All The Lovely People

1

Disconnected

The t-rex has some abnormally small arms, which makes me feel sad for some reason, almost as if it's my fault that it can't hug the stegosaur that I've placed next to it.

They can't really fight either; can't claw and rip and tear and...

The arms are too small, and the size between the two animals too starkly different.

I'm pretty sure the t-rex wouldn't be able to bite a chunk out of its prey before the prey managed to either slip away or tear at its belly since what could the t-rex do?

What could it do with those silly little arms of his?

I'm six years old.

I think.

In my hands, the two dinosaur toys seem both large and small at the same time, probably because I happen to love dinosaurs and therefore know that, in real life, these beasts were a lot bigger than the toys we humans created of them.

I'm sitting on a carpet that looks like a race car track, a long, winding gray road with strange-looking spectators on the sides. That catches my eye.

The people... So distorted, featureless, motionless... meaningless.

No story.

No past.

No future.

They are stationary and not even all that appealing to look at. I wonder what kind of life that must be before lifting my eyes to observe the two other boys in this same room. The pair of them are huddled together, playing with racecar toys while going "brrrmm brrmmm" way too loudly, almost as if they’re making an unnecessary show out of it, like they want attention, like they’re egging me on to make me watch the game they play even when I don’t want to, but they make those obnoxious noises, and now I have to stare.

They glance at me, their faces lacking any understandable expressions.

One of them speaks, and I happen to know this because that one lady who tells me things always tells me to look at their eyes first, then the mouth.

If their eyes are on me, and then their mouth moves, it means that most likely they're trying to make conversation, even if, in my mind, the words coming out of their mouth rarely matter.

But this boy speaks to me, and as expected, the words matter so little that I hardly hear them.

I lift up the dinosaur toys, indicating that I'm busy.

His mouth moves, but at the same time, his eyes move, and now he stares at the other boy, and that bothers me to the verge of making me want to slap him, force him to look at me again and make it clearif he was directing his words at me or at the boy because how can I tell since he changed the person, he was looking at mid-sentence.

The boys keep playing.

I stare at the carpet.

I stare at the boys.

On the carpet, the spectators of the race car event lack any real features, any real personality, or any real meaning.

I look back up at the boys.

It's all the same.

Those have no meaning either.

It feels as if they don't agree with my assessment though, and both of them are locked in what seems to be a very pleasing moment of harmony between them. It's almost as if they are strangely connected by invisible cords that unite their brains, maybe even their hearts, making it easy for them to comprehend all there is to understand about the person next to them.

I see no cord anywhere near me or in me on me.

Nothing visible or invisible that would tether me to anybody else.

I float even when sitting.

I float while others stay still; their invisible cords linked to both other people and the world around them, so they don't have to float.

Matthew? a woman calls out behind me. She places her hand on my shoulder. Her nails are painted red. I drop the toys and look down at my hands, wondering why her hands seem to be so firm and connected to her, under her control, when my hands seem to just betwo lumps of meat, unbothered by my desires for them.

I don't think they're even truly mine. They don't feel like they are.

Matthew? the woman speaks again, and I look up at her. It's hard to tell who she is; her face is a blur like with all the others, but her eyes are filled with all there ever will be and all there ever was. So much information, emotions, and thoughts that it makes me want to cry, realizing that my eyes look vacant whenever I look at myself in the mirror, and even on rare occasions like this where I can tell that she probably is an actual person with real thoughts, experiences, and purpose, I can’t seem to force myself to comprehend it all.

She’s here, but she isn’t.

She’s alive but living means nothing.

And I want to cry because how can I not when nothing I say will ever explain these thoughts, and no one will be able to understand what I want them to understand?

But I don't cry.

I smile because the lady who tells me things once told me that it makes people smile when I smile, and I think that smiling is good because it makes people look less like a blur, less like some strange puzzle that I have no pieces to.

Now she's smiling.

I wonder if my smile makes her feel like she can look at me and not want to cry, too.

2

Thursday Evening

My stomach won't settle down; it hops and twists while trying to force me to get up and rush to the bathroom.

Would be quiet and calm too, wouldn't have to take one of those timid and gentle workplace shits either. Everyone else is gone at this hour, and now it’s just me and this one student lingering in the dormitory staff’s breakroom.

He's talking. Or complaining.

I can't focus on the exact context of his verbal diarrhea since I would love nothing more than to shoo him away, rush to the bathroom, and release some diarrhea of my own.

But that's not what people do, I remind myself while imagining the tired voice of Pam saying those exact words. She wouldn’t want me to ignore this kid. She wouldn’t like the way I want to push him off his chair so I can run off while he gathers himself, unable to process what just happened, dumbfounded while looking into my eyes, flabbergasted over how a counselor just pushed him. But that’s not an option because Pam wouldn’t want me to behave like that.

Antisocial behavior was what she used to call it.

God, Pam was nice. Pam wouldn't mind it if I just told her to fuck off so I could be alone and not bothered by struggling to put on a mask of a human being while trying to pretend to listen and care and-

So, yeah... what do you think? The student looks defeated. His clothes are very ill-fitting, and I'm pretty sure it's on purpose to hide his ‘bigger than appropriate for a nineteen-year-old’ body.

I think you have a problem. I force a smile and make my words come out playful to hide the fact that I wasn't listening, and if he has a problem (which I'm sure he does), I would have zero idea of what it is.

Inability to stop devouring everything that contains more grease and fat than should be legally allowed?

Having an oddly proportioned body where he kinda has the build of a middle schooler who got stuck in a machine that tried to age him up but half-assed it?

I mean, yeah... The student scratches his chin which is covered by a thin beard that is probably meant to hide his double chin but only manages to look like a few strands of pubic hair glued to his face.

But like how do I make him stop it? I just... I don't think it's nice that he keeps on messing with me even when he's not even living in the dorms anymore. Dude doesn’t even go to the same college as me.

A surge of joy rushes through me when I realize what we're talking about.

It's nine p.m. on a Thursday night, and my weekend starts in an hour, so it's not like I'm being that bad of a person for not paying attention to what the hell this week’s drama at work is.

Yes, I say, nodding maybe a bit too eagerly, but you have to make these students feel heard and seen. It really isn't cool that he keepsbugging you like that. Have you tried telling the teachers?

He looks almost insulted.

I'm telling you?

I'm aware of that, I sigh. I mean that maybe you should tell the teachers at the school so they can make Peter stop fucking with you because we can't really do anything about it here in the dorms since Peter doesn't live here anymore.

Peter was kicked out a week ago for throwing a party in his room on a Monday while also somehow figuring it was a great idea to try and assault one of us counselors with a knife when he came to shut the party down. Never say that these kids aren’t innovative in the ways they seek to self-destruct.

Well... The student fiddles with his sad excuse for a beard again, and I really wish he wouldn't, because now I can't focus on anything else than those sad strands of thin, blonde hair. I don't think the teachers care. Or like they don't want to get involved.

And why do you think that is? I close my eyes and try very hard not to show my complete disinterest in this conversation. If there is a God, he will light a fire in one of the rooms just so I'll have an excuse to run off and do something other than listen to this student whine since, as far as I know, his only ascertainable function at the dorms is to eat, sleep, and occasionally stop a counselor so he can complain about things that really don’t matter.

I would also love to take a shit too, so there’s that.

The train ride back home will take an hour or so, and that has me nearly in tears since I won't make it in time to the Corner Stop todrink myself stupid because the new owner closes the place at eleven on weekdays.

This means that I'll have to wait until tomorrow to get drunk and happy, which, quite literally, places every single person that crosses my path tonight in danger.

Sorry. I give an apologetic smile when I realize that the student has been talking for a minute while probably wondering why I'm staring blankly at him. I'm pretty tired. I missed that last part.

I was just... like thinking if you, or some other counselor, could like call the school and tell them to tell Peter not to mess with me. I'm like actually trying to focus on my studies and trying to get all of it done, and this whole thing is really messing with me...

Sounds pretty awful, I say. I wonder if I sound like Pam whenever I say it because she had a very distinct way of saying it. I'll write down what you said, and we'll figure something out tomorrow, okay? Are you here tomorrow? He sounds so hopeful; it makes me grimace.

No. But other counselors will be, and they can handle it.

Who is working tomorrow, do you know?

I don't remember off the top of my head.

By ten p.m. I'm almost running up the walls in the breakroom.

The night manager should arrive any minute now, and that means I get to go home, so these last moments of anticipation are turning into a fight for survival. I sit on the couch, scroll through my feed onInstagram, open incognito mode on my browser, and check Emily's profile for updates (none, which feels like an insult for some reason), hesitate a moment, and check Mandy's profile for updates (some old photos posted by her friends that all seem to be locked in a never-ending competition on who can say the nicest thing about the dead girl), and finally, I travel into the mystical land of Pornhub where I check the page of my favorite star (if you can call porn actresses that) and find that she hasn't posted any new material, either, which flattens my spirit even further.

Sometimes it really helps to jack off in the counselor’s bathroom when it's a quiet night and you're literally just trying to stay sane while waiting to get the green light to fuck off and go home.

But that won't be happening tonight, it seems.

Next, I imagine what it would be like to call Sarah, but that idea feels less and less appealing the more I think about it, so I just put the phone away and feel the rush of complete and absolute emptiness that follows now that I'm left alone with my thoughts. Sarah's at home because she's never anywhere but home. She'll be way too happy to see me because she never sees anyone else but me, and even when she accidentally bumps into someone in the stairwell of the apartment building, she just coldly ignores them, probably out of fear of being rejected if she lets anyone get close to her. And when I get home, Sarah will want to cuddle and talk and have sex and watch a fucking movie and maybe more sex and if she's feeling like pretending to be a normal human, she'll want to talk some more and...

Tired?

I look up to find Victor, the night manager, standing in the middle of the room with a grin on his face.

It's only when I see that expression that I realize how I've bundled myself up on the couch in the fetal position.

Yeah. Forcing a kind, innocent smile gets harder with each passing minute, but like the good little freak I am, I do it and ignore the pain in my cheeks. I have four days off, so I’m really looking forward to spending the next ninety-six hours sleeping.

Sounds like a plan, Victor notes while scratching his bald head before heading into the kitchen. I hear him rinsing the coffee pot even when he must know that I did that already since it’s a part of my routine during the evening to rinse the fucking pot so that the night manager doesn’t have to. You can go.

He doesn't like me all that much; I've noticed it. It kinda feels like a blanket wrapped around him, and no matter how much I smile my innocent smile and how many times I make polite small talk, the blanket won't move, and I can't penetrate his defenses to make him like me. I often wonder if he sees past my mask, if he knows something about me, if he senses something and knows that something is off... Or maybe it’s me being paranoid (Pam would definitely tell me that I am being paranoid), but I can’t shake this odd feeling whenever I’m alone with Victor.

I don’t like being seen, and I think he might see me.

Have a nice night, I tell him after putting on my jacket and grabbing my backpack.

Mmm. He doesn't bother to look at me, so I find myself getting angry with myself since I still make the effort to smile at him.

Fucker.

Once I get on the train home, I search for the carriage with the least number of commuters, find one, sink into a corner seat, put in my earbuds, and close my eyes, so if anyone decides to sit next to me, I probably won't notice, and that way I won't have to feel even more anxiety than I already do.

Taking a shit at work helped somewhat, but the absolutely ravaging anxiety I have rummaging inside of me is making everything so goddamn hard that at this point I could vomit, shit, and cry for hours on end. I hate trains. I hate crowds of people, and I fucking hate feeling like a helpless little kid who is in the throes of emotional distress without the emotional maturity to voice his discomfort. Of course, it doesn't matter how emotionally mature I am or not, since the world hardly cares about my first-world problems like the crippling anxiety and my general incapability to feel absolutely fucking anything if not for anger and frustration, both of which probably stem from my constant need to not be here, there, or anywhere.

I could scream, make a scene, and get everyone to react and stare at me like the unstable timebomb of a person that I am, but how would that help?

Freaking out would calm my nerves for the day, but I'd still have to hop on this same train tomorrow, and what then?

Another freak out?

Something even greater?

Some act of complete insanity to make me feel something, anything?

Hell no.

Repeated craziness is how you end up locked up in the madhouse.

The world sleeps when you lose your shit intermittently, but it wakes when people notice that being unstable is not as much the exception but the norm for you.

The rest of my train ride home seems to go much smoother than the first few minutes since the music from my earbuds manages to calm my nerves and no one takes a seat next to me, which in turn gives me the chance to daydream.

Or sleep.

It was difficult to tell what it exactly was, but I did imagine myself sitting in the same seat, same train, same journey and suddenly, without a warning, a man came rushing into the carriage, sat down opposite of me, and started telling his life's story.

He wept when he spoke about his son, a broken man with a broken mind who had come across a charming youngster in a local bar, and it had seemed as if God himself had shown this youngster to his son's life since the broken man had been so terribly lonely for so long, his emotional and intellectual inferiority a hinderance that had made making friends an impossibility. Then the man wept harder, reaching out to touch my knee with his trembling hand while he uttered how his son had spent time with this charming young man through the night and late into the morning, even managing a smile beforeheading to bed. Come morning, the man had found his son dead, his wrists slit while he still lay in bed. Cold and distant even, when so close, he could've still touched his son, but the man knew he’d not feel warm skin on his skin but an endless cold.

Death.

Dead and gone.

All after that charming young man had planted his poisonous seeds, masked in pretty words, into the broken man's head.

Imagining this bizarre encounter, I saw myself stopping the man, telling him how I really don't want to hear more of his son and his son's misery. When the man refused to pipe down, I lunged at him, strangling the fool until his face was just a purple mess of broken veins with his tongue three times the usual size as it bulged out of his mouth.

I open my eyes when the intercom sizzles and then announces my hometown stop.

My first instinct is to look down at my feet, but I find no strange weeping man strangled there.

My hands are steady; there is no drool or blood on them.

My brow is sweaty and my breathing heavy, but that could be anything... right?

I hop off the train and greet the cold November night where the streetlamps shine over empty streets where nothing but the snow moves as wind blows across the land.

I deliberate a moment, my mind pulling me in two different directions.

Two separate places, more like.

There's always home. There's Sarah and her warmth, her unconditional love and admiration, for which many men would probably give their left nut, but that seems to be the problem for me.

I love things in the beginning. I adore the chase and the need to conquer.

I loved Sarah in the beginning too, well, loved as in the way I can love.

Loved the fact that she didn't show me any love; I loved her cold character and her way of toying with me even when we both knew that I would have her and she would have me.

And things went to shit when that happened, because if I know anything, it is that people aren't meant to get that happy ending since those only work in stories where the last page is the last page, the last experience, and the last judgement.

But not in life.

In life, there's always another page, the next day, and the next fucking chapter, and I'm cursed to be a character in a book without a beginning, a middle, and an end.

I haven't been given the chance to have an ending.

All I have is the day that comes after the previous day, and with each passing sunrise, I find myself struggling with the vast nothingness that seems to only increase in volume the older I get.

When I was ten, I looked at other children and wanted to cry or wanted to punch them because they were so happy playing theirstupid games, and even when they did have a bad moment, it wasn't real. It was a moment of sadness, not true emptiness.

When I was a teenager, I realized that people don't seem to think like I do and that I have to hide the way I think because they will fear, hate, and shun me otherwise.

And now at thirty, I look around and want to scream, cry, and punch things because, in a world so filled to the brim with people, none of them seem even remotely real to me anymore, and all I need is an ending to my story since this story is finished and it should be over.

I had my beginning when I was a kid and struggled with myself, with school, and people, and with life in general.

Then I had my middle point when I was a younger man, and I took my anger out on anyone unfortunate enough to get close to me, and I hurt people, things and animals, and it was all I ever needed because it was the only way to feel anything.

And finally, I had my ending.

I found a woman, I got a good job, I learned to behave (well, mostly), I created a life for myself where I am able to operate as a part of society without being a hinderance or a danger to it or the people in it. So now I need my fucking ending because with each passing day where my story keeps going, the risk increases... The risk that my mask slips and I do something horrible just to feel something other than profound emptiness with intermittent spills of anger and sadness.

So, I stand on the train platform, trying to choose which road to take.

Home to Sarah...

Or deeper into the sleeping heart of the city, where I might just come across someone or something that will make me force myself out of this rut.

But then I remind myself that people don't get to be monsters in this modern world of ours (not for very long, at least) and that gets my legs to take me home.

In the living room, a light is flickering, and the sounds of a YouTube video fill the apartment as I remove my jacket, perch it on the coat hangers by the door, and move further in.

Before turning to the living room (living room left, bedroom right, bathroom straight ahead, kitchen at an angle to the right), I stop to stare at one of the few paintings that decorate my home. My mother forced me to get a few of them, so I purposefully dragged her with me and Sarah to a drift store downtown, which royally annoyed my mother and Sarah both. They can stand each other but can't fake that they actually enjoy being around each other, which in turn gets me in a good mood because I get to just sit back and witness the passive aggressive comments that the two hurl at each other. Not to even mention the expression on my mother’s face when she realized I had dragged her to (gasp!) a drift store.

Anyway, now I have three whole paintings in my apartment, which is three more than I need.

One of them is on the wall right before you turn to the living room, and it's a picture of a long road covered in mist and surrounded by bent trees that create an archway above the street.

The second painting is in the bedroom, and it's an image of a silver chandelier that is purposefully painted upside down, so it gives off the impression that the crystals on it are floating upwards, trying to reach some mysterious destination.

And the third painting is that of an old typewriter with its keys all jumbled from constant, vigorous use.

It's my favorite, honestly, since it's simple and tells you all there is to know about it without being a pretentious little shit about it.

The road surrounded by trees and covered in mist is a bit too abstract, almost like an image from some fantasy novel, and the chandelier is too quirky, a bit too try-hard for my tastes.

But not the typewriter.

That fucker's simple and wide open.

It has no secrets, no bigger meaning.

I stayed up for you, Sarah says when I approach her from behind, her eyes glued to the TV screen. Apparently, she's back to watching true-crime documentaries. Wonderful...

I can see that. I remain standing since I think I might have to get up immediately, even if I did take a seat next to her on the couch.

Had a good day?

Boring, she sighs. I'm bored, and everything's boring, and I missed you, and I thought about calling you at work to see if you'd like to talk dirty to me while I finger-fuck myself but then I figured 'no' because I wasn't sure what mood you were in. How was your day?

Just wonderful, I reply.

I lean against the back of the couch, right behind Sarah, who still won't take her eyes off the TV. I'm pretty sure she did tell me something about how she's technically on the spectrum, but that was years ago, back when we met in college, and I have to be honest and say that I really didn't listen to anything she said back then since admiring her beauty was far more appealing than getting to know her and thinking of her as a real, actual, right-fucking-here person. Now I sometimes get the urge to ask if she's on the spectrum, like during these moments where she completely forgets that people are supposed to acknowledge other people when they arrive in a room and that speaking in a completely dead, monotone way is creepy as shit, especially when you've just got home from work and it's like one am and the whole apartment is dark apart from the light off the TV that's playing a YouTube video about a guy who tortured models and cut them to pieces before trying to put them back together with the power of crazy.

Come here, she says. Or more like it’s her ordering me since saying, asking, or suggesting aren't really things she excels at unless she strains herself to make a real effort to seem human. She's wearing black leggings and a tight black shirt, and I can tell that she's still not bothering to wear underwear of any kind, which I used to find hot, but now it gets to be an inconvenience since I'm the one who has to do the laundry and witness the chaos that her leggings turn into whenever we get intimate, and her wetness ruins the fabric that touches her privates.

Maybe underwear was invented so pussy juices, cum-stains, or any of such wouldn't turn your pants all crusty and disgusting?

Matt? She waves her hand behind her head, near my face. Sit down with me. I need you close to me.

Needing me implies that something bad will happen if you don't get me next to you, I mention while taking a seat next to her. She snuggles up to me, her body warm and slightly trembling as she purposefully grinds her torso against me and finally presses her head down on my lap, a bit too close to my dick.

Well, I need you.

That's sad.

Why? She plants a soft kiss on my jeans, right at the spot that covers my privates.

I hate the fact that anyone would need me, I say, but she's not listening, her mouth opening slowly as she gently bites down on my cock through my pants. "You don't find it terrifying that someone would need you, like, actually, need you?"

Nobody needs me, so I don't think about it, she states plainly while unbuttoning my jeans.

What if I need you?

Yeah, right. She's amused and flicks the head of my dick after pulling it out. I think you only need one, or maybe two, things from me.

True, I say, and it's followed by a gasp as she takes me into her mouth.

It's an unnerving feeling when she sucks me off and does it in that vigorous way that lets me know that she's not looking to get me excited to fuck her, but she's just blowing me to make me cum, and that means that even if she's horny, she's