Rustic showmanship.

As a man, I believe I have a constitutional right to beat the living Hell out of anybody as long as they have it coming. Whether it be man or woman, black or white, adult for adolescent, sometimes a person just needs a good smack in the jaw. And I think this is certainly what our forefathers had in mind when writing the constitution for our wonderful country back in the days when wife-beating and instilling Christianity into oppressed minorities weren't just friendly alternatives to meeting new people, they were traditions. I mean, they were pretty one-sided back then when they wrote the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence; there were always exceptions to the statements and rules in there, just look at the fine print.

"We hold these Truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.*

* - Unless you're a woman or a nigger."

American men retained ownership of their wives after defecting from Great Britain unless they were otherwise paid a settlement to allow Britain to have property rights. AND IT WORKED. What happened to the glory days of early America when somebody was able to sock his wife for mouthing off while he goes to the slaves' rooms and starts getting some jungle action? You call it racist and sexist NOW, but back then if you didn't do it, people would find you possessing human empathy and we'd have you burned for witchcraft.

"So Johnathon, did you rape your slaves today?"
"No Jebediah, I frankly think it's disgusting and wrong."
"Well your wife must be busy then."
"What, why?"
"Don't you vent your anger and tension and rape your wife instead?"
"NO. I don't believe in that."
"Well damn, Johnathon. If you don't believe in raping your slaves and you don't believe in raping your wife, what kind of rape DO you believe in?"
"I don't believe in any kind of rape!"
"............WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITCH!"

THE SHAME. If our forefathers could persecute us now, the entire country would be a charred mass of holy justice at this point, just like how their own forefathers from centuries past conducted the Crusades. ...What? That doesn't make any sense because it didn't happen? Fuck you, I saw it on Wikipedia.

Now in this day and age, I can understand how a Jeffersonian methodology might be frowned upon. Now that those women and darkies are roaming free and everybody's alright with it, there are a few people who are looking around going... "Us men are getting screwed, aren't we?" And we are. Men, we are getting screwed, and not in the pleasant way that involves a damp hole and a man's justice flogger. Who are the ones who lose the kids during the divorce settlement? The men. Who are the ones who can't flash an officer their dick while crying to get out of a ticket? The men. Who have to spend their hard-earned money to buy drinks to get the opposite sex wasted enough to take advantage of? The men. Who are the ones more frequently convicted of rape? The men. And that's not because men are more prone to raping people. Women are just more prone to being raped. IT'S THEIR DAMN FAULTS.

Before, things were simpler. In the yesteryears, you could be bastards to women and it'd be alright, and if a woman insulted a man it would be sexism and you'd be hung from the gallows. Now that women have rights, we're suffering from more than twice as much sexism in our Country, the argumentative bitches. Our country has seen a skyrocketed jump in sexual harassment suits and rape reports ever since that fateful day... uh... shit, I don't know. A long-ass time ago. BUT IT'S AN EPIDEMIC THAT NEEDS TO BE STOPPED. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. FOUGHT FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS, AND I CAN FIGHT TO TAKE THEM AWAY AGAIN.

...Wait, he didn't? That was just Black rights? Well it just goes to show you that he was sexist, too.

This particularly offended me at school the other day when some irritating girl from my English class was following my friend and I around for whatever the fuck reason I don't know. Now I have a tendency to swear a lot. Like a drunken sailor who just stubbed his toe. While this girl was intruding on my friend and I, she said this.

"Uh would you mind not cursing so much? I just don't really like hearing those words, they offend me." Or something to that effect, I was doing my best to ignore her.
"Then you might as well leave." was all I said. This was a mistake. For one, it didn't drive the point home well enough. If you're going to follow people around and bother them, you're the excess baggage. If we ask you to do something, you do it. It's not the other way around. It's a motherfucking college campus and I'm twenty-one fucking years old. I am allowed to use adult words in a casual setting of adults where the general populace won't get offended.
Only a woman would really do this. When a woman is around, she expects some courtesy from men around her. You wouldn't see a man expecting this from a woman. You wouldn't see a man asking a group of women to clean up their language or discussion. Mainly because the rest of the men have probably already killed him in order to purge the gene pool.

So in order to really hit this point home next time I'm there, if she complains about my cursing, I'll stop. I won't use any swear words. Instead I'll borrow my friend's laptop, turn up the speakers and start singing Skin on Skin while doing pelvic thrusts in her direction.

And if a woman did that to me, I probably wouldn't stop her. There's another double standard for you.

A tiny french otaku thinking too much about love.

So right, there's been some brainstorming for a new mini-series of sorts that I'm interested in starting. For everybody reading It's A Beautiful World, do not fear as that will not change anything regarding its slow-ass monthly release. Now that I calmed the three of you down, I think we need some sexy schoolgirls murdering each other. That's what life needs more of, right?

The name of this particular project as it stands is called My Dear Little Remi. The titular heroine of the story is a small sweet girl named Remilia Delousei. She's enrolled at a boarding school for delinquents. Of course the timid young girl was enrolled there by accident; SHE'S FRENCH, SHE SHOULDN'T BE CAPABLE OF ANYTHING VIOLENT. She's a blonde french girl obsessed with anime and manga who upon transferring schools out of state got accidentally swept into there and now she's terrified every night and day of being in the place. She becomes friends, and soon after falls in love with one of the more popular students at the school. A real stand-up guy in a terrible place. But the truth is, Remi isn't the only one after him.

"BUT DEOXIC, THIS SOUNDS GAY AND STUPID, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING WRITING SHIT LIKE THIS?" This is ME we're talking about. Do you really expect this to go a nice and sweet route? Well it sort of does. I'm writing this for a few reasons, though. For one, writing for a female protagonist is something I haven't particularly done or focused on before. It should be an interesting experiment to try out. And more importantly, I want to write something slightly less depressing or heavy like A Beautiful World might be, or some of my later writing pieces. I won't necessarily call it family-friendly, though; this is still very much a dark piece of work you'd come to expect from me.

And here's the hook. Remi is a bubbly and timid girl that doesn't seem to belong there, but in reality she's probably the most dangerous person in that school. She can be a bit... uh... obsessive in her pursuit of the young man that has her heart. Obsessive to the point that when the other girls start playing particularly dirty in keeping her away from him and sabotaging her in some of the cruelest ways possible, she often ends up retaliating in overzealous acts of revenge. Like torturing them or murdering their families. Like a true otaku, she's obsessive, somewhat reclusive, and socially awkward. And she has no capabilities in exercising social restraint. Of course this doesn't necessarily stop her other enemies from fighting back with the same psychotic efficiency she utilizes, so there's a lot of love at this school to be found. Proper use of the word 'antisocial' goes here.

Sweet girl though once you get to know her. And if you don't make her particularly angry.

Absurd humor and almost cartoonish violence are what I want this story to be about. Nothing particularly deep, nothing particularly grand and nothing particularly heavy. Just some light-hearted dark comedy about a sweet girl going through High School, making friends and falling in love. With a lot of nutcases trying to kill each other at the same time.

Expect a prologue of sorts in the next month or so.

My love prognosis.

Regret? You pussies don't know what regret is. Here's a REAL story about regret, with sadness and sorrow and ninjas and canned yams.

There once was an ugly boy in High School. That ugly boy was ME. I WAS UGLY. UGLIER THAN ANY OF YOU. YEAH, THAT UGLY. Then I saw a girl. She was a cute girl. WHAT CHANCE WOULD AN UGLY BOY LIKE ME HAVE WITH THAT GIRL? But I didn't care. My resolve was harder than the erections I had in the morning whenever I woke up and thought about her. It was love at first sight. At least for me, I don't know about her. I didn't care what that bitch thought about me, she would be mine whether she liked it or not. I became obsessed with her. One could call it stalking, but stalking is usually creepy. THIS WAS OUT OF LOVE. A POWERFUL LOVE THAT WOULD NOT BE DENIED. I WAS GOING TO SMOTHER HER WITH IT FOREVER AND EVER.

ALSO FOREVER.

Eventually I found her out near the bus stop after school. I couldn't tell you how nervous I was to be basking in her splendor, her regal radiance that emanated through the sleazy bus stop. It was intoxicating. It was like whenever I breathed around her I was having orgasmic sex that only the most potent aphrodisiacs from a backwater town in Brazil could provide.

"S-s-s-so..." I was really fucking nervous. I SAID THAT ALREADY, DO YOU DOUBT ME?
"Hmm?"
"H-h-how's your day g-going?" I asked.
"Oh, it's going fine."
"That's n-n-nice."
OH RAPTURE! The conversation was so sweet it was better than fucking in public. And I've fucked plenty of times in public, so let me tell you that this was saying a lot. Fucking in public was awesome. Damn, I wonder if she would like to fuck in public. I'd like to fuck her in public. I should ask her if she would like to be fucked in public.

I'm not too obsessive, am I?

This continued for a while. Not the fucking in public, but that would be nice. The brief conversations at the bus stop. Every day the conversation would just a bit longer. Like sex, practice means you can hold it longer, and I'm a master of prolonging conversation like a pornstar is the master of faking really boring sex. But I didn't care. Her chestnut brown hair would dangle in the wind whenever a vehicle drove by. Her modest and reserved posture punctuated her cuteness. I WANTED TO CHERISH AND LOVE HER FOR HOW PURE SHE WAS. So eventually I got up the courage to ask the infamous question.

"Sorry, I have a boyfriend." It was like a dagger into my heart. A SERATED DAGGER COATED IN SORROW AND AGONY, SLOWLY BEING TWISTED WHILE MY LOVE BLED OUT ONTO THE FLOOR.
"What, WHO?" I asked.
"Charles Finnegan, if you know him."
"THAT PASTY-ASS ALBINO!?"
Charles Finnegan wasn't an albino. He was actually anemic, and I was surprised the poor bastard was still alive at his age. Renal failure will do that. His kidneys wouldn't be the only thing to suffer a slow and agonizing death. I wouldn't let him take my love away like that. SHE WAS MINE, NOBODY ELSE'S.
Eventually I caught him after school walking home. As soon as he got into the empty insurance firm parking lot, I decided to make my move.
"Hey there, Chuck." I said while reaching into my backpack.
"Do I know you?" he asked.
"You should. Since I'll be the last person you'll ever see alive."
"Wha--" He got cut off mid-sentence because his throat was cut out by a machete. Why a machete? Because everybody has at least one friend who owns a machete. Mine happened to belong to a short little blonde girl I didn't pay much attention to. She was a little crazy. BUT I WOULD COVER IT IN THE REVENGE OF MY LOVE. I also hacked his legs off so he couldn't run. He started to scream and gurgle out blood a lot, and I didn't want there to be any evidence of his existence. That's where the gasoline came in. But being one who doesn't know much about pyrotechnics, I wasn't aware that such a large black husk would remain after it would be finished burning. This was amplified by the fact that I didn't bother removing his charred corpse from the parking lot, but that didn't matter. THEY NEVER CAUGHT ME, HA HA HA! THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR FUCKING WITH MY LOVE, YOU ANEMIC LITTLE BASTARD.

I saw my angel crying at the bus stop the next day. AH, SUCH BEAUTIFUL TEARS.
"What happened?" I sympathetically asked.
"M-m-my boyfriend was murdered yesterday."
"WHAT? How?" I started to smile a bit.
"He was cut up and set on fire." she wept. "And they believe he was sexually assaulted, too." Don't look at me. Somebody must have a sick fetish or something. The disgusting pig. I'm so glad my sweet little girl is so pure. IT ALMOST MAKES A MAN WANT TO LOSE HIS FUCKING MIND.
"So that means you're single again, right?" I asked.
"W-w-what?" Her beautiful tear-soaked eyes looked at me.
"Does that mean I have a shot?" I turned to face her and grabbed her by the shoulders. "It means I have a shot, right?" I believe I might've been a little too aggressive, I was starting to scare my little angel.
"You're starting to scare me."
"You've scared me more than once with talk of that disgusting little albino. Jeopardizing things between us."
"I never even got your name, I just talked to you because you were kind of a creep hanging around me."

WHAT? A CREEP? AND SHE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW MY NAME. IT'S LIKE SHE'S TRYING TO DESTROY OUR BEAUTIFUL LOVE. WHY WOULD SHE DO THIS? Ah, but I wouldn't let her. No no no. I don't have much left. I won't let her get away. Never again would I do that. No sir. I would force her to love me.

And that's what I did.

"If you want me, I'm yours." And even if she doesn't want me. What I proceeded to do would be what one might call aggressive pursuit, but in the face of securing that everlasting love, one must take any and all measures. And it paid off, because there were such beautiful tears of joy afterwards. And during. And before. WONDERFUL EMOTIONS EVERYWHERE. And I couldn't be happier.

Until the next week. I didn't see or talk to her at all those following days. And it was heartbreaking. After making such passionate love, I needed to see her again. And I got my wish, but it was as if it was granted by some malicious genie that twisted my wish into some kind of abomination.
"Let's do it, right here and now." she said.
"We're at the bus stop."
"I know, just like last time. Come on, I need it."
"W-w-what?"
"COME ON AND FUCK ME HERE, ARE YOU NOT A MAN?"
The unthinkable had happened. My beautiful angel had become corrupted. Used goods. Deflowered. SULLIED AND TAINTED.
"THIS WAS NOT HOW IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE!" I obstinately shouted. "YOU'RE NOT PURE AND ANGELIC. YOU'RE EMBROILED IN LUST, YOU VILE SUCCUBUS!"
"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, WHEN WE WERE HERE YESTERDAY YOU RA--"
"I WILL HAVE NO MORE OF YOUR HABBERDASHERY AND LIES!" I pulled out an aerosol can and a lighter. "BEGONE TO THE UNDERWORLD, SUCCUBUS!"
"WHAT ARE YOU DOI--" Her speech was stopped because it's hard to talk when there's high heat going into your lungs. But it wasn't difficult to scream. She screamed a lot. It was tempestuous watching her burn, but almost harmonic. Her voice was like a chorus or angels, but it was deceptive like the Succubus's despicable tune. So I set her on fire and sent her back to Hell where she belonged.

IT HURT TO WATCH THOUGH. When you thought you loved somebody so much and then you learn they're a vile urchin feeding off of others because they want your canned yams. I WON'T BE LED ASTRAY AGAIN, BUT IF ONLY I COULD'VE SAVED HER. Such beautiful innocence. That smoking black mass of what was once a human being almost tempted me again, but it wouldn't be so. NO, IT WOULDN'T BE SO.

And there were no ninjas. I LIED.

Never knows best.

This is a story about being a good Samaritan.

My High School years sucked. I think we've clearly established that what with the divorce and the deadbeat abusive mother and the bouts of alcoholism and binge-drinking I stumbled in and out of because I was a embittered little shit. And really, who the hell hasn't been there? You know, the grim dark cavern somebody crawls through and it's filled with mud and piss, and there's insects and bats latching onto them while sound clips from Alfred Hitchcock movies echo throughout the humid disgusting cave, and I want to turn this into a dirty joke about sex with your decrepit old mother but this shit is serious business. And that person is just desperately clinging to life just struggling to make their way towards that dim light at the end of the long and narrow tunnel. I think we've all been there. Hell, some of us are there right now.

This particular story has no ties to any other events or situations I've discussed in the past. It stands on it's own, which is nice to not be bound to some kind of continuity bullshit I seem to be weaving into these stories. Although for some context, this takes place a particular time in 2005, after I said my last goodbyes to my lady and some time before I say it to the rest of my school. Middle of July. School's out. It's hot as hell. Sweltering hot. "Let me take a hot shower to cool down" kind of hot. Because of this I predominantly enjoyed going out at night when it cooled down, but I could only do it when my brother was working Graveyard because after taking over the parenting role my dear old parasite of a mother forgot about, he wouldn't necessarily approve of me going out at 11pm or midnight or 4am.

While wandering the streets binge-drinking. Yeah he probably wouldn't like that, either.

Now this was one of those nights. After waking up at 3pm to peel off my clothing and take a shower, my brother was working nightshift and my mother was stuck at home in her own little world where the rivers run beige with liquor. Guess who would be suffering all by his lonesome that night? Well it sure as hell wasn't me, because as soon as my brother left I fucking bolted out of that place faster than I would out of an AA meeting. And like escaping an AA meeting I would reek of alcohol while tripping and stumbling to grab the walls as often as I could, screaming in my head "BEING HERE IS A BAD IDEA, LET'S GET OUT AND GO KICK SOME ASS."

Of course there would be no ass-kicking as I was drunk enough that my legs lacked the coordination to properly aim and propel themselves into one's unsuspecting posterior. It being late at night, down the road a good mile or so was the last bastion of hope for some late-night grub; a Foster's Freeze burger joint. And it's usually empty to boot, so I can just literally sit in there and attempt to soak up the alcohol in my body with a spongy burger sitting in my gut while I ask myself why I can't eat actual food like this at home. Granted it was a hell of a walk and I often never had enough money to go there, once every couple of weeks it was a brief glimpse of Heaven through a crack in the ceiling of Hell.

Until that particular night in July.

My usual trek had its beautiful dead silence interrupted by a girl behind me talking on a cell phone. Mind you, this was about 9pm in the evening, and she was roughly my age, I would guess. Maybe slightly older. She didn't sound particularly enthusiastic either, so being out at this time one could probably guess she wasn't discussing the weather. She wasn't really loud or obnoxious, but when your ears are ringing and you just want the sound of passing cars to occupy yourself with, somebody 5 yards away talking on a phone doesn't help the mood. I picked up the pace and hoped to out-walk her to my sanctuary where I can get some peace and quiet.

As my luck would have it, she ALSO went to the Foster's Freeze. How fucking unpleasant. The one night in two weeks I have to stumble out of my house for a breath of fresh air and I get stuck listening to another woman weeping into a phone. Now she hung up eventually, just in time for my food to show up. But you still heard her. Like before, she wasn't particularly loud or intrusive, but it was just that stifled sniveling and occasional hiccup that you heard escape her mouth. If it was loud and ear-shattering at least I could've opened that door inside my head and lock myself in there to shut it out, but no, I have that unsettling silence where it's occasionally broken by the fact that you know somebody distressed is right across from you.

I don't even know this person, why the hell should I be taking note of this? I guess when one's put into that high-alert status for so long, it's hard to shake it off even around strangers. Of course that high-alert went into code maroon or blood-red or whatever the terrorist color for "FUCK THIS SHIT, BAIL OUT MAN" is when the girl was making her way for the door. "Thank God," I thought. "Some precious alone time."

The woman tripped and fell. She fell. THE BITCH TRIPPED AND FELL IN FRONT OF ME. FACE PLANT. RIGHT FUCKING THERE.

Now poses the moral conundrum. If I help her up, I'm certainly going to be forced to talk to her. In which case there's a good chance she's going to just snap and dump whatever the hell has her so upset on the next random stranger to help her. I'm the only one in the diner aside from the people behind the counter. She tripped in front of my table. What the hell was I supposed to do? I contemplated leaving my food there and just sprinting the fuck out of the place as quickly as possible since I was probably sober enough at this point to run, but then there's the chance I could trip on the way out and then the situation would look worse. Or I could continue to nonchalantly eat and ignore her, which would be nice because I honestly didn't feel like helping this girl.

"Eh, you alright?" I asked. God-dammit, you puss. You look like a heroin addict when you're wearing an oil-stained green sweatshirt with sunglasses while it's dark out. You're in a dirty little burger place when it's 10 o'clock at night while you smell like cheap beer. You shouldn't be helping people, you can't even help yourself. That angry voice inside my head that wanted nothing more than to be left alone just kept yelling that at me. And I knew that little fucker was right. But given the situation I suppose it was just a twitch reaction, tis all.

"I... fucking... HATE this night." was all I heard while I stood up and attempted to walk towards her.
"That makes two of us," I said as I grabbed her hand. "Come on, on your feet." Her trembling legs lifted herself off the ground as I helped her up.
"Uh... thanks, I guess." was all she really kind of said. Clearly shaken, she sat back down in a nearby booth, my booth and one would have it. I sighed and sat on the other side. She rested her face on her palms while the sleeves from her hoodie that was one size too big drooped down her arms. It was just kind of an awkward silence. While I hated the noise, I wasn't particularly fond of silence when there are two or more clearly uncomfortable or distressed persons in the room.
Of course I wasn't one to be talking right now either; I was still clearly drunk and in a situation that requires intense thinking and social interaction skills beyond "Where's the bathroom? I think I'm going to hurl" and "Dude when I get enough beers into her I'm totally gonna rail her".

"Oi." I tried to get her attention. Her hands parted from her face. "Hungry?" I held out my box of fries. It took me almost a second to notice it was missing and that they were in her hands as she shoved them into her gullet. I guess she had trouble walking for reasons different than my own.
"Where's the ketchup?" she asked as she shoved fries into her mouth.
"Uh, hang on I think it's over on the counter. And don't talk with your mouth full." It's a disgusting habit, and not even tragedy should excuse you from doing it. As I stood up and made my way to the counter, I seemed to follow suit with the night's trend of tripping. This time thought my head hit the side of the counter as I hit the porcelain floor with a loud crack.
"I'm okay."
I wasn't, but being tipsy and on at least a thousand milligrams of vicadin sure does wonders to avert that slightly agonizing head trauma.
"I got the ketchup at least." I said as I sat back down. It was already gone from my hand before my ass returned to my seat. "You are extremely quick, you know that?"
"Sleight of hand works wonders." she said. "I think I also took your watch."
"I don't have a watch."
"Not anymore, at least."
"I don't own a watch." I replied.
"Huh, I took SOMEBODY'S watch, then."
"That's not nice."
"You stop worrying about that after a while." she said with a slightly coy smile. "If it helps you get by, then that's how it goes." I laughed. Whenever somebody gets caught doing something that won't necessarily lead them down healthy roads, that's what you hear, or at least something of that general nature. It was terribly ironic, but I had no room to talk.

There wasn't any talking for a bit after that. I managed to get a good look at her for once, and despite dressing like a degenerate she was moderately attractive. Very dark, ashy brown hair that rested on her shoulders. Somewhat of a clear complexion with a few traces of acne starting to fade out over a thin nose. I couldn't gauge her figure particularly well since she wore jeans and a zipped-up hoodie. That rubbed me the wrong way since it reminded me of somebody else best left forgotten. Eventually that persistent silence came creeping back into the diner, and I wanted none of that. So I was going to leave.

"Hmm? You leaving?" she asked.
"Yes, didn't you just hear the internal monologue?"
"If it's internal, how could I hear it?"
"Touché."
"Ugh, I really don't want to leave." There was a twinge of hesitation in her voice.
"I don't believe I asked you to."
"I don't believe that I implied that you did." she responded. My mind was not in the proper condition to be shooting rhetorical jabs back and forth with somebody. It was like trying to play tennis while there's a bullet wound in your leg. And you were high off of LSD. And blindfolded. And were being ra--
"FUCK IT, THEY GET THE POINT!" I snapped back into reality.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Her eyebrow was raised as I yelled at the imaginary voices in my head.
"I don't really know anymore." My head was starting to spin.
"What are you, drunk?"
"It would be a stretch if I said I was sober." I sighed and sat back down in the chair.
"Don't you think you should probably get home?" I was slightly exasperated at this point.
"Why the hell should I?" she muttered.
"Beats the piss out of me, I just asked that."
"I really, REALLY don't want to."
"That's not a good answer."
"They probably wouldn't even notice that I was gone." I started laughing a bit. I think she found it a bit insulting since her lips puckered up.
"What's so funny?" Despite her flustered voice, I only started laughing harder.
"Heh heh, THAT'S WHY I'M HERE!" I shouted with a smile on my face. "Fuck all if the bitch knows I'm not even home." A smile started to creep onto her face and she started to laugh a bit, too.

"Ha ha," I sighed as I calmed down a bit. "Parents, am I right?"
"Damn straight."
"What'd you get stuck with?" I asked.
"Divorcing parents." she snickered.
"Well no shit, small world."
"What'd your parents do?" she asked.
"Got drunk and racked up a bunch of debt. You?"
"Gambled and racked up a bunch of debt."
"This is California, where the fuck do your parents gamble?"
"Lived in Nevada."
"That explains it."
"Lost the house, moved in with relatives out here."
"Shit, that happened to me about 6 or 7 years ago."
"I guess it really is a small world." she said while laughing a bit. That kind of talk went on for, well, I can't remember. Probably an hour, maybe longer. Just two kids who met in a diner in the middle of the night and had nothing better to do than bitch to each other about how hard God was trying to fuck them in the ass.

"Hmm..." She started pondering to herself.
"Eh?"
"I probably should get home." she said.
"Meh, same. If my brother gets off of work early and doesn't see me home, that might cause some problems."
"Yeah, my dad might notice I'm gone if he wakes back up." After we both finished talked, we stood up and left the Foster's Freeze.
"Hey." she said. I glanced over.
"What."
"Mind walking me home?" she asked. "It's not far from here, and these streets are kind of unsettling alone at night."
"...That means I would have to walk them alone on the way back since I live on Union."
"Shit. That's quite a walk."
"Hmm... actually I'll do it under one condition." She blushed.
"I'm not doing that."
"Not THAT, you idiot." I pointed across the street to the liquor store. "You said you're good at sleight of hand, right?"

* * *

"Good lord, this stuff is going to knock me on my ass." I'm being serious here. The liquor she got out of that store was potent shit. I would tell you what it was, but frankly after two drinks I couldn't see straight enough to read the bottle or bother to remember the name. The best liquor's the name you can't recall because it's just that good.
"You're not supposed to drink scotch."
"Well shit, that explains a lot." I'm slurring my speech at this point, but I'm not putting in the effort to write it as such. If I wrote any of my dialogue in accordance to how much I've been drinking, most of it would be illegible.
"Well, this is it." she said as she zipped up her hoodie. To answer the earlier question regarding her figure after catching a glance, voluptuous and an ass that could cushion and stop a car. Also about a head shorter. After I managed to pull my eyes away from her ass, I looked on at the dingy apartment complex in which she inhabited.

"Well..."
"I'll be on my way. I can barely fucking walk." I started to make my way back towards the road.
"Um..." I stopped and looked back at her.
"Hmm?"
"Uh... thanks for that."
"S'aright." I started walking again.
"Wait hold up, I never got your name." she said. I turned around and laughed a bit.
"Well to be frank, I'm too drunk to remember it at this point."
"Really."
"Let's just say you're better off not knowing." She laughed.
"Heh, what? Are you some shady phantom of my past?"
"Shady? Absolutely. A phantom? Well, a man can dream."
"That sounds like a really bad cliche."
"Hon I'm drunk enough that I probably won't remember this in the morning." That was a lie since I'm clearly writing a story about it now. "Trust me, it's for the best if you don't end up getting involved with somebody like me."
"Meh, I could say the same."
"So we're in agreement then."
"I guess we are."
"Then good night, and good luck."
"You stole that from that movie."
"Fuck, when is that coming out? I want to see it." I never saw it, by the way.
"Uh... September?"
"You're stalling, you should get back inside and I should get home."
"Dammit, you caught me." She sighed in a sardonic tone. "You know, if you wanted to do THAT before I went back in, I cou--"
"I CAN'T EVEN FEEL MY LEGS!" I'm serious, that booze was fucking strong.
"Alright alright." She trotted up to her apartment and ever so gently opened the door. I saw her whisper "Thank you" before slipping behind the door and closing it.

And that was it.

I managed to stumble my way three miles back home. Or not. I actually got lost for a bit and just gave up the idea of going home and finding a bench to pass out on for a few hours or so before waking back up with a hangover strong enough to hemorrhage the brain of an infant.
"God-damn, it hasn't even been a few hours and I feel like shit." I sat up and threw the bottle into a nearby dumpster. "Fuck this, that's where I draw the line."
I had no clue where I was, but I figured I should probably get home before the sun starts to rise. As I walked past a small local skate park across the train tracks, my thoughts were just loud enough to be heard over the screeching of the hangover.
"Hmm... I wonder if she was serious and I could've..." The smile on my face was immediately wiped off as I shook my head. "Bah, I don't need to be swept up in something like that again, at least not for a while." And that was true. I don't think I was ready to start a clean slate. I still needed a bit of air to breathe before that would happen again. But hell, maybe it could've gone somewhere.

Probably not, but a man can dream, even if it might be unhealthy. As long as it helps you get by, then that's how it goes, right?

Let's blame it on poorly unionized work forces.

Today I was out job-hunting. With only 12 units and attending class three days a week, I think it's entirely reasonable to desire employment to fill the void and the wallet. After being informed by my psychologist that I probably have a nasty case of ADD, I need a job so I can indulge my hobbies and meet those expectations of being a mentally-deficient manchild with an attention span shorter than the droves of underdeveloped Asian women in my community.

I would've come up with something more creative, but I was busy ogling them at the mall today.

I was at a mall. It was a rich mall, a nice mall. Full of rich white people, money, and the aforementioned Asian women. Damn, you should've seen some of them. It's like someone liberated a Chinese sweatshop in there. Fuck, where was I going with this again? Oh right, the mall. This was the same mall where in a previous thread I stated does not have a book store, despite being probably the richest and most pompous mall in the Bay Area. I would like to inform you that they have still NOT remedied this problem but in fact they made it worse, which brings us to the crux of my discovery.

As I was attempting to harass the manager of the Gamestop into a job I left the store and gleaned through the entire mall. Crowded, mid-afternoon and full of people. I saw one black man there and he was being arrested by a mall cop. Nothing out of the ordinary. As I make my way to the center of the mall, there's an Abercrombie and Fitch. There it stood before me, just overlooking the mall. You could literally smell the overpriced cologne coming out of its doors. If you got any closer to the place, it would start to burn your eyes. The reason the "No Smoking" signs exist for these kinds of places would be because the faintest ignition or volatile heat source would cause the air itself to turn ablaze while everybody's lungs would rupture and collapse from the sudden flash of fire working its way throughout the store.

Now I have a problem with Abercrombie and Fitch. I don't know whether it's the nerve gas they constantly feed into the store's ventilation, but I just don't think pleasant thoughts whenever I set foot into one of those stores. Maybe it's the dim lights that make it difficult to see the clothes you're buying, which seems counterintuitive, but what the hell do I know? Or they do it so you can't see the price tag for that plaid shirt you kind of sort of like is actually 60 to 80 bucks only to step outside and see in broad daylight that Mandarin Orange and Teal isn't your color. Or maybe it's because the entire architecture and interior design is a cross between an insurance agency and a police interrogation room that seems to invoke feelings of dread, tension and boredom all at the same time. Again, I don't know.

Now the mere thought of this corporate cesspool of a store sitting in the middle of the mall was enough to disgust me a great deal. But then, right where I was standing, I looked down the left wing of the mall and something caught my attention. Something terrible. I squinted and read it, but I couldn't believe my eyes. I decided to walk down to it and get closer, and what I saw... was an Abercrombie. Not Abercrombie and Fitch. Abercrombie. Text in the same font. And the store... WAS EXACTLY THE FUCKING SAME BUT SMALLER. I PULLED OUT MY WATCH, AND THE HANDS WEREN'T MOVING. EVERYBODY FROZE IN PLACE LIKE TIME STOOD STILL BETWEEN THESE AREAS. AND THE WINDOWS WEREN'T SHADED UP SO EVERYBODY IN THE STORE COULD LOOK INTO IT AT THE SHAME. THEY SAW THE UGLY OVERPRICED CLOTHES, THEY SAW THE STERILE INTERIOR, THEY SAW FUCKING EVERYTHING. And to be expected, it was significantly less crowded than its parent store literally 20 or 30 yards away. I could piss and hit the other store wherever I stood, which I considered doing had I not been arrested the last time I did something like that in public.

So was Fitch in fact some Machiavellian tyrant that just stood above the Abercrombie stores going "NONE OF THIS IS GOING TO SELL, WE NEED TO BAR UP THE WINDOWS, DIM THE LIGHTS MORE AND START FEEDING NERVE GAS INTO THE PLACE TO ACTUALLY CONVINCE PEOPLE TO BUY THIS SHIT!" It's like the humble yet shitty stores of Abercrombie were bought out by the Soviets, which made me realize that everybody who bought clothes at Abercrombie were in fact fighting the ever-looming threat of communism. A fucking shame the best people they can recruit to their cause were physically inept hipsters who would eventually abandon them to go inhale more disgusting cologne to get high off of in Abercrombie and Fitch.

Shaken and stirred by this realization I stumbled away from the Abercrombie back past the Abercrombie and Fitch, getting another whiff of that disgusting cologne. My mind raced with more thoughts until I noticed within walking distance was a Hollister that despite being trendy and unique looked exactly the fucking same as every other Hollister store constructed and sold the exact same ugly shit Abercrombie did and Abercrombie and Fitch did, in which case I simply said "You know what, fuck it." and stopped myself before coming up with any other crackpot conspiracy theories. I got on my Pegasus and flew home for the day, which is good because if I took the car I would be stuck in traffic, now I simply flew over it.