The Pedestrian

I'm nothing special.

I'm just another insignificant lost soul, trying to find some salvation. Well let me tell you, there isn't any. Not here, anyway. To call this shithole some kind of Paradise would be the saddest joke ever told. No lie.

No, we eat here and sleep here but its not anybody's home. It's just a home, a shelter for runaways and rejects looking for some place to bandage their broken, fucked-with minds. That's all we are, kids with tatooes and scabs looking for escape. Looking for something more.But there's nothing here. Nothing.

Sure, I got friends here, which is a hell of a lot more than I can say for that remote-controlled wasteland I left behind. They like me. They know me. Especially her. She knows me real well. Better than my own parents, even, though that ain't saying much. They didn't know me too well, see. Too busy fighting in the house and molding into a hideously plastic life outside of it. Doesn't leave too much time for me, does it? See, they get that here.

They understand. She understands. And sometimes, just that seems like a good enough reason to stay -- it's not.

I thought I would find something here, but all I've found so far is company. Well, misery loves company but I don't intend to spend the rest of my life wallowing. But everyone else, even my friends, that's it for them. They get high off it. And that's just plain sad.

If you ask me, they only think it's real 'cause he tells them it is. Jimmy, I mean. He's like king around here, with a crown of thorns and everything. He's charming like Satan and he knows us. We listen 'cause he's one of us, left everything he knew to find that something more.

His stepdad hated him and his mom treated him like shit so he did the only thing he could: he left. Now, he wasn't the first or the only one, but he was the smartest. Or I thought he was, anyway. He found us all, made us stick together, said we could find some place to call home.

We ended up as some kind of Lost and Found. I remember loving it, thinking that we're all we've got. But Jimmy ain't as smart as I thought, I guess. He's just filled with hate, running around like Lucifer's destructive love-child or something. I used to think it was right, used to think it was real. Well, like I said, its only 'cause he told us so.

Maybe because she listened to him. She was charmed by him, like everyone else. I know I'm not anymore and it don't look like she is either.

I can't stay anymore. I'm tired. I don't want to burn buildings just to watch 'em burn. There's no sense to it, no reason. Sure, I'm still angry like the rest of 'em, but I'm not blind anymore. I can't listen to Jimmy anymore. I think he's more lost than any of us, but they look up to him anyway. I wouldn't say it to their faces, 'cause they'd beat me up, but there's nothing to look up to.

She once told me Jimmy keeps us all from getting stupid, from believing the bullshit that society throws at us. Well, that's even worse bullshit. He feeds us with his version of truth and we all filled our bellies with his gutter gospel like infomercials, nourished on the single belief that it would make life better.

I'm still hungry. Just 'cause you realize you been blind, that doesn't mean you can't be blinded again. Maybe the trick is not to listen to anyone. Not the TV, not Jimmy, not anyone, except maybe some kind of voice of reason that you need to find on your own. I need to get out of here.

They're gonna hate me. She'll hate me too, maybe 'cause I can't take her with me. She loves him, y'know? But they'll all hate me anyway, a little because I'm leaving them and a lot because they need something to hate.

I'm done with that. I don't have all the answers, but neither does Jimmy. And I got to get out of here 'cause one thing's for sure: I don't need no fucking messiah.