Best Friend

I feel so tired. Just sick of it all, I suppose but that doesn't make sense because I'm not. I have good friends and I have a good life, I don't really need anything other than occasional affection that is denied or insulted. I could be much worse, I could live in a far worse situation. I could have no friends and bad acne and live as a lonely desolate loser, to use high school parlance of the worst it could be, but I don't. So why do I feel so awful?

Maybe it's because I'm lying to so many people, by being here and not dying, by saying I will and yet failing. But I don't want to die, so maybe I lie because I want to but I don't really want to, or else I figure I would have done it already. Maybe it's just everything grating on my nerves today: his endless talking only interjected by the stuttering phrases of 'like' and 'y'know' that bring my attention back to the third time he's said he feels like this and like that and why doesn't it ever change? He needs someone to talk to, though, because no one else will listen, and it's not that big of a sacrifice, a little time for his emotional security and continued well-being.

Maybe it's my brother, the way he screams hatred at other people, except that he doesn't really scream nor hate anyone, he just wishes he did to relieve him of the apathy that's eating at his soul, his heart and mind falling to pieces without any cause to give him reason to endure, other than if he dies then I'll be upset. He doesn't really want to die, the same as me, but he sees it as a natural consequence of his existence, and rather wishes to get it over with sooner rather than later. So I'll spend those three hours while typing my essays online with him, talking him out of whatever parentally induced depression has taken hold of him now. I wish he was still going out with her, then he could talk to her too, but now I'm the only one that wants to hear him. He needs it, I'll suffer those three hours for him not to hurt himself.

So I'll get my email while I'm online too, and that's more depressing. Bad jokes, and stupid stories that I read day after day waiting for some awful, terrible thing to happen to the characters by someone else's written ideas. I seem to be drawn more and more for the real angst, where the characters, beloved as they are to me, die and are hurt in horrible ways that take years to recover from, if ever. Perhaps I'm being sadistic, to counterpoint my proven masochism. I want to see these characters hurting, I want to see all the pain I feel inflicted upon them. Maybe I'll write something to the same effect, myself. But my own writing, as detailed as it is, will make other people sick. I'll write it for myself, and my brother who shares my tastes in such things.

I feel like Holden Caulfield, everything is depressing me. How sad, that I compare myself to literary sociopathic stalkers, that I cannot find a more positive and appropriate comparison outside of Children of the Corn, The Catcher in the Rye, and The Call of Cthulhu. That may be the only thing that may excuse me from my mental absence, works of exquisitely described horror to drag myself from the dark ideas that inhabit my mind now, even as I seek to avoid work. I should think that taking with my friends is more work than school provides: I'm getting a first-hand education in counseling and psychology. I don't even want to go into psychology.

I'm forgetting something, though. That something that is so dear to me and lays under my, curled up and snoring happily as I lean over him, unwilling to wake him even so I can work on my mail. I close my eyes and sleep, fisting my fingers in his shirt, and nuzzling my face against his neck, into his shoulder where it seems like it was fitted to. He will never demand things from me, never expect anything but love and affection, both of which to him I can give without draining. I wish my other friends were like my lifeline, like him who wishes he wasn't he but she and that is all right by me. His arms sling about me and I hear a small giggles as he rolls to his side, pulling me tighter in his sleep. I don't think he's asleep, but he's being nice and affectionate so I'm not complaining.

She's home now, as we both wake from happy slumber, and I can feel the impending doom as she begins shouting, unaware that he's with me, uncaring of anything but her own unhappiness. I sigh, then he tugs on my hand, grinning and gesturing towards my window. I blink as the noise gets louder, and the dogs start crying at her voice, then grin, opening the window and grabbing my coat and keys, and we leave, the curtains blowing behind us as we run, laughing at having outsmarted her or at least ourselves for another hour or so.

I don't feel so depressed anymore. Even sadness can be chased away.

This page and all others copyrighted 2001 to Engel. Don't steal.