My Depressing And Mostly Neurotic Life (Chapter 1.)

It all starts with loud Mexican music. Shrill voices in a language that is not my own forcefully enter and ravage my inner audio-processing portions of my brain. Neurons begin firing like fire-crackers. In a matter of seconds I am fully conscious and sitting up. Fuck. Impacting my head on the ceiling, I am reminded that I sleep in a goddamn rat’s nest loft. I climb down the latter grab my only pair of blue jeans. Yeah, the pair with the hole in the knee. The one that I patched up from the inside using a small strip of black duct tape. Under the yellow light of the bathroom, I crank back the ceiling fan timer. Five minutes. Shampoo, anti-acne face wash and that Irish Spring soap that smells much manlier than the dove shit my brothers use. Blacking out twice, to awaken leaning against the cold tile wall, I make a five minute shower extend to fifteen minutes. After rinsing my hair, I convince myself to drag my sorry ass out of the warm, comforting precipitation. I put on my pants in a similar fashion every day. One leg at a time. Momentarily I will swear at myself under my breath for things I said and did the day before. Deodorant: Applied. I put on a black A-shirt. Fast forward forty five minutes. I am stand at the bus stop on the corner. Hollywood Undead spews from the stolen pair of Philips ear-buds that occupy my ear canal. Northwest grey skies piss down upon the world around me. Within the confidential confines of my skull I imagine ways to unfuck myself. None of these ideas are plausible. It is one of those moments where you look at the entirety of your life leading up to now and you feel like you want to shoot yourself in the face. Life is a bitch. As time passes I think about what I am going to do today. The bus is about to come around the corner. Digging into my pockets I remove the scraps of change I shall pay my way with. It stops in front of me, the doors swing in. Once on board I pay the fee and head to the back. Time for roll call. That one bum; check. The people from the projects; check. Carhart khakis dude; check. Oh... She is here today. Sitting directly behind where I usually sit, she is gazing deeply at her cellular device. Probably, she is digesting her daily apportionment of Facebook updates. Not feeling like manning up and talking to her, I haul my gutless self to sit in a row behind her. I have spoken with her before. She is graduating in June and transferring to WSU. She wants to be a teacher. She is five foot seven. I am five foot five. Lasting about thirty minutes, the ride is only semi-bearable. I am breaking down. I am mentally unstable. My desire to burn everything in my life is stronger than my desire for stability. Self-pity is a sin. Getting off the bus is easy. The walk into the Admin building is long and awkward. This one-horse community college is my home. It is where I prefer to be, away from the draining cesspool that is my house. I hold the door open for her. She smiles at me and says “Thanks”. On my way to class I mentally prepare for the daily motions.