North Fell

Lucky Boy
"And the third number in our Pick Three Game is ... 7!"

I stand off in the distance, behind the cameras, behind the lights, behind the wardrobe department. I have a cup of orange juice in one hand and a wadded up newspaper in my other hand. "Seven," I say to myself. "Not so good. Not so bad. A little above the mean, I would suppose." But I don't think much about it.

I get in my car and drive off, drive home, drive somewhere else, but my mind just keeps wandering back to the scenarios that are playing out in my head. "If ____ happens, then I'll just call the whole thing off," I tell myself, "and we'll never speak to each other again, and everything will be back to normal. Just the way it used to be. Me, with no motivation. No reason to shave. No need for gum. Alone, I guess. Yes. Definitely alone, but not completely alone. I'll have my friends, I suppose. They'll always be there for me ... unless ... well, unless they aren't around on whatever particular days I need them, but I don't think that they'd even want to hear what's going through my head anyways. Definitely not now.

*

"If ____ happens, I'll stay. Why wouldn't I? I'd be excited, and relieved, and thankful that all that shit that I'm thinking about is just nonsense. But ... I doubt that ____ is going to turn out that way. No, most likely not. I mean, yeah, it'd be great, but it's just not going to happen. The phone calls, the face-to-face interaction, the unspoken tensions -- they all lead up to one thing, and it can't be good. Sure, maybe I'm a tad bit pessimistic."

"..."

"Oh, sure."

"..."

"Fine! Christ. So, I'm completely pessimistic. Yeah. You're right. Whatever."

"..."

"No, it's not like I think I deserve better. It's just ... I don't know quite how to explain it. Certain ... things tend to jump out at me and not make sense, and when I look at everything on a total level, like as a complete picture, I just can't grasp what it all means, because (a) never seems to lead to (b), and sometimes things like (z) and (x) come out of nowhere, and I have no idea how to react."

"..."

"No. It's not bullshit. Believe me, I wish it weren't this way. I wish I could just ____ and let everything slide off my back, but it's impossible. I just don't work like that. I lay alone at night, and I think and think and think, and it's never worth the trouble in the end. Never."

"..."

"Her? Total mistake, man. Utter mistake."

"..."

"Sure. Yeah. I think about her, and I wonder if she hates me or if she's forgotten about everything or whatever, you know? I feel terrible about the whole thing, and I want to get ahold of her, but she never gave me her new phone number, and I lost her address, and ... I don't think she'd want to hear from me anyways. I just want to apologize, to be completely honest."

"..."

"For being an asshole! I was a total dick, for no reason. And that's the thing -- I don't want it to happen again. I'm sick of having to pretend to not recogonize people that I know. It's really getting old, but I build up these images of people in my head after certain ... interactions, or whatever, happen and I can't make the separation between the average, completely okay person in real life and the person in my head that's only purpose in life is to make me miserable."

"..."

"Yeah. It is fucked up. But that's my point, really. I think one of the reasons I don't get down with stuff like ____ is because I don't want to have to go through that again. Kind of like a defense mechanism."

"..."

"Well, I don't know what you want me to say ... I mean, yeah, sure it's weak, but it's what's been happening with me for the last four to six years or so."