Perchance to Dream
Disclaimer: See Prologue
Summary: Stanley is sad.
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At Home I
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I think that if there was one thing I would give the few meager possessions I have on this earth for, it would be a friend. Or, hell, just … someone to talk to about my problems. Father Maxi in the confessional comes close, but he's not really a friend. Just another douche that's out to "save my soul."
Right now, I'm more worried about saving my body. The heat cut out again last night, this time only a week shy of a refill thanks to Mom and Dad keeping it the thermostat set at 55 degrees. We had to still wear layers to bed and cover up, but at least it was tolerable during the day.
One thing that's not easy to do when you're freezing to the point of evolving fur is play guitar. You can't wear gloves or mittens while you do so, so your hands freeze. When your hands freeze, you start fumbling with the strings and mess up your chord. Not to mention the bruising from pressing too hard on them.
That's the situation I'm in now. I'm working on adding a few new songs to my ever-expanding repertory. The lyrics are coming out in puffs of air, I'm shivering while I try to strum the correct chords, and as a result, I'm butchering the song.
I've been at it ever since I got back from work three hours ago. I want – need – to learn these songs, to get more tips from people whose requests I'll be able to accommodate, but I can't do it while I'm frozen.
This is where the part about needing a friend comes in. A friend, right now, would be able to provide me with a warm place to practice and help me out. A friend, right now, would give me an outlet to vent all the anger and despair and sadness that flows through my veins as much as it did ten years ago when I went and played Goth. "Life is pain" my ass. Life isn't pain.
No, Life is Agony. The kind of sweet, exquisite agony that comes from being equidistant from both success and failure. From being neither successful nor a complete failure. The rigorous, torturous agony that one goes through in the process of living, trying to escape the mediocrity that is the cause of the agony.
If life is agony, then mine is the textbook case. Not only am I stuck in the middle, I'm stuck there alone. My name is like a four-letter word, never to be uttered in the presence of anyone, ever. I'm a subject that if it comes up, people try to be vague. I'm a subject from which all attention is diverted. A subject they avoid like the plague.
I'm becoming a mime.
The hardest part of this whole ordeal has become the silence. I'm like a Goddamn Puritan child. "Speak not unless spoken to." Since no one ever speaks to me, I can't speak back. I tried speaking to people the first couple of weeks after it became official that my Dad was unemployed.
I wasn't welcome anywhere. Everyone ignored me. There were awkward silences at every lunch table I tried to sit at; everyone was full, even if they had to sit in a way that made them take up two seats.
Now those days are starting back up again, and I'm still without the one thing that could help me through it all: friendship.
It all comes back to friendship. And little things like loyalty and honesty and trust. Things I'd spent years cultivating with Kyle. Manipulative little Jew-rat had me believing that ours was a friendship that would withstand the test of time, only to pretty much force me out of our group when "it" happened.
Of course, once you get thrown out of the group of the most popular kids in school, there's nowhere to go. It's an absolute free fall from the top of the tree straight down to rock bottom. I hit it three hours from Cartman announcing via interruption of Kyle's subtle and gentle speech that I was no longer welcome to hang out with them. The word spread like wildfire, and by lunch, I was in the broken chair in the dark, unlit corner of the cafeteria.
To be honest, though, I appreciated Cartman's honest and blunt speech rather than Kyle's politician-style "Well, you see Stan, we talked it over, and it's nothing personal, but …" runaround. Of course, then he got everything I had. The girl, the stardom, the recognition … all of it. This season he got pre-season first team all-State honors for football. When we won the State Championship, guess who was the MVP? That's right, the all-State running back for the South Park Cows, number 12, Kyyyyyyyyyle Brofloooooooooooooooovskiiiii! I didn't go, though. I had to work that night. Even if I hadn't had that commitment, though, I doubt I could have stomached it.
For a few weeks after my "dismissal," I was almost CERTAIN that Kyle was going to try and find a way to talk to me. That he would stand up to Cartman (who I was certain was behind my removal) and bring me back. That hope dwindled as weeks became months. After three months, I'd largely become as I was until a few weeks ago: the One that No One Must Speak Of. The socially awkward one, who had nothing, who never would have anything, who wasn't ALLOWED to have anything.
I couldn't even have my pride and human dignity. They took that away from me by ignoring me. By treating me as something unworthy of their respect, they made me feel inferior without any direct interference. Their silence spoke volumes. At a time in my life when I needed someone to lean on and confide in, those I trusted to be there for me instead yanked the rug further out from under me and completely prevented me access to anyone to lean on or confide in.
That's why I turned to music. That's why I named my guitar. But Delilah, as much as a lifesaver as she's been, isn't a friend. I need, desperately, some human contact. Some actual "Hey, let's go get a pizza" or "Let's go see a movie just for the hell of it" kind of contact, not "Would you like some extra douchiness with that mocha latte, sir?" I get quite enough of THAT at work.
In the same vein, Greg's not a friend either, no matter how nice and easygoing he is. He's just my boss. I'm about as likely to go see a movie or grab a pizza with him as I am to bring Delilah to school, strut to the center of the cafeteria, go down on one knee, and profess eternal and undying love to Cartman.
Something inside me says that if I could just find SOMEONE to be friends with, everything would be magically better. Another part of me says that there's no way things will ever go back to the way they were. I'll never be rich, Kyle will never apologize for the asshatted way he treated me, and that I should just accept this, go to CU-Boulder and get my degree in Environmental Studies, become a Park Ranger, and live out the rest of my life in solitude in one of those observation posts in national parks.
As much as I wish I could be naïve again and embrace the first half, my life is going slowly and steadily towards the second. I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life, because there's too much bottled up inside for me to be otherwise. I can't even imagine getting married. Can you believe that? It's not because I'm ugly or anything. If I could keep the hair cut, then I'd look twice as attractive, but looks aren't at issue.
It's personality. I'm no longer the optimistic, friendly kid I was in elementary school. I've been turned into a pessimistic, cynical recluse by circumstances and things. I don't have any hope. I don't believe in promises people make. "We'll go on vacation NEXT summer, Stanley." "NEXT month we'll get you a new jacket, dear." "Shame about the Buffs, but they'll SURELY win NEXT week." Promises are worthless. Friendship is worthless, as evidenced by my "friendship" with that traitorous Jew.
What's left, then? If there's no such thing as love, no beauty or truth in the world, nothing to hold on to, what IS there. The solid truth is that there isn't anything in the world worth giving a shit about. It's all just things. At the same time, there's no point in mass suicide, because you'll go to Hell and be miserable for eternity.
I don't want to be like this anymore. But there's no way out of here either. No safe way, anyway. I'm absolutely miserable being here like this. Friendless, penniless, cold, enslaved … I want it to stop. I want an out.
I'm officially out of here in five months. I'm going to hit the trail for Boulder, take summer classes to get a couple of GenEd credits out of the way, and then hit the ground running come Fall. I got my acceptance letter from CU two weeks ago, and it lifted me up just a little bit. It was a lift that I needed.
I bought a calendar after I got the letter. I ripped out months July through December, and started crossing off days until I got to the correct date. It's now the calendar year of my graduation, and I'm torturing myself in yet another way. The arduous, arduous countdown until Graduation has commenced, and it's tearing at me.
I really want things to be different, changed for the better before I leave The Park. I mean, for cryin' out loud, I shared eleven years of friendship and God only knows how many freaky, fucked up experiences with those guys. It's not like I moved away or anything…
At the risk of sounding like I'm beating on a dead horse, I think it's best to stop. My hands are frozen, and Delilah's getting out of tune. I pack her back into her case and slide underneath the covers of my bed, still cold beyond belief. To warm it up and make it habitable for sleep, I slide all the way beneath the covers and exhale a few times. It makes the underside of them warm, and somewhat comfortable to sleep beneath.
The process is repeated with the pillow, and before I know it, sleep is ready to overtake me. To reboot my system for eight hours or so and have me ready to face another fucked up day in my too-fucked-up-for-proper-words life. A life I can at least maybe escape in less than half a year's time now. I can't leave it completely, but I can escape for a while. And the way things are going now, that's better than nothing.
Mole was right. God is a cocksucking asshole who's made my life miserable. Beautiful, merciful faggot indeed. Fucking rat? Damn right he is…
Fuck God. Fuck God, fuck School, fuck Kyle, fuck all those assholes, fuck my parents, fuck the Church, fuck…fuck…
Fuck.
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Notes: Last update before Thanksgiving. And probably last update before December. Given the fact that I have a ten-page research paper due in EXACTLY 11 days! Sheet! And the research component is going to consist of reading psychological crap that's likely going to scar me for life! Sheet! I should have chosen an easier topic than "Are there any parallels between Freudian psychology and Kinsey's sexology?" Without a doubt. Would have cut down a LOT on the reading component. Oh well…nothing left to say but D'OH!
Kindly review? I'm starting to feel under-appreciated. Must I resort to bribery, folks?
…if so, please tell me in a review lol
Phoenix II