just words

“All plots tend to move Deathward. This is the nature of plots. Political plots, terrorist plots, lovers’ plots, narrative plots, plots that are part of children’s games. We edge nearer Death every time we plot. It is like a contract that all must sign, the plotters as well as those who are the targets of the plot.” 
―Don DeLillo, White Noise 

Death, perhaps life’s greatest mystery. What is Death? Where does it come from? Why is it a thing? Neither the what, nor the where, nor the when, nor even the why is known to mortals. Why, why do we die? What's the purpose? Where does consciousness go? Are our souls recycled, inserted into new life upon Death? Do we end up in some sort of Mysterious Otherside? Heaven? Hell? Valhalla? The great recycling plant in the sky? Perhaps we are consumed by Earth herself, fated to be nothing more than nutrients for the soil? Worm food, is that it? No one knows the answer. There are all sorts of theories, some scientific, some mystical, but no one really knows, and those who claim otherwise are almost certainly deluding themselves.

The most I know about Death is from the beginning of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, when Alucard, in all his bishonen glory, equipped with his most powerful artifacts, comes sprinting into Dracula’s castle, super cool afterimages trailing in his wake, only to be met by the floating specter of Death himself in all his cloaked skeletal grimness. “I’ve come to put an end to this,” Alucard says, to which Death responds, “You shall regret those words,” before stripping Alucard of all his artifacts, laughing a chilling laugh, and vanishing with an ominous warning, “We shall meet again.” This leaves Alucard effectively newborn and defenseless at the very start of the game until he powers himself up by collecting his stolen artifacts strewn all over the castle, around which point he crosses paths with Death again and stomps him good. But Death is never truly defeated. He returns again and again with each subsequent game, all while some valiant new hero goes dashing Deathward, which I'm sure symbolizes some profound thing that I haven't quite figured out just yet, but maybe I will stumble across it by writing this journal entry? Don't count on it.

This journal entry is not actually about Castlevania, however, it’s mostly about Death, and also White Noise by Don DeLillo, which is a novel that has been marinating in my mind ever since I finished reading it about two weeks ago. The book was first published in 1985 and is considered one of DeLillo’s best works, although this is the first novel I've read by him, so I don't really have much to compare it to. I got interested in DeLillo after seeing his name come up time and time again in reference to authors similar to David Foster Wallace, and I figured the best place to start was with DeLillo’s most popular novel, White Noise. I quickly found that the only similarity between DeLillo and Wallace is the fact that they write about similar subject matter, that being the subtle perils of modern life, ruminations on mindless entertainment and vacuous celebrity worship and the numerous distractions we all willingly engage in, both authors trying to tease out why it all feels so empty and gross. DeLillo, however, is a much more mature writer than Wallace. Reading DeLillo, one gets the impression that he has nothing to prove to anyone, even himself. He uses short, simple sentences. He doesn’t mess around with complex runaway paragraphs. He doesn’t overuse semicolons or em dashes or footnotes or whatever to make some kind of literary point. He has things to say and thoughts to express, and he does these things in a very to-the-point manner. There’s no fluff, no pointless wordplay. Every sentence, every word, every punctuation mark feels like it has a purpose. You never get the impression that DeLillo is doing the whole literary “Look Dad, no hands” thing, and because of this, his writing is very easy to digest, and not in a vacuous, unmemorable way either, because despite all his stylistic simplicity, the writing is still somehow multi-layered, full of double meanings and triple meanings that, considering how simple some of the stuff he writes is, kind of makes your head spin in a sort of “How the fuck is he doing this?” sort of way. Basically, if you can’t tell, I really like Don DeLillo’s style. I think he’s a brilliant writer.

And White Noise is a brilliant book that I would recommend to anyone. It’s a fast read, like 300 pages, and I read it in a few days on account of how engrossing it is. The dialogue in particular is fascinating in this darkly humorous way, and it’s written in the first-person perspective, which is my favorite perspective, so make of that what you will. The story is told from the point of view of a university professor specializing in “Hitler Studies” who is so afraid of Death that he comes up with all sorts of absurd plots and intellectualizations to hand-wave it away, all while being constantly thrown into situations that exacerbate his fear of Death, which results in a constant stream of humorous situations, like in the second act when this toxic-chemical tanker crashes, resulting in a billowing cloud of poisonous gas ominously hanging over the main character’s town, which, if I were to analyze, is a potent metaphor for Death’s looming influence over our lives. The novel also covers themes like rampant consumerism, family dynamics, and academic pretentiousness, all filtered through a sort of dark-comedy lens, which has resulted in many critics hailing the book as a quote-unquote “postmodern masterpiece of our age,” and I use the tag “postmodern” here kind of flippantly because I don't actually know what the fuck that means, and I don’t think Don DeLillo knows what it means either because he basically said something like “Postmodern? I don’t know what the fuck that means” in an old interview from 2010, which he later clarified by saying, “I think of postmodernism in terms of literature as part of a self-referring kind of art, people attach a label to writers or filmmakers or painters to be able some years in the future to declare that the movement is dead,” which illustrates that maybe Don DeLillo himself also has a preoccupation with Death, so perhaps there’s something autobiographical going on here too.

So, basically, White Noise is about Death, among other things. I had originally planned to write about the novel immediately after finishing it, but I kept putting it off because, well, surprise surprise, I guess I don't really like thinking about Death too much. In fact, I rarely ever think about Death, but the same cannot be said for the two main characters of White Noise, Jack and Babette, who are deathly afraid of Death and literally think about it all the time, and they have pretty logically convincing fears, too, considering Death is literally all around us just waiting to swoop in and take us away to the Mysterious Otherside, like you could step on a pebble the wrong way causing you to fall and bonk your head and that’s it you’re dead, or you could be watching your favorite television program while eating grapes and then all of a sudden a grape goes down the wrong tube and cough cough you’re dead, or you could be sleeping and your heater starts malfunctioning thus putting out some sort of invisible odorless gas and you never wake up because you're fucking dead, or you could be on a walk on a nature trail or something and you somehow touch some innocuous-looking plant and you have some ultra-rare allergic reaction to it and suddenly you’re throwing up and then bye bye dead, or you could be walking downtown and some random thing just falls on your head and bam dead, or a plane could just crash into your home for example, or you could be crossing the road and some drunk dude just doesn’t stop at the light and all of a sudden your guts are all over the windshield and just like that you’re dead, or your body could just say NO and trigger a brain aneurysm and that's it see ya you’re dead, and so on. Neither the what, nor where, nor when, nor even the why is known to mortals. No one knows. It's almost so absurd that it's not even worth worrying about, at least that's how I view it, like if I could die at any time, in ways often outside of my own conscious control, why expend time and effort worrying about it? Why get worked up? Why ruin my day? And that’s why I don’t fear Death, because like what’s the point?

But after reading White Noise and upon reflection, it turns out I was wrong, I do fear Death. Maybe I don't consciously fear Death, but I certainly subconsciously fear Death, at least on some sort of deep biological level. After reading White Noise, I started analyzing my habits, my daily routines, things like that, and came to the realization that maybe everything I do is actually motivated by some latent fear of Death, like Death is this terrifying primordial silence just lingering there in the background of things, always influencing literally everything I do, and I hadn’t even realized it until just recently. I started thinking that maybe even the stuff I do that seems so far removed from fear-of-Death, like reading and writing and playing video games, is actually just a subconscious distraction from the ever-present biological fear of Death. Maybe all the bullshit I do to keep myself occupied actually functions as a sort of white noise to drown out the silence of Death. This idea was new to me, and it spooked me a little bit. I didn’t understand it, but I wanted to. So I went on a quest to understand it, which involved the writing of this journal entry, and this quest led me to the soft conclusion that it’s likely very possible that everything we do is actually some sort of Death Avoidance Behavior.

There's obvious Death Avoidance Behaviors, like eating so that we don't starve, drinking so that we don't dehydrate, finding shelter so that we don't die of exposure, avoiding vicious animals so that we don't get mauled, forming communities so that we can help each other survive, establishing rules so that we don't take advantage of or kill each other, and so on, which, in the modern world, manifests as things like working shitty jobs so that we can buy food and afford a place to live, buying cars so that we can travel to all the places that supply various life-sustaining things, wearing clothes or whatever, obeying laws so that we don't end up getting murdered in jail or whatever, brushing our teeth and taking showers and whatnot, getting married and having children so that we can form our own close-knit communities so that we can have life-sustaining support systems, and so on, which is all very obvious stuff. But then there’s the less obvious stuff, like watching television or reading a book or playing a video game or writing a journal entry or painting a sunset or performing in a play or dancing on Saturdays or playing tennis or whatever, all so that we don’t quite literally bore ourselves to Death because, I suspect, if we just sit on our asses all day doing literally nothing, we’ll start thinking a little too much about our own mortality and thus the fear of Death will start creeping in. Maybe boredom is actually a latent fear of Death, our bodies telling us that we better getting moving because one day we will just up and die. Death is always there, in the background. So we distract ourselves. We turn on the white noise. Otherwise, we become depressed, despondent, miserable, all those dark adjectives that only serve to bring us Deathward, be it through suicide or self-neglect or whatever. What I’m trying to say is, it seems like everything we do is some sort of Death Avoidance Behavior, even the stupid behavior that seems counterintuitive to staying alive, like overeating food packed with high-fructose corn syrup or binge drinking alcohol or vegging out in front of a screen for hours or injecting heroin into our veins, these things serve as sort of Misguided Death Avoidance Behaviors, because even though this behavior is harmful, potentially bringing us closer to Death, they make us feel good in the short term by doing a really good job of drowning out the silence of Death, even if only temporarily, which becomes extra complicated when addiction comes into play, creating a sort of paradoxical Death trap wherein by trying to avoid the fear of Death you are actually hastening your own Death, or something like that, which only serves to show how cruel biology can be sometimes, tricking us Deathward. And we do these good and bad things, obviously, because Death just keeps showing up in each subsequent Castlevania game, he just doesn't go away, he is an ever-present force. Death is a hard-coded fact of life, and coming face to face with this is just downright unpleasant.

At first, this all struck me as very grim and depressing, but after finishing White Noise and ruminating on it a little bit, my perspective changed.

In White Noise, there’s this drug that basically eliminates the fear of Death. The main character becomes obsessed with this drug and comes up with all sorts of plots and schemes to get their hands on it, eventually leading them to the creator of the no-fear-of-Death drug. The creator of the drug turns out to be a man living in a cheap motel room. And from the very first scene with this man, we can tell that he’s obviously addicted to the no-fear-of-Death drug. He has eliminated the fear, drowned out the silence, conquered Death. He’s sitting in an uncomfortable metal chair in the middle of the room, no lights on, surrounded by broken bottles and candy bar wrappers and flies and stuff, just staring up into this little television set mounted in the corner of the room, mumbling to himself. He has clearly not bathed or groomed himself in months. He’s just wasting away, dying pretty much. He is no longer living life. He is just there, existing, doing pretty much nothing. The text makes it clear that this man is a sad, pathetic excuse for a man, a hollow shell, a ghost almost, someone who is both alive and dead simultaneously.

But he doesn’t care, why would he? He has no fear of Death.

“I’m just sick of ego, ego, ego. My own and everybody else’s. I’m sick of everybody that wants to get somewhere, do something distinguished and all, be somebody interesting. It’s disgusting.”
—J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

A little over a year ago, I created a community blogging platform called howdoyouspell.cool, powered by Write Freely, an online space wherein anyone could sign up, create a blog, and write about whatever they wanted. Back then, I told myself that I was inspired by this concept of the “open internet,” a sort of return to the wild-west era of the Internet in which I grew up, beyond the reaches of devious corporate overlords and money-making algorithms, where people could express themselves however they wanted, no matter how weird or vile that expression might be. But as of yesterday, October 4, 2025, I have retired the domain name and am now in the process of shutting the platform down for good. And now, on this eve of the platform’s obliteration, I find myself analyzing my true motivations for having created it to begin with. Was it really to provide a place for people to express themselves unfettered, or was it something else?

Well, I've come to the conclusion that it was indeed something else, something performative and superficial. I've come to the conclusion that it was all ego, ego, ego. I just wanted to be cool, pretty much. In hindsight, it’s pretty obvious. I mean, the word “cool” is right there in the damn domain name.

To be honest, before I had even created the blogging platform, I kind of knew it was a bad idea. For one, I had tried creating online communities in the past but had always ended up abandoning them a few months after creation because being an administrator just doesn’t suit me, because people annoy me very easily. And for two, I don’t usually get along with my fellow writers to begin with. 

This is a sweeping generalization, I know, but I think most writers are pretentious, narcissistic know-it-alls who are desperate for validation. They want people to read their stuff and be like, “holy shit, this is the most deep and thoughtful thing I’ve ever read, this author is a genius.” Writers seem to get off on impressing others and cultivating airs more so than the actual act of writing itself. I mean, why even publish anything for public consumption if, one, you didn’t want it to be read by other people, which indicates some level of validation-seeking, and two, you didn’t think your writing had some sort of academic or artistic merit worth someone else’s time, which suggests a certain level of pretentious arrogance that contributes to the whole know-it-all thing. I mean, what do you think this whole journal you’re reading here is, exactly? Some sort of selfless practice of the art of writing? Some sort of altruism? No, it's an effort to put myself out there in some sort of vain attempt at validation and like-minded community building. As they say, it takes one to know one. Do note, however, that my wife says my biggest character flaw is that I project myself onto others and have a hard time relating to the thoughts and feelings of other people because of this, so maybe this should all be taken with a nice, heaping pile of salt.

By the time I had created the howdoyouspell.cool platform, I had written something like twenty essays and two short stories, all of which tried to marry my love of video games with philosophical and societal concepts that I admittedly understood very poorly, and I had electronically published two full-blown magazines also, both of which I had done all the editing and graphical design for. I thought, at the time, that all of my stuff was very well-written and intelligent. I was trying very hard to make a point with my writing, and I wanted very much for someone to read my work and say something like, “holy shit, this is the most deep and thoughtful thing I’ve ever read, this author is a genius.” But of course this praise and validation never materialized, because barely anyone read my stuff, and those who did were more interested in the video game aspects than the philosophical, societal aspects, so I began to resent the audience that I had cultivated, seeing them as shallow and vapid, only seeming to care about playing video games instead of thinking about video games. So I decided, hey, you know what, what if I make a writing platform, position myself as some sort of writing authority figure, and then, by using this facade of “I’m just a passionate writer who wants to provide you the chance of hosting your own blog wherein you can say whatever you want without fear of being banned,” I would maybe attract the sort of high-minded audience that would appreciate my stuff. I’m not sure if I was consciously thinking about it like this at the time, but using the forty-twenty power of hindsight, this was certainly what was going on. Ego, ego, ego. I wanted to be perceived as a cool writer. I thought my writing was incredible, and I believed that if people just read it, I would become this sort of online writing folk hero of sorts. In short, I was desperate for attention.

Probably needless to say, but this whole scheme did not provide the attention I craved, mostly because my writing wasn’t actually very good, but also because, by advertising my new blogging platform as a sort of haven for free-speech absolutists, I had once again attracted an audience that I immediately grew to resent. Because upon advertising my platform on Mastodon, a defederated social media network of which I no longer have a profile, the first person who reached out to me was this one guy who wrote erotic anime-inspired fiction that almost exclusively featured unrealistically well-endowed chubby women who battled and performed sexual acts on each other, because his characters were all like mixed-martial artists or something, and in all of this guy’s stories, the women vocally expressed hatred for one another but always had this sort of repressed sexual attraction bubbling underneath the surface, so they’d be in a fighting arena for whatever reason and they’d start off all like, “Do you think you’re better than me? I hate your fucking guts, you nasty tramp. I’m the best fighter in the world.” But by the end of the story, they’d be rolling around completely nude in the middle of the arena, making out and fondling each other or whatever. This is how all the guy’s stories went. 

This author’s work was inherently offensive to me because he very obviously treated women as mere sexual objects, so I didn’t want this guy to create a blog on my platform, but I had advertised the platform as a sort of free-speech haven where anyone could post anything, so from the very start of this whole attention-seeking endeavor, I was faced with a sort of ethical dilemma. Am I really in support of absolute freedom of expression if I’m unwilling to allow this misogynist objectifier of women to post his nasty smut trash on my blogging platform? I felt sort of ethically committed to the bit, so to speak, in that I had advertised the platform as a free-speech platform, and but what would it look like if I suddenly told this guy that actually no, you can’t post on my platform because your writing is disgusting and offensive to me?

In hindsight, this was an egotistical concern on my part, because I was more worried about how people would perceive my shifting stances on the free-speech thing than I was about actually following my own moral, ethical gut code, which told me that by no means should I allow this guy’s awful smut garbage on my platform. But I ended up caving to my ego and letting this guy create his smut blog, because I didn't want to make an ethical 180 on the free-speech thing I had originally committed to, out of fear of being perceived as some sort of hypocritical phony.

As of today, there are like ten users, not counting myself, on howdoyouspell.cool, nine of whom only posted a few entries before vanishing without a trace, but this guy, this misogynist objectifier of women, has stuck around. In fact, I believe he just posted something last week, another chapter in his Beat, Prey, Love series, the title of which follows the annoying format of all his other titles, that being taking an existing movie title and altering it somewhat to vaguely suggest something erotic going on, which is a play-on-words trend that makes my eyes roll into the back of my head even when not used in a sexualized context, as it's never as clever as the author likes to think it is, and it's frankly low-effort and offensively unoriginal. 

The smut author has been consistently posting his drivel on howdoyouspell.cool for like a year now, and considering I had stopped posting to the platform several months ago, that makes this one nasty guy the sole contributor to the site. So ultimately, at this point, I don’t feel too bad about pulling the plug on the whole platform. In fact, I might even do a villainous little laugh when this guy sends me a very sternly worded email after he attempts to log in only to find his disgusting porn writing completely wiped from the internet because his blog no longer exists.

So yeah, I’m feeling pretty good about the death of howdoyouspell.cool, considering the platform was born primarily out of a desire to satisfy my own ego, and it really only attracted one very nasty guy. For one, I don’t want to provide a platform for smut, and for two, I’m kind of through trying so hard to be cool. I want to be the death of cool. I'm done pursuing projects driven solely by my own ego, because my desire to be perceived as distinguished and interesting and cool has only produced within me feelings of anxiety and phonyism.

But is this truly all that my ego has produced? 

A couple of months ago, I read this novel by J.D. Salinger titled Franny and Zooey, which is sort of like a Socratic dialogue between two siblings. Franny is a young actress attending college who is fed up with the ego-fueled intellectual phoniness of her peers and has become obsessed with shedding her own ego through the practice of a repetitive mental prayer she learned by reading an old religious text. Franny is also the source of the quote at the beginning of this journal entry. Zooey, Franny’s brother, disagrees with Franny that ego is the root of all her problems. At one point, about a hundred and sixty pages in, Zooey says something that kind of opened my eyes to the possibility that maybe ego isn’t such a bad thing. He said,

“What about your beloved Epictetus? Or your beloved Emily Dickinson? You want your Emily, every time she has an urge to write a poem, to just sit down and say a prayer till her nasty, egotistical urge goes away?”

Much like the creation of howdoyouspell.cool, my entire body of writing has been largely the product of my own ego, which on the surface is a fact that seems to taint the writing, but does it really? Looking back at everything I’ve written, even though much of it is hot garbage, I’m proud of some of it and grateful to have written it all. Even the writing I now think is hot garbage, I don’t regret having written it, because it helped me become a better writer and led to work that I feel has real, meaningful value, however hard that is to actually quantify.

So the whole thing has me thinking about ego in a deeper way, like, is ego really all that bad? It seems to me that most human behavior could probably be tied back to ego in some way. I mean, even a super generous person who donates to charities probably gets some sort of personal satisfaction from others perceiving them as a charitable person, which is a sort of ego-stroke, in a way. But is that a bad thing? I mean, even if that’s the case, that the charitable person is driven by ego, does the motive even matter at that point? The charity is still happening, regardless of whether the ego was involved or not. Isn’t the charitable person’s ego producing good outcomes in this hypothetical situation? And if we concede that this egotism does indeed produce good outcomes sometimes, then is ego really all that bad?

Like Franny, maybe I've been looking at ego the wrong way. Perhaps ego is more like this neutral power within us all, this driving force that is neither good nor bad, and what really matters is how we choose to use our egos and the outcomes of those ego-driven choices.

A sort of like Ego-Driven Consequentialism or something.

I was stepping quick down the wide stair brick, cool breeze washing over me, one hand dragging along the top of this fancy low cement wall for balance, when I heard my name called from behind me. I didn’t stop, but, while moving, I tried to turn my head to catch a glimpse of whoever it was, and that’s when I lost my footing a little bit and stumbled down the last few steps, landing on my palms at the bottom of the stairs, contents of my messenger bag spilling out all over the walkway, and not just a few things spilled out, all of it did, my Moto flip, bright yellow Sony Walkman, headphones with the orange puffs, cassette copy of Beck’s Sea Change, zipper binder with all my papers and stuff in it, wallet and credit card, that copy of Catcher Mr. Moody told me to hang on to, some loose comics I had drawn earlier, a few textbooks, Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil which I didn't understand a word of but felt cool carrying around, my little pill baggie, and the Final Fantasy VIII strategy guide I had been keeping in there for when I got bored in class, which was like all the time, and even my pack of Luckies, thankfully they didn’t burst open or nothing, so the cigs were unharmed, which was important because, well, I couldn’t buy them myself, on account of being seventeen, so I had to get my sister to buy them, and she always made a big deal out of it for some reason, saying I shouldn’t smoke and all that, which is rich considering she smokes weed like all the fucking time.

Anyway, on that brick walkway, on my hands and knees, clumsily scooping everything back into my bag, I could feel my face flush red with fuzzy embarrassment, and my stomach was churning a little bit as I imagined the whole student body watching me, laughing, which probably wasn't actually happening, but I imagined it anyway, and I was hungry, having not eaten all day, because I was watching my weight, always thinking myself fat as hell, even though Mom always told me I was too thin, but I knew she was just trying to make me feel better.

Anyway. When I went to pick up that old copy of Catcher, a chunky wrist reached down and picked it up for me, so I looked up and there I saw Aaron, holding my book, wearing his signature suspenders with green bowtie, tucked Epworth nearly bursting at the buttons. He was breathing heavy, which was normal for him, because he was actually fucking huge, and his cheeks were all puffy and red, but he had this big smile on his teddy-bear face.

“Sorry, Nathan,” he said in baritone, pausing for breaths, “didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You didn’t scare me,” I mumbled, snatching the book from his hand, glancing around nervously as if I were a criminal who had just committed the unforgivable crime of being a tall, awkward teenager with zero coordination and a bag full of incredibly nerdy shit.

And I felt kinda bad about what I did next, because I was like Aaron’s only friend, but I started speed-walking down the brick walkway, toward the Harrington Building, determined to distance myself from the embarrassment zone, passing all sorts of polos along the way. Aaron waddling behind me, trying to keep up, huffing and puffing the whole time, “hold on, hold on,” but I just kept zooming, passing through the crazy shade of one of those mighty oaks, until I reached a fork which verged into an alley between Epworth and Harrington, where Aaron caught up with me and said, “Hey, aren't you going to class?” but I just gave him a dismissive wave and said, “Yeah, I’ll be there in a few,” then I turned into the alley, head down because, well, if a teacher saw me or something, they'd stop me and ask me all sorts of questions, which I didn't really want to deal with right now, because I just wanted a damn Lucky, so I picked up the pace a little bit, through the alley, through the parking lot behind Epworth proper, and finally through a shady opening in the evergreen wall surrounding the entire campus prison complex, and when I looked back, Aaron was nowhere in sight, so I guess he must have waddled his way to Fine Arts. He was such a stickler for the rules, always worried about being on-time and shit, which often made me wonder how we got along so well, considering I didn't give a fuck about any of that.

Stopping in the shade of leafy tunnel, I dug my hands through my bag, pulled out my pack of Luckies, which also housed my Bic, and then I slid a Lucky between my lips, at which point I started rumaging through my bag again, looking for my Walkman, which took me a few seconds to dig out, and when I did, I quickly put my headphones on and pressed down on that chunky play button, and that’s when Beck’s Sea Change started playing with all its strings and acoustics and moodiness.

I was trying to like the album, I really was, but it was so different from his previous work that it kinda annoyed me. I mean, this is the guy who did “Loser,” for fuck’s sake, the wizard of poetic junk pop, who once sung about “garbage-man trees” and “mouthwash jukebox gasoline,” but now he’s sitting here strumming an acoustic guitar, comparing himself to a paper tiger like he’s Neil Young or some shit. It was a big change for him, which I guess makes the title appropriate, but it also kinda pissed me off, not that I hate change or nothing like that, but I just don’t see the point, especially when you had something good going on before. I just don’t get why everyone is always trying to change all the time. It makes me kinda sad, in a way, like whenever someone changes, the person they were before just withers away and dies or something.

Anyway, around the time Beck started singing about “stray dogs gone defective,” I sparked up and took a nice long drag, and as the smoke reached my lungs, I was overcome by this heady feeling like I was a storm cloud full of heat lightning just rumbling off in the distance or something like that, then I glanced at my watch, seven minutes till, just enough time to finish smoking and get to class on time, so in that moment, I was feeling pretty good, not a care in the world, so I decided to push a little further through the wood, into an opening between a circle of trees, fully shaded by a thick canopy, into a place I had taken to calling Smoker’s Grove because, well, it was a grove that I smoked in, and it was a special to me, a place to call my own, a place where no one bothered me. The ground was all dead leaves, twigs, and branches, so it was snap-crackle-pop whenever you took a step, and there were a few fallen logs and stumps scattered about, perfect for sitting, but I usually preferred to sit on this out-of-place, long-forgotten electrical box off in the corner, because it was the only spot where you could see the sky through the canopy, so, taking another drag, then blowing a huge smoke cloud, imaging myself like some sort of sick dragon in a Japanese role-playing game, I turned to the electrical box and, to my surprise, there was already someone sitting right on it.

She was just sitting there, with headphones on, reading a book, one finger on the page, mumbling to herself. “What storm is this that blows so contrary?” A stray sunbeam shone down on her, through the canopy, as if she were chosen by the heavens or something, not that I believe in heaven or nothing like that, but you know what I mean, and her pale legs were crossed at the knees, and her long orange hair was draped over one shoulder, and she had these big duck lips, and these big square glasses, which made her look kinda nerdy, but also kinda cute, so cute, in fact, that I forgot about the Lucky dangling from my lips, smoke swirling up into my nostrils, which made me sneeze, which must have startled her because that’s when she looked up from her book, her big green eyes scanning me up and down, and for a moment there I thought that I had disturbed an angel or something, not that I believe in angels or nothing, but man, seeing her sitting there in that stray sunbeam could turn any boy religious, I'm telling you.

In that moment, with our eyes locked, I tried to affect some sort of cool pose, but my body was stiff, feeling pretty nervous, so instead I put a hand up to my face, trying to catch the Lucky between my fingers, but ended up knocking it right out of my mouth onto the leaves below, and when I bent over to pick it up, that’s when my headphones fell off my ears, which dragged my Walkman out of my pocket, causing it too to fall into the leaves below. Then, confused as to which thing to pick up first, I sort of fell forward onto my palms, and that’s when that fuzzy feeling of embarrassment I had come to know so well returned, so I scrambled to pick up my Lucky, burning my hand a little bit before getting it back into my mouth, then I slung the headphones around my neck and pocketed my Walkman, but not before pushing down that chunky stop button, which, at that point, I wished had also just stopped my life, because I was feeling like a fucking idiot, I really was.

So I just sat there on the ground, in the lotus position, looking down at the leaves, feeling like an idiot, half covering my face, adjusting the Lucky between my lips, face probably red as hell, from all the falling down, but after a few seconds I looked up at the girl anyway, expecting to see a look of terror, but instead she was just sitting there with this cute curl on her duckish lips, looking both amused and mischievous, like an elf almost, because her ears were poking out of her hair just so. And she looked so radiant with that sunbeam that I had completely forgotten about being embarrassed, so I said, in the smoothest voice possible, “Hey,” then I took a long drag on my Lucky.

“Are you alright?” she said, her voice all smoky and southern, as if she were a country-jazz fusion singer or something.

“Yeah,” I said, taking the cigarette out of my mouth, flicking ash. “I just, well, I just didn’t expect to see you there.” I was affecting a real cool tone, feigning obliviousness, as if nothing had happened, which was kind of my default attitude, especially with girls, whom, for some reason, I just can’t stop myself from flirting with. I can’t help it. I’m always thinking girls are cute, even the dumb ones, but there was something different about this girl, something beyond cute, maybe it was her strange southern accent, which normally, on most people, I think sounds trashy, but, combined with the whole reading-a-book-in-a-shady-grove thing, projected some sort of like alluring intelligence or something that I just couldn’t get enough of.

She turned her attention to the book in her lap, slid out a bookmark with sunflowers all over it, put it between the pages, then closed the book, pulled her headphones down, removed those nerdy glasses, folded them, and hung them right between the collar of her green Epworth top, then she looked right at me and said, in that smoky southern accent, “Were you expecting someone else?”

“No, it’s just that,” I paused because at that moment, without the glasses, I recognized her. We weren't in any classes together, but I had seen her in the halls a few times. It was a large campus, but it was a small school, only about fifty high schoolers or so, so it was hard not to notice people. But I think she was new, because she just randomly appeared after Winter break, and I knew she was a senior, like me, because I always saw her leaving AP classes, none of which I'm actually in, on account of my poor grades. And I had only ever seen her from a distance, so I never really noticed how cute she was until just now, and she wasn't cute in this typical twiggy-barbie type way that you see on television or whatever, she was actually kind of big, in a way, not like fat or nothing, but she was taller than most girls, probably up to my nose, and I was 6’2 on a good day, and her face was long and pale and flecked with all these little orange dots, like a sunflower or something, and I was like lost like a bee in nectar there for a moment, probably staring a little bit longer than I should have been.

But she was just blinking those big greens at me. “It’s just what?” she said, finally.

And that snapped me out of my trance. Looking away, I took a drag off my Lucky and blew a smokescreen, then I said, “It’s just that, like, no one ever comes back here.” 

“I hope you don’t mind,” she said. “It’s a nice spot.”

“Are you going to, uh,” I lifted my Lucky, “tell anyone?”

“Why would I?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, then,” she said, that mischievous curl coming back, “your secret’s safe with me.”

Then, for a moment there, it was disney, what with all the birds chirping and leaves rustling and branches crackling and squirrels scampering up trees, and, in this quiet fantasia, we stole glances at each other in this shy sort of way, until, out of nervousness mostly, I flicked the filter of my cigarette so hard that the cherry flew out, so then I quickly stood up to stomp it out, and that’s when I heard her giggling a little bit, so I turned and there she was, covering her mouth, watching me. I didn’t know what to say at first, so I just ran a hand through my hair, pushing my bangs to one side like I do, and said, “So, hey, like, what were you listening to just now?”

“Oh,” she said, then, still sitting on the electrical box, she dug a hand into her pocket and pulled out this bright green iPod, then she thumbed it and looked down at the screen. “This song called ‘Neon,’ by,” but before she completed her sentence, I completed it for her,

“John Mayer?”

Her lips did that little curl again. “How’d you know that?”

“Good guess, I guess,” I said, feeling a lot cooler now, so I removed another Lucky from the pack and lit it. I was actually kinda obsessed with that song for a little bit, back in the day. That jazzy guitar line in particular can get stuck in your head for weeks. I was actually a big fan of John Mayer, although I didn’t often admit it because his music was a little too mainstream, and I was trying to distance myself from all that radio-friendly shit, but sometimes, when the music is just so good, you just can’t resist it. Besides, he was a really good guitarist, and he knew how to write a hook, and out of the big three corny singer-songwriters of the time, that being John Mayer, Jason Mraz, and Dave Matthews, John Mayer was easily the least offensive, musically. My mom was a big fan too. We even saw him live once, down at the Memorial Stadium. She even let me skip school for it, which was pretty cool of her, I guess, now if only she would stop lying to me all the time about being too thin, that would be even cooler.

“Actually,” I said, kicking my feet a little bit, “I really like that song, especially the guitar riff or whatever you call it.”
“Oh,” she smiled, “me too. I’m trying to learn it on my viola.”

“I saw him play one time, down at,” I paused for a second. “You play viola?”

“I try,” she said, her smile so cute I could barely even look at her. Then she added, “Do you play something?”
“I, uh,” I said, dragging on my Lucky, thinking for a second. “I play guitar.”

I don’t know why I said that. I don’t really play guitar. I mean, I know a few chords, but I don’t actually play guitar. I was in a band one time, in middle school, but was kicked out for, well, not knowing how to play the guitar, like, at all.

“I’d love to hear you play,” she said.

“I, uh, yeah, sure.”

The birds were chirping again. I was kicking my feet. Then she broke the silence. “What were you listening to?”

“Beck.”

“Bach?”

“No, Beck. You know,” I paused to prepare myself, then I started singing, poorly, “I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill meeee.”

She was doing that lip curl again. “You sound just like him.”

“Do I?”

“Yeah, you should do it again.”

So I took a long drag off my Lucky, exhaled, then sang it again, practically screaming this time, “I’M A LOSER BABY, SO WHY DON’T YOU KILL MEEEE,” which echoed in the canopy and sent some birds flying off like crazy, then I added that funny little line at the end, “Get crazy with the cheese whiz.” And that cracked her up. She had these low hearty laughs, which warmed my dark heart, they really did. So I kept going, “Kill the headlights and put it in neutral, stock car flamin' with a loser and the cruise control.” I was laughing between verses at this point. “Got a couple of couches, sleep on the love-seat.”

“You’re a natural. You don’t even need school. Just do Beck covers for the rest of your life.”

I did one of those single ha’s, then I said, “I wish,” and put out my Lucky on a nearby tree, then I whipped out the pack and held it out to her. “You smoke?”

She shook her head politely and said, “What’s your name?”

“Nathan,” I said comfortably, “Nathan Wheeler.”

“I’m Katie-Belle,” she said, “Gallagher,” she added. “Most people just call me KB.”

I repeated her name over and over in my mind, then I said something really stupid, I said, “like KB Toys?”
But she didn't seem to mind, she actually laughed. “Yes, like KB Toys.” Then she smiled at me and said, “I just transferred here,” and then  after a brief pause, brushing some orange out of her face, she said, “I’ve seen you around.”

She’s seen me around, I thought, she’s seen me around. I was getting excited and queasy in the best way possible. “Yeah, me too,” I said, “seen you, that is, I mean, around.” And the more her lips curled, the more I lost my way with words, but I just kept going, “Where’d you come from, if you don’t mind me asking, like, what school were you at before, were you even in school, or were you, like, home-schooled, or something?"

“I used to live in Alabama.”

“Really?” I said. “How’d you end up here?”

“My parents,” her voice a little lower now, “Divorced.”

“Oh yeah, mine too,”  I said, my tone too happy for the subject matter, which I could tell made her fidget a little bit, but I just kept going. “I read somewhere that, like, ninety percent of marriages end in divorce.” I was just making shit up at this point, but I kept going. “So it's almost like marriage is like a self-fulfilling prophecy or something.” 

She laughed one of those beautiful laughs again then got real quiet for a second before saying, “So I take it you never plan on getting married?”

“Well, uh, I never really thought about it, you know. I guess, if I met, like, the right girl, or whatever, maybe. I don't know.” She was nodding, so I just kept going. “And, like, I'm not religious or nothing, you know, so I don't really see the point, it's not like God is gonna strike me down if I don't get married or whatever. I'm agnostic, to tell you the truth.”
She was still nodding, and the birds were still chirping, and the squirrels were still scampering up their trees, and after a few seconds of letting my eyes wander, from the squirrels, to her, then to my feet, I said, “Well maybe I would, you know, get married, or whatever, but she’d have to be, like, really special.” Then, in that disney moment, overcome by some surge of confidence, I looked straight in those big green eyes of hers and said, “You know what I mean?”
Then, as if on cue, that stray sunbeam vanished, but KB was still radiant, even in the darkness of the grove, like a beacon of hope within the gloom or something. She was just staring at me, not saying a word, so cute I could barely look at her, then it started to feel like butterflies were killing each other in my stomach or something. I was suddenly overcome with this feeling of regret, like I had come on too strong or something, so I turned away from her, all red-faced, checking my watch, and that’s when I realized I was ten minutes late to class.

So I shouted “FUCK” and bolted the hell out of there.

I could hear KB shouting faintly behind me, “wait, wait,” but I just kept running, not because I was concerned about being late to class or whatever, but because Mr. Moody said I was just one write-up away from being expelled, which normally would’ve been fine with me, but not this time, because this time was different. 

This time I knew KB.

This novel fucking sucks.

It was called The Catcher in the Rye, apparently it was banned or something by the school board, but Mr. Moody gave it to me to read anyway, as like extra credit or whatever, on account of my poor grades, and he told me not to tell anyone. He also said I was real smart but that I had serious motivation problems and that my attitude was garbage and that I needed to get my shit together if I ever planned to get into a good school. He didn’t say it all like that, of course, but that was pretty much the gist of it, and that's why I had to meet with him every week, on Fridays, during free period, to discuss my serious-garbage-shit-motivation problem, which was really only a problem to my mom and teachers, not me, because I didn’t care much about getting into a good school. I hadn’t even thought about applying, to tell you the truth, because artists like me don’t need to go to school, we just need some heart and soul and a little bit of tragedy in our lives, which I'm perfectly capable of creating on my own.

Anyway, like I was saying, the novel fucking sucked. The day he gave it to me, I went home and looked it up on Wikipedia, read the plot summary and all that, it’s one of those pretentious books with literally no plot and bad grammar on purpose, it's no Neuromancer, and it's certainly no Clockwork Orange, that's for sure, and after reading the summary, it became immediately clear that Mr. Moody was trying to make a point, hoping the book would draw a parallel to my life or whatever, like a cautionary tale or something, because it's about a kid that wears a hunting cap all the time who hates everyone and flunks out of school and ends up in a mental ward. But the problem is, I don't hate everyone, and I don't wear hats, I hate hats, they look ugly on me, and I’m not just some delinquent kid from a novel, I’m a real person in the real world. It’s ridiculous to think that some fake person from a book can ever relate to my life, as if I’m so easily pigeonholed or whatever. I get that Mr. Moody was trying to make a point, but I can’t stand people who try to make points. It’s so arrogant, thinking you have some sort of point and that it can apply to anyone other than yourself, as if everyone is the same fucking person or something. It drives me crazy. Mr. Moody may have a degree in Child Psychology hanging on his office wall, but that doesn’t make him an expert on my soul or whatever, not that I believe in souls, but you know what I mean. I'm agnostic, if you want to know the truth.

So, there I was, in the little waiting room right outside Mr. Moody’s office, picking at the acne on my face, which I was quite self-conscious about, leaning back on one of those uncomfortable plastic chairs with the metal legs, heavy canvas messenger bag weighing down one shoulder because I hadn’t bothered to take it off, thumbing through pages of Catcher, not being able to focus on hardly anything because I hadn't taken my pill that morning, my messy head real close to the white brick wall behind me, right by the poster with the school motto, TEMPUS FUGIT HABENAS TENE, with the armored knight on horseback holding his skyward sword with one hand and the horse’s reins with the other, when Mr. Moody’s office door cracked open and his tan face poked through. He had short, brown, curly hair that kinda reminded me of pubes.

“Come on in, Nathan, time’s a-wastin’,” he said. He had a northern accent but was always affecting some goofy southern one. I guess he thought if he acted goofy he’d get students to drop their guards or whatever, and he carried that philosophy into his clothing too, because he was always wearing this brown tweed jacket with goofy, thematic ties underneath. Today his tie had little sunglasses all over it. I guess he thought it made him seem silly and relatable, but to me, it just made him look stupid as fuck, and the pube hair certainly didn't help his case.

Pushing my weight forward, the chair landing on all four legs, I stood up, put the book down, and tucked in my Epworth Academy polo because I knew Mr. Moody would make some silly remark if I hadn’t, and I didn’t want to deal with all that right now. Then I picked the book up and stepped through the wide open door, into the sunlit world of student counseling, where I sank into the plushy recliner, leaned back, and crossed my arms like I always do when I don’t want to be somewhere, meaning I was pretty much crossing my arms all the fucking time.

There was only one window in the whole room, overlooking the bright green campus lawn, where students were reading and picnicking in the shade of the massive live oaks, their branches twisted like skeletal limbs reaching out from the grave, Spanish moss like death shrouds or something, and there were some boys kicking soccer balls around, their green Epworths all tucked into their brown khakis like gold star for robot boy, and some girls were spectating nearby, wearing green skirts that stopped just above their knees, because the Epworth uniform was modest, but not that modest.

The walls of Mr. Moody’s office were covered in posters like YOU MATTER and DRUGS DON'T WORK THEY JUST MAKE IT WORSE and EVERY MISTAKE IS A LEARNING OPPORTUNITY, and there was even one with Freddie Mercury from the band Queen standing on stage in that iconic yellow jacket of his with the words BE YOURSELF NO MATTER WHAT THEY SAY in big font just above him, which I guess was Mr. Moody’s way of trying to be hip, but it was also ironic, considering the school tried its damndest to make everyone look exactly the same, what with the uniforms and all. Besides, I was more into obscure stuff, like The Smiths, My Bloody Valentine, Lush, The Strokes, Pavement, Beck, you know, music that's actually good, not that corny “We Are the Champions” shit, which, needless to say, always played at the school pep rallies and drove me fucking crazy.

On Mr. Moody’s desk, around the black panel monitor of the Dell-Inspirawhatever computer, whose tower served as a makeshift stand for the monitor itself, was a mess of papers, pens, and folders all spread out in some sort of system that only he could understand. The desk itself was large, dark wood, and the edges were lined with bobbleheads ranging from baseball players like Babe Ruth and some other guys I would never be able to name because sports are lame as fuck, and there were Star Wars characters too, like Yoda and Luke, all perpetually bobbling somehow, as if they had minds of their own, maybe they were motorized, I don’t know, either way, they were kinda creepy. There was even one of Kramer from Seinfeld, a show I actually liked but would never tell Mr. Moody that because, fuck that, we have nothing in common.

Mr. Moody and I sat there in awkward silence for what felt like a whole minute. At least it was awkward for me because, to tell you the truth, I was a little socially awkward back then. I wouldn’t say I was shy, per se, but I preferred to be quiet because I figured silence and a scowl were better than making myself look like a stupid dumbass. Mr. Moody, however, didn’t seem awkward at all, shuffling papers around on his desk, occasionally holding them up to his face like he was reading them or something, which I suspected was just some sort of clever contrivance to make himself appear busier than he actually was, maybe to prompt me to speak first. He was always trying to get me to speak first, like he was expecting me to just pour my heart out to him every Friday afternoon during free period when I had like a million better things to do, like listening to music or sneaking a smoke in the grove behind the Harrington building. Anyway, in the weird silence, I started losing focus, thinking these sessions were kinda like Street Fighter, a weird verbal game of Street Fighter, waiting for someone to strike first, to exploit an opening for a perfectly timed Dragon Punch or whatever, which I used to do all the time back at the arcade in the old mall on the mainland, which I had stopped going to because it just wasn’t that fun anymore, and most of the mallcore kids were assholes that would always get mad at me because, well, I would win all the fights, because I would never make the first move. I was stubborn as hell like that. And, to tell you the truth, I preferred Japanese role-playing games anyway, like Chrono Cross.

Anyway. In the silence, I started thinking about Chrono Cross and its incredible soundtrack and how I wanted to go home, pop an Adderall, and play it, but then, to my surprise, Mr. Moody made the first move.

“So, Nathan, it’s been a few weeks, how’d you like the novel?” he said in that low, nonchalant voice of his.

It took me a second to respond. “It’s alright.”

“Just alright?”

I made one of those verbal shrug noises.

“Surely there’s at least one thing you liked about the book, Nathan.” He was always saying my name like that. I figured it was some sort of conversational engagement trick he had read in a self-help book or something.

“Well,” I said, “to tell you the truth,” I paused, “I didn’t really read it.”

Mr. Moody said nothing for a moment. He just straightened himself out in that big leather chair of his, bushy brow straightening a little bit too, which was his way of trying to look serious, although the pubic hairs made it hard for me to ever take him seriously.

“You know, Nathan,” he paused to adjust his tie, “I should have expected that, considering the themes of the novel and all.”

“Well, I know about the book. I read the summary online.”

“Then you know the point I’m trying to make.”

“I guess,” I said, kinda annoyed.

And Mr. Moody must have caught on to my attitude because he quickly replied with, “It seems like you have some thoughts about that.”

“Sure,” was what I said, and all I wanted to say, because I didn’t want to get into it with the guy.

“Tell me about those thoughts, Nathan.”

“Well,” I said, shifting my gaze to the dark berber carpet below, “I guess I just, like, don’t appreciate it,” I paused, “or whatever.”

“What do you not appreciate, Nathan?”

“The whole, like, I’m-making-a-point thing,” I said, looking everywhere except him, “feels kinda condescending, you know.”

“How is it condescending, Nathan?”

“Well, like, it’s kinda ridiculous to think that a character from a book could ever relate to me, since I’m, like, not a character in a book, you know?”

“Interesting. Tell me more about that.”

“The whole idea of making a point, to me, seems really arrogant,” I said, “like, the idea that you know best, and that you can make these really solid, profound points, and that they could ever relate to anyone except yourself. Sometimes I think people just want to, like, hear themselves talk and get pats on the back for making really good points. It just seems, like, really smug and, like, egotistical, and, you know, sort of assholish.”

Mr. Moody didn’t even get onto me for cursing. In fact, his tan face sort of lit up.

“Everyone is different and, like, really, our experiences are kinda subjective, so I just don’t like the whole making-a-point thing. That’s all. I think only stupid people make points, stupid people who are full of themselves and cocky and think they know best. When, really, ‘best’ is going to be different from person to person. So, yeah, I guess I don’t appreciate the point, or any point, really.”

Mr. Moody seemed to be mulling this over, twirling a pen between his fingers, and in this brief pause, I ran my hand through my bangs, tossing my hair to one side, mostly because it was getting in my eyes, but also because I thought it looked cool, and, in that moment, I was feeling cool, since I had made such a good argument.

Then, like some sort of debate champion, Mr. Moody said something that got on my nerves. He said, “That’s a really good point, Nathan.”

I wasn’t feeling so cool anymore. In fact, my face was very hot, so I looked down at my good friend, the carpet, and said, “That’s not what I meant.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No, I wasn’t making a point. I was just, you know, stating my opinion.”

“What is a point if not an opinion that one backs strongly?” he said, sounding all smart and stuff.

I was kinda telling the guy to fuck off in my head, to tell you the truth. I was always cursing at people in my head but never saying it out loud, mostly because I didn’t want to get in trouble.

“I’m not trying to mock you, Nathan,” he said, affecting some bullshit wise gentle tone. “I do think you’re on to something, and I think you should think about it more, develop it into something full and cogent,” he paused and looked right at me, “maybe write an essay on it. I know you like to write. It could be extra credit.” He was always trying to give me extra credit, it was pissing me right the fuck off.

“I’m not writing an essay,” I said, “and I’m not making a point.”

Mr. Moody let out a soft chuckle, then said, “OK, OK, Nathan. You’re not making a point. I do think you should think about it more, though. I have some books here about Zen Buddhism that I think you would get a lot out of.”

“I’m not reading a book about Buddhism,” I said, trying to hide my frustration behind a blank face and a cool hair-swoop. Then, almost out of nowhere, I went off.

“Maybe this sort of point-making stuff might work on other kids, but not on me, because, like, I’m not like the other kids. If I were, I’d have one of those short haircuts all gelled up in the front, and I’d be on the Knights soccer team, and I’d tuck in my polo even outside of class, and I’d act like some fine upstanding young man in front of all the teachers but get wasted at keggers every night on the Island and I’d drive home drunk and I’d run for student president and be all conservative but get cheerleaders pregnant and then force them to have abortions, like that idiot Mackenzie. Those are the type of kids you don’t want growing up in society, the politician types, the posers who say one thing but do something totally different. Man, if I ever end up like Mackenzie, just kill me, you have permission to just shoot me right in the head. I wouldn’t even be mad. In fact, I might even thank you, from the grave, for sparing the world from such a moron.” I paused, starting to regret some of the things I had said, but I mumbled one last thing before I was done, “Hell, you may even prevent a war by doing that, who knows.”

The silence, at that point, wasn’t awkward, it was scary. Mr. Moody’s narrow brown eyes were narrower than I had ever seen them before. I felt like maybe I was about to get in trouble or something, but, after a few seconds, Mr. Moody just brushed at the lapel of his tweed jacket, ran a hand through his curly pubes, and smiled. Then he said, in a tone that was totally nonchalant, “I really wish you would read the book, Nathan.”

“I’m not reading the book.”

“Well, at least hang on to it for me, will you do that?”

I vocalized a shrug, then, feeling a little less worried due to Mr. Moody’s almost dismissive response to my rant, I glanced down at my watch, one of those old digital Casios, to check the time. It was about twenty minutes till fifth period, Fine Arts.

“I’ll let you go, Nathan, but will you hang on to the book for me,” he said in an earnest voice, “will you do that for me?”

There was a moment of tense silence before I finally said, “Yeah, sure,” then I stood up and adjusted my messenger bag because the strap was cutting into my neck, then I lifted the flap and dropped Catcher right into it.

Mr. Moody’s eyes lit up a little bit, then he nodded, stood up, and walked to the door, opening it for me, hand outstretched as if granting me passage or something. “Thanks, Nathan. You’re a good kid. Think about maybe writing that essay, will ya?” He was doing that southern thing again. “And you have a good rest of your day, ya hear?”

“Yeah, you too,” I said dismissively, walking through the door, into the waiting area, out into the second-floor main hall near the big stairwell with the huge window, into a cacophony of chatter and squeaky linoleum, students walking all around me, making their way to their next class, and one of them was Mackenzie, tall, blonde, built like a professional footballer. He looked kinda like Ashton Kutcher from That ’70s Show, if I had to choose someone to compare him to. And he must have been in a hurry because he was walking all in a huff toward the stairwell, but he didn’t quite make it there because Mr. Moody, who had followed behind me, shouted, “Mr. Harrington!” And this got Mackenzie’s attention, causing him to turn around and look right at me. The two of us didn’t really see eye to eye, except when we were glaring at each other. Then, upon seeing Mr. Moody behind me, Mackenzie quickly adjusted his demeanor to that of a fine upstanding young man, pushed some of the fluff of his polo into the waist of his khakis, and walked toward Mr. Moody, passing me along the way, and as he passed, he quietly said, “Wheeler,” so I said, “Ashton,” and then he sorta sneered at me, so I of course sneered right back, twice as hard, nearly baring fangs.

Looking over my shoulder, I saw Mackenzie pass through the door into the office, and, in that moment, something turned in my stomach, suddenly remembering that I had said some pretty juicy stuff about the guy just moments earlier, and I thought maybe that was why he was being called into the office, so naturally I had to get the fuck out of there, before Mackenzie got out of that office, for my own good.

So I pretended like I was a ghost and disappeared down the stairwell. But before heading to Fine Arts, which was out in the Harrington Building, I had to take a detour.

I had to have my Lucky break.

I am incredibly popular on fictionpress.com. I'm serious, I have a huge fan base there.

Months and months ago, I posted the first four chapters of a sci-fi novel I had been working on to fictionpress.com, and since then, the feedback has been non-stop, and all of it is overwhelmingly positive. Like, I get emails all the time from totally real people who are definitely not just trying to sell me something or attempting to trap me in some sort of weird credit card scheme, and they're definitely not bots either, and they all love my work.

I'm serious, check this one out, for example.

“Hi! After finishing your story, I was left in awe of your writing. The level of detail and imagery you provide is so immersive that it felt like I was watching a film. As an artist, I'd love to create some pieces inspired by your work in good estimate. It's exactly the kind of story that deserves to be brought to life visually. Are you on any platforms where we can connect?”
-mckenzeallen

I did not connect with that person, but I was tempted to, believe me.

Anyway, now that you believe me, I guess I should explain why I chose to post my work on fictionpress.com to begin with. The reason might surprise you, but first, I'll start by eliminating all the reasons that don't apply.

I can tell you for certain that it was not to collect constructive feedback, because I'm low-key kind of an insecure mess that can't take feedback very well, like, at all. With constructive feedback, my knee-jerk reaction is to assume that the person is just full of shit and doesn't understand what I'm trying to do, because, you know, I'm a misunderstood artist or whatever. I start to think, like, isn't it just pure arrogance for the person giving me feedback to assume they know what’s best for my writing? What makes them such an expert? Have they ever even written anything in their life? And then I start to get annoyed, and sometimes, at that point, I even delete the writing from wherever I posted it, out of sheer embarrassment or whatever, because the feedback actually starts to sting a little bit, and I start feeling like I'm a terrible writer, so I just delete all the evidence, pretend like it never happened, and start over. This exact thing has happened many times.

That's one of the reasons why I really appreciate fictionpress.com, for connecting me with totally real, human people who truly value my work, like this nice person in the next example.

“Heya! Your storytelling has left a deep impression on me, and I'd love the opportunity to bring your worlds to life visually. I'd be thrilled to collaborate and provide artwork that complements your vision, in minimal amount.”
-bettytowne430

I have yet to reach out to this individual, but I am certainly considering it.

I can also tell you that I did not post my work on fictionpress.com to make money. As someone who has money, I can afford the luxury of hating money. I believe money corrupts, even art. I believe that if you create art with the intention of making even a small amount of money, you sacrifice part of your creative vision by capitulating to demographics and market trends, consciously or unconsciously, and at that point the artwork will never be true to your vision, unless your only vision is to make money, in which case your artwork is already totally devoid of value.

Which is just another reason I like fictionpress.com so much, it’s full of real people who care not about making money but about the art of writing, and they all love my work, like this person in this next example.

“Hey there, I am Aubrielle. I like to read stories. Well, I want to appreciate your writing, it's such a cool. Thanks for such an amazing story to make my time spend well. Your writing inspired me to make something for your story, such as cover art or characters, and I want to create it for you with fair prices, and I hope your readers will enjoy it too. Thanks for having me.”
-Aubrielle Isla

I'm unsure what they mean by "fair prices," but I'm glad they think my writing is "such a cool," that's a high compliment.

To tell you the truth, the real reason I posted my work on fictionpress.com was to gain recognition and fame, pretty much. I want people to read my work, fall in love with it, and then tell me how good of a writer I am. I don’t want constructive feedback. I don’t want money. I want praise. I want to be loved. I want people to think I’m a genius. And if that’s surprising, then ask yourself, for what other reason would anyone share anything, if not for feedback, fortune, or fame? Is art not something created in partnership with the ego? Does it not require some level of arrogance to assume that your work is even good enough to be worth anyone else's time? Even when you’re trying to make some profound point with your artwork, some altruistic message of love, peace, and harmony, is there not something a little selfish about hanging that same artwork in a gallery with your name on the plaque right below it? Doesn’t it feel like there’s something a little “me me me” about the whole artistic process? Sure, you may play it off as if you’re just building a community of like-minded artists, for companionship or whatever, because we all need community, but is community not just another way of satisfying our own selfish needs, particularly the need to be loved and paid attention to?

Of course, it’s possible that I’m an outlier here, maybe I’m just a huge asshole, making assumptions on behalf of other artists. Maybe there are some truly altruistic, selfless reasons for making art. I’m not ruling that out. I just can’t think of any right now. But asshole or no, herein lies the honest-to-god reason I posted my work on fictionpress.com, I wanted to build an audience of people who think I’m amazing, more or less. And the site has certainly delivered on that goal, over-delivered, actually. I mean, just earlier today, I got another email from someone who absolutely loves my work.

“Heyy, I hope you're doing well. I have read your story and I love the way you bring the characters to life. An incredible idea hit my mind and I want to share it with you. Kindly share your social with me so that we can discuss it.”
-ariasky977

So, if you’re looking to build an audience of totally real people who are not just in it to make money or trap you in some sort of weird credit card scheme or are possibly bots, then I wholeheartedly recommend fictionpress.com.

If you’re anything like me, you will not be disappointed.

Here are a few more words of praise, in case you’re still on the fence.



“Hi Author, I hope you're fine. I'm Angelina. I read (The Egg) and loved it. I'm thinking about enhancing it with some art.”
-angelinagadot

“Hello, hope you're doing well! Your storytelling truly admire me. It's inspiring how vividly you bring each word and character to life. That really felt me into imaginations, and for that, I can help you out to bring your characters into real life in highly affordable prices that won't be a burden on you.”
-Sh artography

“Hey! Hope you're doing well. I was captivated by a story from the start and want to discuss some intriguing ideas related to it.”
-sophiacharlotte

“Hey! Your creations have deeply inspired me. The way you craft each scene is truly remarkable. I have a couple of idea to share for that.”
-Ana Sizzler

“Hey, I came across your story ‘The Egg’ and it was awesome. Your writing is so good, and I kept picturing how nice it would look as a comic. I'm a commissioned artist and I'd love to draw your story into a comic. No pressure, just thought it would be cool to show your work in comic form.”
-Lunapuresoul