Imposter Syndrome | Theland E. Thomas

I turn the key in the door and step inside, greeted by a blast of cool air. The AC’s been left on. Wait. My house is completely empty. Not robbed, unlived. No furniture, no dishes, no pictures. I pace through the living room and the kitchen. Empty. Sterile. Pristine. Not a spot on the counter, not an imprint on the carpet. But this is my house. This is where I’m supposed to be. Like an intruder, I slink upstairs, peering past the railing into the vacant rooms. There’s a car alarm going off in the distance. Slowly, and with trepidation, I turn the knob to my bedroom and open the door. Everything is gone. My bookshelf, bed, desk, disappeared. Only the four white walls stare curiously back at me.

I back out of the room, slam the door, and rush down the stairs. Out the window, I see my mother’s golden sedan approaching from down the street. A slight smile forms on my face when I realize that the horn is blaring from her car. Why can’t she turn it off? As she pulls into the driveway, I take her keys out of my pocket and turn off the alarm.

Something shifts in the corner of my eye, and I turn to see my mom sitting on a tan couch,legs crossed.

“Hi,” I start to say, but out the window, mom is sitting in her car wearing all black, and here she is on the couch in a green blouse. A queasy feeling finds my gut, as I eye my mom. She stares at me oddly, silently. “Hi, mom,” I say. No response. I draw closer, but keep my distance. “How can you be here if you’re in the car?” No response.

There’s something eerily captivating about her, and I can’t tear my eyes away. There’s something a little off, and her shadow is a little too dark. Everything here is so strange, lonely, and unfamiliar. All of the love has been sapped from this house, except for this one piece of furniture with my mother sitting on it. She sits silently beckoning for me to come closer, welcoming me with unconditional love.

Suddenly, I don’t care if she’s a little off, I just want to be closer to her, to feel some love, to wrap up in her arms and sleep. I come closer and lean in for a hug, but she doesn’t meet me halfway or raise her arms. When I try to embrace her, I can’t. An invisible barrier keeps me away. I try to fight against it, but the force is too strong, and I step back. From far away, I hear the car alarm again.

Staring at me, my mother stands and walks in front of the door. Her head is to the side, and she looks from the corner of her eye. Now I can see what’s off with her features. They’re too sharp. Her eyes and brows are angled, her nose is larger and pointed, and her chin juts. A long, diabolical smile splits her face. She is not my mother. She is an imposter. A tingling uneasiness creeps up from behind. Her stare splits my being with a radiant darkness, pulsing in tune with the darkness in me.

Then her features begin to morph and shift, melting into something else. Someone else. Her eyebrows grow thinner, her features softer. Her hair bleaches blonde and, by some unseen force, wraps into a ponytail. This young woman still gazes into me, hypnotizing me with her breathtaking sensuality. I am her captive held in place and drawn toward her. My eyes follow her as she glides back to the couch and sits gracefully. Her body monopolizes my entire field of vision. Her eyes grip my heart, pumping it faster and faster.

Suddenly, I am overcome by arousal, and I rush to the couch. My hair stands on end as my hands wrap around her waist and brush back a blonde lock. I lean in for a kiss, but at the last second, just as I feel her hot breath, I look into her eyes and see orbs of endless black, swirling, undulating, expanding, and caving in upon themselves. Her eyes are a portal to another realm - the bulging gates barely holding back a hungry evil.

Stumbling, I jump back and fall. Outside, my mother’s car is empty. On the couch, the imposter has disappeared. Only the car horn grows louder and louder and louder and louder and louder until--

I awaken with a gasp on the floor of my bedroom, surrounded by a fluid darkness that seems to breathe and move. Before me is my black desk, but I can’t see it in the dark. Behind me, my black bed. I can’t see it, but I know it’s there. No floorboard creaks or rustling wind, only prowling silence. I wonder how long I’ve been sleeping.

Then, my sister opens the door behind me and comes into the room. With her, floats the sound of a video game she’s playing. I want to get up, to turn around and talk to her, but somehow, I can’t find the strength. My limbs and head weigh heavily, holding me in place. It’s like I’m stuck in the middle space between sleep and wakefulness. I start kicking my legs, calling her name. My foot hits my nightstand with each kick, but no matter how much I call, she can’t hear me. She just stands behind me, out of sight, playing her video game. Finally, I scream her name with all my might, but it just comes through as a weak, “Uhhhh….”

My sister hear this and says, “Wake yourself up then.”

As she speaks, I feel the darkness in the room bend and ebb behind me to where my sister stands. Then, I feel in my gut that’s it’s not my sister behind me, but some malicious imposter. The thing standing behind me was not my sister, but a being crafted from darkness with harmful intent. I must wake up!

I kick faster, scream as hard as I can, filling the house with sound, sending the lamp and other objects crashing from the nightstand and the desk. I grit my teeth and close my eyes, but when I open them again, everything is the same. There is no sound, nothing has fallen, and the evil presence still lurks behind me. I scream at the top of my lungs, but all I can hear is that weak, “Uhhhh....”

Drifting again, I open my eyes to see my sister’s feet and pink pajama pants. She is standing over me, but it isn’t her. Panic screams for me to move, but I can’t. And when I blink, she is replaced by shadows blacker than the darkness of the room. The shadows hover over my body, pressing me down, trying to seep in. I feel the material force of malevolence strengthening behind me. Even though I can’t turn around, I can see it hovering in the air, slowly swirling behind me.

Like a fog, the blackness descends, close enough for a kiss. Its limbs wrap around my neck, gripping like a hug, like a noose, constricting my breathing, tightening, leaving me gasping for air. I squirm and scream,  but it only comes out as, “Uhhhh…. Uhhhh…. Uhhhh!”

Black man jaywalks before a cop | Theland E. Thomas

left, right, clear path

Cross.

He rounds the bend.

Oh, shit

heart pounds, sinks, fear

popping adrenaline shots-

No phone.

Blinker without lights passing.

relief

No Escape From Reality | Theland E. Thomas

My bed is black, my room is black, the space behind my eyelids is black, but there are shades of light floating, spinning, changing, barely visible in the black. Heavy eyelids are not the cause as much as another state of mind. I feel my mentality shift from processing alertness to the calmness of flowing waves, and in this state, I lose sense of my heavy body and begin to drift out to sea to a new world not quite bound to the one I’m tethered to in wakefulness. I’m traveling on the black sea of my mind, the faint buzzing of electricity crashing about me, moving me deeper into tranquil numbness, silence, sleep.

I travel on the waves with the content knowledge of past experience. I know where I’m going, but I don’t know what I’ll find there. Soon, I arrive on the shores of a new reality. I know when I arrive, I won’t be fully aware I’m dreaming. That it will be just like wakefulness, but with a different set of rules that make complete sense in context. I hear the tick of the clock on my wall distort until each tick is a piercing, metallic ring, like the pounding of steel beams against each other. The black quickly deteriorates from the middle, another scene bleeding through.

It’s a bookstore. I’ve just entered, and I walk past the popular fiction display at the front, the smell of coffee wafting from the shop on my left. I love bookstores. They’re almost too much - a place stacked with shelves and shelves of thousands upon thousands of books with pages upon pages of alternate realities, differing perspectives of life, love, sorrow, and happiness. It’s a place of infinite possibilities. I remember days of youth spent in libraries and bookstores, reading books without buying them, the new book smell, fast food, essays and quietly waving goodbye, the second-to-last person to leave.

I take a step toward the fiction section but for some reason am compelled to look to my left. There, I see a girl I know but am afraid to recognize. I can see emotions battling on her face, eyebrows knitting as she starts to smile, then her face softening with worried, hopeful eyes. She lifts a hand. “Hi.”

This inevitable meeting is something I’ve consistently prevented myself from thinking of, and now, confronted with it, I don’t know what to do. She might disappear if I turn away, so I do that. Everything behind me fades into a blur of grey as I walk around the display Now, before me is a man in a trenchcoat with a hat pulled low over his face. He seems to be smoking, but I can’t smell anything but the delicious new book smell blending with the coffee. The man reaches into his coat and pulls out a container. “Hey, man, you want some hummus?”

“Actually, I do.” I take the container from him, and he gives me a spoon.

“This is going to be the best damn hummus you’ve ever tasted.”

I pry the lid open and eat a spoonful, realizing that this is, in fact, the best hummus I’ve ever tasted. I remark, “You’re right, this is the best hummus I’ve ever tasted.”

“Told you,” he said. “That’ll be just ten dollars.”

I nearly choked on my second scoop. “What? I’m not paying ten dollars for -”

“Look, you took the hummus. It’s ten dollars.”

“I don’t want it.”

I try to give him back the container, but he refuses to take it. “Hey, I offer you some hummus, and you take it, and then you don’t want to pay me. What kind of a person are you?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t have ten dollars.” I wag the container in my hand, but when he doesn’t take it, I drop it, turn around, and walk away.

The girl is gone. I escape into rows of bookshelves, keeping my head bent, scanning the spines. What I’m looking for, I don’t know, but I’ll recognize it when I find it. I search thoroughly, scanning each individual title, author. I search row by row, up, down, and across, but I still can’t find it. I move to the next row and stop, startled by who’s standing there.

My heart plummets and races at the same time. It’s my dad. He’s spent eight years avoiding me, and I’ve spent eight avoiding him, and here he is, casually browsing through a bookstore as if he has a life outside of my supposed construction of him. He sees me, and his face lights up. He says my name, and I frown in disgust. He takes a step forward, and I take a step back. I don’t want to deal with this right now, so I turn my back and walk away, hiding a frenetic impulse to run with a collected demeanor.

I turn between the bookcases until I feel I’ve lost him. I slow, along with the thumping in my chest, and turn one more time. There she is again. Ana. I nearly jump when I see her. This time, the hope in her face has been eclipsed with sadness. She utters a dejected, “Hey.”

“Hey.” I stand fair distance from her, an asinine precaution considering that she can hurt me from any distance. The mature thing to do would be to stay and talk things out, but a little, red alarm is screaming in the back of my mind.

“So,” she starts, “how are you doing?”

Ana stands immediately before me, and there are books on either side, but beyond that is a blur of grey. She’s looking at me, awaiting my reply, and I can feel the tension of an unstable reality pulling me at the seams. I need to escape somehow. I need to change the course. Time seems to stand still, and I have the odd sense of the gears in another part of my head turning. I’m thinking, but I can’t access what I’m thinking about. And that’s when I realize that this is a dream.

I turn away from Ana and walk deeper into the store. I don’t want run from her just to bump into my dad again. At the same time, I’m pushing to find a way out. I’m straining to get back to that state of blackness, back to the sea through which I can bubble to wakefulness. But, it’s no use - I’m stuck here. In the middle of the store is the man in the trenchcoat standing behind a small stand that holds canisters of coffee.

Coffee! That’s what I need! Coffee can wake me up! I approach the stand and ask, “Can I have some coffee?”

“Yeah,” the man says from below the brim of his hat, “for twenty dollars.”

“Twenty dollars! You know there’s a cheaper coffee shop right over there, right!”

“But that coffee won’t keep you awake. This one will.”

“Fine.” I pull a twenty from my pocket and lay it on the table. What flavors do you have?”

“Got regular, decaf, and hot water.”

I take the regular and sip it vigorously as I make my way back toward the door, bracing against the searing heat that burns my mouth and raises the bumps on my tongue. The shop grows fuzzy in my peripheral as I approach the exit. Black spots swim in my vision, and, though I’m standing, I feel as though I’m not upright. My eyelids are heavy as I feel myself drifting from the dream and repopulating my body. Finally, I push on the door…

And it’s locked. I snap back to the bookstore with a sense of dread. The door shifts and buckles against my futile pushes. Dread crashes over me, an uneasy swimming feeling. I’m trapped. I turn from the door and scan the building. Leaking coffee slides down my fingers, drips from the cup, and disappears into the stylish, spotted carpet.

I don’t see my dad, Ana, or the trenchcoat guy, so I pick a armchair in the corner and pretend to read a titleless book from the shelf. I hold it in front of my face so I can peer over it, but then I hear a voice to my left. Of course, it’s Ana. I gulp, my throat suddenly dry.

“Oh, hi,” I say, “what a coincidence running into you here.” I look at the book, realizing that no one could have gotten three-fourths of the way through in such a short amount of time. Nervously, I stand, placing the book upside-down on the chair’s arm. I grip the coffee, using it as a barrier between myself and her.

“Hey,” she says. She’s nervous too. She’s wringing her hands and biting her lip. Despite the cold front I put on, something inside of me goes soft. I want to embrace her, to be close to her again. To tell her everything’s okay. To forgive her.

She continues. “I know you probably don’t want to talk about it, but…” she looks down at her feet. I’m not ready for this. I know what she’s about to say, but I’m not ready to forgive and forget or to let go of the acidic pain I’ve been clutching. “...I’m really really sorry for what happened. How I treated you… it wasn’t right, and I’m so sorry.”

The tears welling up in her eyes trigger my own, and I don’t try to wipe them back as they fall. I try to say something, but the words won’t come. I desperately need to get out of here. I take swig of coffee.

Suddenly, a shadow overtakes Ana. It’s my dad, I recognize more through implication than through form. He’s eschewed his human form for that of a shadow that towers tall and spreads wide and bleeds in disappearing currents. Fear strikes to the core of my being, and I turn to run, but the shadow expands, enveloping Ana and everything around me until I’m floating in a completely black space. Before me, I see remnants of my dad’s distorted face hanging in the air, his eyes, nose, and mouth disassociated from any physical body, his features one with the darkness.

“Son,” he says, his voice muted by surrounding black, “We should make some time to talk.”

I cross my arms, and I know if I turn my back or close my eyes, his face will still be right there in front of me. “I don’t want to talk to you,” I say.

“Son, you have to understand. I am a sinner. Will you please hear me out?”

Anger and pain rushes to the forefront, and I hate that it manifests as hot, seething tears. “Why should I?” My sobbing voice can’t convey the hatred and bitterness I feel, though I try to squeeze it into every word.

“Because I’m your father,” he pleads.

“No,” I shout, the anger bursting forth. “You were my father before you left, but you threw that all away. I’ll never forgive you!”

With that, my dad’s face dissolves, and the black seems to swirl to a central point, releasing me into the bookstore. The light blares into my squinting eyes, and I hear a horrible sound - a collective wail, sorrowful, heartfelt weeping from an entire crowd. What’s going on? My eyes adjust, and I see the man in the trenchcoat looking down on me from under his hat, shaking his head. Behind him, is the weeping crowd - my family and friends - my mother, brothers and sisters, my best friend, my grandparents, Ana, and my dad - all crying uncontrollably, all covering their faces. My mother holds my grandma as she sobs, staring at me with the black make-up smearing down her face. My best friend covers his mouth and shakes his head at me. Ana hugs herself and rocks back and forth, unable to meet my gaze, and my dad sits cradling his face, his tears soaking his shirt.

The weeping is horrible and overwhelming. It rattles me to the core until I’m weeping too, crumbling to my knees, and I lose grip of the coffee and shut my eyes as the tears stream and flow like water from a creek flowing naturally between rocks at night, traveling in aimlessly in a direct route going further and further and deeper and deeper and closer and closer until I open my eyes in my dark room with a heavy heart and a gasp.

I roll onto my side and find my phone, prompting its cold light that cuts the night. New message from Ana: “Hey”.

I open it up and type a cautious reply. Then I delete what I was writing. Then I delete her message. Then I delete her contact information. Then I roll over and go back to sleep.

17 | Alexander T. Damle

            17 days. We graduate in 17 days. I know because I count, I’ve been counting and will continue to count until that number drops to zero. In 17 days, I’ll never have to see this shuddering fever dream that we call high school again, in 17 days I’ll never have to deal with the collusion of muck and mud that is the constant in and out, over and over social vice, applied with a casual cruelty every moment of every day. In 17 days, all I’ll have is summer before I can finally leave this patch of scorched earth, trapped in it every day since birth, but thank Christ not till death, because in 17 days the next step of my life is leaving America behind and going to university in Scotland, because where better to escape to than the land of Robert the Bruce, William Wallace, and Bonnie Prince Charlie. In 17 days, all the years of humiliation and heartbreak, all the times we had to get our friends taken to the hospital so they wouldn’t slit their wrists, all the girls who turned me down, all the guys who threatened me, everyone who called me weird, laughed at me, wouldn’t even look at me, told me I was going to shoot up the school because I was such a fuck up, they’ll all be trapped in a past I’ll never have to return to. 17 days.

            Walking through the main hallway first thing in the morning is always such an experience, everyone sitting around just... waiting, talking, gossiping, laughing, making out, arguing, playing the guitar, forming their own brands of cool, but me, my eyes are on the ground, I don’t want a part of their cool, I’m better than that, or so I think as I wrap my trench coat tight around myself, oblivious to my self-satirical absurdity and pretension. I need to tell myself I’m weird, and I need to be weird, to justify the decade or so of universal hatred that has attached itself to me. I see my history teacher and he smiles at me, says hi, and I say hi back. I guess it’s nice to know my teachers like me at least.

            And don’t get me wrong, I’m not totally alone. I have my group, be as it may that we are forced together more through shared loneliness than any sort of real common cause. We don’t hang out in the hallway, we have a place all to our own, the green screen room, with an attached editing booth. We’re not supposed to be there outside of class time, but the film teacher has resigned himself to the fact that we’re not leaving anytime soon, after all, we’ve nowhere else to go.

            I push open the door to the room, and apparently I’m late because everyone is here already, give or take. The windows in this place are blacked out, casting the room into a perpetual state of evening. The expensive film equipment tossed about gives the place a cyberpunk sort of aura, straight out of Gibson, with the addition of all our angst and pimples.

            “Milo. Ever get a chance to read that story I emailed you?”

            “Not yet man, I’ve been busy?”

            “With what?”

            “I don’t know, school?”

            “Right.”

            Terrence - smart as all hell, with a drive to match. He doesn’t come from money, but that only seems to fuel him on, over his impossible drive to success, even if it’s quite clear, if given a real choice he’d be a writer before a lawyer, but life doesn’t grant choices. I know he’ll make it on the money front because he wants it, and he works hard enough that he can guarantee anything he wants. Except for love, that is, but he’s thoroughly convinced everyone, particularly himself, that love is the one thing he doesn’t want.

            “Hey man.”

            “Phillip.”

            “Did you get a chance to talk to Erika?”

            “I told you man, not interested. Also you know she’s in the next room, right? She can probably hear you.”

            “Fuck.”

            Phillip - quiet and shy, but that doesn’t make him anything approaching a decent person. He’s scrawny, pale, the Hollywood trope of a nerd, straight out of John Hughes. He’s depressed. I mean, we all are, that’s kind of the point, but he wears it like a badge of honour, always wanting the rest of us to pat him on the back and tell him it will be okay. If it’s not strikingly obvious, he’s not exactly my favorite person.

            “Hey Erika.”

            “Philip.”

            “You don’t look so great - everything okay?”

            “I... I don’t know. Something’s up with Dahlia.”

            Erika - she’s pretty and bubbly, but that doesn’t make her happy, in fact it almost makes her the opposite, always managing to draw the wrong kind of intention from the wrong kind of people, namely Philip, her avowed nerdiness on top of the cool girl demeanor making her manic pixie dream girl incarnate. For all the shit I give her, she’s my best friend in the world and I wouldn’t still be breathing without her.

            “Hey Milo, can you come look at this?”

            “Look at what Heath?”

            “This error I’m getting - I don’t know what the hell it means.”

            “What were you trying to do?”

            “Knock OSX off and install Mint.”

            “You know this is school property, right?”

            Heath - our unofficial leader, blessed with this title as much for his domineering stature as any particular function of personality. He probably has a slightly higher opinion of himself than warranted. He’s basically used this last semester of senior year to blow off any and all work. He doesn’t go to class, let alone turn in his homework. He’s Mormon, and that means after this, he’s going on a mission to Mexico, which I suppose is his excuse to not do anything. As the rest of us, he believes just surviving, just getting out, will save his soul.

            “Morning man, you want to see the new cut?”

            “Yeah, sure Joel. Are we going to be done by the deadline?”

            “You mean by five minutes before Mr. Vincetti comes in here asking where the hell our film is?”

            “Something like that.”

            “In that case I’ll tentatively say yes.”

            “Good enough.”

            Joel - he wants to be a director, and if he doesn’t make it at that he’ll be a bum, because movies are pretty much the only thing he’s thought about for the last four years, and, if film school goes according to plan, the only thing he’ll eat, sleep, and breathe for the next four, and all the years after that. For me filmmaking, more the writing and producing side, is a hobby and an elective credit, but I appreciate getting to work with someone so driven and passionate.

            “Hey. Uh...”

            “Hey.”

            “I’m having a lan party on Friday... You interested?”

            “Yeah man, that’d be cool.”

            Jonathan - I didn’t actually know we were talking. For years we were really good friends. He got me through some of my worst days. If I’m being wholly honest, I’d be dead if he hadn’t been there for me sophomore year. But then he started dating Dahlia, my ex, and I’m not sure from where the tension arose, but arise it did. Jonathan is without a doubt one of the smartest people I know, but just as Terrence seems to be willing his way to success, Jonathan is trying just as hard to do absolutely nothing with his life.

            “Milo.”

            “Dahlia.” And then she kisses Jonathan, holding out the act, seemingly for my benefit.

            Dahlia - my ex. My only ex, a relationship so catastrophic, so nihilistically fatalist, that it can hardly be called a relationship at all. During our few months together we never kissed, and when she broke things off, I did my damndest to ruin her life. The fact that we can be in a room together without killing each other is testament to her restraint. She’s another future law student.

            The bell rings, and I start to leave, though not before trying yet again to get Heath to see reason.

            “You coming to Stat?”

            “Nah man. I don’t think Ms. Sawyer even knows what I look like at this point.”

            “That’s your own fault, you know.”

            “Whatever man.”

            On the way to class I see her - the prettiest girl I’ve ever met, outside of movies and pornography. I don’t know the first thing about her, not her name, her grade, anything. We ride the same bus, and I can tell you her mom always drops her off and picks her up from the stop, driving an olive green Toyota Prius, and she’s always listening to music. This is all I know. I suppose I could talk to her, but then the mystery would be gone, and she’d be just another girl. Now, though, she’s a mystery, an enigma, a beautiful thing in my life to consider, to hold just out of reach, one of Gatsby’s green lights. I try to tell myself that when I get to university there will be tons of women like her, with exotic accents to boot. I try to tell myself I’ll somehow end up with one of them and everything will be okay, though I know it never will.

            After Stat is English, with Terrence. As we’re waiting for the teacher to start the class - she’s retiring this year and that 17 holds for her as much as for us - Terrence tells me something I don’t really want to hear.

            “You know Erika asked me out?”

            “Uh... what did you say.”

            “I said no... I guess I’m just not... I don’t really have time for dating.”

            “I don’t know man, I think you should give it a shot.”

            “It’s not worth it. I can date in college.”

            “Sure man, whatever.”

            I then proceed to zone out for the duration of the lecture - English comes pretty naturally to me, and I’m sure to let the teacher know how little of a shit I need to give to get straight A’s. Sometimes she’ll ask the class a question and, met with blank stares, I’ll let a silence hang in the air for a good thirty seconds, before opening with a deep sigh, then launching into a convoluted answer that answers her question, along with three she hasn’t yet asked. Everyone needs a hobby.

            Next, history. I love history, stories old and new, the whole human parabola laid bare before us, inscribed in ever shifting, ever changing, ever revised tomes of analysis, facts twisted and shaped and remade in the name of the present zeitgeist. Today, though, is exam prep, and honestly, I could not possibly give less of a shit. The teacher is letting us work in pairs or small groups, and I have the class with Erika, which provides us an opportunity to talk.

            “So. Dahlia.” I begin the conversation because one of us has to.

            “Dahlia.”

            “Yes?”

            “Well. You know how we used to be, like, really good friends?”

            “Yeah.”

            “I guess you’ve probably noticed for the last few months we haven’t been... been...”

            “Even looking at each other?”

            “Yeah, that. So I finally confronted her, asked her what was up?”

            “You mean you didn’t know?”

            “Not really. I mean, I thought it was something to do with Jonathan but I didn’t really...”

            “Go ahead.”

            “I just didn’t know what. So I asked her. She wouldn’t even talk to me.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “She just gave me this death glare and left the room.”

            “I don’t know. I can’t tell what’s up with that girl... I mean, ever since we dated...”

            “Oh come on, you’re not the center of the fucking universe.”

            “I know but, I mean, the way I treated her.”

            “Jesus Christ. This wasn’t supposed to be about you.”

            “Fucking hell. Sorry.”

            “Yeah. Yeah, I know, you’re just trying to help.”

            “What do you want me to say then?”

            “I don’t know. I just want Dahlia to be my friend again.”

            “I’m probably the last person to talk to about that one. Have you asked Jonathan?”
            “He’s a total dick, and you know that.”

            “Have you considered that maybe that attitude is why his girlfriend hates you?”

            “Fuck off.”

            “Whatever. Do you want to maybe actually try to study for the final now?”

            “Fuck that.”

            And so it goes. Another history class wasted. Every day, I know I have fewer and fewer history classes to waste, up until I start university and can focus on history full time, preferably with fewer mandatory study periods for me to sleep through. And potentially less bullshit teen angst.

            Lunch is just another opportunity to hang out in the green screen room - I haven’t been anywhere near the cafeteria since the middle of Freshman year, and I’d prefer to keep it that way.

            On the way back to the room, Erika splits off to talk to someone, and I run into Phillip. I always dread our little chats.

            “Hey Milo.”

            “Phillip.”

            “Look, about Erika.”

            “I told you man, she’s not fucking interested.”

            “I know. I get it... I just...”

            Oh no. Oh shit. Time for another Philip monologue on how he’s uniquely alone, uniquely cut off by the world as a whole, as a direct result of him being just such a nice guy.

            “It’s just that... I met someone this weekend, and we had coffee and... she’s going to be going to my college... and I don’t know. I just wanted to make sure everything is cool with Erika. I mean, I just wanted to make sure she gets that I’m over her, and I just want to be friends.”

            This is about the polar opposite of what I was expecting, but it makes me happy. Phillip deserves a little luck after all the constant rejection. I guess I’d been selling him short, prejudging the conversation off my own internal bias. Well, this is certainly a useful way of cutting down on the constant maelstrom of drama, self loathing, and suicide attempts that seem to be a constant part of our little circle of personality disorders, Philip falling in love, I mean.

            As soon as I get to the room, I walk into the editing booth, see Joel there scanning through the timeline of our film, looking for the little fuck ups that always seem to bring down projects like this. This year we’d decided to go and do something ambitious, make a full length film with high school students as the cast, using the minimal equipment available to us, and the little money I made from working as a janitor, and now, after months of fighting and stressing and thinking the damned thing was doomed, there it sat in editing, right in front of me, just ready for us to call final cut and export the thing. The culmination of the life long dreams of two men, our film, our twisting, arching story of teenage love and suicide, of the tragedy and angst and passion and drive and quiet rebellion that had made up our own lives for years. Everyone had watched us with eager anticipation of our great fall, but yet here we stood, proud.

            “Well, man, this is it. We made a movie.”

            “Yeah Milo. It’s... damn.”

            “I was pretty sure for a while there it wasn’t going to happen.”

            “We got it though.”
            “By the luck of the devil.”

            “So what do you think- you going to try to keep making films in Scotland?” I think for a moment.

            “Nah man, I think this scratched my itch. I’ve lived that dream. I think I’ll write a book next.”

            “Well, good luck with that, I guess.”

            “Yeah, well, I’m sure this is just the start for you.”

            “I hope so.” I stare at the screen for a while.

            “I still can’t believe we actually did it.”

            Jonathan walks into the room.

            “You guys finish?”

            “More or less, I’m going to run through it a few more times, but, yeah, I think so.” Joel looks happier than I’ve ever seen him. I take Jonathan aside.

            “Hey man, are we cool?”

            “What do you mean?”

            “I don’t know, it’s just seemed like, lately, with you and Dahlia...”

            “You don’t own her, just because you dated sophomore year.”

            “I know man it’s just, I don’t know. It feels weird for me. You know how long I was into her before we actually went out.”

            “Yeah, I know man.”

            “I’m glad to see you two happy together, though.”

            “Thanks. It... it feels pretty good. To share... to share everything with someone like this.” I smile at him. He walks out, and I see Dahlia standing there. I shut the door to the editing room, and I sit down next to Joel as he hits play.

           

            The final title card comes up, Over the Horizon. It’s a little sappy, a little sentimental, but that’s the point, I think. Because despite the sentimentality, it’s raw, a brutality of emotion. It may not be the best film ever made, sure, but it’s an honest one, and that’s really the most I could’ve hoped for. I get up, head to take a piss.

            As I step out into the green screen room, I look around, see Phillip talking to Erika.

            “...and you know what, I just feel happy, really, truly happy, and I think this is the first time in my life I can honestly say that...”

            Dahlia and Jonathan are holding each other close, and outwardly I grimace, but inside I feel a warmth, a quiet happiness. I hear a snatch of muttered dedication from Dahlia.

            “...I’m really glad I have you...”

            Terrence and Heath are talking and both look happy. Heath puts his hand on Terence's shoulder-

            “...I know we aren’t handling this whole senior year thing the same way, but, in the end, what really matters is we make it through, past that, well, we’ll figure it out...”

            I walk through the hallway, see all the people talking, laughing, just being, and despite it all, my feigned resentment, my forced separation, I find a certain love for this place, for its honesty despite the posturing, for it’s fervent desire to just be, in spite of itself.

            Standing at the urinal, I notice the guy standing beside me, and it occurs to me briefly that I went to preschool with him, back in another life. I think about saying something, but I remember the great unwritten rule of men’s bathrooms. I go to the sink, wash my hands, lose track of myself, lost deep in my thoughts, turning my hands over and over in the warm water, thinking about the future, about the life I’m soon to have, wandering through the streets of an ancient city, meeting people from all over the world, finally deciding just what the hell it is that I want to be in this life.

            I leave the bathroom and I see, standing by herself, looking out the huge, two storey, floor to ceiling windows, at the plains rising to the mountains that tower all above this place, her, the green light, the girl whose car I know but not her name. I think to myself about all the years and months and days and hours and seconds that have built into this moment, all the struggle and fighting, everything I’ve been through, everything I’ve done, and I take a few steps towards her, then I consider all the rejections and how everyone says just keep trying, and I take a few more, I think of everyone who always called me a weirdo and a loser, and now I’m a couple feet away from her. I open my mouth and...

            I hear a crack like thunder and I see blood erupt out the side of her head as she falls to the ground, the moment stretched out towards oblivion in slow motion, and I turn to see a girl with an AR-15,  and I vaguely think I remember her from Physics as I take off running, got to move, got to make it, I hear more cracks and I am consumed by a fear of awesome power, got to make it to the room, the citadel, it’s saved me from everything else and by god it will save me now, screams all around me, people running, backpacks cast aside, my shoes skid across the polished tile floors, and I rip the door to the room open, and I look over the faces before me and I realize they don’t yet realize what’s going on, but I soon tell them and then they start to scream, and we lock the door and we all find places to hide, and I find myself in the editing room, hid under a desk, next to Erika, Jonathan and Dahlia across from us, them holding each other close, and I look to Erika and give her the biggest hug I can, then I simply say

            “Thank you.”

            I remember we have a second door.

            I get up, start to run, but the door pushes open with an impossible force, and I see Philip break for the opening, but he’s cut down, just standing then not, healthy then covered in blood. Life and death without pretension. The shooter comes towards me and I stare for an impossible second, the time it takes Terrence and Heath to sneak out behind her, and break into a dead run, as I throw myself back into the editing booth.

            I try to hold the door closed, but I cannot. As I see that AR-15 come through the frame of the door, I look to Erika and in her eyes I see death, and I try to run for her, even as the echoing cracks announce her fall, then the gun turns towards Dahlia, and I decide it’s time to do something, because what else can we do but something, and in that split second I see Jonathan decide the same, and we both rush the shooter, and Jonathan is on the ground bleeding and screaming, then he stops screaming, and somehow Dahlia makes it out the room behind us, and I look to the girl with the gun, and I open my mouth and I scr