Shaan gingerly sidesteps every thin crevasse in the asphalt as he walks to Spanish. Step on a crack, break your mother's back. His wiry body is ready for the new day, and he stands like a young bamboo shoot, lean and tall. He is thinking hard about the hell that he must endure today. Another day of his friends mocking his lifestyle. Can't they just accept that he's nutritionally inferior? He clutches his lunch. Veganism is a lifestyle. With a single chia seed still imbedded between his two front teeth, he runs to class, with a vigor never seen before. His run is half rabbit, half crab, almost like a sprawling dance that ends only as the bell rings.
Shaan sighs. Another day, another fucking reason to hate meat-eaters. He doodles in his notebook, a drawing of India before the partition, and after the partition. I hate school, he thinks as he stares at his yearbook teacher's graying hair. I hate my friends, he thinks as they ask him if he wants any orange juice. "I'm allergic to citrus," he says dully. "Are you guys coming to the SWIRL meeting?"
He opens up his lunch, and a fair trade chocolate bar falls out. He peels the wrapper off. The bar immediately crumbles, and he looks, puzzled, at the ingredients. "100% DARK CHOCOLATE," it reads. "No dairy, not an animal byproduct." He didn't buy a chocolate bar, he bought a small package of cacao powder. Shaan wants to punch a wall. Three feet away from him, his friends whisper. Are they whispering about him? Who the fuck knows. Next in his lunch is a small bag of kale chips. They adorn his teeth with light green specks and every time he smiles, he feels as if he is really crying. Chabon walks past, and even he judges Shaan just a little bit. Oh well, at least I have my family and my love for baking, he thinks.
He BARTs home. On the way, his earbuds are plugged tightly in, and he avoids eye contact with anyone over the age of four, and anyone under the age of four. Shaan sweats profusely on BART, partly because it's hot as balls, partly because he's done something horrible. Maybe he won't find out what I know: you were the last good thing about this part of town. (Won't find out) He won't find out (Won't find out) He won't find out… Fall Out Boy blasts in his ears as a steady stream of salty tears rush down his face. During lunch, he had poisoned one of his measly little friends. Was it Sylvie, who challenged his title of "best hair?" Was it Zoe, who couldn't name at least 5 songs from Twenty one pilots? Was it Hank, who he still resented for being simply white? Or was it Daisy, whose piercing intellect was simply too much? For all the times she's called him "a little bitch," maybe it was Lauren. Perhaps it was xcgracie, who challenged his skills on the racetrack. But if that was true, it could have been Trevor too. Shaan smirked. He hadn't activated the all-natural, organic, fair-trade toxin yet. Let them ask me one more time if I'm lactose intolerant, and maybe I'll kill all of them. Jessica can stay, he decided. She's cool and she has shiny hair.