Fight or Flight
Cooking in The Crucible
So my English class is like, the worst. I don’t learn anything, and I’m hardly ever paying attention. If it weren’t for the whole ‘9 absences per semester allowed’ thing I probably wouldn’t even be here.
My teacher is the kind that everyone kind of wishes would go die in a hole. When somebody asks, “Who do you have for English?” and you respond with her name, all they say is “Oh… I’m sorry.” The teacher, she’s in front of the class squawking at us the way she usually does, it’s about grammar if I’m not mistaken.
The girl next to me, she has on a skirt. The kind that I can’t take my eyes off of. I blame it on the hormones, but my eyes are flashing from the teacher to the legs beside me and back. The skirt is totally too short for the dress code, but get this, to make up for it, she has on fish nets. That’s what’s killing me right now. I don’t know why I can’t stop staring. I mean they’re just legs, c’mon! But my eyes are fixed. Not to say sex sells, but it’s certainly an attention grabber.
About now is when I realize that my awkward gawking at the small amount of skin she has decided to show is creepy. It’s like the public version of thinking about her while I jerk off or something, and trust me, that’s ground I hope I never walk on, about anybody.
Everyone else pulls out a book, so I assume we’re going to read and pull out mine too. The book we’re reading, The Crucible, I think it’s kind of cheesy, but it probably doesn’t help that we go through it in “Reader’s Theatre”, an invention of our teacher so she can yell, “More emotion!” As she’s typecasting characters, I get stuck with the judge guy, Deputy buttfucking Danforth. His job is pretty much to roll into town and kill people for shit they didn’t do. Also he’s old, fat, and bald. Good to know she thinks I fit the part.
The only character I can really relate to in this book is the guy that you’re supposed to be able to relate to, John Proctor, the protagonist. His deal is he cheated on his wife, and by Puritan that’s a pretty big no-no. That part I don’t so much identify with, as a virgin, but then when witches be burning everywhere he has to stand up and fight to save the wife he cheated on. What I’m feeling with him is all these feelings of worthlessness, the feeling that you’re damned, so why bother fighting anyway? He does the right thing in the end, but I’m not so sure I could find that same strength.
You know, not to sound too overdramatic with my problems.
My teacher, she used to be an actress, or at least that’s what she called it when she was busy busing tables in California. The point is that she thinks she can act. She’s playing the lead girl, and whether she think she can act or not, she’s fucking butchering it. The class tries to stifle laughter as she lunches forward in melodramatic embarrassment, but I just have my eyes in my book to keep from staring at the girl next to me.
The thing is, the girl herself annoys me but she has legs like a goddess. My deal is, I don’t really associate romance and sex, a shocking discovery for a virgin by choice to make. It’s to the point where I can’t even think of anyone I have an emotional connection with in a sexual situation unless I want to start literally gagging. Jealousy would explain it, but I get the same creeping nausea when I imagine myself with them. It’s to the point where I can’t even see myself in a stable relationship if sex is in any way involved. I’m always cheating or thinking of other people during sex; you know, in my own little made up scenarios. Like this girl next to me, I can imagine whatever I want happening to her, and besides the creepiness of my own thoughts, nothing happens. If I think of my ex-girlfriend Marsha making out with me I want to puke. I need a virgin Mary and a Mary Magdalene. A pure chaste soul and, repentant or not, a prostitute. Not that I’m all that religious.
But that’s where Delilah’s appeal comes in, she’s the closest to bridging whatever gap my mind has created. When I’m talking her out of tears, I give her a hug, imagine giving her a kiss; I imagine where it might lead to and I don’t need to cover my mouth or run to the bathroom. What I have with her, it isn’t love, but it’s an outlet to express whatever I’m feeling. Every hopeless romantic fantasy and every deranged sexual thought a teenage boy could come up with.
My English teacher, she’s cowering in the corner from some invisible bird, and, with everyone else trying to stifle their laughte, I let out a loud echoing laugh.
My teacher is the kind that everyone kind of wishes would go die in a hole. When somebody asks, “Who do you have for English?” and you respond with her name, all they say is “Oh… I’m sorry.” The teacher, she’s in front of the class squawking at us the way she usually does, it’s about grammar if I’m not mistaken.
The girl next to me, she has on a skirt. The kind that I can’t take my eyes off of. I blame it on the hormones, but my eyes are flashing from the teacher to the legs beside me and back. The skirt is totally too short for the dress code, but get this, to make up for it, she has on fish nets. That’s what’s killing me right now. I don’t know why I can’t stop staring. I mean they’re just legs, c’mon! But my eyes are fixed. Not to say sex sells, but it’s certainly an attention grabber.
About now is when I realize that my awkward gawking at the small amount of skin she has decided to show is creepy. It’s like the public version of thinking about her while I jerk off or something, and trust me, that’s ground I hope I never walk on, about anybody.
Everyone else pulls out a book, so I assume we’re going to read and pull out mine too. The book we’re reading, The Crucible, I think it’s kind of cheesy, but it probably doesn’t help that we go through it in “Reader’s Theatre”, an invention of our teacher so she can yell, “More emotion!” As she’s typecasting characters, I get stuck with the judge guy, Deputy buttfucking Danforth. His job is pretty much to roll into town and kill people for shit they didn’t do. Also he’s old, fat, and bald. Good to know she thinks I fit the part.
The only character I can really relate to in this book is the guy that you’re supposed to be able to relate to, John Proctor, the protagonist. His deal is he cheated on his wife, and by Puritan that’s a pretty big no-no. That part I don’t so much identify with, as a virgin, but then when witches be burning everywhere he has to stand up and fight to save the wife he cheated on. What I’m feeling with him is all these feelings of worthlessness, the feeling that you’re damned, so why bother fighting anyway? He does the right thing in the end, but I’m not so sure I could find that same strength.
You know, not to sound too overdramatic with my problems.
My teacher, she used to be an actress, or at least that’s what she called it when she was busy busing tables in California. The point is that she thinks she can act. She’s playing the lead girl, and whether she think she can act or not, she’s fucking butchering it. The class tries to stifle laughter as she lunches forward in melodramatic embarrassment, but I just have my eyes in my book to keep from staring at the girl next to me.
The thing is, the girl herself annoys me but she has legs like a goddess. My deal is, I don’t really associate romance and sex, a shocking discovery for a virgin by choice to make. It’s to the point where I can’t even think of anyone I have an emotional connection with in a sexual situation unless I want to start literally gagging. Jealousy would explain it, but I get the same creeping nausea when I imagine myself with them. It’s to the point where I can’t even see myself in a stable relationship if sex is in any way involved. I’m always cheating or thinking of other people during sex; you know, in my own little made up scenarios. Like this girl next to me, I can imagine whatever I want happening to her, and besides the creepiness of my own thoughts, nothing happens. If I think of my ex-girlfriend Marsha making out with me I want to puke. I need a virgin Mary and a Mary Magdalene. A pure chaste soul and, repentant or not, a prostitute. Not that I’m all that religious.
But that’s where Delilah’s appeal comes in, she’s the closest to bridging whatever gap my mind has created. When I’m talking her out of tears, I give her a hug, imagine giving her a kiss; I imagine where it might lead to and I don’t need to cover my mouth or run to the bathroom. What I have with her, it isn’t love, but it’s an outlet to express whatever I’m feeling. Every hopeless romantic fantasy and every deranged sexual thought a teenage boy could come up with.
My English teacher, she’s cowering in the corner from some invisible bird, and, with everyone else trying to stifle their laughte, I let out a loud echoing laugh.