Hannah's Regrets
Comfort
Chapter 3:
The view out the window was a spectacular one if you look at it right. The buildings made a sort of staggered art form against the sky. Most people in L.A. are disgusted by it, but I think that’s just because they’re not really looking at it. The view is especially astounding at night. The lack of stars in the sky are made up for the speckled lights of the city. They make their own night stars. But right now it was daylight, and it was kind of hard to enjoy the view from my position. The smell in the cafeteria was overpowering and the noise of talking was roaring in my ear. Not to mention the fact that my stomach wasn’t very happy with what I was putting into it. Which was nothing. Food costs money, you know, and right now all of my money was in the form of Matt’s double-decker chocolate fudge cake…thing. Oh well. It wasn’t like I was looking forward to eating the unpleasant cafeteria food, so now there was no way I could give into my grumbling stomach.
I looked up around the cafeteria to the people eating their lunches. Everyone belonged to a table. There was the jock table, the cheerleader’s table near by, the genius table, the punk table, the gang table, the nerd table, the druggie table, the girlie girl table, and the miscellaneous table. I belonged to the miscellaneous table. I was invisible.
The miscellaneous table is where the kids sit who don’t fit in anywhere else. Nobody else wanted to talk to us, so we kind of just formed our own table. I looked around the table at the few kids who were sitting there with me. There was Debbie Sheriff, the lesbian, who everyone thought had herpes or something; Joy Choi, the boy from Korea who spoke very little English; and Brian Vallery, the chubby kid who stuttered and was in Special Ed.
I’m at the table because of my size, my name, and just being friendless. I’m short, and skinny, and I have a weird name. My full name is Benedict. I like my name. It’s different, and I think it sounds good on me. It’s just that other people don’t like it so much. In younger years, the kids at school used to make fun of it. I have the same name as the dude who tried to hand the states back over to England during the Revolution. I would have done the same thing. The morons were kidnapping Africans and stealing from the Natives.
Sometimes I talked to the other kids at the miscellaneous table. They were completely normal. I can’t say the same about myself, but I didn’t get what the deal was. Everyone judges people too much. Even the people who say they’re better than that. Everyone judges people. Even if they don’t realize it.
I stood up then and headed out onto the blacktop. What was the point of staying in that depressing cafeteria if I’m just going to sit there and depress myself even more?
The blacktop was empty. Everyone was still inside eating their lunch. I felt very strange. Like I was bunched up and cramped and I didn’t like it. I needed something, but I didn’t know quite what. All I knew was that I needed a change. This whole thing doesn’t feel right. The way I’m living my life. Do you ever get that feeling? Where you either have to change your surroundings, or change what’s inside of you. But what am I supposed to do, when I don’t even know what I need to change?
I sighed, put my hands in my pocket, and squinted out into the streets around me. I could always hear the bustling of cars. It was so constant, it became background noise, and so I didn’t really hear it anymore. Only when I really pay attention, like I was now. I was trying to get comfortable. Comfort. It’s always about comfort. I was trying to settle into this strange new feeling so I wouldn’t really have to deal with it. Just kind of ignore it, so I could be comfortable. Maybe I’m too much of a coward to actually deal with my own problems.
“Hey.”
My heart leapt into my throat, and I must have jumped three feet into the air to turn around. I don’t know quite what I was expecting, but it scared the shit out of me. It was only Debbie. Don’t you hate it when that happens?
I casually rubbed the back of my head and stared at her. Almost like I never was really startled. It was that comfort thing again. Like I couldn’t just say, ‘Oh hey, you scared me.’
“Hey,” I said. She looked at her feet.
“I saw you come out here, and I thought you looked kinda…. I dunno. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I just wasn’t hungry, that’s all.” My stomach growled.
“Oh,” she said awkwardly. “Well, I don’t know, I just thought I’d come out here and talk to you. It’s kind of depressing in there,” she said, motioning to the cafeteria door. “And, well, we sit at the same table every day so….” her sentence trailed off.
“Uh-huh,” I muttered staring back at the streets. There was an awkward silence that seemed extremely long.
“Why don’t you ever talk?” she asked. I shuffled my feet a bit and shrugged.
“I dunno,” I said. “People don’t like it when I talk,” I said clumsily.
She smiled a bit. “I think people think you’re weird,” she said. Her bluntness was likeable. It made me laugh a little.
“Well, yeah, I am weird. Or maybe I’m normal and everyone else in the world has problems,” I said. She laughed.
“Yeah. The whole world has gone mad,” she said smiling, spreading her arms and beckoning to the city below. It’s funny, once you live in the city for an eternity, it’s hard to imagine that there’s a world outside of it. I know I wouldn’t survive anywhere else.
“Man…gotta love L.A.,” she muttered.
“Yeah. Center of the fuckin’ universe…and all things gone bad in the world,” I said.
Or so it seems.
She smiled a bit and looked down at the pavement. I did the same. It was weird, talking to her. Nobody ever talked to me, not even Debbie, before this. The only times she did talk to me were casual things. Like what was on the menu, or the pop quiz in fifth period, or pass the napkins, or something stupid like that. This was weird. But I liked it. Debbie was really nice.
I heard a loud bang and a metal squeak. Then lots of shouts. Kids were pouring out of the cafeteria onto the blacktop. It’s weird how the entire school just moves together in one humungous, destructive wave. I saw Matt and his evil buddies making their way over to me.
“Hey, Shrimp-o! How was your lunch?” Matt sneered. I looked over at Debbie, who stood there wide-eyed. She slowly backed away and moved swiftly to the other side of the blacktop.
I love this place.
_____________________________________________________________
School let out and I shoved some books into my bag, stepped away from my undersized locker, and was swept away by everyone pouring out of the building. I was finally shoved out the door and pushed onto the front lawn. I gathered my bearings, and headed down the street to the subway.
I got a ticket and stood waiting for the subway. I peered over the side at the tracks. There had been many of stories of people being pushed onto the tracks and flattened like a gum wad. I looked over my shoulder and quickly stepped back, leaning up against a concrete pillar.
I put on my headphones and started listening to Pink Floyd. I turned the volume up a bit and shut my eyes. “Come on, now. I hear you’re feeling down.” The song seemed to speak to me. I listened closer. “My hands felt just like two balloons... Now I've got that feeling once again, I can't explain, you would not understand. This is not how I am. I have become Comfortably Numb.”
That line was almost like I was speaking back to it.
“Can you stand up? I do believe its working good. That’ll keep you through the show” And that line my inner conscience. The little dude in your head that says things like “Make it through this much. Just don’t think about. Don’t talk about it. It’s not that big of a deal. It’ll be alright.”
“…I have become comfortably numb.”
It’s strange how your mind can play tricks on you. But once you wake up, you almost feel cramped and shut in like you fell in the middle of an awful riptide or something. My train whizzed by, and screeched to a stop. The metal doors of the subway squealed open and people flooded out. People flooded in. I sighed, stood up and stepped away from the pillar. Once again, the crowd flushed over me, carrying me along like a river, a sensation quite familiar to me. It was almost comfortable.
The view out the window was a spectacular one if you look at it right. The buildings made a sort of staggered art form against the sky. Most people in L.A. are disgusted by it, but I think that’s just because they’re not really looking at it. The view is especially astounding at night. The lack of stars in the sky are made up for the speckled lights of the city. They make their own night stars. But right now it was daylight, and it was kind of hard to enjoy the view from my position. The smell in the cafeteria was overpowering and the noise of talking was roaring in my ear. Not to mention the fact that my stomach wasn’t very happy with what I was putting into it. Which was nothing. Food costs money, you know, and right now all of my money was in the form of Matt’s double-decker chocolate fudge cake…thing. Oh well. It wasn’t like I was looking forward to eating the unpleasant cafeteria food, so now there was no way I could give into my grumbling stomach.
I looked up around the cafeteria to the people eating their lunches. Everyone belonged to a table. There was the jock table, the cheerleader’s table near by, the genius table, the punk table, the gang table, the nerd table, the druggie table, the girlie girl table, and the miscellaneous table. I belonged to the miscellaneous table. I was invisible.
The miscellaneous table is where the kids sit who don’t fit in anywhere else. Nobody else wanted to talk to us, so we kind of just formed our own table. I looked around the table at the few kids who were sitting there with me. There was Debbie Sheriff, the lesbian, who everyone thought had herpes or something; Joy Choi, the boy from Korea who spoke very little English; and Brian Vallery, the chubby kid who stuttered and was in Special Ed.
I’m at the table because of my size, my name, and just being friendless. I’m short, and skinny, and I have a weird name. My full name is Benedict. I like my name. It’s different, and I think it sounds good on me. It’s just that other people don’t like it so much. In younger years, the kids at school used to make fun of it. I have the same name as the dude who tried to hand the states back over to England during the Revolution. I would have done the same thing. The morons were kidnapping Africans and stealing from the Natives.
Sometimes I talked to the other kids at the miscellaneous table. They were completely normal. I can’t say the same about myself, but I didn’t get what the deal was. Everyone judges people too much. Even the people who say they’re better than that. Everyone judges people. Even if they don’t realize it.
I stood up then and headed out onto the blacktop. What was the point of staying in that depressing cafeteria if I’m just going to sit there and depress myself even more?
The blacktop was empty. Everyone was still inside eating their lunch. I felt very strange. Like I was bunched up and cramped and I didn’t like it. I needed something, but I didn’t know quite what. All I knew was that I needed a change. This whole thing doesn’t feel right. The way I’m living my life. Do you ever get that feeling? Where you either have to change your surroundings, or change what’s inside of you. But what am I supposed to do, when I don’t even know what I need to change?
I sighed, put my hands in my pocket, and squinted out into the streets around me. I could always hear the bustling of cars. It was so constant, it became background noise, and so I didn’t really hear it anymore. Only when I really pay attention, like I was now. I was trying to get comfortable. Comfort. It’s always about comfort. I was trying to settle into this strange new feeling so I wouldn’t really have to deal with it. Just kind of ignore it, so I could be comfortable. Maybe I’m too much of a coward to actually deal with my own problems.
“Hey.”
My heart leapt into my throat, and I must have jumped three feet into the air to turn around. I don’t know quite what I was expecting, but it scared the shit out of me. It was only Debbie. Don’t you hate it when that happens?
I casually rubbed the back of my head and stared at her. Almost like I never was really startled. It was that comfort thing again. Like I couldn’t just say, ‘Oh hey, you scared me.’
“Hey,” I said. She looked at her feet.
“I saw you come out here, and I thought you looked kinda…. I dunno. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I just wasn’t hungry, that’s all.” My stomach growled.
“Oh,” she said awkwardly. “Well, I don’t know, I just thought I’d come out here and talk to you. It’s kind of depressing in there,” she said, motioning to the cafeteria door. “And, well, we sit at the same table every day so….” her sentence trailed off.
“Uh-huh,” I muttered staring back at the streets. There was an awkward silence that seemed extremely long.
“Why don’t you ever talk?” she asked. I shuffled my feet a bit and shrugged.
“I dunno,” I said. “People don’t like it when I talk,” I said clumsily.
She smiled a bit. “I think people think you’re weird,” she said. Her bluntness was likeable. It made me laugh a little.
“Well, yeah, I am weird. Or maybe I’m normal and everyone else in the world has problems,” I said. She laughed.
“Yeah. The whole world has gone mad,” she said smiling, spreading her arms and beckoning to the city below. It’s funny, once you live in the city for an eternity, it’s hard to imagine that there’s a world outside of it. I know I wouldn’t survive anywhere else.
“Man…gotta love L.A.,” she muttered.
“Yeah. Center of the fuckin’ universe…and all things gone bad in the world,” I said.
Or so it seems.
She smiled a bit and looked down at the pavement. I did the same. It was weird, talking to her. Nobody ever talked to me, not even Debbie, before this. The only times she did talk to me were casual things. Like what was on the menu, or the pop quiz in fifth period, or pass the napkins, or something stupid like that. This was weird. But I liked it. Debbie was really nice.
I heard a loud bang and a metal squeak. Then lots of shouts. Kids were pouring out of the cafeteria onto the blacktop. It’s weird how the entire school just moves together in one humungous, destructive wave. I saw Matt and his evil buddies making their way over to me.
“Hey, Shrimp-o! How was your lunch?” Matt sneered. I looked over at Debbie, who stood there wide-eyed. She slowly backed away and moved swiftly to the other side of the blacktop.
I love this place.
_____________________________________________________________
School let out and I shoved some books into my bag, stepped away from my undersized locker, and was swept away by everyone pouring out of the building. I was finally shoved out the door and pushed onto the front lawn. I gathered my bearings, and headed down the street to the subway.
I got a ticket and stood waiting for the subway. I peered over the side at the tracks. There had been many of stories of people being pushed onto the tracks and flattened like a gum wad. I looked over my shoulder and quickly stepped back, leaning up against a concrete pillar.
I put on my headphones and started listening to Pink Floyd. I turned the volume up a bit and shut my eyes. “Come on, now. I hear you’re feeling down.” The song seemed to speak to me. I listened closer. “My hands felt just like two balloons... Now I've got that feeling once again, I can't explain, you would not understand. This is not how I am. I have become Comfortably Numb.”
That line was almost like I was speaking back to it.
“Can you stand up? I do believe its working good. That’ll keep you through the show” And that line my inner conscience. The little dude in your head that says things like “Make it through this much. Just don’t think about. Don’t talk about it. It’s not that big of a deal. It’ll be alright.”
“…I have become comfortably numb.”
It’s strange how your mind can play tricks on you. But once you wake up, you almost feel cramped and shut in like you fell in the middle of an awful riptide or something. My train whizzed by, and screeched to a stop. The metal doors of the subway squealed open and people flooded out. People flooded in. I sighed, stood up and stepped away from the pillar. Once again, the crowd flushed over me, carrying me along like a river, a sensation quite familiar to me. It was almost comfortable.