Status: still in progress, updates coming whenever i've got the inspiration.
The Test
the hungry ghost
I sat down at the foot of a grubby flight of stairs by the fire exit and lit a cigarette. The dust and mud began to cling to my sleeves, outlining the crumples in the white fabric with a dull gray.
The calendars marked the start of my fourth year here, working eight hours a day in a cramped and tasteless office. Making phonecalls and signing forms and giving speeches and telling hundreds of kids to think positive, positive, positive.
I used to give kids real hope, not this processed, polished bullshit they all laughed at when I turned the other way.
A walking advertisement for high achievement and never giving up, spray painted and rolled in glitter and glue to inspire the young and impressionable. They would refer to me as 'Mr Wentz' and 'Sir' and rose from their seats if I were to enter the room.
Who the fuck was I anyway?
My real memories lay elsewhere, my identity scattered through the past, many miles away from the shoes I had stepped into. I took another lazy puff of my cigarette and remembered the world.
Playing shows from coast to coast and laughing at stupid, immature jokes in the back of the tourbus. I remembered years of magic, some sort of perfect, timeless adventure mixed with friendships I thought would never end.
But it did end.
Patrick suddenly abandoned everything to pursue a career in education, applying for a job as a secondary school teacher. The momentum broke down and everything fell apart.
I spent two hazy years wrecked, numb, unemployed, letting my life go to shit because I could not envision success for myself anywhere outside of Fall Out Boy. I wasted two fucking years fixated on nothing before I realized it was time to give up the ghost.
I used the last of my savings on a train ticket and a crappy city apartment, to apply for a job at Patrick's school. I wasn't sure what I was doing, I just wanted to see him again to bridge the two year gap in our friendship that had formed through me being stubborn and selfish.
I got the job, but I was offered more. Eventually, I was appointed the place of headteacher, passed on into a leading role.
He never came to speak to me outside of business time, and I realized from the bitter edge to his voice that I had landed in the job he had given up so much to pursue.
I threw my spent cigarette on the ground and stamped it out with my foot as the streetlights and neon signs switched themselves on and the world blurred into a mess of city nightlife.
The calendars marked the start of my fourth year here, working eight hours a day in a cramped and tasteless office. Making phonecalls and signing forms and giving speeches and telling hundreds of kids to think positive, positive, positive.
I used to give kids real hope, not this processed, polished bullshit they all laughed at when I turned the other way.
A walking advertisement for high achievement and never giving up, spray painted and rolled in glitter and glue to inspire the young and impressionable. They would refer to me as 'Mr Wentz' and 'Sir' and rose from their seats if I were to enter the room.
Who the fuck was I anyway?
My real memories lay elsewhere, my identity scattered through the past, many miles away from the shoes I had stepped into. I took another lazy puff of my cigarette and remembered the world.
Playing shows from coast to coast and laughing at stupid, immature jokes in the back of the tourbus. I remembered years of magic, some sort of perfect, timeless adventure mixed with friendships I thought would never end.
But it did end.
Patrick suddenly abandoned everything to pursue a career in education, applying for a job as a secondary school teacher. The momentum broke down and everything fell apart.
I spent two hazy years wrecked, numb, unemployed, letting my life go to shit because I could not envision success for myself anywhere outside of Fall Out Boy. I wasted two fucking years fixated on nothing before I realized it was time to give up the ghost.
I used the last of my savings on a train ticket and a crappy city apartment, to apply for a job at Patrick's school. I wasn't sure what I was doing, I just wanted to see him again to bridge the two year gap in our friendship that had formed through me being stubborn and selfish.
I got the job, but I was offered more. Eventually, I was appointed the place of headteacher, passed on into a leading role.
He never came to speak to me outside of business time, and I realized from the bitter edge to his voice that I had landed in the job he had given up so much to pursue.
I threw my spent cigarette on the ground and stamped it out with my foot as the streetlights and neon signs switched themselves on and the world blurred into a mess of city nightlife.