Alice Williams and her unhappy life.

This story is about a girl named Alice Williams.

Alice Williams was what one would call "needy." She was also what one would call a whore. She slept around a lot. A lot. One cannot emphasize enough how much she slept around. There was a news story recently about a grandmother who had sex with 200 men in only two years. Now there are two things that need to be said about that. First off, it says a lot about how the standards of men have fallen far enough to be grinding against the pavement to stick their penises into a woman for a sexual experience that also lends itself to the previous metaphor. Secondly, that was the kind of grandmother Alice Williams would be if she lived to be 62 if the myriad of STDs she would've accumulated over the years hadn't killed her at that point. But that was the beauty of three-stooges syndrome on the immune system, so with all those corruptors laying siege on her body all at once, they might somehow kill each other or cancel one another out and avoid striking her with death.
But we wasn't always like this. She used to be such a sweet girl, honestly. It really is a pity. See, Alice Williams was what one would call "a mistake". Her family never had much money, and they already had a son by the time she was born. There wasn't a place for her in the family. She was an outsider to them, and they concentrated their efforts on their intended offspring, Peter. But as time went on, it became more and more apparent to her parents that Peter was a candy-ass and for a lack of a more elegant word, a failure. Oh boy howdy was Peter a failure. Of course so were the parents, as the father was a drop-out who drunkenly knocked his kids from room to room, and the mother was stuck in neurotic blissful wonderland from a staggering amount of antidepressants. But little Alice never stopped trying so hard to please the family that was hardly even aware of her existence. She kept her grades up, was a model student, and despite all the agony she was enduring, a smile hid all of it and people hardly knew. At least they didn't, at first.

"Oy."
"..."
"Hey."
"..."
"Fucking Christ, I'm talking to you." The boy started snapping his fingers.
"...Oh, whoopsie."
"What the Hell are you staring at? The crosswalk's been blinking for a few seconds already, move your ass."
"...Right, thank you."
'What an odd girl,' he thought. Alice had a blank stare on her face as she just looked ahead. She was the kind of girl that while talking to somebody, she'd nod and respond and smile, but simply put, she was not there. It was the kind of blank and empty stare where the gears inside her head were moving and thinking too much to bother reflecting anything on the surface. When the stared at her, he was about 13 or 14 from how she looked. Of course the boy didn't stare long, as it was 110 degrees out and he simply wanted to speed home as quickly as possible. This changed because before he could continue back on his way, he heard a horn blaring behind him. Alice didn't move, she simply stood in the middle of the crosswalk in a daze.
"Oh for the love of..." He ran out into the street, grabbed her hand, and pulled the girl with him onto the street. "Jesus, what the fuck's wrong with you?" She didn't snap from her daze. She just sort of stared at the gangly boy blankly. Alice's complexion was like a mannequin; pale, sterile, but chiseled perfectly. There was almost a falseness about her face that the boy couldn't quite put his finger on. The only real part of her appeared to be a bruise on her temple, one of origin the boy cared not to inquiry. Also like a mannequin, he wouldn't mind seeing her with her clothes being removed like most of us saw in our youths while standing around in the women's department at Sears.
"HEY." he yelled.
"......I dozed off again, didn't I?" Alice snapped back to reality.
"You sure did." The boy pointed at a red car going through the intersection while the driver gave the two children the finger. She trembled a bit while she continued to stand there on the other side of the crosswalk, slowly coming back to herself. The late August heat wasn't being kind to either of them, blowing a stale, hot wind while the dust in the air stuck to their sweat-soaked skin.
"...I don't want to go home." she said, her lifeless glare steadfast.
"Hmm." he grunted. The boy didn't care. His dad just recently abandoned his family while he himself recently took up alcoholic consumption as a pastime. One could assume that patience for somebody else's problems let alone his own wasn't expansive. Maybe his significant other at that point in time, but otherwise nothing.
"Let's go get something to eat." he muttered. Okay, so maybe the boy cared a little. Somebody just zoned out in the middle of the crosswalk and almost got pegged by a car, and as shamelessly apathetic as the boy was, he couldn't simply do nothing. He probably should've, but he didn't because he was a dumb bastard. And so they went to Carl's Junior because it was either that or the Weinerschnizel, and if the boy wanted Alice dead, it would've been a swifter more painless death getting hit by a car than to eat at the Weinerschnizel.
"So your brother's that loser kid Peter, right?" he asked. She nodded while she slowly picked at her fries and ate them individually. "Fuck man, that kid makes me look like a socialite. He's awkward to be around, even for me. And I'm a drunk." She didn't really say anything. She was clearly preoccupied, but appeared to be listening. "Where'd you get that bruise on your head, anyway?" She didn't say anything. She clenched the side of her face and ran them up her forehead through her hair. A throbbing headache persisted in her skull. The boy reached into his pocket and pulled out a prescription bottle and rolled it across the table to her. "Those will probably help." Painkillers, they were. She was getting ready to say something but was stricken with anxiety. A panicked look darted across her face, and she started to silently sob to herself a bit.
"I... I can't stop myself anymore." she whimpered. the boy sighed.
"With...?"
"Some kid at school wouldn't stop leaving me alone. He was kind of hyper and quick and pushy, but everyone thought he was nice. When I went to tell the teachers and the other students about it, they thought I was lying."
"Hmm."
"So he kept harassing me, and he eventually figured out what I did, and..." she paused a bit. It was like something just strangled her throat to cut her off.
"Did you just have a stroke or what?"
"...It's nothing." She was lying. She paused a bit and recollected her bearings. "Do... do you know what it's like to go through your entire life only to feel like nobody's ever noticed that you're even alive?"
"Nope, my life sort of kicks ass." he was lying, too.
"Oh..." her voice grew weak as her breathing got heavier. "I don't know what to do. I don't know how much longer I can keep this up."
"I don't see why you would keep anything up." he said.
"What do you mean?"
"If people don't care about you, why try to keep a facade up and attempt to please them if it's killing you? Seems kind of stupid." She didn't have anything to say to that, because as embittered and poorly-intentioned and exhausted and clearly drunk as the boy might've been, he brought a valid point forth. Maybe he was just trying to shut her up and didn't care about her problems, or maybe he was half-assedly attempting to make an effort. But either way it felt nice for her. It wasn't some teacher's generic pat on the back for good grades or somebody complimenting her on a job well done. It was somebody sitting down with her, talking to her, listening to her, engaging her in conversation. Granted it was a drunken High-Schooler phasing in and out of consciousness due to heatstroke, it was a start.
"...You're a better person than people paint you." Alice said with a slight smile on her face.
"I don't pay attention to how people paint me."
"You come across as sort of an asshole according to some people."
"You don't say."
"There are also rumors where people thought you had something to do with a kid named Charles Finnigan getting set on fire."
"......You don't say." He clearly wasn't coherent any longer. Which was a good time to end the conversation, as the time was getting close to 4pm. If she couldn't beat her father home from work as a part-time manager at the local Rite-Aid, he would beat her in the more violent meaning of the word for getting home late.
"Well, thanks a lot...?" she paused, waiting for him to speak.
"You don't need to know my name." he muttered under his breath.
"Oh..." After all that, she felt honestly a bit hurt. He might've sensed it in her voice, so he slightly changed his answer and he sulkingly pulled himself to his feet.
"You'll probably see me around." After that, he left the shabby fast-food restaurant while Alice just stood there, pondering to herself. Of course she didn't ponder long because she had to make haste back home. She gave her salutations to her mother as she came into the door. Her mother didn't say anything, she simply sat at the dinner table resting her chin on her palm. Alice scampered off into her room and fell on her bed, her head still pounding. She opened up the bottle the boy gave her and saw the white capsules in there. It was like swallowing a piece of chalk when she took it. The pounding in her head started to subside, and she slumped on her bed as her mind began to race. She felt a strange kind of joy in her bleak surroundings after her conversation with the boy. She lied there in her humid room, her body tensing up as her head started to pound again. She began to sweat, and her thoughts began to get more abstract as time went on, as if reacting to the pills she took. She was in a delusional ecstasy before her mind went blank and she seized up, then suddenly became winded and passed out on her bed, the rapid pulsing of her chest acting as a rhythm to listen and fall asleep to.
The following days were not pleasant to her. At school, that creepy freshman boy continued to persist and bother her, and being the unassertive and quivering girl she was, she did nothing to stop him. He kept pushing himself on her and as he got closer and closer, it was something she frequently grew used to. She didn't like it, but having that unnerving student obsess over her was gratifying to her in an odd way. She existed to somebody, regardless of the intentions behind it. Her weak constitution didn't have the heart to bear with the negative intentions behind it, so she simply took it at face value. Of course that didn't matter, there was something else that she was talking to, somebody that seemed to help her despite the incessant, unsettling torture and stalking this creepy freshman boy put her through.

"That's... sad."
"It stinks, it what it is." the boy commented. It was a dead cat on the side of the road Alice and the young man were looking at as they walked home from school.
"...It probably was a cute cat. Just stretched outlying on the side of the road as if it was a sunny porch in the middle of the day."
"I think the stretching is probably rigor mortise." Which was besides the point, of course.
"It probably belonged to somebody. I wonder how the family must feel losing it."
"No idea, but it's just going to be a decomposing pile of nothing in a few weeks anyway."
"...probably. But at least the family will probably remember it."
"Hmm."
"I guess it's insignificant in the grand scheme of things, right? Most people will just see it as roadkill, anyway. Just something to walk by."
"Hmm." As they walked, the girl stopped briefly.
"You know, it's been a while since I've seen that creepy kid..." she said. "Not that I care, but I found it odd that he left me alone."
"He's dead, that's why." the young man said.
"...What?"
"It was on the news a few days ago in the evening. Poor kid burned alive in a pizzeria oven at Frank's."
"Oh good Christ that sounds horrifying."
"He probably had it coming. I didn't like him." he said. Yes, after informing somebody of a heinous murder, the best the young man could come up with was that he deserved it. Alice oddly agreed with him, a perplexedly hateful thing to agree to for her.
"...he wasn't a good person." she nodded. "Although..."
"Although...?"
"It's nothing." She couldn't say it. If she could keep one thing about that, was that as creepy as the boy who died in the tragic pizzeria accident was, she did feel special, in a twisted sort of way. And despite being a very pretty girl, she never felt particularly attractive; she felt as if she was just a piece of scenery that blended itself into the background of the school. But with the dead boy and the infrequent bouts of randomly finding her new friend, she started to feel empty again. She began warming up to the idea of people pining over her. Over time she started to assert herself more in what she wore, as if to tempt fate more than she already had at that point. Her jeans went to shorts that could mistakenly get shorter whenever you looked at them, and dress shirts went to looser-fitting tops. Her hair went from tied up and out of the way to being let down. And people started to take notice. It put a smile on her face. And with this, she decided to do something the next time she got an opportunity. That one person that was sitting on her mind frequently that reminded her of the void in her that kept growing. Perhaps he could stop it from growing any further. Which luck eventually had it in for her, and in her pounding empty head she recognized somebody on her way home after school one day.

"Um... hi." she squeaked out.
"Oh, it's you." the young man said. "It's been a while. A couple of weeks, I think?"
"Do you have a minute?" she asked, her knees swaying back and forth as they stood waiting at the crosswalk.
"Uh sort of I guess, why?" She tried to talk, but nothing came out of her mouth. She felt as if she was sweating and her face was heating up.
"Do you think we can go get something to eat?"
"Uh sure."
"Um..." she was recollecting herself. "At somewhere nicer, perhaps?" She angled a sunhat she was wearing downward a bit to avoid making eye contact. The young man was dense. And drunk. Predominantly drunk, as it took him a while to actually catch on to what she was getting at.
"...Oh. OH. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh dear." He was flustered. Not angry, but flustered in an uncomfortable bashful sense. Alice was caught off guard by this. She unnerved a drunkard with a usually flat disposition and had him shuffling about awkwardly like a child who needed to use the bathroom.
"W-w-what...?" she stammered out, equally uncomfortable.
"Fucking Hell, I don't like where this is going..." he muttered to himself.
"What?"
"I err uhh well I uh..." He turned around. He sighed. "Sorry."
"What?" She couldn't hear him.
"I said I'm sorry." he muttered. Alice's chest seized up. "There's som--"
"NO!" she grabbed him and turned him around. He was looking away from her as she began to cry. "I DON'T WANT TO HEAR NO AS AN ANSWER!"
"But I'm i--"
"YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE IN THIS AWFUL PLACE THAT TREATS ME LIKE A PERSON! YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE WHO IS ACTUALLY AWARE THAT I EXIST! YOU'RE ONE OF THE ONLY REASONS HERE THAT I HAVEN'T LOST MY MIND YET!" She was in hysterics. She felt like the one line she had tied to reality was starting to disappear.
"Fuck, can't I just be a friend?"
"I DON'T NEED A FRIEND, I NEED SOMEBODY TELL ME THAT I MEAN SOMETHING, THAT THEY'RE COMMITTED TO ME! I WANT TO BE NEEDED, DAMMIT! I WANT TO COMPLETE SOMEBODY!"
"Jesus fucking Christ." The young man was exasperated. "If you honestly want a relationship, you could probably do a Hell of a lot better than somebody like me, anyway." Of course this only infuriated her more.
"WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT MY STANDARDS, THEN? THAT THEY'RE LO--" She paused and stumbled a bit. She clenched her head and fell to her knees. Her migraines were coming back again. The boy walked over and started digging through his backpack. He pulled out another bag of pills and set it in front of her.
"There isn't much in there, but they should help for a bit." Her face grew red with anger.
"YOU FUCKING BASTARD!" And she stormed off. Then she awkwardly walked back, muttered "Thank you..." and grabbed the pills and stormed back off again. The young man let out a sigh and slumped against a fence on the street. Somebody approached him and he looked up at a blonde girl staring at him on the ground.
"...You saw the whole thing, didn't you?" he painfully asked.
"Yes."
"I think I upset her a lot."
"Probably."
"...You don't want me to do a damn thing about it, do you?"
"Seems dangerous to involve yourself any further."
"Noted." he muttered.
And the short blonde girl was right. Alice's psychosis wasn't particularly stable after that. "Loose" would be a good word to use if one were to include the vulgar context of the word at that point. She felt she wasn't good enough for the young man. The blithering drunk with a sad grip on life, she wasn't even good enough for him. The one person she managed to connect to didn't want to take her, and this played tricks on her mind. Her head never felt so bloated and painful yet so vastly empty. When she got home, in tears and stumbling to keep her composure, her family didn't notice. Her father was too busy beating the shit out of Peter for failing so much in his first trimester report card. She got straight As, on that note. She went up into her room and lied back down on her bed as she stared at the ceiling.
"I want to be good enough for somebody." were all the words that left her mouth before she passed out and went to sleep.

And now it was the start of the third trimester. It was mid February, and to Alice, nothing of note occurred between then and now. Her head still felt empty, and she couldn't remember a single thing or memorable person in the past five or six months. That was probably for the best. As the bell rang, she stood up and made her way out of fourth period and began the walk home from school. She waited at the crosswalk, and there beside her without her noticing, was the young man that she hadn't really talked to in a very long time. At least not since that last incident. He was taller. And still sort of ugly. And he still had that malaised look in his eye.
"...You're a bastard." she said.
"I thought I was a fucking bastard."
"Hmm."
"Speaking of fucking..." he continued to look forward. "There've been a lot of unsavory rumors about you going around the school, you know."
"I know."
"...You should probably fix that."
"I don't see the point."
"That's concerning."
"I. Just. Really. Don't. Care." Each pause punctuated her words.
"Hmm." He paused and waited for the crosswalk to change. "I care. If that means anything."
"...It doesn't." She was lying. That time he knew it. He noticed her looking away the moment she said it. His abuse of alcohol at this point allowed him to maintain some level of self-awareness. There was more awkward silence between the two. Until one of them made an attempt to speak up.
"So uh what have you been up to?" she inquired.
"I tried killing myself recently." the boy said.
"...Oh."
"If you asked me how it went, I might have to hit you." She didn't. Not just because she was certain that he'd follow through with a threat like that, either. For a brief moment, it gave her a glance into herself. She just assumed that the boy didn't lead a particularly happy life but she never legitimately inquired about it. It filled her with anxiety. Her mind immediately went into denial. She looked away the entire time the two crossed the street. Something her head went off while she walked. Did she snap? Did she go crazy? Did she have an epiphany. She wasn't entirely sure herself. The only thing she thought of was what to do. Alice grabbed the young man's hand.
"Follow me."
"Wait what?"
"Shut up, just follow me." She led him back to her house. It was empty save her mother, which meant it was empty. The young man felt the same way he felt back home, which was rather unpleasant for him. He didn't have time to think though, he was shoved into Alice Williams' tiny little room as she closed the door behind them. Her room was small. Almost cozy, even.
"Isn't your mother here?" the young man asked while Alice began to undress him on the bed.
"She won't even notice." she responded.
"Isn't your father a fucking nutcase?"
"He got kicked out and is staying at my uncle's across town."
"What about your brother?"
"I think he's probably going to kill himself pretty soon, he's been mumbling about Richard Tory again."
"Shouldn't you stop that? I mean I know him as a sniveling little shit, but he IS your brother."
"That's what he is. I can't do anything to stop him, he doesn't listen to anybody anymore."
"Hmm. Well, you cou--" he was cut off when Alice pressed her mouth against his. Alice didn't know why he wasn't stopping her this time. This was the first time she actually took note of this. But she frankly didn't care, because here he was. And he stayed with her for the rest of the night. Frankly it was exhausting, but for the only night in her brief life she did not listen to the vacuous woman thoughts in her head. In the back of her head,she knew this wasn't going to last, but she frankly didn't care. When she awoke the following morning, the young man was sitting at the foot of the bed. It was about 5am.
"I heard somebody pacing around a lot out the door."
"Hmm?"
"I don't sleep well with people moving about." he said.
"It's probably Peter. He probably shouldn't be up this early."
"I've heard him muttering bad things. Then he went back to bed." He stopped speaking for a bit. "You know if your dad has any guns?"
"Uh... yeah. In his closet he has a hunting rifle and a pistol."
"...Mind if I borrow one just in case he snaps? He was saying some pretty crazy shit when he was pacing around."
"Alright." The boy got up and left Alice's room briefly and came back with the hunting rifle.
"Your mother sleeps like a sedated wildebeest. I don't even think she noticed me walking into the bedroom."
"One more time." she said.
"...We have school in a few hours, we should really go back to sleep."
"Aren't you late almost every single day?"
"...Touche."
"So......"
"I can't feel my legs already as it is."
"Please?" she asked. This felt like a dagger in the young man's heart, and he sighed.
"I'm going to be too tired to move after all of this." She smirked a bit.
They stopped briefly. They heard the clicking of a gun from the hallway. There was a bit of silence, but then they heard the front door slam.
"...That's not good." he muttered.
"My head hurts again." Alice clutched her face and pulled her covers over herself.
"You have nobody to blame but yourself." He dug into his backpack and pulled out more pills. "That's the last I can give you. My doctor's probably wondering where the Hell they're all going." He got dressed, stumbled a bit, a picked up the small hunting rifle.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"...to keep an eye on your brother. I can't guarantee that I'll be back later." With that, he nodded and left while she just sat in her bed. She didn't take the pills. She shoved them into her drawer for later and went back to sleep. When she awoke, there were police officers and such in her house, talking to her mother. She overheard what had happened at the school. Her brother was no longer alive. They said a single shot to the chest killed him while he was shooting up the school. They don't know who shot him or where he disappeared off to. They said the streets and roads were barren that morning, so there were no witnesses to the possible attacker who stopped Peter. Alice sat in bed and then proceeded to not hear a thing. When she finally got up, she knew that she probably wouldn't see him for a while.

A while turned to about 8 months. It was the end of October now. She didn't pay attention or notice anything anymore. That big empty void became larger since then. Her father finally left, and her mother simply sits at home all die while living off of money that Alice's father sends her. Nothing changed in the absence of her brother. She was still nothing more than a phantom or an object to people. She one day went into the Carls Junior and ordered something to eat. She looked in the corner of the dingy fast-food joint there he was. Nothing about his appearance had changed. Except that he was taller. Again. When he looked up, there she was, sitting down in front of him.
"Hello." she said. There was a vague bit of enthusiasm that permeated the flatness of her voice.
"You realize that this is probably the last time you'll see me again, right?" He said while eating. She paused a bit.
"...Yeah I sort of got that feeling."
"I'm moving."
"Where to?"
"Don't know, honestly."
"Why?"
"Getting evicted."
"...Oh."
"Yeah." She had nothing to say. She wanted to feel something. She couldn't, though. He then pulled out an envelope and handed it to her.
"But I still have the ones you gave me from before." she said.
"This is different." he stated. "Open it later when you need it." She took it and placed it in her coat pocket.
"...You're a good friend and a good person." Alice said.
"I'm really not." the young man muttered. "I'm really... really not."
"Maybe objectively you aren't," she began, "But I guess my standards are just low then, aren't they?" He laughed a bit.
"Alright fine, I'll settle for that." He stood up and shook his tray off into the garbage, and walked back over to her booth. She stood up to meet him. He hugged her.
"Good luck." he said. "You're going to need it." As he began to walk away, he heard her tiny voice say something.
"Don't leave." Her pitch was flat. "Who's going to help me now?"
"Learn to stand on your own. I sure as Hell know it's not easy, but it has to be done."
"...if I can't?"
"Well, that's it then, isn't it?" He laughed, and walked out. That really was the last time she saw him. Her face was cold, and like a drone she went on for the rest of the week in a lifeless daze. Her head started pounding again. She lied on her bed and she couldn't think. She eventually went into her drawer and saw the pills that the young man left her several months ago. Alice grabbed all of them and with a bottle of water washed them all down. She stumbled through her room to her door, and went outside to help clear her head. The pills weren't enough. Her head felt as if it was being lifted from her body, and her coordination faltered. She went rummaging through her coat and got out the small envelope hoping there was more. When she opened it, there wasn't anything in there except a note. She opened it and only a single word was on it.
"......Did I honestly never get his name?" she spit out, her speech starting to slur. She started to laugh a bit. Or at least she tried to, her mouth decided to stop working. Then her legs decided to stop working. When she fell over, her head smacked the side of street curb and she hit the ground. Her mind began to go blank again. The great big void inside of it seemed to have finally won. She thought for a bit about where she was and what she was doing and why, but what was left of her mind succumbed and was finally enveloped, and that was it for Alice.

I highly doubt discussing Japanese cartoons will get me laid.

Human beings are sexual creatures. Most normal people probably wouldn't want to imagine a life without any kind of sexuality involved. Unless you're Catholic, where then sex is done strictly for the purpose of pumping out 15 children who you want to raise to be either religious zealots or rebellious atheists that you extradited from your family. But the fact of the matter is, human sexuality is often a very important facet of the human condition, and one can only benefit from seeking to explore and indulge in it.

That being said, one can delve too much into it and uncover... off-kilter things. I for one would like to think of myself as a very sexual person despite being a rape victim. YES ALL THOSE STORIES WERE TRUE. ...ISH. I HAVE BEEN SODOMIZED SO MANY TIMES THAT I NEED AN ANAL PLUG TO KEEP MYSELF FROM SHITTING WHERE I STAND WITHOUT DISCRETION LIKE CATTLE. But yes given all the traumatizing sodomy, I see no problems with exploring the deepest and darkest depth of sex, self-pleasure, pornography, and fetishes. One can even say that it's a hobby of mine. Makes for great discussions at parties. Man, I can tell you that I've worked my crank to a lot of things. And as I grew bored with more standard things, my interests eventually drifted into more... questionable territories.

One of them happened to be hentai. WHAT? You're surprised that the weeaboo obsessed with anime and manga would be fingering his prostate to cartoons? ......You aren't? WELL FUCK YOU ANYWAY. Now as a desperate attempt to halt my raging libido, I've tried to get it down to more and more disturbing things. Eventually I grew interested in hentai and H-manga because, well, they're fucking hilarious. Or hilariously, if you want to be grammatically correct and clever. I'm serious. You want a laugh? Read h-manga and doujins. I get a good laugh off and I get something else off. The only unfortunate side-effect is comedy now gets me erect, which makes for awkward situations at school if somebody says a funny joke.

Now with that out of the way... hilarious in what way, you ask? What, you didn't ask? Shut the fuck up, that's besides the point. There are some odd tropes and hilarious lessons one can take from all of these, not just about perceptions of sexuality from a bunch of virgin cartoonists drawing pornography for a living, but about humanity over ideas of sexuality in general. So it's time to let the glorious nippon edumacate us in the ways of fucking women until their canals prolapse. SPEAKING OF THAT, OUR FIRST BULLETPOINT.

#1 - Advancing The Art of Dirty Talk

Read all of it. ALL OF IT UNTIL IT HURTS.

I don't know if the scanlators just have a sense of humor or if they're translating these things verbatim, but man they manage to get pretty creative when they're writing the uh err um "dialogue" to some of the more compelling scenes of interest.

Now let's get something straight here: I have not had sex in a very long time. I had sex once, and it was terrible and awkward and I was drunk and ugly and she was desperate and lonely, and because of how naive I was I freaked out and went "OH MY GOD DID I STAB YOU OR STICK IN THE WRONG HOLE, WHY IS THERE SO MUCH BLOOD?", so needless to say it wasn't a pristine experience to have for your first time. But even I as a prudish and modest individual who's watched a lot of smut can know how contrived some of the "writing" can be in scripted pornography.

Yet nothing can touch what these bottomless wells of vulgar vocabulary knowledge come up with. It gets so ridiculous what words they manage to work into these disgusting comic books, when they manage to take their pristine and undirtied arms, and with their hands in the shape of a cone gently push into the sphincter and enter the ass of the human language, and work themselves far up the rectum to grasp the dirtiest and foulest of words that not even the most shameless writers would touch, and then take the shit in their hands and smear the prose onto paper, as if to titillate and arouse the reader while taking in the visual spectacle of a woman reaching into her ass to give her loved one a handjob while he plows her relentlessly, because that's what true love is.

Maybe I'm just a prude or something. I'm an English major, I could probably come up with some pretty clever things to say while I fuck a woman, but whether or not that it's actually arousing is up to question. I can appreciate some dirty talk, but if a woman asked me to flood her birth tunnels with my primordial man-ooze, I'd probably pull out, get dressed, leave the room, burn her house down, and wear 20 condoms the next time I ever have sex with another woman. If I ever decided to have sex with another woman after being verbally raped into impotence with a single sentence like that.

#2 - Japanese Fetishes: Not As Questionable If You Think About It

OH GOD WHY DOES THIS EXIST AND WHERE CAN I GET IT?

Speaking of rectal handjobs and such, Japan has some weird fetishes, doesn't it? I mean, fetishes are normal. Having a special kind of kink isn't a problem. Well, it's a problem if it's morally reprehensible or it ends with you in jail on the business end of Bubba the prison sodomizer, who coincidentally shares the name with every other rapist in prison that sodomizes you in your sleep.

Now with Japan, it explores every dark and sinister corner of sexuality that you could possibly imagine, and then it explores dark and sinister corners of sexuality that were originally beyond your capacity to imagine until Japan introduced you to it and shifted your outlook human sexuality for the worse forever. And why is this, exactly? Because if Japan can imagine it, then you damn well better expect that it's a fetish and that somebody's creaming their jeans over it. As great and wonderful and amazing and beautiful and hairy as Japanese porn may be, the industry for hentai and h-manga is fucking enormous. And it's entirely fictional, meaning that the basic concept of human anatomy and reactionary psychology has been removed from the setting and now people can jerk off to whatever the Hell their minds desire. Massive orgies? Absolutely, there's a fetish for that. Sex in public without any precautions while most people are blatantly unaware? Sure. Rape? Lots of it for some disturbing reason, because I guess being emotionally broken and robbed of your dignity is supposed to be arousing, but it isn't. It might be funny, but it isn't arousing. Incest? Gross, but it's there if you need it. People being eaten? Uh, that's kind of strange but okay. Tentacles? Sweet Jesus how anybody can enjoy that is beyond me, but what the hell why not? Uh inanimate objects? If you watched the video above this, then you already know the answer to that. Eldritch Abominations comprised purely out of breasts and orifices that looked like a pornography editor was bored with photoshop? Merciful Christ it should be illegal, but go for it, sure. Well, rape is illegal but you can see it drawn, but surely they can't allow things li--

This is the most worksafe image I felt like posting that drove my point across the best.

Ah, lolicon. How I'm publicly appalled but privately enjoying the disgusting things you unleash on this world. Yes folks, while it's completely illegal to depict minors in any sort of sexual relations in media because of the irreparable damage to a pedophile's psychology from being interested in children, it's entirely fine if they're fictional because the children don't exist and can't be harmed. I mean, I just want to think about what the artists are actually thinking when they draw this. Psychologically, it would be interesting yet terribly disturbing to see the uh err creative process taking place while they concoct these horrors to release upon the world.

So given all that, why is it "Not As Questionable If You Think About It"? Because in America for comparison, it isn't fictional. A lot of people don't get off to cartoons or imaginary things. Unless they're furries; furries are more prevalent than I'm comfortable knowing about. Just had to give a nod to them, but you get my point. They get off to real people doing these things. And a lot of these disgusting things I've described, yeah they exist. And there are poor souls out there who are desperate and sick enough to do them, as long as they're within the realms of physical probability. Want to see somebody mutilated or eat shit, drink piss, or bang a fat person? There are a lot of videos of terrible awful people doing it. Legality isn't an issue here; if it gets people off, they'll find a way to do it without being caught, which is the disturbing reality of it all. Much like Bubba the prison sodomizer, somebody who takes his fetish very seriously, as long as he sedates his pleasures he doesn't really care who he gave an anal fissure to after he's done pleasing himself.

I wish I could be as nonchalant about accepting something like that.

That much is true about the above; when it's fictional, at the very least they aren't hurting anybody or forcing somebody to be the victim of some depraved sexual act just so you can get your rocks off. Things like this really hit home when you ask whether lolicon or actual vanning material is worse, and realize that some redneck in the darkest murkiest swamps of Virginia is banging his daughter/grandaughter that he fathered with his daughter and suddenly the herpderpincest becomes slightly less funny. But still a bit funny, because people like laughing at rednecks being pathetic disgusting imbreds. HA HA, REDNECKS.

#3 - Lessons in sexual anatomy, as taught by class-act illustrators.

"I... I didn't know the body could do that."

Because it can't.

I think one of the most hilarious tropes that hentai and h-manga tends to fall under are the inhumane capabilities the body apparently has involving sex. I know people like to fantasize about improbable things, but sex should not be one of them. Because frankly anything you try to imagine or fantasize about is disgusting. Seriously, stop it you sick bastards. You can have fantasies, and despite the moniker you should keep them in the realm of slim possibility. That threeway with two Asian twins? Unlikely, but possible. Making a woman orgasm 5 times during sex? Unlikely, but possible. Fucking a woman with your 15-inch penis and ejaculating so hard that she flies off like a bottlerocket? No, cease immediately.

Now much like sex, writing an article becomes more difficult to put the effort into the longer it goes on, and eventually I just sort of stop paying attention until I'm finished. There's far too much to cover regarding this particular lesson, mainly because anybody who's ever been written into a doujin or h-manga is a superhero whose illogical sex drive is only matched by the "arousing" dialogue and "plot" that's customary to these stories. In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was some kind of comic book-esque hero associated with something li--

He's like my personal idol.

...Huh, fascinating. Now as interesting as a man writing wrongs through penetration is, it gets more ridiculous. If you didn't gauge from the whole "rectal handjob while fucking" comment, Japan... doesn't seem to understand anatomy or human psychology particularly well. I think one of the most common tropes here is that the smaller and meeker and more feminine of a boy one is, the larger his penis must be. When some assertive woman (read: NOT A RAPIST, RIGHT?) manages to force herself upon this defenseless child to steal his virginity, apparently he's hiding what looks like a horse's amputated leg in his pants. He is in actuality Thor, God of Thunder. And his penis is Mjollnir, hammer of righteous fury. And the woman's vagina is a frost giant that needs to be stricken down with swift vengeance. Again, riddled with irony and obvious projections, not just because Japan wishes that its Gods were as cool as the Norse. But also probably because Japan's filled to the brim with afeminine manboys and overweight lonely manchildren while the country is ranked down with some of the smallest national average penis sizes. It's true, because fucking science tells us.

We can also liken this to Asian women, who generally tend to be somewhat on the petite side generally. But regardless of how large breasts can be on a woman, every character in these stories either amounts to having two volleyballs being supported by a frame with less structural integrity than a book spine, or they have no chest at all while being three feet tall, and if you even pull your penis out or adjust yourself while looking at this, you're now officially a pedophile. I mean, I like big titties as much as the next guy, but they can only be so large on a woman because you have that terrible realization that you're infatuated with bags of fat on somebody's chest and then you go for number two and then you end up with 15 gigs of loli on your computer and dismantling your harddrive before the police arrive.

Now when a regular man orgasms, a little bit of sticky fluid comes out, he coughs, he rolls over, and then he passes out. That's the way it works. It's called a refractory period. Unless you're in one of these stories, in which case your stones despite being as large as anybody else's actually breaks into some pocket in space-time to store semen, your ejaculate is large and powerful enough to end the drought in California, and sex is only a quarter of the way done because UNLESS YOU ORGASM FOUR TIMES, YOU'RE A GOD-DAMN LOSER. Maybe their scrotums are just there to fool predators, and they've actually evolved so that their asses are actually giant testicles. That would explain it perfectly. Although they're probably firing blanks because there's a suspicious absence of condoms in most sexual encounters in these stories. Despite the fact that a woman's cup often runneth over in these things, hardly any pregnancies or children at all. Which is odd considering that in these h-mangas they'll fuck anything that moves, including but not limited to children. I guess it's alright because women in these stories are apparently barren. But oddly enough if we were to look at the data, I suppose that's the only thing h-manga gets right, isn't it?

#4 - Talented People Work In This Industry And Occasionally Get Out

Making it big, right?

The illustrator if this is Noizi Ito. She's the illustrator for the Haruhi light novels, and she's the artist for Shakugan no Shana. If you don't know, those are franchises in Japan that are fucking titanic. And not tragic "IT'S SINKING" titanic, but monster franchises with millions of fans not just Japan, but even in places like America. And her art style is very easily recognizable among the weeaboo nerd audience. I even considered buying an artbook of hers at a convention. She also draws things like this.

Captain Falcon: protecting the delicate minds of children like a true hero.

One of the more famous anime illustrators in Japan got her start working on h-manga and adult VNs, who would've guessed? Now this is a lot more common than you think, actually. Yuna Kagesaki is actually moderately well-known for her manga series Karen (or Chibi Vampire for you American slobs), and a personal favorite of mine, AiON. ...Yeah she drew smut for living, too. He Is My Master is a trashy harem manga and the original artist left, so now the writer might possibly recruit a renowned doujin/h-manga artist who coincidentally enough has drawn adult doujin works of said manga. That just seems like a lucky break.

I mean the simple fact is, plot in the anime/manga industry doesn't always sell. Pornography always sells. No matter what, no matter where. Granted it's the equivalent of a porn actor or actress trying to break into serious film or stage-performing, it does happen. And it's a genuine pity to see a lot of genuinely talented artists forced to peddle smut to get out in the spotlight and make a living. It's frustrating, even.

Or maybe it isn't, and they enjoy drawing people fucking because heaven knows that they probably aren't. I'd just occasionally prefer if they weren't fucking in space while using nuclear jizz to power their rockets with dicks the size of I-beams and zero-gravity chests resembling two Volkswagen Beetles. All while reciting lines that sounded like William Shakespeare dropped the double entendres and finally wrote an Aristocrats joke.

A questionable lesson in sexual anatomy.

Have I ever told you folks about the time I became a woman? What? You mean pretending to be a woman on the internet? Silly boys, that doesn't count at all. I mean an actual woman, with a vagina and breasts and large areolas and everything. I was once a woman, and I have to tell you, I'm glad I'm not anymore. That shit was horrifying, and I never want it to happen again. At least well, if I change back to a woman, I don't want to regain my virginity. That would be painful and awkward. But right, I was once a woman and it sucked ass.

I woke up one morning and I found it awkward trying to roll over. I thought I was crushing Puff Puff, our cat, again. And I averted from using another word for "cat" that I could possibly twist into a sexual play on words, but fuck you I'm not clever enough to work that into a joke. But right, I randomly wake up and a pair of funbags made it hurt to sleep on my stomach like I'm usually accustomed to. Of course it was 6am and I was hungover and got four hours of sleep, so a question like "Where did these titties come from?" didn't immediately pop into my head. I ate breakfast and got into the shower, where after my brother stole all the hot water, the freezing water woke me up to realize the situation that I was in. To realize that my, a man's most treasured and defining possession, was not with me in the shower. But then I remembered that I left lemon-scented bodywash in the other bathroom and noticed that my penis was missing.

"SHIT, WHERE THE FUCK DID MY PENIS GO?" I shouted in a screeching high voice. "SHIT, WHERE THE FUCK DID MY MANLY VOICE GO?" That wasn't a good idea either, since I might've called it to attention of my torturous relatives that I was living with. But indeed, my penis was missing and my chainsmoking manly voice left along with it. Apparently my privates crawled into my body and my testicles climbed up into my chest cavity and grew into breasts. What? That's not how anatomy works? Well shut the fuck up, I don't need you telling me that. I was freaking the hell out over becoming a woman, I was panicked. During that shower, I looked at myself for a while. My long, ugly-ass hair now actually worked, I was no longer a hairy gorilla, and my scrawny, short stature now seemed somewhat normal and no longer out of place. This was before my growth spurt, mind you; I was probably no taller than five-and-a-half feet and probably weighed no more than 110 pounds when I was a sophomore in High School. This was a great time to turn into a woman considering my stature. That can't happen now, since being a six-foot-three-inch woman would've been creepy as shit.

Now a lot of men often have the same question for this situation; if you became a woman, what would be the first thing you would do? So I played with my breasts and got off with the shower nozzle enough times that I had trouble standing, then I decided to get ready for school. Getting dressed was made exceptionally difficult when you can't feel your legs. And when you don't have woman's clothing, like frilly panties and bras and what have you. Thankfully that wasn't the case, as I kept some of those things around for when I'm bored and feel like crossdressing, but now this time they're being used for normal purposes, which is strange because now I felt sexy but without that niggling sense of shame.

Since I was an asocial faggot who never talked to anybody and didn't have friends, only one person noticed my change in sexuality at school that day, and that was my girlfriend. And frankly she was confused by the development.

"...How did this happen?" she asked.
"I don't know, I just woke up and I was like that."
"...You didn't piss anybody off, did you?"
"What, me? Of course not."

Actually I might've pissed off a wizard, but that's beyond the point.

"How do you go back to normal?" she asked.
"I don't fucking know."
"Go back to normal."
"No, I like being a woman."
"I'm not a lesbian, go back to normal."
"What, did you love me only for my body? WHY SHOULD IT MATTER?"

What a bitch. I think she was jealous that my breasts were larger than hers, but perhaps she was right. I haven't fully grasped how a woman's body functions, and I'll certainly start missing my penis eventually.

"I think the only drawback here is that I miss my penis." I said.
"I could imagine."
"It was such a magnificent penis."
"Ehhhhhhhhhhh."
"WELL FUCK YOU, TOO."

Not literally since I couldn't, but metaphorically. I would metaphorically fuck her with my mouth penis and ejaculate words of malice in her general direction. But frankly it was more insulting to go the entire day without people so much as noticing that there was a new girl in class, but I guess I'm just that transparent.

The only other event worth noticing occurred on my way home. I typically cut through a street and a baseball field on my way home if I choose not to go through the shopping district, which was a lot, and which was also today by happenstance. Also by happenstance there was a sleazy boy named Dave from my school walking home down this road. I apparently caught his eye. He asked me how my day was going, I ignored him to the best of my ability. It was 110 out, I was too hot to hold conversation. Literally in three senses. The weather was unbearable, I was drop-dead sexy and out of his league, and I think I was having a hot flash. I wanted to get home, sweat some more, flick the bean more, then go to sleep and contemplate what to do. He was being a creeper. As he walked behind me, he made a grab for my ass. I let out a yelp like a dog, pulled out my boxcutter, and turned around to jam it into his throat. a massive horizontal flap spraying blood out got my face dirty and diluded the sweat. I put the knife in further, got my hand in there and proceeded to dig out his throat while he gasped and wailed for dear life. I'm sorry Dave, I can't hear you particularly well over all the, well, blood. While he stumbled back, head barely hanging on by pieces of string and a spine, I grabbed his arm that he groped me with and snapped it on my knee. I heard his exasperated breathing get worse, then I kicked him into a bush and walked home, rather pleased to know that my capabilities for manslaughter weren't diminished by a lack of testosterone.

When I got home, I peeled my clothes off and showered again to get all the disgusting sweat to leave my body, then I penetrated myself with a bottle of hairspray since it was the only penis-shaped object in the house, but it hurt like Hell because of a lack of lubrication and I unknowingly took my own virginity. Knowing this pain would not at all play out in sympathy when I eventually take my girlfriend's virginity months later.

I don't know if I was irritable from the heat or lack of sleep or because I'm bleeding internally due to my period or taking my own virginity, but I really just wanted to go to sleep. I was also drinking, and my alcohol tolerance seemed to improve since I was essentially my mother at this point. Maybe the reason my breasts were so large was because I had a pair of extra livers growing in them, I don't know. While I drank, I got to eat a delicious TV dinner filled with asbestos and cancer, which was akin to eating at Carls Jr. during a Health Inspector strike. When I got into bed, I had trouble going to sleep because having two gelatinous masses suddenly growing out of your chest ends up being a peculiar issue to adjust your sleeping habits to. After I passed out, I woke up the following morning, and lo and behold, everything was back to normal. I didn't know if anything of yesterday's events had actually occurred or if I was just seriously tripping for an entire day.

"So you're back to normal." My girlfriend greeted me in the morning on our way to school.
"...Wait, all that actually happened?" I inquired.
"All what happened? You were sick yesterday."
"Oh. Well yeah, I guess I'm fine now. I think."
"Good."
"Wait what were doing yesterday?"
"Walked home, somebody found Dave Hueley murdered in the bushes."
"...You don't say."
"A pity."
"Anything else of significance?" I asked. She paused and looked at me.

"Oh, I also beat up a wizard."

I'm just a little misguided, but my intentions are good.

Before I was a pussy who couldn't talk to women. Then I started watching Johnny Bravo. I learned everything I could from Johnny Bravo about how to court a woman. The following day I walked into class, and I caught the eyes of all the women in there. I got those tarts so damp that the humidity in the room increased. Fuck year. I was dressed in skin-tight leather so whenever I made sudden movements, you could hear whiplashes. I had a pompadour so large and phallic that it would get caught on the doorway if I didn't duck. It was gelled to be hard enough to be used as a weapon. I could literally headbutt a woman into orgasming with my hair. I was injected with enough steroids to buff up that I'm surprised my penis and testicles still legally existed.

I sit down, and all the women want to sit next to me. "Hang on, ladies, there's enough of me to go around," I say. That didn't stop them. Even the teacher couldn't keep her eyes off of me. She ordered all of the boys except me out of the classroom. I smiled. I knew what was going to happen. Except I didn't, and they all tied me down and force-fed me viagra and had sex marathons with me for 10 hours without stopping. Woman after woman after woman treated me like nothing more than an object, a plaything. I was exhausted, dehydrated, and my manhood was worked raw as I cried pitifully, covered in all manner of fluids and materials as they left me over night. My psychosis began to slowly slip into oblivion as I contemplated life. About how I wondered where everything went wrong. About how I was just mercilessly tortured for hours on end by those vile succubi. I eventually worked my wrists raw and bloody to get myself untied and escaped the classroom. The only thought that crossed my blank mind was "Shit, I feel sorry for the janitor when he comes in tomorrow morning."

I go home and sleep as if nothing had happened. I stood by my teaching of Johnny Bravo, but now this time for vengeance. When I left, I would drive by lone women on the streets. They would swoon over me. I would offer them a ride, and they willingly accepted. What happened I will not describe. You do not deserve to have that brought up on you. But those women, I learned they all couldn't be trusted. I would humiliate them, torture them, and eventually my psychosis slipped into murder. The first victim was a young brunette on the 28th. She had a nice smile. I cut her a nicer one.

Eventually I was having intercourse with a woman I picked up in my car. Eventually I started getting rougher, then I started crying profusely shouting why Mama doesn't see me as an adult, so I started strangling her there. I choked the life out of that bitch. I crushed her dainty throat with my pulsating muscles, my sunglasses showing no inflection. That girl only saw herself looking back in horror as I squeezed the last breathes of life from her. I stopped and started crying at what I had become. Then I realized, I realized that all my indignant fury was misplaced. The real man who was responsible for the monster that had been created... was Johnny Bravo. And by extension, Seth MacFarlane. I realized what I had to do. I was to kill Seth Macfarlane for what he's done. This went beyond what he did with the fourth season of Family Guy. This was personal.

Of course being lost in rage, I didn't know what Seth MacFarlane looked like, so when I flew to Connecticut, I started killing indiscriminately, hoping one of them would be him. Now I'm a convicted sex offender and serial killer who's murdered 23 people.

This is why cartoons are bad influences on children.

Fuck starving children, I can't find my car keys.

So I recall somebody at school in one of my classes that complained about being overweight a lot. It was irritating. Now don't get me wrong; if I was that fat, I would probably be complaining a lot, too. I'd be complaining about how I have to spend twice as much on airfare and my grocery bills. I'd complain about the fact that I smell like I have several rotting corpses of all my small animals that went missing hiding somewhere inside the gelatinous mass of flesh that at one point used to be identified as a human body. I would complain that many compact cars' shocks aren't designed with the "modern man" in mind anymore. I would complain about my inability to complain for long periods of time without becoming winded. Then I would have the courtesy to die and make the world a better place. It would probably make it smell better, too.

I also have a strong aversion to scrawny people who are anorexic or bulimic. In fact, I could probably say that I dislike them more than fat people. Most fat people are jolly, like Santa Claus. Santa Claus is nice, everybody likes Santa Claus. But if Santa Claus was light enough to be caught in a serious tailwind, then that wonderful imagery just really wouldn't mean as much. Sure, we would get twice as much toys since his fatass wouldn't be dampening his load, but it just wouldn't be the same. There are perfectly acceptable reasons for being severely underweight or overweight, like metabolism problems (Hi there). But the people who actually have the indecency to call things like this a disease are akin to rich people who willingly make themselves homeless and then complain about the rats chewing on their scrotums in their sleep and how their box doesn't have any insulation.

I know these are legitimate problems in America, and I know all of us might have loved ones or friends currently afflicted with these... problems. But take a second, and I really want you all to think about the implications here. Think long and hard. Think about how we're in a world where there are third-world countries plagued by famine, with people literally starving to death from lack of food. Then look at our country. There are people in our country, who are dying... BECAUSE THEY EAT TOO FUCKING MUCH. THERE ARE PEOPLE DYING BECAUSE THEY ARE DENYING THEMSELVES THE RIGHT TO EAT, TO ABSORB NUTRITION INTO THEIR SYSTEMS, THEY'RE KILLING THEMSELVES OVER IT. AND YOU WONDER WHY THE REST OF THE WORLD FUCKING HATES US. Of course the countries starving to death probably don't have any education,either, so they also probably think slavery still exists in America, which it does but we're now just using Latinos who volunteer for shitty pay instead. But that's besides the point.

I'd really like to go to some impoverished country in Africa (you won't have to go far) so I could sit down with the children, and try to explain this concept to them. Well, I would have to convince them that I'm not going to kidnap and sell them first, then I would try to explain this concept to them. For a group of people who are trying to get by on elephant piss and dirt everyday, they'll probably look at me like I've lost my fucking mind.

"Did you know? That in America, people can actually die from eating TOO much."
"You're lying, giant white man."
"No, I'm serious. People actually die because they have too much fat, and their bodies just give up and don't want to live anymore."
"...Well I guess that makes sense. I mean, if you can die from never eating, I guess you could die from overeating."
"If I could show you a Wal Mart, you would witness whole pods of people migrating through the store, eating while they walk."
"I don't see how they could eat that much, I barely have the strength to eat, even if I'm hungry. I had ONE whole loaf of bread today. I was even lucky enough to find a few beetles in it."
"Uh, that's disgusting."
"I'm getting so fat that I can't even see my ribs anymore."
"That's normal..."
"In fact, mama's going to cut back on my food because the other villagers are getting jealous, but I also think because she lost her washboard again and wants to use my chest."
"Too much information."

These are strictly first-world country problems. We have so much fucking food that we can actually take the time and figure out that eating too much food can inevitably kill you due to adverse side-effects. We actually have that luxury in our country to find this out. Most people are too busy fighting off the shakes and eating grass like cattle to study these kinds of things, but not us. I bet most people in Africa would think you're just making shit up if you tell them about obesity and overeating being a problem. How people would starve themselves out of some misbegotten notion that they're ugly if they eat too much. They would laugh you out of their houses made of feces and straw for actually thinking they would believe something like that.

You know what's worse, though? This is just the beginning. I mean who knows? Sleep might be next. In fact, there are even studies showing up that people are being put at a more serious medical risk from sleeping too much. Really, it's true. Our culture will hit a point where you will start hearing about people dying thanks to complications caused from sleeping too much. Because we have that kind of free time. There will be people running themselves into the ground, working 80 hours a week and getting 3 to 5 hours of sleep a night, and they won't say a word because they're working as hard as they can, otherwise they're going to be screwed. Then you'll find some douche complaining about how he has bedsores from sleeping too much and it's cutting into his quality time bonding with his new bong that's shaped like a penis.

When you have little Allabar morbidly depressed because he's starving and his parents were killed by AIDS and fed to the rest of his tribe and they all got AIDS and died too, it's a tragedy. I mean, we know why he's depressed, HE'S ALONE AND EVERYBODY HAS AIDS. But then you have people in our society that get depressed because... well, no reason. We've taken the time to figure out that sometimes we just want to afflicted with severe mental illnesses and heavily medicated to stabilize us, while other countries have the luxury of writing them off as possessed and they let natural selection do its work. This is what I'm personally guilty of, suffering from severe clinical depression brought on at my fear of success and that my life is too wonderful for me to deserve it. Somebody's entire city just got wiped out by war and famine, and I'm stressing out because I can't find my antidepressants to subdue my severe, unprovoked moodswings. Because my country lets me get away with that and I have that kind of time on my hands. HUZZAH!

Welcome to the modern world, where we have so much excess of the necessities to live that we have the time to find out just how much of a good thing it takes to kill us.

Well, I've done worse for less.

Let's talk about obligations. The other day I had to suck dick for a parking spot. Now I know what you're saying; "Deo, how bad could parking be that you would have to resort to fellatio in order to find a secure spot?" Well, the parking frankly isn't that bad. But the only parking spaces available usually are in a vacant lot across the street from the college. This tends to be problematic for those days I'm running late because after I get parking, it alone takes me 5 minutes to walk to class. And those days are almost every day. I'm serious, it's becoming some sort of a problem when no matter how early I leave, by the hand of God's intervention I end up being late to class. Leave early? Traffic. Leave late when I know I'm going to be late? Roads are bare so I haul ass and don't end up being so late.

It's a cruel trick that the Keepers of the Streets keep pulling on me, and it's irritating. It's also irritating to my teacher whose badass beard and flat cap give me the impression that he's going to go Drunken Irish on my ass if I continue to be late. So I'm finding closer private places to park at the cost of some of my decency, if any is left. And the tasks have been getting worse, too. And if I told you any of them, you would probably turn off your computer and go for a very long walk so you can ponder how your hopes and expectations of human dignity have just been seriously called into question. Plus the doctors would be turning their heads in curiosity at why a man has burn tissue on the inside of his rectum. That's all for the sake of attempting to be early. You're welcome, Professor.

This made me recall that in our lives, we've all done something degrading, humiliating, or unpleasant in our lives to pay off a debt to somebody. We might've been in a desperate situation, or in most cases we probably lost a bet. And more often than not, they involve sexual favors. Even if you're straight and with a bunch of straight friends, it might be something sexual, or for a lack of a better description, completely gay. And none of you have to be gay to do it. If anything, forcing your manfriends to do sexual favors is as straight as an arrow because you're both consciously aware of how horribly unpleasant and humiliating it is. That's the point of losing a bet. Frank complained when he had to shove that carrot up his ass, but it didn't make him gay for doing it. He was just owning up to a bet. It made him gay that he ended up enjoying it, but you understand where I'm coming from. Obligations have and always will be a perpetual pain in our asses. Unless you like things in your ass like Frank. But I'm getting off on a tangent. Right, let's get into a narrative that seems to put this on display, which thankfully involves no dick-sucking. Well, at least to the best of my knowledge.

* * *

"I want you to get me a new one." she said.
"...A new 'what', exactly?" I was a bit anxious.
"One of those." There was a pause. My anxiety was well-founded.
"Oh good Christ, one of those."
"And it has to be a good one."
"......Do I really have to go through with this?"
"Yes."
"Can't I do something else?" I groaned.
"No."
"Oh come on, there has to be something, ANYTHING I can do besides that." I pleaded.
"Nope."
"Nothing else I can do comes to mind?"
"Nope.
"I'M PROBABLY NOT EVEN OLD ENOUGH TO PURCHASE SOMETHING LIKE THAT."
"Not my problem."
"MEN DON'T SHOP FOR THOSE KINDS OF THINGS."
"Not my problem."
"I HATE YOU SO MUCH."
"Not my problem."

So most of you might be wondering how I got into this particular situation. Or what the situation is. This girl I knew in High School enjoyed having sex. She had no shame about it; she liked to sleep around, and she enjoyed every bit of it. And people just sort of knew and accepted it. Nobody really condemned her for it because it wasn't really doing any harm to anyone. She was a connoisseur of the sensual arts, and that's all there was to it. I won't use the term "slut" because I always found it to be a double standard since when men like to whore themselves out, it's somehow alright or badass that he's scoring with so many hot bitches. He gets high fives down the hall whenever he talks about the new squeeze he just laid out, and no men, NONE look at him with contempt for enjoying himself. They look at him with contempt because he's getting laid and they're not. This perception is generally different for women, so out of equal respect, I won't call her a slut or a whore. She never helped a man cheat, and if she accidentally did, she would help his girlfriend kick his ass. She was just out to enjoy herself and didn't want to ruin anybody's love life in the process. It was a refreshing change of pace from all the women who were in fact cheating whores at the school.

Oh right, I guess I lied. I'm an equal opportunist, so I call plenty of men whores, as well. Fair? Alright, back to the story.

Again, she liked to sleep around but didn't give off that "slutty" vibe. She was definitely a bitch, though. Rude, is what she was. And a smartass to boot. But I think it was just a facade since she still managed to frequently do nice things. One thing in particular was helping me with my English homework every single day. Okay, so it was more than one time, but you get the point. What? I couldn't be bothered to do it. I was off indulging my own hobbies and pleasures of cutting school, getting drunk, and generally waking up in places I've never been to while regretting actions I can't remember doing. Although I assume it eventually hit the point where it probably got bothersome for her after the third or fourth week.

"This is getting really bothersome." she bluntly stated. I WAS RIGHT.
"I suppose so." I said. "Well, you don't have to keep doing it. I suppose I can actually start working again."
"Fair enough." she said. And that was it.

Except I didn't do my work. Whoops.

That pissed her off, so she did my work for me anyways. And she had the audacity to complain about it, too. What the fuck, I didn't ask for her to keep doing my homework. Goddamn, let me fail if you don't want to do my homework. That's what I was doing with my other classes. Was she going to help me in those, too? One of the reasons she told me to pick up the slack in my English classes other than her not having to do the work was that she apparently thought I had talent or something and said it would be a shame to see the only thing I'll probably ever be good at go to waste. Now I'm writing lewd stories about rape and substance abuse on internet forums. HA, SHE TURNED OUT TO BE FULL OF SHIT, DIDN'T SHE?
Eventually though, I couldn't motivate myself to do the work, but I still felt guilt-tripped by her adamant refusal to stop. So because of this, I eventually became her bitch in the "errand-boy" sense of the word to make myself feel like I was doing my fair share of the work. The requests generally weren't a problem for me to do; hell, they were easier than doing schoolwork. Until ONE particular request that put me in the current state of panic I was in now. I had to get one of THOSE. Apparently her old one stopped working. Now the first question I had:

"How the fuck does something like THAT stop working?"
Seriously. How does something like that stop working? What was she doing? Did the motor burn out from overuse? Knowing this girl, she probably had one big enough for the job of clubbing a fellow human being to death, so maybe an intruder tried to break into the house while she was having a moment with herself and that was the closest object at her disposal to use as a weapon. I hadn't a clue, but my morbid curiosity wanted to know the answer.

"Overuse." she said.
"Didn't see that coming."
"You aren't clever."
"I never said I was."
"But right, get it to me by next week."
"...Or what?"
"I'll cut yours off and fill it with rubber as a replacement."
"...That sounds unpleasant." I muttered, slightly shaken through the alcoholic haze. "Besides, I'm not well-endowed. That'd be a waste of your time."
"I was at the overhang outside the cafeteria when you were pantsed. Don't lie to me."
"...Shit, fine." Yes, I was pantsed in High School, because the mature High Schoolers so above childish pranks still did that. And it happened to be the day I was going commando because my deadbeat mother didn't do any laundry. It was one of the more embarrassing experiences in my life, especially since at that point in time I was terribly naive. This was before the internet generation started really catching on and kids weren't watching porn when they were FUCKING TEN. So I didn't know much about sex and hadn't a clue what being "well-endowed" really meant. She apparently did though, so the threat went through. Really, she couldn't be serious about that threat, right? But better question; where the Hell was I going to get something like that? Other than her, there was really no feasible source of information I could rely on in this situation. I mean, there's almost no realistic approach to any conversation where I could work this into the context of discussion.
But really, what was I to do? I pondered this as I stumbled home in the 110-degree heat with the humidity being drier than my mother after my father left. Actually, that's a terrible comparison. You'll understand why later, whether you want to or not. But it was arid, dead wind, and not a cloud in the sky. I was in jeans and three layers of clothing, and I wasn't sweating a drop. I was either completely resistant to heat or approaching a dangerous level of dehydration, but either way the barren conditions diluted my thoughts and made it impossible for me to form any kind of coherent thought on the way home. In fact, I ended up in the back alley parking lot of a movie theater and I couldn't remember how I got there. There was a homeless man in only boxers pissing behind a dumpster. Johnny the homeless man actually has no relevance to this particular story, I just felt that it was an observation worth noting. He was going to be dead soon. Again, nothing of relevance but another observation worth eventually noting. Now I don't know why I stumbled around in that alley. I actually considered asking Johnny the homeless man to find a sex shop and buy one for me if I did him a favor, but then the cycle of being indebted to other people would continue. And Johnny the homeless man was a crazy and sexually depraved. He had been arrested four times for indecent exposure that involved masturbating inside the Save Mart in the shopping center and asking women if they liked what they saw. They didn't, and neither did the children he asked, either. God forbid what this crazy homeless man would ask me to do if I sent him into a sex shop. He'd probably start working his crank and get thrown out before he bought what I needed. Or what I didn't need, I couldn't trust him with money. So I continued on my way home from school and I heard him wailing like a dog as I left. Okay, maybe he wasn't pissing behind the dumpster after all.

I get home, and I want to watch TV. The problem is that the TV downstairs has the terrifying premise that my mother comes down there on occasion to leave or go get more beer or to talk on the phone, and she's a tornado of drunken fury that destroys everything in her wake. My room on the other hand I share with my brother, and despite it being 3pm in the afternoon, he's asleep because he has work at 6pm until the wee hours of the morning. I actually of all places prefer to watch TV in my mom's room, because she usually doesn't go in there since the phone is downstairs and so is the refrigerator. She only goes into her room to sleep or for some reason or another. That particular afternoon, I found out what "some reason or another" was.
She was locked in her room blaring her music and I was downstairs, attempting to watch Conan since it came on CNBC in the afternoon and it was the only thing to watch at that time. I couldn't hear the TV because her music was fucking loud. Eventually though, I heard the music dim and noticed it was Friday; she was going to leave to the Bay Area for the weekend. Oh joy, time alone in the house without fear of death. She came downstairs, didn't say a word, and went out the door. I immediately got of the futon in the living room and went upstairs. It was uncomfortable as Hell. It felt like it had a corpse inside it and smelled like it, too. So I was all too eager to hurry upstairs and go watch TV in the master bedroom. I turned on the TV and situated myself on the bed and saw her car leave when I looked out the window. But when I sat there for a bit, I sensed something. Something terrible. Something to this day, if I sense it, I immediately retreat into that happy little place in my mind and start whimpering. It was a disturbance in the air that most kids learn to sense whenever SOMETHING was going on.
And what was worse was that I couldn't shake this gut feeling that something was wrong. It was like the sound of a faint ticking inside my head that couldn't be completely drowned out. And what made my stomach turn even more was when I realized that it wasn't in my head; it was an auditory ticking noise that could very be distinctly heard if there was silence in the room. And when I sat up, I listened to where that ticking was coming from. It sounded like a clock that had jammed. It was coming from a black bag in the corner of the room. In most cases, a black travel bag with the sound of ticking would be something that a Middle-eastern man at a airport would be carrying with him on board a plane, so needless to say I was cautious. Like a timid animal, I slowly got up and approached it, cautious scanning it, wondering what the noise was. I started breathing heavily as I got ready to peer inside of the bag, and with a final push through hesitation, I opened it and reached my hand inside of it.

"OH SWEET MERCIFUL JESUS WHAT THE FUCKING CHRIST DID I JUST GRAB OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD I CAN'T EVEN GET A GOOD GRIP ON IT AND IT SMELLS AND WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK FUCKING SHIT IS THIS AM I GOING TO GET A DISEASE AND OH LORD WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THI--"

I would've continued to revile in horror longer, but I passed out. That was pretty much all the energy that I could muster in that situation through shock. This was great that I was home alone at the time, because one couldn't possibly begin to imagine the compromising position I'd be in if one were to walk in on me, unconscious in the corner of the room, with one of THOSE in my hand. I mean, the possibilities would be endless as to what I was up to. But when I came to and realized what I was actually doing... I started screaming and yelling and crying and passing out again. This went on for two more times before I could accept the crux of the situation I was in. When I regained consciousness for the fourth time, I had a crude and brilliant idea, and decided to make a phone call.

"Hey you." I said.
"What?" she asked.
"You didn't say anything about where it needed to come from or any specifics like that, did you?" She decided to humor me.
"As long as it works and it isn't diseased, then sure, why the hell not?"
"Good, that's all I needed to know."

And that my friends, is how I channeled emotional trauma into a positive outlet by helping others in the most twisted and vile manner possible. I'm serious. She didn't care about where it came from. She bleached and desensitized it and said it was acceptable. The only qualm she had was the rather unimpressive size, but then I remembered that this would be what normal people preferred and her preferences would probably stretch to livestock eventually since anything that wasn't human would be the only thing substantially large enough to please her.

Of course I knew where it had come from, and I was glad to get such an insidious device out of my house. And due to how ashamed my family is of exploring those prospects, nobody would say a word about it ever. EVER. A man wouldn't ask his family "Hey hon, I seemed to have misplaced my Gemerald Stud, do you have any idea where it went?"

But right, the moral of this particular story is that whores are evil and will put you in compromising positions and make you learn more about yourself and those around you than you're comfortable knowing.

I had to burn the skin off the palm of my hand just to feel clean again. Christ.

The end.

It was the year 2042 and everybody in America was happy. They had no reason to be; America had virtually every single job outsourced to other countries and thus what was once a glorious nation was now being puppeteered by every powerful nation in the world. The world needed to be fixed, and America was now the tool to fix it. And the world had plenty of problems in 2042, especially in America. Most gasoline-powered cars had fallen out of use for extremely expensive electric and hydrogen-powered vehicles that were far too expensive for most people to own. This meant that few people had the option to commute to work, but of course this wasn't much of an issue anyway because of outsourcing and nobody was working.

So why was everybody so happy? Well, happy wasn't the right word. People simply stopped caring. Because thanks to the miracles of Universal Healthcare and the advancements in the fields of Brain Biology and such, everybody was diagnosed with one mental inconsistency or another that always led to trouble. But alas, no need to fear; now the mentally ill could have the government racing to diagnose and help them cope with their crippling imperfections, no matter how natural they might've been. From the moment that a child's mind started to rapidly develop at the age of three, they would undergo medical conditioning to help keep their unstable little minds functioning at a healthy level. By the time the child was ten, he was under enough mood stabilizers and mental inhibitors that they would sedate a large bull elephant in heat if it wasn't given time to build up a reasonable tolerance. The children growing up well through Elementary and High School carried around what looked like a bag of Skittles or Chex Mix, always making sure that they were never off of them for too long, lest they saw The End.

By law, everybody had to stay medicated constantly because of The End. The End was the only drawback to being under all these medications. It was a terrifying prospect that was ambiguous that nobody really knew about, but it always led to death. Well, "terrifying" wasn't the right word since everybody was too emotionally numb to feel fear, but it was something to be weary of since a case of deadness certainly impeded on one's right to live. So The End manifested itself in a variety of ways through the years. Most believed that it was the Government sending agents out to punish people who weren't deemed mentally suitable to function in society since they weren't on their medications

Some people thought otherwise, though. Some people thought The End was a tool used by an urban legend. A tool that the infamous "Johnny The Murderer" used to kill people, because he was sharp. He could tell when people weren't on their mood stabilizers and mental inhibitors. He lived long before the Universal Mood Stabilization Program was put into effect, and knew how people acted when they were imperfect minds. And thus being the brutish thug he was, he took advantage of them in their splintered and horrible state of mind by robbing them, raping them, killing them, or some combination of the three to his liking. Nobody knew if he was still killing or if he was long dead because when Johnny The Murderer started killing and when The End started killing was never entirely clear. But both were enough to make people certain to keep on their medications to avoid either or.

Except Marcus Bogart. He was a rambunctious young teenager who often had to be forced and restrained by his parents to take his medication. For you see, Marcus was a particularly volatile child growing up; his mind was splintered in many places that made him loony and unstable. He's currently one of the most heavily-sedated teenagers at his High School just so they can keep him under control, but for his freshman and sophomore year they had to keep upping his dosage so he wouldn't snap and try to set the school on fire again because he thought it was a more effective way of cleaning the halls out.

"It's a more effective way of cleaning the halls out." he said while sweeping the halls. He was on detention duty for taking his medication a half hour late during class.

"There won't be any halls left, Marcus." one the pudgy students assisting him stated in a sluggish and unenthusiastic manner. His name was Charlie.

"Well I don't feel like going to school anymore, so it makes sense."

"You have to go to school, Marcus. School will help you get smarter in life."

"I'm smart enough."

"Do you know what The End is?" he asked.

"Why would I want to?"

"Because it's something you don't know. And it's something to be conscious of since it's capable of killing you. Maybe you should learn what The End is." This almost took a bit of the smug arrogance out of Marcus's voice.

"...But nobody's learned what The End was and lived to tell about it." he said apprehensively.

"Well if you're so big and tough, what makes you think that you can't?" As big and tough and smart as Marcus was, he was also simple-minded and easily tricked like an oaf.

"Well fuck you then, I guess I'll figure out what The End is, then." That was all it took. Really, it was. He continued to sweep in silence for the rest of the day, muttering unintelligible insults that were best left incoherent for virgin ears. When the third bell rang, it meant it was time for all students to take their medications, with staff nearby watching the students. They especially kept an eye on Marcus Bogart, who liked to abstain from doing so whenever he could to irritate the staff.

"Have you taken your inhibitors yet, Marcus?" one of the hall monitors asked him.

"No sir I have not."

"And why is that?"

"Because I want to see The End." There were collective gasps throughout the hallway from what they heard. Strained, tired and vaguely interested gasps.

"Marcus you foolish child, why would you want that?" Even when shocked, the hall monitor's voice had a benign ring to it.

"Because I don't know what it is, and I want to know," was his honest response.

"Marcus, that's ridiculous. Take your medication now." He tried to sound threatening, but he didn't.

"No." And with a shove, he knocked the hall monitor out of the way and raced through the halls. In most situations relevant to the past, a child would easily be caught if he tried escaping from school. Marcus was strong and powerful, and his stamina and energy wasn't influenced strongly by the emotional suppressors he was frequently on. The faculty of the school was, much to his benefit as they stumbled and yelled and tripped over themselves like drunk tired dogs trying to catch the young man.

When he finally made it outside, he was panting and wheezing from exhaustion. He was shaking and trembling a bit, slightly smug after escaping the school.

"I knew they couldn't catch me." But now he didn't know what to do with himself, he breathed heavily from overworking his body under the effects of the inhibitors, and he eventually slumped over and passed out.

"Is he awake? Good, it looks like he's coming to." Marcus opened his eyes and he was in the woods outside the school. A disheveled man stood above him. He was dirty, unshaven, and looked as if he only owned the set of clothes he was currently wearing. He had two or three similar degenerates lurking around Marcus as they watched him regain consciousness.

"...Where am I?" Marcus inquired.

"In the middle of the woods, where the fuck does it look like we are?" the old man's voice had a sarcastic vulgar rust in his throat. "Are you feeling better yet?" Marcus sat up and shook himself off. He was a bit paranoid and nervous.

"Who are you and why am I here?" he asked.

"That's just rude. You passed out and I saved you from being captured by the school staff. Show some damn gratitude."

"Why?"

"...You want to see it, don't you?" the old man asked. Marcus grew a bit defensive.

"......See what?"

"I can see it in your eyes. Their control on you is weakening, isn't it?" Marcus paused for a second. His heart immediately started racing. He began to panic.

"Y-y-you're Jo--"

"Johnny's my name."

"Y-you're going to kill me, aren't you?" His fear began to swell.

"Who knows, I might. I've killed a lot of people. Can't say that another kid would make much of a difference, eh?" Marcus immediately tried getting to his feet to run, but he was trembling so violently that he collapsed to the ground. He could do nothing but stare at Marcus with terrified eyes.

"P-please don't kill me, I'm just a kid..." he meekly replied.

"You have no idea what's going on, do you? Look at you, kid. You're shaking so much that you'll piss your pants."

"K-K-KEEP AWAY!" he yelled as he backed up against a tree. But Johnny was right, because Marcus soiled himself there on the spot, something the tree probably didn't enjoy. Johnny started laughing with a twisted grin on his face.

"It's all foreign to you, ain't it?" Johnny asked him, leaning in. Marcus regressed. "You ain't never felt something like this before, have you? You're so giddy that you can hardly control yourself." Marcus's face was going pale as he hyperventilated more. He couldn't speak anymore.

"But it's normal, you know? It's pretty shocking, but it's normal. I ain't been on that shit for decades, but now I'm normal."

"I-I-I don't want to be normal," Marcus choked out.

"Yeah, you probably won't. You'll probably die, kid." Marcus's heart went into a panic as he saw Johnny pull out a gun and point it at him.

"Kid, here's what you want to see. If you can see this and beat it, then maybe you're one of the few that can help us shake this whole globalized funk off." Marcus's mind started racing with emotions as he stared down at the gun barrel. But as he caught that, he started to smile, and he started to laugh a bit in epiphany. Johnny smiled back.

"Yeah, that's what I like to see." He pulled the trigger, and as soon as Marcus heard that loud click, his heart seized up and he slumped to the ground, and his life was no longer his own. Johnny sighed.

"Well shit, there's the end of another one." One of his assistants came up behind him.

"Guess he wasn't good enough either, boss."

"Guess not. Let's go home and wait for another one to get loose and see if he can survive it, too."

Johnathon Morris's shadow.

Today was another lonely morning for Johnathon Morris to wake up and get ready for work. It was early. Very early. So very early that the sun had yet to rise. But his job as a computer engineer and teacher at the local community college had a morning class, and driving there is out of the question when one does not possess an automobile. So Johnathon had to catch the Subway to work every day. The first one that left in the bleak hours of the morning, of all things. So he had to wake himself up, pull himself to get ready, and depart to the station in the chilly fall air so he could catch it. The walk from his apartment complex to the subway station was cold and refreshing for him; he had a smoke and not a soul was on the street. It was quiet and peaceful for his head, something he needed. But every morning when he got his coffee and made his way into the first cart on the station, he hoped to be alone. But always there like a ghost haunting the train, that familiar woman stood in the same cart with him. She would almost always initiate conversation with him, only to flounder through it, attempting to end the discussion as quickly as possible.

"Why are you always following me around?" he would ask, starting to get mildly bothered. A kind and stifled voice made its way through the checkered black and white scarf she adorned.

"I'm just going the same way you're going. Please pay it no heed." Her politeness was difficult to begrudge, even for somebody as young and embittered as Johnathon Morris.

"You say that," he began, "but every single day for the past three weeks you've been following me to work." He blew on his hands from the cold and massaged the glint on his finger before rubbing his hands together. "Seriously, you're always here when I get on, when I leave, and I never see you coming and going. It feels like I'm being stalked."

"Well rest assured, you're not." She brushed her chestnut bangs away from her soft eyes. An innocent glance passed through Johnathon Morris and he quivered a bit as he pulled up his brown and musky coat to reserve himself.

"...You're always looking at me." he refuted.

"That I am." her gentle voice affirmed, reflecting no regret or denial.

"Outright admitting it, huh? Seems a bit shameless, don't you think?"

"Not at all." Her curious angelic smirk didn't falter amidst the crude accusations Johnathon Morris made.

"Oh for the love of..." As soon as he arrived at his stop, he stopped for a bit and glanced at the woman. She was pretty. She dressed simply, but it allowed the attention to be focused more on her features than her attire. He paused for a bit. She let out a calm and sweet smile that made him flustered, so he left the cart to his job. And as 10 hours had passed, he returned to the subway. The carts weren't that crowded despite it being well into the evening. He eventually worked his way to the back where there was an empty cart. Or at least so he thought. He peered around. To the left, then to the right. Then back to the left of the carriage, and there she was, sitting casually in her seat eating ramen noodles from a local restaurant.

"Hello."

"WHY?" he shouted.

"Why what?" she calmly asked.

"WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS HERE?"

"I did not ride this particular cart yesterday, I merely rode it today."

"WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS FOLLOWING ME?"

"I believe I was here first." Johnathon Morris attempted to talk but he stuttered and stammered and blurted out tongues before articulating coherent thoughts again.

"I JUST LOOKED WHERE YOU WERE!" he proclaimed. "NOTHING WAS THERE! THEN I LOOKED BACK AGAIN, AND THERE YOU WERE!"

"You sound as if your mind is slipping." the woman responded, crossing her legs as she slurped her noodles. He wanted to say something, but he couldn't find words. They were lost, running around inside his head and he wasn't able to catch them through the myriad of other thoughts he was fighting his way through. He simply sighed and sat down in the seat opposite of her.

"Everywhere I go, fucking people there." he muttered. "Just some time to myself would be nice. That's all I ask for."

"You must really want to be alone." commented the woman as she continued to eat.

"Yeah, you can't possibly begin to imagine..." there was a snide tone to his voice. There was a long pause. "...You aren't going to leave, are you?"

"I believe I was here first." she reiterated. He shook his head and rested it on his palms as the lights of the subway tunnel flickered in through the windows.

"Good god, just sometimes..."

"God doesn't seem very good to you from the sounds of it." the woman replied.

"Oh... you have no idea."

"Not a religious man, I presume?" she asked.

"Nope."

"Any reason why?"

"None I'm willing to disclose." His cold disposition wouldn't budge. The woman's cool aura faltered a bit.

"That's a pity." A hint of disappointment that was present when she spoke was laced with a slightly condescending twist.

"God ain't done a damn thing for me, and for all I care he can keep it that way." A pious absence in his voice echoed throughout the train. "I'm doing just fine without him, thank you very much."

"You don't seem to be." She said. Johnathon's eyebrow twitched while a coy smirk crossed the young woman's face. She was perceptive.

"Well don't you think you know a lot?" his voice raised. He was getting angry. "So tell me what else you know, why don't you? If you're so damn slick." Her detached demeanor wasn't shaken as he stood up in front of her. She continued to eat her noodles as a long silence permeated the empty carriage, until she finally decided to speak.

"Is this not your stop?" she pointed with her spork at the door opening. It was his stop. Johnathon sighed a bit, and stormed out of the cart back to his empty home. He didn't sleep well that night. He had more misanthropic thoughts before finally losing himself to the night. This was the cycle that Johnathon had with his passenger virtually every single morning he got on the train. Just when his mood hit rock bottom and wanted to be alone, of all coincidences the friendly and gentle commuter started showing up. Her young voice never had ill intent, but it still served to pester Johnathon whenever he saw her during his morning travels and on his way back home. He seriously considered other means of transportation to avoid her, but the financial crunch he was in didn't permit any other alternatives. So he simply tried his best to avoid speaking to her whenever he could. And if she started talking, he would often have a snide quip at the ready to end the conversation as quickly as possible.

"Hey, it's my commuting buddy."

"Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnd you're here like always." he drearily muttered as he sipped his morning coffee and took his seat.

"You always seem to find your way to my cart. Is it not you perhaps who is seeking me out?"

"Don't flatter yourself." he drank more of his coffee as the glint on his hand caught a few sparse rays of the rising sun. In clear defiance of the 'No-Smoking' sign tacked on the wall of the rattling subway, he pulled out a carton of cigarettes. He then pulled out a sharpee and wrote 'Last Pack' on it in big bold letters.

"Those things will kill you." she pointed out.

"No shit, they will."

"Then why do you continue to smoke them?" she said as he lit a cigarette.

"Because it's one of the only legal and enjoyable ways of committing suicide that I can think of." he smugly remarked.

"That's a rather dark thought to have."

"I'm in a rather dark place to be having those kinds of thoughts."

"Ho hum, fair enough. But just because nobody else is in here doesn't mean you should be smoking."

"...You're a nosy woman, you know that?" Johnathon coldly remarked, inhaling from his cigarette and letting the smoke swirl inside his chest a bit before expelling it. "You're like my mother." She blushed despite his voice being riddled with venom.

"Oh, I'm flattered." she abashedly responded.

"I hated my mother." There was an unrelenting forwardness to his rude voice as he stood up and looked out the door, watching the morning scenery stream by.

".....Well, I'm still a bit flattered, though." was whispered under his breath.

"Hmm?" Johnathon turned around,and there she was, leaning in slightly towards him, remarkably close to his face while a hint of bliss was on her own, almost as if she was relieved.

"You remember me fairly well, don't you?" she continued leaning in, oh so careful not to touch him while her warm breath in the cold air was illuminated by the passing sunlight through the windows. His face began to flash with that sort of timid brightness and quickly turned away from her.

"You're always here, meandering around. It's not like I could forget. It'd be like forgetting a landmark." Smoke fizzed out of his nostrils as the brightness faded. The smoke went right through the woman without minding her in the slightest.

"Well, I'm just saying that's nice that you remember me, that's all." Her delicate cold hands began to slowly reach for his as he turned away again. The passing sun through the windows lit up the room and she caught the light on his hands and pulled herself away while she continued to talk.

"Being remembered is nice, isn't it?" she asked him.

"No, not really."

"Why not?"

"Like you." he spoke, continuing not to face her. "You're an irritating person who doesn't notice that I just want to be left alone. Remembering you isn't necessarily a good thing." She didn't mind the malicious intent behind his words much.

"Well I think your own fault for choosing to remember the bad things, is it not?" He didn't say anything. He didn't have anything to say. "I bet a lot of your problems would be solved if you can just choose to forget the bad things that happened and focus on the good things happening now."

"Are you a Jehovah’s Witness by any chance?" Johnathon sardonically asked. "I almost feel like you're trying to recruit me into a cult. All this talk about religion and remembrance and optimism. If I give any more time of the day, you'll probably bring up Jesus."

"Spirituality doesn't necessarily have to be tied to religion." the woman politely refuted. "This is your stop, by the way. Enjoy your work." She almost began ushering him out the door, but with a simple grunt he acknowledged her and shuffled out to work on his own. Forgetting would do Johnathon Morris a lot of good. The thoughts in his head slowly began to shift throughout that day, though. The anger was slowly purged during his entire day at work, slowly being replaced with a bleak emptiness that was swallowing up the anger. When he got on the train, lo and behold he saw the woman sitting down in a cart by herself, her face dripping with liquid from the burger she was ingesting.

"...Classy." he muttered as he sat down across from her. Her face had a big smile on it despite it being slightly mauled by her meal.

"Did you not notice what you did just now?" her voice a bit giddy.

"What?" he submissively responded

"I didn't talk to you. You engaged me first in conversation."

"......Hmm." was the only noise that made its way through the haze in his throat.

"I think this is the first step towards us becoming friends."

"I don't want friends, I want to be left alone." There was a lack of sharpness in his voice.

"Well, you can't be alone forever." she remarked. "It's a bit childish to feel that way, no?"

"I'm a bit of a childish person."

"Oh I believe you are, absolutely. No doubt." She was eager to agree. That irritated him a bit. "But people aren't always alone, you know. And I doubt you were, either. But I suppose time changes those kinds of things, don't they?"

"Hmm."

"Of course it can fix those things as well." She paused a bit. "But I suppose you know all this. You're a childish person, but I don't believe you're a child." He didn't respond. The majority of the train ride was in silence. The woman knew not to say anything this time. She kept her voice to herself unless he was ready to speak. When they arrived at his stop, he stood up near the door and just stared out for a bit.

"There's always a lack of time, isn't there?" A smile briefly crossed her face.

"Never a lack of time, just an impatience for how slow it can be." He just nodded and walked off the subway cart back to his empty house. The emptiness that night was stronger than usual. He felt exposed even in his own home, almost as if a wall was knocked down to subject him to the elements. He shivered a bit in his large bed as he fell asleep. As he awoke, he shook himself off a bit, almost pulling himself out of his own head for a moment to breathe. He stretched and massaged his dim, lonely hands for a bit, and he pulled himself out of bed to get ready for work. When he left his house, he began his walk to the subway. He ran out of cigarettes and didn't have a smoke this walk. It was odd for him. When he got on the subway cart, there was the woman again, dressed warmly with her brown hair poured out onto her shoulders. The cart had a few people in it, but Johnathon settled down.

"Good morning." he coldly muttered, slightly irritated from the nicotine withdrawal.

"Good to see you're not smoking this morning." Her voice sounded encouraging. He grunted as he shivered from the cold a bit. "You seem to be in a slightly better mood than usual."

"I'm managing." responded Johnathon, sipping his coffee and holding it gently with his bare fingers.

"You know, for all the time that we've seen each other, I don't believe we've ever even mentioned our names yet."

"Probably because I was hoping that eventually you would've given up on me and left me alone, but that clearly didn't work." His snide quip was absent of his usual hostility. "Fine, I'll bite. Introduce yourself."

"My name's Anselma."

"Johnathon."

"So does this mean we're friends now?" she politely asked. He sneered a bit at the question.

"Liberal use of that word, but I'll humor you, Anselma." She smiled and stood up. The sunlight illuminating the window behind her gave her the appearance almost of a seraph as light bloomed behind her like wings.

"I'm grateful for your generosity, Johnathon," her sincere voice swelled with a subtle yet slightly mocking joy. "I believe we should celebrate."

"...I'm already regretting this." His dripping sarcasm attempted to hide a smile creeping up on his face. The cart made a stop as the doors swung open.

"Although I have to leave, ironically enough." she remarked. "This is my stop for today."

"Right then. I guess I'll see you later."

"Goodbye, Johnathon." She stepped off, the doors creaked shut, and the cart started moving again. It was peculiar with her absence on the train, even with the other people in the cart he felt alone. He didn't like it. Not liking it was refreshing for him.

"...I suppose she'll be around." He sighed and laughed a bit, curious as to what he might've just gotten himself into again.