[Winter Contest Entry 2015] The Juvenile Ramblings

What was the point of anything, anymore? Was something I often thought– and usually voiced– in my lonely nights, trapped in the prison of my dorm.

Why the fuck am I still putting up with this charade? I’m not happy. It’s obvious, plain as day.

And yet, I still bother to let my body wake itself up, drag myself out of my uneven-ass bed– that still continues to prick me with it’s springs, mind you– and commute to the house I swore that I would never set foot in again.

My counselor– the man forced upon me by the school like a baby and a rape victim– eyed me with a look most earnest, almost quirking his brows.

“Do you really think that way? I mean– it’s your family, Bigby. Speaking as a father myself, and not as a counselor for the moment, you should love them unconditionally.”

I scoffed almost before he could finish his sentence. “Yeah? Well I wouldn’t be here, swallowing my own debt like a lamenting porn star.”

Taken aback, the older man had to take his glasses off for this one. He wasn’t sure which part to address first; my jaded view on life, or my manner of speaking for lack of better word.

“That’s… really colorful language you have there…” he said. “Wouldn’t it be good that your family wants you to attend college? You don’t think they care?”

“No,” I said simply. “I rather work like any other two-bit middle class American, and die peacefully in a ditch, drowning in my own vomit and blood, barely at the age of thirty.” I reclined in my chair, peering out the window. It was raining, again. “Besides, they just want to live off my money if I do hit it big anyways. Bastards”

The counselor rubbed at his temples, almost at his wit’s end. The custodians in my elementary school could put up with my shit better than he could. “Let’s change the subject for a second, then.”

“Fine.”

“What do you want to do in life, Bigby?”

“I told you; nothing.”

“But that couldn’t be true. You have to want at least something to do with your life.”

This fucking guy. I was sure that my lungs were ragged from my incessant sighing this whole time.

“...To be an author,” I mumbled reluctantly.

“That must be where your… unique way of words came from, yeah?”

No shit, I almost screamed at the top of my lungs. Instead I found myself nodding out of spite.

The Counselor was delighted to see some shimmer of a breakthrough– even though it might’ve been feigned. This ham took a victorious sip from his mug coffee– that said †˜best dad ever’, embroidered with a big pink heart in the center– as a reward. What a fucking toolbox.

“So, am I done? Can I go grovel to society for the remainder of my life now?”

“Not yet,” the man halted. “I wanna know, Bigby; what makes you want to be an author? Why do you write?”

I could feel my cheeks redden a little at such a question. I didn’t want to answer something so out of left field that it came out the mouth of one of those counselors on TV that always say †˜and how does that make you feel?’ after every goddamn thing you say.

“What kind of question is that?”

“A valid one.”

Why the fuck do you think I write? I almost blurted out.

“Why did you want to be a counselor? Clearly to ask questions you already know the answer to.”

“Everyone has a different reason for something, Bigby.” He reached under his desk and slapped a thick folder onto the surface with a loud thump. “Now, you said that I became a counselor to ask questions I already know the answer to, correct?”

Again, no shit.

Putting on his glasses, he opened the cover of the folder laying so ominously on his desk. His eyes paced to me and back to the stacked papers within it as he flipped through them. He then put on a shit-eating grin, the type you’d use to intentionally annoy a person when you do them wrong. He fingered through the neatly written words, eventually humming as he came to a stopping point.

He looked back up to me and gave a curious sneer. “Last chance, Bigby.”

“Before what? You’re gonna call my mother?” My breath suddenly caught in my throat when I saw that the folder had my name in it, written in bold, Times New Roman text.

“Well, if you want to talk about things I know the answer to… I know that you were diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome when you were ten.”

My eyes widened with bubbling rage in that short of an instant. I stared at him incredulously, almost lashed out too. All I could do that moment was stand there and brood internally.

“Is that true, bigby?”

Despite the simmering hatred I had for this man, I had to answer. I had almost forgot that my IEP followed me every-fucking-where I went.

“...Yeah. I was tested for depression that day and somehow, they found that. Happy?” I glanced to the page he was on and grunted. Suddenly my anger gushed. “Why ask me? You have my entire life story right there. Why have me sitting this chair, talking to your dumbass, when I could instead be working on my novel, or watching TV or some shit? Why can’t you just read through it yourself? Clearly you don’t have anything better to do.”

The Counselor hummed and began writing something on a blank page. Probably how I just insulted him.

“You want to know why I write? To escape. I make my own worlds to keep myself from soaring off the handle. I make characters based off the people I know or the kind of people I want to know. I write so I can get away from peppy, self-absorbed fucks like you, who strive to make people with my disability miserable. Hell, writing’s just about the only thing that keeps me from killing myself or the next person to piss me off– not some counselor who thinks blurting out a kid’s many disorders and issues will help solve everything. Fuck you.”

He still hummed, and continued to jot down everything I said. At this point I’m just adding fuel to the fire.

“You’re just a coward. I may have a skewed mindset on life itself, but at least I’m cynical enough to not take something bad and make it worse by beautifying it with false optimism.” Apparently my words fell on deaf ears, because he continued to scribble away on that IEP. †˜Coward’ wasn’t the zenith of insults I could give him.

Nothing more to do than take my leave.

"Asshole."