Pitiful, situational tales
One Hell of a Week
What is life?
Take a second to think about that.
If you said "Life is a gradual learning process that makes us all wiser", then you are probably a lot wiser than I am.
Sometimes, as events blur further and further into the past, things do begin to blend together. Individual thoughts begin to turn into overarching patterns and themes. Moments jump into the melting pot, becoming one general thought.
If you said "life is a series of events", then we agree. For me, I often remember specific events and images, and everything else is totally vague. These are usually rare events; rarely do they jump out at me, so to speak, but at the moment, I have a few events on my mind from the past few days, and I feel like talking about 'em. Why am I telling you this? Well, technically, I'm not. I just really like putting it somewhere public though, and Xanga is the least heterosexual thing on the internet short of grouphug.us. Trust me, this WILL be a seriously narcisstic entry. If you dislike self-glorification, stray away from this one.
The first was Monday. For some reason I was in a bad mood for most of the day - or at least during seventh period. We were playing Spades, as always, and Scott Chen had forcibly replaced Akshaya. Obviously I did not take nicely, but hey, what the hell. I let him join as my partner. We played for a few hands, till Chen decided to be a megafag. He and Greg Li began throwing around the cards like freshmen, almost losing some. Akshaya reclaimed his seat as Chen got the stuff. Then of course, as Greg Li left, Chen refused to give back the card. After some yelling, debating, and swearing, Chen finally gave in. He handed out the card slowly, on the table, as if he were expecting me to take the card from his fingertips, as if it weren't blatantly obvious that he was going to pull it away.
Naturally, I smashed down on his hand with my fist faster than he could pull it away. It would have connected with the back of his hand, but since Chen was such a genius, he half-withdrew the card, and my fist crashed down on his fingers. He licked the card and gave it back, bitching about it.
That felt so good. Anyone who tries to act like a white kid deserves that. It didn't bring me into a happy mood, but it was still some sort of bitter satisfication.
Skip a day to Tuesday, and it's the Assassins game. The theory was simple but brilliant: A pool of people are hunting one another. Each person has only one specific target. You know your target, but not your stalker. Kill your target... and you take on his prey. The method of kill: Paper wasps - an absolutely juvenile tool involving a small paper bullet and a rubber band. Everyone was required to wear a red armband.
The excitement began without me. I arrived at school late; I had to snag the red T-shirt from my locker during a relaxing, do-nothing Reynolds class (I love that class). I discovered that several people were already killed, including Albert. And during the five minutes as we sat there waiting for Steege, Brett Herrick came in, took out Jiang, left, and got taken out by Steve Kubiak, who's in my Chem class.
My target was a white senior kid, and I figured therefore that I'd go down without ever finding him. I don't know a lot of white seniors. And I didn't know who was after me.
Third period is an interesting time. It has an alternating six-day cycle of AP Chem Labs two of six, Gym three of six, and, every sixth day, I'd have third period free, with the rest of my AP Chem class.
Of course, today was a one in six day.
Paranoid to the core, I went to the cafeteria, passing Scott Chen. Akshaya and Andy were not there. I was not surprised that they were avoiding me. I passed by a bunch of "cool kids" as well, to whom I will refer as jocks for lack of a better word, grouped at a table. It was there that I met Mikey, who was being chased by Eric. After a short, nervous conversation with Mikey and the eliminated Charlie, I deduced that he was not after me.
And so I stood next to a table, near the jocks (none of whom was wearing an armband), looking around, eyes like a deer. Four white sophomore males approached me with nasty, white sophomoric grins. Said one of them to me, "I know who's hunting you." I maintained my cool as best I could with trembling knees. "Want me to tell you?" he said, with that same disgusting smile. I looked from him to one his friends, who was to the right of him, on the other side of a table. Said friend had a similar shit-faced smile, and he aimed his rubber band wasp at me.
I panicked. With a shoving motion, I yanked the speaking sophomore into the way to intercept the wasp. Due to the nature of our positioning and his considerable bulk, he collapsed over the conviently placed seats attached to the table. The other three sophomores as well as the jocks exploded into laughter. The one aiming the rubber band informed me that it was a joke, and the heap on the ground rose up angrily and seemed to challenge me to a fight. No violence ensued; it was all in good nature, plus I have a way of gaining the respect of jocks. Don't ask me why. They left, and I did not ask who was after me.
After a shock like this, I situated myself back to the wall, at a table with Chris Wu and Jaco. My fingers trembled as I did the French homework; my nerves were frazzled and weak as I flipped pages. Sadly, the exaggeration in this is minimal. I was so out of it.
Then who shows up but Awesome Andy, accompanied by Akshaya - who was already eliminated after two kills, including Eric. Odd? Yes. Neither of my friends, however, was hunting me, and a tad of relief came through me. I took a quick break through the East Wing commons, where another bunch of sophomores decided that it would be hilarious to pretend that one of them was after me. I bolted, far...
I came back into the cafeteria to talk with Andy and Akshaya and to finish my French homework, but my friends' faces were flushed with excitement, and Andy was panting somewhat more agitatedly than usual. Said he, "Steve Kubiak is being chased by the guy you're after!" I exploded from the table, deserting Jaco and Chris unceremoniously, following the vague direction in which Akshaya and Andy directed me to look for the white senior. They were explaining frantically to me about the hilarious story of Steve and the senior: The senior had come up to the trio and asked who the hell Steve was, before Steve took off.
I absorbed the story too quickly to laugh as I ran past the East Wing commons again. I picked up some sophomores who decided to chase me once again. I ran all the way back to the cafeteria, where a monitor had a solemn talk with me, Andy, Akshaya, and other associated personages about stopping.
Then the sophomores from the East Wing reappeared, and I sprinted outside.
It wasn't until I came back in that a different sophomore from the group, one with taste and a sense of humor, informed me that my stalker was not among the group. Dejected, I came back in, apologized to a monitor, and returned to the table where Steve sat, defeated. His killer - my target - walked right up to said table to take the spoils, and I tagged him with the wasp.
The next target was the Russian, George Mossessian. After successfully entering Chemistry, Andy was convinced that Kevin Gaughan was after him - a figure from sixth period. As if was only fourth period, Andy's option was basically to wait for someone to take out Gaughan.
Chem ended, and it turns out that Mossessian had killed Gaughan. He ran into the room as the period ended, trying to shoot Awesome Andy, who fled like a demon. Mossessian followed Andy, and I he. The Russian was caught up in traffic, tripped by eliminated friend Scott Muff. I caught up with little trouble without running and tagged him with my wasp. And Andy himself became my target...
The end for me was rather anticlimatic. My hunter was waiting outside my French classroom, and there was nothing I could do to stop her. She was poised to take out Andy next period, as well. I think that that's about all in which I need to be involved. Sofac killed my killer minutes after I was eliminated, and the game later fizzled down (though not without Shashank making one kickass cameo).
And I sat in French class, reflecting, savoring the moment. I was out.. but had I not killed two people, even if they were easy kills? Had I not done well? Had it not been fun? Indeed, I had killed people, and I had enjoyed myself. French class was the best it had ever been: a safe zone. I sat there, relaxed, going through the various past tenses, and I finally stopped twitching. The red armband came off, and slowly - slowly - the adrenaline began leaving my veins. My alertness and paranoia seeped slowly from me for forty minutes, and my mind was clear when I went to BC Calculus.
Now, one more tidbit, and I promise that I'll be done yakking.
Today, eighth period, my Economics teacher decided to entertain us by joining in an exciting game of Spades. It's so boring when people play for "real" it's ridiculous. But Donaldson always makes his bid... even when it means letting Robert make two consecutive tenbids/blind nil.
We left, and as we discussed, I nearly ran facefirst into my sophomore English teacher. Thoroughly alarmed, I pulled out of step midstride, nearly blinded in fear. It was beyond anything felt in the Assassins game as Jerry McDonald passed me.
I was saved (or further struck down) when I saw Bill.
ananswamindian99: We played cards with Donaldson today.
Kr4zy W1ld B1ll: What!? He became a lower ability student?
Ess Dee Loves Math: He always was pretty low.
Kr4zy W1ld B1ll: No, no. He was probably just doing what he usually does, entertaining lower ability students.
ananswamindian99: He went to Harvard.
Kr4zy W1ld B1ll: Mr. Donovan!?
Ess Dee Loves Math: No, Donaldson.
Kr4zy W1ld B1ll: Oh, Donaldson. Wow. Talk about low.
Anyway, that was one HELL of a long block of stuff in the past tense. Not something I use that much on this site... That's about all. Vacation is a day away... along with a MASSIVE Chem lab, an English paper, and a BC Calculus test.
I live for this!
SD
Dec. 22, '05
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