EPTIf you expect something grand, if you expect something profound stop right here.
This story is about nothing.
This story is fiction about fiction about fiction about fiction.
Go ahead, but remember this.
On my bed the five walls stare right through me. On my left, are two white doors. Baby powder white. One leads to the bathroom, while the other leads out. Look right next to the bathroom door. Here’s a cupboard full of clothes that I don’t wear. My grandmother goes to china very often, and there are peddler’s streets. Branded goods at bargain prices. Counterfeit goods at counterfeit prices. Every trip she goes, she returns with luggage bags full of clothes. Some, she passes to me immediately. Others, she keeps for months, before sliding them into wrapping paper and gifting them to the family. Merry Christmas with love.
My dad used to go through this phase where he’d buy designer clothes off eBay. Kanye West wears that and my dad wants to wear that and now I have to wear that because the oversized selvedge jeans purchased from eBay don’t fit.
These clothes, they drive me insane when I open my cupboards. Sometimes, I think it represents all the shit in my life that drives me nuts. All the flaws I can’t get rid off, all the clutter that stifles me.
On the upper shelves of the cupboard, which you can’t reach without a ladder, are clothes that I wore at twelve. Frosted with a delicious layer of dust are my Slim Shady jeans, Slim Shady shirts and Slim Shady caps. G-Unit, Billionaire boys club, Bape Hoodies. All two sizes two big. My dad told me then, this is what’s in. So when I was twelve, I wore oversized black t shirts with the words EMINEM printed on them, baggy jeans that had SEAN JOHN emblazoned on the back, and Nike running shoes. To top that off, I developed a slouch. My dad thought I looked cool. I thought I looked cool. You know big old me, with the big words EMINEM printed on my t-shirt, and all that represented. Fuck my mom, fuck my life, fuck everything.
Took me years to get rid of that slouch.
One time, I tried to clear out the shelves, and my dad kept bitching about how ‘this is such a waste’, about how ‘why won’t you wear this’, or how ‘what a waste of money’. Stifling me.
What I want to do, is get rid of all the crap in my life.
What I want to do is not be a product of the people around me.
What I want to do is know what it means to be me.
There’s this ladies man. His furniture comprises a table, a shitty computer chair and a mattress in front of the TV. What happens is, he skimps on the furniture but splurges on the location. What happens is, after coming over, there’s really nothing to do but lay down on the mattress and fuck to Before Sunrise. Minimalist style.
My queen sized Simmons Beauty-rest Mattress takes up eighty per cent of the space in my room, so it’s no wonder that I spend most of my time asleep or staring up at the ceiling.
This is when I have no school or work.
I think that the greatest part of the day, is that moment, that brief moment just before you are felled to sleep. Surrendering your jadedness and troubles to your warm bed with individually pocketed coils. Almost as good as jacking off to good porn after a weeks of abstinence and angst. Almost.
But remember, this is just fiction.
So where you are is on this bed. Waiting for the moment to come. It never comes this way. Not before toil and not this way. Not when you search for it. Wu Wei.
Sleep fells me and I have dreams. Nice dreams of beautiful rocky places that lead into waterfalls that lead into crystal-clear pools. I dream of whisking two women into bed.
Now they’re not perfect. The taller one has ping-pong cheekbones and a face that’s too wide. She’s a little chubby. I’m rather blasé about the other one. I know this because I can’t remember much about her. She’s skinny, I know that much.
Jump to my bed. We tease each other and laugh, and we smile. Just like in the movies. We fuck. Missionary style. Our eyes lock, our breaths are in sync. We make love, because we’re in love, because this is my dream. And I close my eyes and say, you are enjoying this. This is sex. Is she enjoying herself? Am I enjoying herself?
I’m in the heat of the moment and this is so unerotic and I can just wither right now.
And I close my eyes and I say, take control of your thoughts. I centre myself. I am now drop of water falling and falling through the rainforest. I slide and I roll and I dodge and I tumble. Always pressing forward.
And I’m making out to one woman now. I stop and I see her. She brushes stray strands of beautiful dirty blonde hair that is splayed out on my white bedsheets like the wings of an eagle away from her face. I look into her eyes. Deep into her arctic blue eyes. I fall harder in love. Did I ever tell you that I go crazy for blue eyes, I say to her. She bites her lower lip and smiles. We fuck. I feel all of this in the dream, but the only thing I see, and feel, are those blue eyes.
Light my fire.
I wake up.
I dream of princesses and they always have blonde hair and blue eyes. I suppose it’s the same with Asian women. A consequence of being raised by Hollywood: No one wants to fuck the Emperor.
Look to the right. What you see is a brown Ikea bedside table with two drawers. It’s made of particleboard, foil, melamine foil, ABS plastic, fibreboard and Acrylic paint, and there’s an Ikea table lamp on top of it. The kind that has a sheet of cloth-like material that shades the lightbulb. In the lower drawer, buried under receipts, cheap, gewgaw electronics, fast food flyers and bills, is a box of ribbed, lubed, Durex condoms. I snatched whatever I could from the counter without looking. There is also a lone, silver, square packet that doesn’t belong to me. I think it belongs to Cin. He must have left it there that one time I let him use my bed to fuck a girl.
Cin is the closest thing I have to a friend right now. What I mean is, if I ask him to hang out with me any one of these days, he will.
Really though, this is just fiction.
Last weekend, he brings a couple of girls over to my place to have some drinks, and he asks me, Did you mom know I’m coming.
And I say to him, I don’t live with my mom.
He goes into my place and takes it in, all the clutter, the widescreen TV, coach, tables and chairs full of bags full of crap.
He sees the fluttershy lounging on the sofa and asks, Did you ever tell me you have a sister.
I say, no.
He says, You know I just realised I know nothing about you.
Story of my life.
Pan over to just before my bed. You see a silver, striped, rectangular metal container with a silver, striped cubic metal container stacked on top. They look badass. I’m certain that they’re related to the kind of containers that people put stacks of cash in, in the movies. Or bombs. The boxes were meant for CD storage, but what’s inside of the boxes is my anime figurine collection cramped up, suffocated.
It breaks my heart to think of this, but what do you want me to do? Display them? Show them to everyone who comes into my room? Show a girl that comes over because she thinks I’m cool that no I’m really not that cool?
No, being myself is not okay. Showing who I really am is not okay, because who I am is not who I want to be.
The birthday card on my computer table says that you are like a son to me.
Whoever bought that card didn’t read it right.
I received that card on the 27th. On the 28th is my best friends birthday.
My best friend is this big, jock looking dude with close cropped hair that spent seven years. He has the same sick sense of humor that I have. I’m a rogue you see, I’m a trickster. Not many get that. He does though, he knows what’s up. Used to be that we’d hang every other week, watching movies, playing video games, talking about girls, talking about this guy or that guy back from school. But really just hanging out.
I remember the breakup, the day before valentines. He finds her too boring. She likes cakes while he likes video games. He thinks he can do better. I disagree. She’s pretty and boring, and pretty and boring is the best you can get. The best I get is pretty crazy. He explains the situation and he’s so logical about this.
I remember that one time when he stops talking to some guy in class. He refuses to acknowledge his presence. Won’t speak to him, won’t look at him. I ask him why. He says, he has nothing to offer.
I remember all the times he’s been there for me.
I remember how four years into my school, he still doesn’t know what I do. He doesn’t even know where I study.
And I remember all the times he’s been there for me and I remember that we don’t speak for months.
I don’t know why.
End.
