"Glue" a short story

Today I witnessed something beautiful. It was a boy in the cafeteria.

He is sitting alone, although he is surrounded by other people his age, younger, and older.
These people are loud and they speak but say nothing.
But he cannot hear them.
He cannot see them.
His eyes are fixed on his slice of peperoni pizza.
There are oddly shaped spots of dried glue on his hair.
I decide he has spent his morning gluing things he'd found on the walk home the previous day onto a large piece of cardboard.
There's a quiet grin on his curled lips as he chews, patient.
He has found bliss. For this very moment.
As the spoon in his hand delicately navigates through the small, clear cup of bits of pineapple and pear, he sighs softly and his slight grin becomes wider for an instant.
And I realize he couldn't be happier to be where he is.
He is wearing a turquoise polo because he doesn't care about what other people think, or whether or not the color looks "right" on him.
He has grown small breasts because he enjoys television shows that flash bright colors.
The identity theft commercials are his favorite.
This makes him happy.
And he enjoys Rocky Road ice cream.
He has made a sport out of removing the almonds from the bowls of his Rocky Road ice cream. Fastest time: 12 seconds.
This makes him happy.
And that is all he wants out of this life for now.
Beside me, a familiar voice is asking me about why I am so quiet today.
He does not truly care to know, but he wants to fill the gap between my silence and his turn to speak.
I can hear him, but I am not listening.
This voice does not know me at all.
I shrug and continue to observe.
In awe of the simplicity of it all.
Everything around him is merely an accident, it is purposeless and he doesn't care.
The line moves forward but my eyes stay fixed on him.
I envy his bliss, his unquestioned acceptance of his world.
His understanding of "happiness" and glue and pizza just is.
It does not demand eloquence, or even awknowledgment.
It just...is.
I am not like him. I am not less.
I'm only cursed with being angry.
And forcing myself to make sense of it all.
With words and stories that mean little.
I am trapped inside myself.
Maybe I'll never be happy.
I don't feel sorry for myself - only...confused.
A distance I cannot measure.
The familiar voice says "hey," he wants me to look at him.
It's his turn to exist, his turn to say what he wants.
He cannot listen to what isn't being said.
It's the worst type of selfishness.
The ability to notice my deep despair and wonder? Unconqured.
He is lack, and that I cannot fight.
I finally turn to him, defeated.
And I say,

"It's the perfect way to say goodbye to March. "

That keeps me together.

Favorite Bits

FRIEDRICH WILHELM NIETZSCHE

OF ECCE HOMO

(from WHY I AM SO CLEVER)

a masterpiece of Narcissitic proportion. Thank you, FD.

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-God is a too palpably clumsy solution of things; a solution which shows a lack of delicacy towards us thinkers at bottom he is really no more than a coarse and rude prohibition of us: ye shall not think!

-In order to believe that the drinking of wine was exhilarating, Ishould have had to be a Christian - in other words, I should have had to believe in what, to my mind, is an absurdity.

-...that a blunder in the choice of locality and climate is able not only to alienate a man from his actual duty, but also to withhold it from him altogether, so that he never even comes face to face with it.

-Ever so slight a tendency to laziness...once it has become a habit, is quite sufficient to make something mediocre, something "German" out of a genius...

-The tempo of the body's function is closely bound up with the agility or the clumsiness of the spirit's feet.

-During the time that I am deeply absorbed in my work, no books are found within my reach; it would never occur to me to allow anyone to speak or even to think in my presence.

-It is not perhaps in my nature to read much, and of all sorts: a library makes me ill. Neither is it in my nature to love much or many kinds of things. Suspicion or even hostility toward new books is much more akin to my instinctive feeling than "toleration,"...

-I believe only in French culture, and regard evrything else in Europe which calls itself "culture" as a misunderstanding. I do not even take the German kind into consideration.

-Wherever Germany extends her sway, she ruins culture.

-"God's only excuse is that He does not exist..." I myself have said somewhere - What has been the greatest objection to Life hitherto? God...

-I search through all the kingdoms of antiquity or of modern times for anything to resemble his sweet and passionate music. He possessed that divine wickedness, without which perfection itself becomes unthinkable to me - I estimate the value of men... according to the extent to which they are unable to conceive of a god who has not a dash of the satyr in him.

-The great poet draws his creations only from out of his own reality. This is so to such an extent, that often after a lapse of time he can longer endure his own work... After casting a glance between the pages of my Zarathustra, I pace my room to and fro for half an hour at a time, unable to overcome an insufferable fit of tears.

-It is not doubt, but certitude that drives one mad. But in order to feel this, one must be profound, one must be an abyss, a philosopher... We all fear truth... And, to make a confession...

-Suppose I had christened my Zarathustra with a name not my own - let us say with Richard Wagner's name - the acumen of two thousand years would have not sufficed to guess that the author of Human, all-too-Human was the visionary of Zarathustra.

-WE CANNOT BE ANYTHING LESS THAN REVOLUTIONARIES -

Architecture

A few weeks ago I was able to sit down with someone who outspokenly shares my view of a pride that is misinterpreted as pretentiousness.

Everything is a combination of perspective and actions. Words play a role because they can be universally understood, yet they never TRULY dignify. And my pride has a whole lot to do with my actions, quiet, without too many loud words; my uncanny ability to BE MYSELF even when other's squint and furrow their brows and utter, "I don't get it."

I've become obsessed by the power I am able to have in other beings.
And this mysterious, beautiful, terribly lovely woman with the knowing eyes is to me the personification of self-pride. The rare kind. The kind with reason and no back-up plans.
She is perfect because she is not. And I feel perfect because I have realized all this and remain okay with being imperfect.

We spoke of how extraordinary the idea of creating something is, and how jaw-dropping the potential we have CAN be.

She is the outside. Her art is scientific, made up of calculations, foundations and VIEW.
Shaping structures eloquently, the way she has created herself.
Keeping things in place, which plays a role in the way she never gives in to other's demands to morphs herself into what they want her to be.

And I am the inside. My art is delicate, thoughtful, innovation and SIMPLICITY.
Designing theories accordingly, the way I am driven to discover something new.
Allowing others to FEEL something, the way I make my existence known even at the risk of other's hating me. Remaining constant, real.

"Fuck 'em," we both think as she hands me her lighter. We INHALE.

Back for More

Yeah, it's been a while. I don't know if you've ever been so happy that you want to rid yourself of all the materialistic things in your life. That's how I feel today - right now.