A while ago, I was in one of my many dreams. It is a place where I find myself when I spend far too much time online. My mind was elsewhere and I needed to do a bit of writing on my own before I could give myself the Pavlovian reward of logging back into my computer and playing 2048 until I fell asleep, stretched with my computer on my stomach. I was going to return home so that I could rot away, and some sparkling soul could exit my body and coalesce with stale air above my bed. I was going to go online and hunt for something to do. Sifting through the trash online allows me to fully rid myself of any emotions that may have been resting dormant inside of my head, waiting to ambush me as soon as I returned to the quiet of my 11 by 16 ft dorm room. And the promise of fake social interaction, with people I have never met, comforts me. There is solace in being able to control everything in a single space. The internet is unpredictable and overflowing. I can close the laptop, and I can log off, but I choose not to. The amount of time I spend online gives me a sense of validation–the horrors and desolation I witness, fields of waste. Yet, I feel nothing. Dust floats up like carbonation in seltzer water as the negligible amount of sunlight cracks through the closed blinds. The exhaustion of reality began to seep into my back, which is sloping like a landfill that is stuffed with tubes and plastic. I am pale in the sunlight, my eyes burn, and the sun pierces through my bones and translucent skin. I convince myself that it feels good to be alone.

I remembered one time I was walking out of this great big building that had been donated by the descendent of a french duke, who also happened to be an entrepreneur, star basketball player, and a land baron of his own design, who superimposed his face/image on many billboards and subway trains in the surrounding urban areas. A red-faced man in a gray minivan parked in front of me, I think illegally, but it didn't really matter because real laws and legislature did not apply to areas on our private campus. This guy in the car started flailing his arms about 30 paces away on the driver's side. I was confused and wondered who deserved this erratic waving. The sudden possibility that I would have to interact with this man brought upon me a sense of unease. I was just staring down at my feet and he was waving so much that he looked like a child. In order to prevent his age regression any further, I waved back and came to his window kind of annoyed and unsettled. It was disturbing to me that this guy had the power to knock me out of my maladaptive daydreaming. So I was a little pissed off, to begin with. And then, this guy had the guts to ask me where the tennis courts were.

I wondered if maybe he was some sad sap alumnus who really peaked in college, reminiscing on his glory days by going for a drive past the famous Risley Hall, where a boy in his year, probably named Chadwick or Robert, climbed to the very top of it, completely nude, and rang the big bell in the clock tower. But, unfortunately, Chadwick, or Robert, maybe the third of his name, had been on a bit of a bender after Christmas break. His parents were on their last leg, their relationship was in shambles, and despite what they insisted, both of their children believed that they were responsible for the cheating and lying and gambling, and drug abuse that ensued after both kids fled the nest. Seeing his brother, who went to Columbia, and shat on The University every time the family sat down for dinner. And to add to that, his brother probably played tennis really well, but not professionally, lest it distracted him from his studies. His brother was good at tennis because he had a bunch of friends, all adoring friends of his.

So, Chadwick Cummings was playing tennis with his brother in the afternoon– and mind you, this happened every time he returned home for breaks in between semesters. Let’s assume that he lives somewhere upstate–

There was one day I was watching all of the cars move for street cleaning.

Chadwick was a brute, not too smart; however, he could probably vaporize a homeless person lurking on the subway platform. Getting robbed would have little blank to his bank account, which happens quite often, especially for guys fitting his parameters: not too imposing, typically dressed in very light pastel colors while also typically existing in a belligerently drunk state, which creates an even easier target, and honestly, Chadwick saw this as his punishment for not getting accepted into Columbia, or Yale, or even BU.

And then I woke up again and I was pacing and my shoes had developed small holes where my big toe poked through. The wind going through the holes in my shoes made my feet feel numb. I was uncomfortable, more uncomfortable than I had ever felt because at this point I knew for sure that I was trapped inside a construction site with lots of large and heavy machinery and steamrollers. The man in the car was somewhat of a bureaucratic authoritarian figure, ruling over me. I sauntered towards him. I felt a pull and a straining feeling inside of my stomach and lungs where the cold air poked through like the wind blowing in and out of my shoes. Cold and I was bones and was woken and fell asleep once more.

Let’s also assume that the Cummings have, of course, a very lavish house. This house includes a tennis court, for the sake of the argument. Every time that Chadwick returns home, he duels his brother, who is undeniably better than him at everything, better looking, and excels at life. And every time they duel, Chadwick loses. And what we don’t see is the tears in his eyes, mixing with the sweat of the game.

The rush, the pain, and the disappointment.

And of course, they are both provided with water and cheese and orange slices and Chadwick slinks back to his room to smoke a joint and stare at an image on his wall, most likely of the Gadsden flag or a salacious-looking female with her clothes tattered and falling off of her body. And he realizes that he truly is a failure. In other words, Chadwick is a loser.

He thinks about things. He thinks about going downstairs and stabbing his brother. He thinks about clutching a small knife, concealing it inside of his sleeve, or even the pen rolling around on his bed as he puts his palm in between his groin and his jeans, and throwing the pen, or the knife, hard at the back of his brother’s head.

He thinks, also, about setting himself on fire.

But his navy blue duvet cover is sucking his body into a pit. The pillows are soft like he would imagine a breast would feel, and he continues to imagine different ways of killing his brother while choking himself in the heat of climaxing.

There have been several deaths at The University since I entered my freshman year. Some of them were students, and others were part of the administration. Once they were gone, we received an email notifying us of their passing. But none of us ever read them– instead, we walked around letters in between PDF scans looking greyscale around the campus. Not because of those emails, they had nothing to do with our lives. Maybe I’m being selfish here–

Sometimes, I’m afraid that if something happens, God forbid, what will they write when I’m dead?

I watched the man in the car slowly thaw his hands and words dribbled out of his mouth slowly, as if to conserve warmth:
    “I’m here to relive a memory of mine.”

Upon arriving back at the university, Chadwick immediately begins to drink, and this process can last upwards of seven hours on any given day. When Chadwick is sufficiently plastered, he is followed by a flock of wasted college boys, wearing a similar-looking uniform to him, and for the first time, Chadwick is the pack leader. The alpha.

He is high off on this idea and he must prove himself to them because nobody really liked him all that much. He was drawn to a clownish persona because he lacked any real confidence to act as his true, unadulterated self. A group always yearns for a funny guy, vaguely Irish with red and ruddy cheeks like Santa Claus, who simply provides comedic relief through self-deprecation. And maybe that guy from the car parked in front of me was there on that night, too, watching it all go down. And maybe he resented Chadwick for the very first time, for having the humor to fall back upon. But truth be told, nothing is worse than being the laughing stock. And as the sad sap watched Chadwick shed his clothes, being freed from the homogeneity of their cultish, prep culture, he felt angry. He wanted to be the one to strip naked on the lawn in front of Risley Hall. He was a sick, twisted grimacing smile mixing with the rest of the pack. The group screamed in unison as Chadwick proudly marched through the big wooden doors. He felt better than he had ever felt in his life. It took him an eternity to climb all the way to the top of the tower. The alcohol made him brave and stupid. The pack cheered and jumped over each other while bystanders congregated and looked on at what was happening. And suddenly I was there. The gray van was gone, the man had exited, and he pointed to the sky. There was a low roar, “He’s going to ring the bell.”

Everyone was lavishing in their faux movie set, wondering if college was a good choice for them, and how this incident really reflected something they had seen on TV, but nobody could quite pinpoint exactly what about it made them feel that way. They see Chadwick, stark naked. Bated breaths.

He clings to the bell, but his muscles are loose, and his skin is slick with sweat like a seal.

He falls to his death.

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