These plots will converge soon, I promise. The title is more of a reference to this sub-not-really-sub plot. The rape and subsequent emotional fallout Morty went through cannot be considered "small things"; although, you could possibly consider him developing [redacted] an arbitrary and unfortunate event, and hence a "small thing" (?).
In this chapter I will cover some small actions and interactions that will affect the character's psyches disproportionately; thus, fulfilling the title a bit better.
*Edited to make Beth sound more age-appropriate. Feedback on Beth's voice would be much appreciated.
...
Chapter 2
"Sometimes people hurt more than they can handle… And sometimes they don't know how to ask for help. They're so caught up in their own pain, they end up hurting everyone around them." — Rebecca Donovan
...
Back in 4th grade, the young Beth Smith got her first writing assignment. It was a "diary project" of sorts, where students would be required to log their feelings and experiences with a daily entry. The teacher had emphasized the fact that she wanted "emotional honesty", that she expected the children to actually recount the feelings of the day and not just to mechanically detail the events of the day.
It was, frankly, a pretty strange assignment in Beth's opinion. When the students first received the assignment, they giggled to each other about how dumb it was. Who would actually write about their feelings in a school assignment? The students discussed the random crap they would fill the journal with instead of doing the actual assignment. Tommy said that he'd write about playing his Nintendo, and only about playing his Nintendo—in a subtle revolt against the assignment. Another girl, Sarah, said that she'd write about unicorns, and that she would never even think about detailing real emotions in the journal. Beth herself bragged to the others that she would subvert the assignment by writing a quick and careless entry if only to satisfy the teacher's requirements.
Nevertheless, when Beth sat down to write her first journal entry, she found herself dissatisfied. Her first entry, a response to the given prompt "What aspects of your family life make you happiest today? What about your family do you think will make you happiest when you are 30 or 40 years old?" read:
.
"My immediate family is healthy at the moment and we have alot of money. Mom and dad are cool and smart-I love them. When I am 30 to 40 years old, I think the same things will please me (although, closeness to a cute boy would be nice too). The health of my immediate family may worsen by then, however, which would be unfortunate."
.
The response answered the question well enough, she'd probably would score well on the assignment. Nevertheless, Beth was unhappy with the response. Perhaps it was a little too removed, a little too stiff and careless. This question was particularly important to her, far too important to squander with a bad answer like the one she had written. Beth crumpled up the paper and decided to write an actual answer.
The teacher probably wouldn't read it anyway. If she felt it was too vulnerable, Beth could always throw it away and use her previous response. Although she reassured herself that she wouldn't actually end up showing her new draft to anyone, she secretly knew that she wouldn't have the heart to throw away the draft after she put her real feelings down on the paper.
Beth put her pen to the paper to write an actual response this time. It was a bit harder; she paused between sentences, trying to find the right words to express how she felt.
.
"I live at home with mother. My father comes home every once in a while to take me out to ice cream. I love my parents, but I wish my parents and I would talk more often. I wish my dad would come home more and bring me with him to the crazy places he goes to. I adore my dad's weirdness and my parents smarty-pantsness. My mother is all responsible and boring, but occasionally dad will convince her to do something fun.
Dad is never home, and mom and dad often fight on the rare occasions he comes back. We don't hang out often and I wish I was closer to him. Everyone elseses parents hang out with them. Why can't my dad be like their dads. I want to play Nintendo with my dad like Tommy does with his dad! It's not fair!
I think that what would make me happiest would be to be closer to my family when I'm 30 to 40. Maybe I'd even get to go out more with my dad on his "dangerous" adventures once I'm older! In addition, I want a family of my own. A kid, maybe two, and husband to do..adult stuff with (like kiss! Right now my parents won't let me kiss boys because they say that kissing is a marriage thing. Pah! Dad is always kissing women, so why can't I kiss boys?). When I have a family, I will talk to them about their days and their emotions, unlike my parents who never have time to talk :(! I want to be the bestest mother out there! I also want to be a heart surgeon!
I found some deep poetry on the internet that I relate to:
"You're trying to do the normal things and I am throwing up dull pieces of truth onto our kitchen table. I can't lie anymore. These are the things I've done and they're mostly sad…This life has woven itself into the notches of my spine and I hear it creak every time I stand." (anonymous).
I feel sad a lot. I wish we could hang out and do "family stuff" more often. Whenever I see my friends hang out with their parents, they always look so happy.
I want to go for ice cream and pretzels and fries with my dad just like Tommy does! I can't wait till I'm an adult so that I can go on adventures with dad more often!"
.
Beth felt…happy. She liked what she had written, and it had felt good to write about how she felt. She quietly set the journal on the table and went off to go to sleep.
.
Beth woke up sometime around eleven o'clock (which to the nine-year-old Beth seemed pretty late in the night).
Her throat was dry and she felt the acute need to get something cool down her throat before she began to cough. She was really, really thirsty.
She left her cute, pink bedroom behind to head down the stairs. At the bottom she found her father Rick sitting at the table reading something. He seemed somewhat amused. She craned her head to look at what Rick was reading and mentally kid-cursed when she found him looking over her school assignment.
Frick. She doubted that he'd appreciate the emotional vulnerability.
"Hey sweetheart, did you write this?", Rick chuckled to her.
'Play it cool, Beth," Beth warned herself. She rubbed her head sheepishly, "Oh, yeah! It was some dumb school assignment that I faked my way through. Teachers, are soo weird sometimes!"
Rick tilted backwards in his chair, "Oh jesus, you don't know how relieved I am to hear that Beth. When reading this I thought you had already begun your dramatic teenager stage! Like, c'mon, I take you out plenty, and I bet Timmy's dad doesn't build custom toys for him, and I don't think there's anything to complain about because-"
Beth interrupted him with a mock offended huff to prevent him from going on tirade, "Daddyy, I was just putting stuff on the paper to please the teacher, I don't actually think any of that! I would never write anything that lame," she snorted, "The teacher just wanted to see some emotional stuff, so I just threw some poop at the paper and hoped it stuck! Like, look at some of the stuff in there!"
"Oh man, you even put a poem in here sweetheart. You really beat the 'dramatic' aspect to death. I mean, what kind of shmuck would actually write something like this!"
Water forgotten, Beth and Rick laughed with each other for a while after that, making fun of the poor moron who would legitimately write or believe a note like this.
What a poor, poor fool.
.
When she went to school the next day, she eagerly looked forwards to seeing what random garbage the other students wrote. What she heard, however, surprised her.
Tommy, her best friend, had decided to take the assignment seriously. So did Sarah, for that matter.
"Y'know, I actually liked writing about how I felt", said Tommy.
Beth quickly snatched his journal away from him, reading what Tommy wrote. Stuff about playing games with his father, making cookies with his mother…blah, blah, blah. Beth snickered.
Tommy snatched the paper back from her. "What?"
"You nerd," Beth giggled at him, "you actually tried? I just wrote whatever would please the teacher. Look at Tommy's journal Sarah! It's soo dramatic!"
Sarah looked it over. She looked at Beth as if she was the wrong one here. "You know…I kind of like it," she shyly smiled at Tommy. "It open…and it's nice. I don't see anything wrong with it."
Beth huffed and walked away, rolling her eyes at how hammy everyone was being. She squashed down any feelings a bitterness inside and tried to convince herself that Rick and she were just too cool for everyone else.
Far too cool to ever, ever, write anything that emotionally vulnerable again.
The rest of Beth's journal after that was filled with quick anecdotes about the events in her life—nothing real, and more importantly, nothing emotional.
.
.
Beth indifferently reminisced about her childhood—with her good friend red wine of course. How dramatic, Beth scoffed at her old self. That's just a part of growing up Beth supposed; the pathetic child, little Beth, was just going through a particularly emotional phrase. That sort of emotional luggage was meant for young and foolish children, it inevitably had to be ditched by anyone who wished to grow up.
Poor Jerry, poor stupid Jerry, of course, never got the memo. Beth mentally thanked Rick for saving her from Jerryhood. Jerry was always crying about everything:
"Oh no, my R2D2 coins!"
"Pity me, I'm don't have a job and I'm lonely!"
Beth quietly whispered to herself, mocking Jerry: "Oh no, I'm a pathetic bitch and I can't do anything right! Have my children and save me from my own idiocy!" She barked out a sarcastic laugh.
Beth resented the fact that both of her children were Jerry halflings. They were fifty percent stupid emotions and fifty percent cold logic. When her children got all emotional—when Summer cried and asked Beth if she was attractive, when Morty whined to her that he couldn't sleep because he was scared of jellybeans, or some other childish crap like that—Beth wasn't really sure what to do.
That wasn't her territory. Let the idiot Jerry handle his idiot territory for once.