Posted by Anonymous on 2015/01/26 under Uncategorized I came here to tell a story. Anyways. This story starts with Zed. If you asked people to describe him it would be laden with contradictions. See he was a man of many faces. Carnivalesque in his personality. Each person had their own Idea of who Zed was. In their minds his person could be summed up in maybe 10 words or less. In fact everyone seems to have ten words or less to describe people. Generalizations are easy, understanding is not. So in true easy way out fashion they had their labels. So did he. The only odd thing in this situation were how much they varied from one friend to the next. Some would say he was loud, boisterous, and funny. Others said he was quiet, melancholy. Some called him angry and cynical. His masquerade masks were his shield. Sometimes he slipped into the wrong mask and his friends would give him concerned looks of “Are you okay?” and this change would unsettle them. It wasn’t the friend they signed up for and they didn’t like it. These facades protected him from criticism and the pains of rejection but they also isolated him. He could never be truly close with someone because he was never vulnerable. A turtle in his shell, protected but all alone. So he drifted through life, like a ghost, a fake, a fraud. His hedonistic choices covering the hole that he was trying to fill. It seemed everyone he knew was just trying to fill that hole. But the one he had created was almost tearing him in half. Tonight seemed like it was going to be the same. It always was. He had his bottles, he patted himself down. Wallet, phone, cigarettes. Check. Check. Check. He looked his friend in the eye and they agreed to start drinking. He popped open his bottle and stared at the liquid swishing around. Asking himself his usual pre-drinking questions. “Why am I doing this?”, “Does that matter?”, “Am I going to be okay?”. There were more questions ones about regret others about his anxiety. Eventually after what seemed like ages he would take the first sip and it would begin. I say it would begin because his self destruction was always in the cards for a night out. Self hatred was always in the cards in the morning. Hangovers keep you in for a day. Two day hangovers don’t exist physically, only mentally and he was becoming a connoisseur of those. Halfway through his first bottle and he was already on his way down. I’m tired. I guess that’s all then.
He felt a hand on his shoulder, it was unexpected and temporarily pulled him out of his daze.
“Who are you!?” he flipped around quickly to see who the offender was. To his surprise it wasn’t someone he knew and she was staring at his face with a look of disbelief and something else he couldn’t quite put his finger on. That’s when she burst out laughing at him.
“Wow, you’re an easy scare! Gullible too, I bet.” she smirked at him. He started getting red in the face. He was flustered not sure if he should be angry or calm. He started going through scenarios of how he’d show her up and prove he was the better person when he felt her hand on his shoulder still. It gave him a quick comforting squeeze and she smiled. “It was just a joke, I’m Andra.”
“Oh, I’m Zed.” he grabbed the back of his head in embarrassment. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around.”
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