Hey there! this is my first attempt at any kind of fan fiction. Please be gentle with me!
I'm not entirely sure if this is it... even if it is kind of depressing... or whether I want to add more to it and make it into a really long many chaptered story.
This is all done in Stan's quite cynical a little bit goth point of view.
Life as far as I can remember has always been kind of mediocre. The whole growing up thing seems like a set up for something wonderful. Everyone had dreams back then; they wanted to be a fireman, a doctor, an astronaut. Only you get to a certain age and you realise it ain't that simple sunshine. Grownups always ask you 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' like it's that easy. As though you leave school and instantly get thrown into your dream profession. No one ever mentions the exams, the grades, the necessary experience, the butt sucking and fucking job interviews! No one ever stops you and says 'Hey you're not good enough for that' this is something you have to work out for yourself. That slow plummet of optimism during your adolescent years when you finally realise your own inadequacy. When it finally snaps in your mind that there are billions of people living in this world and you are just a small fraction of its population.
How can one person really have an impact on something so huge and over populated? The world is a huge rat race of people trying harder and harder to stand out only making it harder and harder to actually do so. All this whilst at the same time we all sit back and eat the masses of food on offer to us most likely to the expense of third world countries. Everything is packaged and manufactured; the food you buy comes from the huge web of companies and farms. The clothes we buy are all branded and designed by someone thousands of miles away who apparently have the end decision in what we wear. The media has all these messages and morals drilled into the depths of your brain before you can even register an independent opinion. You can't avoid the system no matter how hard you try. People act like they have freewill in this world but when you look at the bigger picture everything is decided for you. There is no escaping it. You can't slip off the radar there is CCTV on you 24/7 and every single bit of land is owned by angry people with shotguns. This is the way we have made it and there is no going back now. People are too comfortable, in a sense we have been domesticated. We wouldn't last a day without all the resources at our finger tips. We rely on the system so much its sickening. Personally, I think H G Wells was right. Eventually we will all become fat and stupid and at night spiderlike monsters will come up from the ground, rip us apart and eat our entrails.
Yes I'm a cynical bastard, but sometimes it's as though I'm the only person who notices how fucked up things actually are. In my own mind I think I was always doomed to achieve nothing with my life. Nothing was ever handed to me like it was for others. I wasn't born into a rich family or given any kind of useful talent that could aid me in success. I see people succeeding all the time but things like that just seem to pass me by. Even when opportunity arises I seem to find a way to talk myself out of taking it. Fear of failure at its finest. People seem to be under the impression that all this negativity and cynicism is just destructive and self-indulgent. Well the way I see it, is that when you live your life pre-decided by the huge web or machine that is society, the only things left in your control are your own indulgence and destruction.
So with all this going on people are expected to just go on doing whatever it is they have got themselves into. I don't suppose most people see it as ugly and deformed as I often do. Some people easily find their place in society, like my friend Kyle. Kyle goes on with what's put in front of him, he does well, Kyle will go on to do great things. Though Kyle is the one person I know most about, my best friend, I sometimes find myself really struggling to understand him. He doesn't see the world the same way as I do, he's determined, he's optimistic, he's passionate. He sees the steep climb to the top of this world and says 'challenge accepted'. All this with morals included. As much as I admire him I can't help but think him a bit delusional, but I would wouldn't I? I don't have his energy to fight. Kyle is pretty much everything I wish I was, though going back from this state of seeing the world for what it really is? I don't think that's possible without serious head injury.
At the other end of the spectrum there is Cartman. Cartman, unlike Kyle, I can see through like thick cholesterol coated glass. Cartman sees the world for what it really is but instead of cowering from it like me it he revels in it. He sees it as a system to manipulate for his own means. He will get to the top and if it means screwing people over that's the way it's going to be. What does a few lives ruined matter in the name of getting Cartman whatever the fuck he wants?
So there you have it, two people at the exact opposite ends of the moral tug-of-war, their only similarity their complete and utter loathing of each other, but both these people will be leaving to compete for their place in the world, more than likely leaving me behind. These are things I will have to face after this summer even if I don't want to think about it. I will at least have Kenny. Kenny isn't leaving like the rest, he's staying behind to look after his family, or at least his little sister. You see what makes Kenny so very different is his compassion. His way of looking at the world could not be further from mine. He is so damn optimistic. He does want out, I know he does, but not in the same way as Kyle or Cartman. He wants out of his family, his poverty stricken house. I can imagine that what Kenny really wants is what I have had all my life, a functioning nuclear family.
My family has been a bit all over the place over the years but nothing like Kenny's. My parent will be throwing divorce threats around whilst Kenny's will be throwing around smashed beer bottles. It is something I have taken for granted and I accept this, but though my family isn't exactly dysfunctional it isn't exactly great. Think the only word for it is stale. My sister, quite ironically, left home when she got a job as a dental nurse at the local surgery. I think her main responsibility is to hold flailing kids down as the dentist pokes around and drills into their mouths. A job that, if the beatings she gave me during our childhood are anything to go by, she will be fucking good at. My parents are just the same as they have always been. They don't get on all the time, my dad will go through weird phases and obsessions shutting off mom and mom will have to escape for a few days to 'find herself. I'm still not sure if 'find yourself' means 'affair' though I'm not sure how much I care about that anymore. My parents just exist on their strange little argument cycle that resets itself every month or two. I'm just an observer.
Finding my place in this stupid world won't exactly be easy. I don't really see the future as bright more like painful and blinding to the point where my teeth hurt. My parents figure that this is what the summer will be for, making big life changing decisions, but again I don't really see that happening. I don't see myself at any point in the future knowing what the hell I'm going to do with the time I have left before I eventually die. My plan at the moment is to spend as much time with Kyle as I possibly can before he leaves and just try to enjoy whatever freedom we have left. After that I just don't know. I like I said there is no fucking escaping this world. Eventually you just have to join in.