//This is more of a character psychology and dialogue writing exercise than a real attempt at a story. It is to become my first text of larger proportions written in English. Please keep that in mind and in case of a very obnoxious mistake being repeated inform me about it, as I’m more than happy to gain new knowledge. Feel free to use the feedback thread to state whatever may come to your mind. (Ok, ok, I know that stores written by non-native speakers can be, and in most cases are, a pain to read. Because of that I’m not expecting any feedback.)
The narrator is a young, rather troubled (or so he thinks) individual who seeks to find his place in the world that is presented from his, at times very subjective viewpoint. Consequently in many cases profanity is used. Nothing too serious though. Hyper sensitive individuals should avoid reading this. In fact stories written in first person go on my own nerves, so…I wouldn’t read this if it was written by someone else…
Also, asterisk FTW.
Abandoning a Questionably Bright Future
I didn't have much of a remarkable life before. Nothing to write about. My mother was – is – a teacher in one of those goddamn primary schools on the good ol’ Planet Los Angeles. My father, if you really wanna know, keeps the lane rings bright and shiny, so that all that space junk can keep buzzing around. He’s a sort of a mini boss there. Both must be pretty damn run down now when I’m gone. You see, I’m their only son. It’s not that I care about them being worried. Or perhaps I do. They were always nice and caring and that. Now when I think about it they did one hellova job bringing me up. That’s why I hadn’t just disappeared.
Anyway, I’m not going to tell you my whole goddamn biography, why should I? No one wants to listen to that kind of crap. What I am going to talk about is how I got from an almost top of the class, well-behaved, clear-thinking, future intellectual (that’s the bullshit the teachers used to fill our heads with) to the lowest of space rats. When I think about it, I’ve always been a total space case. It has only gotten to me this year though.
It was mid-March when I got my flying licence. That’s supposed to be a big deal around those parts. You have to putter around in a rusty old shuttle along with an instructor. It takes ages. The good thing is, I was really, really lucky. I got to fly around with a rather normal guy that kept biting and cleaning his nails in mid-flight. He would just spit the bitten off nail on the floor. Imagine what happened in zero-g, when all that shit began floating around the cockpit. Thank god, if there is one, for helmets. It kept him from biting his whole goddamn fingers off in zero g. I’ve passed the test. The Dracula – that’s how folk used to call the guy in the commission – didn’t even bother scrutinising my flying much. Surprising I must say. Rumour has it that the dreaded Dracula drinks people’s blood on the test quite often. I got to skip a maths test in school because of all that shit. But what I did do, the day I passed the test, was to get right back in the damned school. Totally nerdy, I know. My friends must have been quite jelly about me getting the licence, although they were smiling and stuff. You see, I was the first to hit eighteen in the class. I guess everyone is jelly at least once, even those saint-like individuals. As is the habit we went out for a drink that day. Orca Bar. I dished out cash like a fucking millionaire; I’m not the tight-fisted type. Well, for the most part. Whiskey with ice did help in that matter. Drinking it made me feel sort of badass, if you know what I mean. Just like what I’m drinking now. When you’re eighteen most people mix those alcoholic beverages with all sorts of sweet juices. Not me though. The thing was that those bastards in the bar kept deluding the booze with water. Not that I noticed that then. Nowadays I would, but then…
It was getting late and we were drinking and all, some of my buddies even smoked some synth-weed on the terrace like thing the bar had. To be honest I’ve never willingly or consciously smoked anything. Probably because I believe that it’s just a short road from synth to cardamine. Total BS, if you ask me, but it’s lodged in my head and I can’t get rid of it.
Eventually the company dispersed. Each had a reason. Girlfriends, people they knew, vomiting, whatever. Don’t get me wrong though, I love girls. They can make me lose my head in no time. It’s just that I don’t get very talkative when there’s a shitload of people around. Even if I’m drunk. I suppose that’s shyness or something like that. And I practically hate myself for that, as it’s not a good personal trait, trust me.
So, all of the sudden I was alone in that vomity looking room. The place was soaked in alcohol and smelled like a homeless guy’s coat, or perhaps a destilery, or I dunno what. It gets pretty depressing to be all alone in such a place. The feeling that makes one want to just disappear, or get lost in the vastness of space. Especially when everyone except you seems to have a girlfriend and you’re definitely not the dumbest or ugliest around. They were closing and I had to go to one of those shitty toilets they have in such places. I was taking a leak when an old guy, in one of those fighter pilot jumpsuits, appeared. You could see, even if you’re blind, that he was drunk or stoned to hell. He parked himself right next to mine urinal and such things piss me off. Among all those goddamn urinals in the world the old fuck chose the one right next to me. That alone was weird as hell. And then came the regular what the fuck moment. He started leaning toward me. Naturally I sort of turned away, but he kept peering at me. Other people get mistaken for a cardi dealer or stuff. Not me though, oh no. I get to be in a toilet with an old space homosexual who has had one over the eight. Totally awesome experience, isn’t it?
“Hey, where ya from?” he asked in this uber suave voice. That gave me the creeps. I kept my mouth shut, just in case. But he wouldn’t quit.
“What planet are ya from?”
“LA,” I said. Man was I in a hurry to finish.
“A bad place, ya know. No sidewinder fangs or anything. Just boring Liberty Ale. You gotta get in space, boy. No laws, no shizzle.”
Boy. How I hate that word. The guy’s brain must have been fried by all the space radiation. I muttered something while meddling with my belt. I just couldn’t get it right.
“Listen, ya wearing normal shoes?” To be honest I have no idea why he said that.
“Whaddya mean normal shoes?”
“Water’s flowing, ya don’t wanna get all wet, do ya?”
I couldn’t see that freak that well, but I think he winked at me. That was it. I almost ran out, out on the street, belt fastened or not.
Time always seems to just fly by when I’m a bit intoxicated and in what seemed to be just a blink of an eye, I was standing outside yet another bar, from which a tumultuous crowd roared in all accents of the world. Pilots’ Flask said the inscription glowing in neon colours. It is the kind of place where you got to get good horse or anything flowing down your veins. I’m usually not too delighted to be in such holes, but a thoroughly crazy notion obsessed me. You see, money can buy more than horse or cardamine and there were quite a lot of working girls there. What an expression. Some were more expensive looking, some not so much. And since – thanks to my grandmother – I was loaded with cash I decided to get some practice in those matters. Not that I ever even got anywhere near doing that before. I could have. If only I hadn’t been so damn retarded. I never dare doing anything. For instance, we had this party in August. Classmates only type of thing. You can imagine that not everyone gets along well in a class and that can be sensed in such occasions. Now when I think about it, I’m not sure anymore whether it happened last August or the year before. Man, I should really stop playing neural net games. They’re starting to turn my brain into a pulp!
Anyhow, I was mildly depressed, as I hadn’t drunk anything at all and everyone else seemed to had become cursed revellers. There I was, sitting by the fire, poking it from time to time, when a classmate I’m particularly fond of, came by. Probably you don’t want me to start a long winded description, but you know…I’m going to describe her anyway. I owe it to her. Not literally though, in an odd spiritual way, if you catch my flow. She doesn’t even know I owe her something. It’s weird, I admit it, but I’ve thought of her far too many times while jerking off. I could perhaps say I was mildly in love with her - her wheat coloured hair. You would notice that first, I suppose. Oh, and her nose. She has a rather large nose –not too large, mind you- with a bump in the middle. And yet I don’t find that bothersome, for her cerulean blue eyes outshine it. And she’s smart, really smart. She has the best memory I have ever seen, really.
She sort of approached me from my back, her arms stretched around my neck. I could feel her hair on my shoulders, a lock of hair beneath my t-shirt. I should have faked surprise, leaned back, took her hand…anything, just not nothing. Nothing is what I did. She sat down on a log a few feet away. I could see her eyes shimmering through the flames. Dark blue ponds with fire dancing in them. I wanted to kiss her, to stare into the depths of her eyes, to drown in them. Instead I asked her whether she believed in aliens…
While deciding whether to enter the bar or not, I was thinking about some statistics. Rather dumb statistics, but still. It’s said that most teenagers - I hate that term, it’s too artificial – have properly kissed at the age of fourteen and a half. I’m eighteen, and how do you think that info made me feel? Like a piece of shit, that’s how. Especially because I don’t consider myself a teenager.
The place was not as populated as the noise people inside were making would make it seem. It was pretty clogged with billowing clouds of smoke, though. I took a seat in a dark corner. Perhaps it was a bit too dark, for it took ages for the bartender to see me. He was the most complete example of a snob I’ve ever seen. He probably didn’t even wash the glass in which he brought me scotch with ice I ordered. It didn’t bother me, though, as I only wanted to drink my consciousness away. Half a glass later a pair of shady, junker-like people took the table a few feet away. One had an empty looking grey backpack. The thump it made when it was placed on the table negated the looks. I couldn’t see them too well – things were getting a bit blurry – but the one without the backpack handed out a Sirius credit card and got a gun-like object wrapped in an oily rug. He tucked it away in his coat’s inner pocket (I remember thinking about the stain that rug could leave on his coat) and abruptly left. After that it’s all a slideshow, or a particularly laggy cut scene. The Junker seemed surprised when I slumped on the empty chair. If there hadn’t been all that metal weighting him down, he would have jumped 10 feet into the air. Not hesitating one bit I got to the point.
“How much?” I said.
He didn’t appear to understand me. Or perhaps he didn’t want to.
“Listen, I dunno what you think I am, but I’m not what I think you think I am.” A funny guy he was.
“The gun. How much for the gun?”
“A gun. How much does it cost!?” He heard that, all right.
“Keep your voice down!” he said in an obvious discomfort. “I dunno anything about guns. Got it?” I was getting calm again and his show almost made me laugh.
“Listen; cut it, heh…I’m not LP-LP…LPI, for chrissake.” My tongue was starting to feel oddly unresponsive.
With a shade of despise he thoroughly examined me from head to toe. And back again.
“Mkay. I won’t be staying here long anyway. 200 and you’ll get a nice skull drilling, ozone-burning illegal piece of scrap metal.”
The next thing I remember is sitting on a beach with a cartridge based plasma pistol touching the side of my head. Someone was going to blow my head off. I was certain of that. Only after a minute or so came enlightenment. If anyone, then it will be me ending my life on that strip of sand. It was my index finger on the trigger, my hand grasping the handle. It just seemed unreal, as if I were not in my own body.
I do realise that sounds insane, but I’ve told so much that there is no point in stopping now.
In what must have been panic I looked around, worried about any potential onlookers. Luckily no one was around. With a shaking hand I lowered the gun and slowly placed it out of sight – into my rucksack. A sour taste lingered in my mouth, without doubt a legacy of too much alcohol and my night perambulations. Looking around the surroundings seemed familiar. I was halfway between home and the Pilot’s Flask. A good fifteen-minute walk lay ahead. Far on the east the clouds were starting to glow in all shades of orange, criss-crossed by innumerable condensation trails left by ships of all sorts. The world was beginning to awake and yet the sea’s gentle waves washing the few pebble created a sense of tranquillity. If nothing else you could call it a beautiful morning. I just couldn’t get myself to move. The skies started returning to their usual cerulean blue, only on the east a mass of white clouds, now coloured by the sun lingered. Sky blue. That reminded me of someone and it felt like a needle in my heart. It was time for me to go. Go home at first and then up, up under the celestial dome that is a shroud of blackness. Up there, I thought, there is not a trace of blue. Sure, I did realise that all you had to do to see it in space was to turn your head to the first terrestrial planet, but I got fixated on the thought of escaping the gravity.
It was Saturday and the apartment block smelled of coffee. People just can’t wake up without that disgusting brown sludge. I can’t understand them. At least for me it’s easy to wake up without it.
The details of the greeting I was honoured with are of no importance. You can imagine my mother wasn’t exactly happy, especially because my father, who likes ethanol containing drinks a bit more than a usual specimen of his age, apparently got home just one hour before me. I got lectured a bit, and it could have been an effective lecture (it almost made me feel bad) if I hadn’t just crashed on my bed. The rucksack lay in the corner, its soggy shape indicating an almost empty interior.
