The back of the school was a strange place. Namely because it wasn’t actually the back of the school, but the side of one of the many sub-buildings that made up campus as a whole. That didn’t matter because it was on all other levels the backside of the school. Abandoned, stunk of garbage, and all it lacked was a lone smoking hoodlum to really give the place some spirit and luckily enough one was about to come along, for out of the door that didn’t quite close all the way came Nelson, ready to light one up.
Nelson was a skinny youth, with long, untidy(yet somehow clean) black hair. He wore the uniform the school provided with slight altercations to hide his cigarettes and had a small brown analog watch on his left wrist.
Nelson sat down on the steps to the door and flicked his arm. As if by a magical spell a cigarette appeared in between his fingers which was quickly lit by a conjured lighter from his second. He took a long drag from it and blew a long, steady stream of smoke before putting laying back and saying aloud:
“You going to say anything or just sit there all day?”
Besides Nelson was his polar opposite. A handsome, well-built, and groomed man, with a shaved head and an easy demeanor.
“Just waiting for you to get comfortable, although I have to tell you if you keep taking such long drags from your smokes it’ll kill ya.” The man said in an easy country accent.
“I’ve got to take the long drags Izzy, it’s like caffeine, you gotta get a jolt and then coast out the rest of the can. And I’ll have you know that theses are ‘organic’. Whatever the hell that means.” Nelson answered taking a small dose and expelling it in a ring of smoke straight into the air.
“How’s your first day been?” Izzy asked.
“Got raped.” Nelson replied.
“Shit, by who?”
“A group of snails. Didn’t get any names.”
“You play dead?”
“Went all limp and they just left me alone after awhile.”
Nelson took another puff, blowing the smoke out in short, controlled bursts.
“Hell of a way to start the semester.”
“From what I hear you have it worse. The ole’ ball and chain draggin’ you around and all.”
“You know I always wonder if I’m good enough for her. I’m just a son of some farmer and she’s getting ready to be the next heir of that big family of her’s.”
“Well it’s not like your not ‘lively’ enough. That girl? Not so much.”
“Self-doubt aside, it’s great. Me being so popular and all, I’ve had to put up with a lot of people I don’t like. She’s the first person I’m glad to put up with. Love’s a beautiful thing ya’know?”
“Romance is ‘dead’ as they say.” Nelson replied after blowing smoke between his teeth.
“You should really find someone already so I don’t have to worry about you.”
“Like that’ll ever happen. The school doesn’t even know I exist.”
“And who’s fault is that?”
“My ingenious plan to stay under the radar.” Nelson stated promptly blowing smoke out his nostrols.
“Yet you still got attacked by snails.”
Nelson started to speak, but got caught up in a coughing fit long enough to realize that Izzy was entirely right and despite his ghost like legacy across the school, he was not incorporeal. He could be hurt, he could be slain, but worst of all, he could have to fulfill basic social functions.
“Hey, lets make a bet.” Izzy said, discreetly changing tactics.
“I bet you a country gallon of my Mother’s secret sauce that you can’t get a girlfriend in three weeks.”
Nelson’s left eye twitched as a stirring contradiction was roused within himself.
Nelson was obsessed with that sauce every since the day Izzy had given him a quarter of a sandwich slathered in it. How had Izzy’s mother produced a sweet, creamy sauce which slowly became spicy as you continued to chew on it? He had tried day and night that week to replicate it, pulling various vegetables from his garden and scouring the market for anything even remotely similar, yet he had come up with nothing. The question only furthered haunted him when he learned that Izzy’s mother was a Holstrus, and as he had discovered in his journey’s though Our Fair City’s market, no two Cows produced the same milk.
Nelson needed to know. Even if the discovery would disgust him.
On the other hand, Nelson despised most of the female population of the school on principle.
“What if I lose?”
“You have to come to one of my families marriage meetings with enthusiastic compliance.” Izzy stated with a grim smile.
“Make it two country gallons” Nelson replied reaching out his hand.
“Two gallons it is, you sunflower.” Izzy responded clasping Nelson’s hand and giving it a firm shake.
“Your going to eat those words you necrophiliac.”
“Fuck I’m going to eat those words.” I cursed after a long drag, expelling smoke like a sweaty fat kid on a hiking trip.
With the remainder of school I had tried to court no less then thirty woman and bombed out every time. Half of them told me they already had a boyfriend, a quarter told me they didn’t even know I existed, and the rest either slipped out somehow or just flat out ran away. Which Is why I’m here, on this mountain that overlooks the town and bay, smoking again.
I never was that good with woman being a sort of a sociopath and having no interest in romance, although you’d think the girls that were so low-brow as to rape me would at least be charitable enough to take responsibility long enough for me to get two country gallons of the good stuff, but no, they throw me aside like trash because after they’re no longer horny I’m just that weird guy who’s easy to take advantage off. Human Garbage you know?
Whatever, I’ve got two weeks to find someone and it’s not like I’ve scrapped the bottom of the barrel just yet. I went after the docile candidates today, but in reality the school has many violent monsters I can try. Trading injuries for winnings has always been my eventual resort anyway. Not like many people would care if I show up with a few more bruises.
Huh, there we go again on the pity party. Just blow smoke and watch the pretty clouds dumb ass.
I could try the Oasdex’s if I get really desperate. Put simply it’s a parasite that burrows into fish bones and when they reach maturity they release a chemical that causes the skeletal structure of the host to rapidly expand, killing the fish and giving birth to a adolescent Oasdex. Because the size correlates to the host species they come in all kinds, from dwarf hight to whale size. The largest one we have at school is about ten feet tall where as the shortest just comes up to my knee. Oh god it’s makes me sick just thinking about it.
You know, let me explore my options here a little. I’ll name the worst and best potentials and find a happy lower median. I can say the absolute worst choice is one of the extreme Oasdex and the best one would be well, fuck I don’t know, the Student Council President?
It’s embarrassing for someones as jaded as me to admit, but that woman is no less then the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Hailing from a royal Lilim family with roots in the captial, Lily became the Student Council President early in our second year and went on to make rapid developments that lowered inter-species incidents and magnified student well being. This saying nothing of her appearance, as she’s been offered modeling jobs by any firm bold enough and holds a marriage request list with hundreds of applicants from royal family prodigals to business tycoon alike, and yet still she remains celibate.
As disgustingly romantic as is may sound, I don’t like her because she’s the obvious pick for “most wanted woman in Our Fair City” it’s because she’s beautiful. It was the opening student assembly which I tried so desperately hard to avoid that I was first captured by it. When Lily started to speak it was like a sympathy. Her voice didn’t boom, it traveled, like a river her words ebbed and flowed though that room and took me to another place. I didn’t even see her and I knew I was in love with her.
By rare occasion I first saw her out in the atrium garden teaching a class of young children. Before she even spoke I knew it was her. Her silver hair flowed gently from her head touched by the sunlight over her shoulders and unto her body. Her face was gentle and kind, and even though her eyes were red and jet black they communicated a comfort and understanding for everyone who looked at them. She modified her uniform economically, and elegantly. No superfluous details to detract from her seamless form, graceful wings, powerful tail, and her horns, oh her horns. Send a poet because I am unable to describe that royal, yet modest crown. Her posture, youthful with hints of experience and feminine authority, the way she turned the pages of the book? As if the book wanted to turn for her, how she managed the class? As if they were her treasured grand-children, all equal in her eyes.
I am pathetic compared to her. A whelp with no meaning, whom should be condemned to a life of a greater tragedy if I were ever to occupy one second of her time. And because of this I also despise her.
She is perfection’s very model. It is not as if society labels her that, I myself deem it to be true and that very admission is torture upon me. Even if a miracle brought her to me, oh, that would be such a sour, ironic thing, as if I could accept her. Because I would not stand the idea of her accepting me as I can’t stand the idea that I accept her.
Some might might label me a stalker, someone more merciful would call me an admirer. I’d tell both your fools if you don’t know who stands at the top, those who could crush you on a whim. If anything makes me bite my tongue harder in frustration it’s that this wicked reality only makes her more divine in my eyes.
“She looks at him.” I begin to sing, a small song to myself in my time of romantic despair.
“My heart’s gift to be confused and love struck, so that It upsets me!” I hate my situation, I hate the people around me, but here I’m alone, free to embarrass myself as much as I want.
“Tweets of an angel, steal my oxygen!” Let it be known that despite my depression and my irksomeness that I can still sing with all my heart.
“I’ve got this burning, I’ve got this burning, I’ve got this burning feeling inside me!” I think I will try a little more earnestly to find someone. Maybe then I’ll be less disgusted with myself, maybe then I won’t be this human garbage, maybe then I’ll forget her.
“Venez le Rendez Vous, Venez le Rendez Vous.”
“That was beautiful.” A sweet voice washed over me and in an instant I knew who it was. Iturned around to see my worst nightmare in the form of my most far off dream. Lily was there.
I thank my good graces that my singing had stolen all my oxygen and the shock had clamped my jaw shut.
“Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you like that.” She said with perfect composure and diction.
“No I’m sorry it’s ju- well you we- I me-” Now I’m just stuttering like a bastard.
“Hold on a moment.” She asked, making her way to me as if the wind itself carried her.
With a deft motion she took the still lit cigarette from my mouth.
“Students aren’t permitted to smoke.” she remarked.
“Well it’s a sort prescription you know? Stress related factors and all that.” I manage to stammer out.
“I can let you off this one time, call it payment for letting me listen to such beautiful music.” She lead off as she began to walk away.
“Wait let me get that.” I said as I reached out to try and grab the cigarette. Why in any God’s scripture should she have to take care of my trash? I have to spare her of that shame at any cost, for both our dignities.
However in my state of ill-elegance I tripped and fell onto her. The moment seemed to be played in slow motion as I made every effort not to collapse onto her. I was painfully aware that at the end of the event I was in the pose of a sexual predator, an awkward sexual predator.
“I’m-m s-so sorry, are you hurt?” I said, eying her in the most platonic way I could.
But she was quiet. Both her hands covering her mouth and a look of utter surprise covered her face.
‘she must be disgusted with me’ I thought.
So I took the fallen cigarette and ran. I ran and ran until I slammed onto my front door and collapsed.
I smashed the cigarette in my hand so it would leave burns and remind me of my impudence, of why I’m garbage.
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Rewrite of a Rewrite. God help me I’ll finish this story someday.
No Tags?
I am not a clever man.
…Now I know how my readers feel, when I leave a story on a cliffhanger.
You merely adopted the cliffhanger, I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t finish a story until I was a man and by then it was nothing but unsatisfying.
You have some wrong words, like celebrate instead of celibate. (think of a word ending in ‘bate’, and, beginning with ‘m’…) the auto-complete really messes with the wording… If in doubt, whip the dictionary out…
Thanks, I really need to hang off on the auto-correct until I’ve finished the first draft.
Hey man, I got a few questions.
1) Why is Nelson so different than your original story? Wasn’t he a “Give no fucks” badass in it?
2)When are you finishing up this story?
3) Was the last chapter that you posted in the pastebin the end?
1)At the end I’ll post a collection of my notes about how the story developed over time though the first, second, and now this, the third iteration, but I will say that Nelson has a couple core qualities that carry over the iterations.
2)I’m not going to lie, writing is not my main priority even hobby-wise. So updates aren’t going to be especially timely. I think I’ll finish by the time 2017 is out though.
3)I had more stuff planned at the time, but that was about when school and other stuff started to pick up for me. When I came back later I still liked it, but I also realized that I moved to quickly and made several mistakes. Chief of which is how I didn’t properly develop the namesake character or give her enough breathing room in the story. As this versions moves on they’ll be hints on how that scenario would have ended.