorry for himself, not you. But in the end, it's really the same thing. It's okay. He looks at you, narrowing his eyes.

"'What do you want, Eric?'" he says, making it perfectly clear he's quoting your best friend. Maybe it's the tone he uses, or maybe it's the way his smoky break forms out of his mouth. Who knows?

"Ah. You caught that, eh Jew?"

"No shit. You were two feet away." Your laugh is humorless, and you absentmindedly flick a shard of rock off the porch. The light dims; you were supposed to replace the bulb when you were grounded. Oh well.

Kyle looks back but says nothing. "I asked Kinny that a few weeks ago, so now whenever I'm a bad boy he asks me that question," you say with an eye roll, shoving your hands in your pockets.

"Well? What's the answer?"

"I… dunno. I guess I just wanna know."

"'Nothing wrong with that,'" he quotes in a horrible impression of your weird accent. You shove him playfully.

"Nothing at all." The smile is small, still existent, but you look away quickly. Kyle sighs, slipping his hands in his jeans pocket. He leaps from your porch, frowning, clearly intending to go.

"Well, you figure that out soon, alright Cartman? Even I'm worried about you now."

"Don't."

"Massive breakdowns, fistfights, and speaking like a fucking maniac isn't what I know about you. Well, not all the damn time, anyway. Even though we try to stop you, you almost always win, and you know it." He's studying you right now; you can tell. He does that sometimes, just looks at you, tries to see what's going through your head. It's not anything new; all your friends have been trying to do that since grade school. But only get Kenny got any place, and it wasn't very far.

"No Kahl; I almost always lose."

And he doesn't say anything to that.

"Why does everything I say make everyone shut up," you ask, frowning.

Under the pretense of studying together, you're at Kenny's house, somewhere in the garage. You're filled with that feeling of no one needing to know that you're here, but you shove it off. It doesn't mean anything, of course. Kenny's on the hood of a beat up car; you're sitting on some crates. "Maybe cuz the shit you say is seriously screwed up?" he offers bluntly. At least he was honest.

"Not everything I say. Sometimes it makes sense."

"Only to you. And then someone points that out and you'll tell 'em to shut the fuck up."

"That's the best kind of sense." Now it's his turn to frown.

"Dude."

"I know, Kinny. Jesus."

"Yeah, you do know. And that's the problem."

"What the hell are you going on about?"

"You know you're messed up right now, and don't try to deny it, you've been for years, and you ain't doing anything about it. Why?"

"I dunno. I don't want to change, I s'pose."

"You're killing yourself, moron."

"And you die every day, so shut up and leave my mortality out of this, thanks." He doesn't want to; you know he doesn't want to, but he does, he smiles a tiny bit.

"That's uncalled for. I have no idea why I do that."

"Neither do we; most people don't even notice you kill yourself."

"True. But we're getting off track."

"Damn. I thought it would work."

Okay, now he laughs, and the frustration leaves through the garage door like it usually does. He drops the uncomfortable subject, and then you fall into the routine of silently speaking. Telling stories or secrets or something. You're not exactly sure what passes between you. And you tell yourself it doesn't matter.

Cuz, well, it doesn't, right? It just is. You two are best friends, have been since you ever met. Maybe it's not as awkwardly pronounced as Kyle and Stans', but Kenny was never one for words, and in recent months you've learned when to speak and when not to. So it doesn't exactly matter what you share. It's the sharing that matters.

A buzzing fills the room, your cell phone, and you check who it is and you say, "shit," because it's your mother, who's been really cracking down on punishments lately. You were only supposed to be out for an hour, maybe two if you got lucky, but you've been here God knows how long, so you're probably grounded again.

"Cartman," Kenny scowls.

You wave him off and pick up your cell. "Hey Mom. Yeah, I'm on my way right now. No, I'm not lying. For Chrissakes... Oh, what are you going to do, ground me?" Kenny makes a 'stop it now' gesture, but you ignore him. "Whatever. Be home in ten." Then you hang up.

He looks pissed, to say the least. "I gotta go."

"Fine. But control your anger more, Fatass."

"Whatever." You dump your cell and a few books in a black backpack - well, you were here to study - and leave, Kenny watching you go.

Sometimes, sometimes you know what you want.

It's usually just a few fleeting seconds, and it's out of anger or spite or some fucked up depression, but it's still a want. Never that long, maximum a minute, but it kind of feels good to know. Just once.

And sometimes you like to think you know what you want, and that typically lasts days. It's euphoric, not that creepy kind where someone'll always ruin it, but it comes off as a gentle pink buzz. And people pick up on it, sure, but they usually don't notice you're the source, simply because it's not weird or devious so they're not liable to notice. But you're too happy so it doesn't really matter, does it? You can go through your school work and you can deal with people, and you and Kenny can joke around and bond or whatever. It doesn't happen often, and no one expects it to, but people will always secretly think what a relief it is that you're in a good mood no one can seem to trash.

Except for, well, you of course. Because then you remember that it's not a real want, it's just something petty and retarded. It's material or biased or egomaniacal or something. And you feel even worse because you should've seen it coming, because you knew it would end like this. Because real wants aren't stupid and shallow. They're smart and wonderful and everyone loves them because they make sense and they're plausible or so damn awesome that it doesn't matter if it's likely or not because it will happen anyway. But you're Eric Theodore Cartman, the universe's arch nemesis, and nothing good like that can happen to you, can it? It only happens to good kids who didn't kill their parents and attempt to bar their kidney from their friend and don't end every sentence with the word 'fucking'.

Of course, they've got to be somewhat bad too. Because kids like Butters who are the epitome of innocence still have bad shit happen to them. Mostly from people like you, but still. And no one ever gave you a damn scale and told you how much good you should be and how much bad, so you just wanna say 'screw it' and move along.

But you can't, because the universe hates you and makes those pink buzzing days and then you fall and you can't help but think, shit, even though you saw it coming.

Fucking universe.

One day, though.

One day you'll know what you want. You'll do something retarded like push Butters down some stairs or something, and Kenny will come up to you and ask that dreaded question - what do you want, Eric? - and you'll have an answer that's so fucking perfect that he never asks it again and neither do you, because you know it.

And you know that you'll find what you want, because you know everything. You know what will happen in 500 years if the world goes atheist, and even if it doesn't, and you know how to write a book because you've done it before, and isn't that supposed to be smart? So you're smart as hell, - screw grades, they mean nothing - and sometimes learning things take time, right?

So, someday you'll know what you want.

Someday you won't have that bullshit answer of, "I want to know what I want." Because that's not much on an answer at all, is it?

And somewhere in the back of your head you think, When have I ever had good answers? Well, never, right? You're not a fancy artist or even a speaker. Just because you throw in a few four syllable words and can convince a few rednecks that they're wrong doesn't mean you can convince yourself, and you've never been good at that. It was always easy to go with that one instinct, and it kind of made sense that you couldn't come up with, well, wise stuff, because you never stopped to wonder. You accepted things too easy. Well, you accepted what you thought was right and banished the rest to the back of your head, screw reality and it's poisonous pincers.

Well, you don't need a fancy answer, do you? You just know that you'll know.

You just kind of wish it would hurry the fuck up.

- crowthorn

Last edited on July 15, 2013.