Mondo Bungle

A story in progress

Searching for a Close Friend part 1

It was a period of just three days from meeting him to the moment when he’d ultimately decided to leave. I can’t blame him though. It goes to show you that we’re all talk, and those who follow through have the rest of us bewildered, completely dumbfounded. He did what? Really? The words would be repeated until all meaning. Yeah, he did. What did you expect? He was the closest friend I’d ever had and surely ever will. He was everything I am and everything I’m not all at the same time. He was perfect. I’m so vain. All I wanted was myself, and someone confident in being that. I Know I wasn’t, not at all. But he was. He was confident in myself, and I’d never known the feeling. True to his word he left us. I envy him. I would know no other. If no one misses you, you’d thrive even more. But I hope you know that I miss you, more than I can express. You still walk beside me, within me, you reflect in the mirror. I’d never know true solitude as long as I remember you.

On a pale December afternoon, I walked home the from the last day of school before the weekend. Overhead, soft and foggy clouds joined together to blanket the sky in grey. Before my eyes danced a lone snowflake, the first I’d seen this year. With a nimble subtlety, it fell slowly and gracefully. It continued to dance for me, as if asking me to join. “I’m not a good dancer.” I said quietly to the snowflake. It would remain with me until it hit the ground, and more slowly followed. Cold but not unpleasant, the air wanted me to stay. By now I’d made it to my hotel and stood outside my room. Once inside, this day is over. Everything that happened today gone, as if it never happened at all. I’ll stay in this room for the weekend, alone or with my parents. No feelings from today. I’d be left just with a crippling indifference. Feeling somewhere in between woefully alive or blissfully deceased, yet still far from either. As more snowflakes danced to the ground and I adjusted to the cold, I walked past my room. I knew of an often empty meadow nearby that I enjoy spending time in alone, and made for that direction. Not even ten minutes away, I came here often. It was far enough from the street that the sounds of traffic were muffled or totally silenced. It was generally peaceful.

I came to the area and walked through a clearing in the bushes, on a trail that led from one side of the meadow to the other. It opened up wide after about a football field’s length. There was a group of large boulders here that I went to sit on. Alone on the rocks, I observed nature’s nuances. The slight swaying of tree branches in the odd breeze, leaves rustling and falling. I was silent and still. I didn’t want to disrupt anything. I’m always that way. I feel so insignificant and unimportant that nothing meaningful could ever come from my actions. I try not to interfere with the world around me, it’s bad enough I’m here as it is. I often feel that I don’t deserve it. It’s not meant for me, or vice versa. It’s meant for successful people, popular people, people doing what people have to do, and doing it right.I’m not any of that. Here I sit, alone, no goals, no prospects, nothing on the horizon, and no one. Life should be a reward for those other people, but they don’t see it that way. They take it for granted. Instead it becomes a punishment for me. My state of mind deteriorates each minute, into a lukewarm puddle of a once strong and confident snowman. But he stood through many days and nights with ease. He once felt strong and surrounded by loved ones. The might still be somewhere near, but the snowman has since melted and he cannot see them. Just a puddle of water. It’s hard to see anything when you are but a puddle. It’s hard to move, it’s hard not to move. But most of all, it’s hard to feel. The puddle is alone no matter its size. Even a lake is just a large puddle being taken advantage of. I wonder if lakes enjoy people swimming in them, or if they are disturbed by the fact that they barely serve any functions. Well, that’s not true, the lake is a source of water and not a friend. The puddle is less than the lake. The puddle is a nuisance. Children who splash in the puddles don’t know where they’re from or what’s inside. They splash in the sad remains of that snowman. The puddle will evaporate soon, and no one will miss it, no one will notice. Because the puddle is nothing. The puddle is a representation of a beautiful occurrence that has since ended, leaving just a small splash of water. If not evaporated, it will soak into the Earth to nourish the area around it. The puddle’s purpose exists in it’s demise. I will serve the world better once I am gone and forgotten.

Alone, watching the trees converse and squirrels and small rabbits run. But still they stop near each other. Don’t flee from me, I am not your predator. I am much larger than you physically, but just as small inside. If I could tell you, I would, although I don’t think you’d believe me. The world has made us untrustworthy of everything and everyone aside from those most similar to us. But I am no predator. If anything, I envy you. You can do everything I can’t and can unattach yourself from anything without any doubt. You can leave. You can give it all up so easily if it doesn’t work.

The animals scurry away from the trail as a young man makes his way through the clearing, same as I had. “Great,” I thought, “Company.” He came through slowly but surely. I didn’t want to interact, but I wouldn’t avoid it.

“Are you cold out here?” He asked.

“A little bit. It’s not bad.”

“By yourself?” You don’t know the half of it, I thought.

“Yeah, just me. Didn’t want to go home at the moment.” He stopped when he came to the rocks. After a brief pause, he spoke again.

“The weather seems to reflect from within us. Here we are with a grey day for our grey feelings. And there is just the slightest snowfall. It’s change. Seasons changing. It starts out small.” I nodded silently. “But a very large storm is on the horizon. Storms are nasty for people, but beneficial for the rest of the world.” Pause. “I normally come in here because most of the time it’s unpopulated and peaceful. Are you doing the same?”

“Yeah, I guess. This is what I’d be doing at home anyway.”

“Lame.” He said. I shrugged. “I’m going to walk through a bit, I’ll let you to be.” This felt like one of those opportunities to make a friend that I always blow.

“I’m actually walking in too. I need to go that way anyway..” Not that my hotel was on on the way, but it still led back to the road. I hopped down off the rocks. This boy and I were probably no less than two years apart.

“Go to school today?” He asked.

“Yeah.”

“How was it?”

“You’ve been to school before, haven’t you?”

“Not for a while.”

“I’m sure it hasn’t changed.”

“I dropped out of high school during my sophomore year. It didn’t do anything for me.” I thought back to my own sophomore year when I had considered doing the same. But of course, I couldn’t commit. I was back in class in a week.

We didn’t talk much as we progressed through the meadow. We each watched our surroundings as we passed them, side by side. My new acquaintance would break the silence. “Do you have any plans this weekend?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“Maybe we could hang out? If you want, I don’t have anything going on either.”

“Sure.” I said passively.

“Sweet. I’ll give you my number, or you can give me yours, I’ll just give you a text so we both will know each other’s.” He pulled a cellphone from his pocket. “Alright.” He said, then I gave him my number as he punched it in. Then I felt mine buzz in my pocket. I had one message from him. No one else. “Alright, we’re in business.” He said. We were approaching the end of the trail and the entrance to some residential area. We stopped before stepping onto the paved road. “Well, I’m going this way.” He said, pointing in the opposite direction I was headed.

“Alright, man. I’ll call you tomorrow or something. Take it easy.” We waved and began our separate ways home.

I’d have to walk for a little bit before getting on the street to circle back to the hotel. “Cool.” I said to myself. “Someone to hang out with. Could be nice.” My phone was still in my hand. No new messages from anyone else, and there hadn’t been for some time now. This wasn’t for lack of trying on my end. I must not deserve a response, I thought, jumping to the “everyone hates me” card right away as usual. Sure, no one talks to me, but I don’t make it any better when I think the ways I do. They’re ignoring me, they hate talking to me, they don’t want me in their life. Get over yourself, you crybaby. I have to make everything about me, good or bad. It’s somehow always something to do with me. People can’t have their own lives and problems. I have to one-up their grief. I’m so selfish. Still, it brings me great sorrow and emptiness. I don’t exactly have a lot of time to talk to people (due to not having the means, nothing to do with a schedule), so in the time that I do, it would mean a lot to me. So when I’m left hanging, I get real depressed. Maybe next time, I tell myself, next time they’ll be free or feeling better. Right now’s not a good time. Next time comes around and I tell myself the same thing, over and over. Next time. Next time. Oh, maybe next time? We haven’t talked in weeks, maybe you’ll feel like it next time? You still don’t want to. That’s fine, I’ll try next time.

The individual only knows themself, and it creates negative feelings inside. Because you don’t understand anyone else, you can only beat yourself up. I think we’re all inherently selfish like this. Because it’s easy, we feel the need to blame something, and it’s always ourselves in the end. We know ourselves better than anyone else and it’s easiest to blame yourself. You’re your own punching bag. I don’t know if my need to be worse off than everyone is shared by others, though. It seems a bit weird. And it doesn’t make a difference when everyone’s hardships are completely subjective and personal.. There’s no comparison, really. Moods don’t go up and down from person to person, but side to side. In that sense, there’s no magnitude of certain feelings, because they’re different for everyone else. The depression I feel doesn’t relate to people’s reasons for not talking to me. Still, it’s disappointing, you know? To reach out but grab no hand. So you’re left alone in a deep hole of self loathing, and no one is here to help you out. At least, I want affirmation. I end up falling into the hole for no reason. When it’s up to you to figure out on your own why it’s happening to you, you jump to the worst possible conclusions. Without acknowledgment or affirmation, you’re left thinking that you don’t even deserve it. But alas, I am melodramatic and manic, giving myself the ideas that people don’t want me in their lives, and not knowing otherwise just makes it worse.

I walked down the road as snow continued to trickle. It was too warm to stick, so each one would soon fade. A smaller puddle. From birth, to the descent, to death. The flake’s life is short and unimportant. They are released from the clouds for a short while, and slowly fall, losing mass each passing second. Then they land, they are barely anything anymore. A shell of what they used to be, alone to die without meaning. They’re martyrs, sacrificing their lives to prolong and exponentiate their immediate habitat. Being alive, I am worthless. The time will come to finally serve a purpose, when I fertilize the soil with my bodily elements, or maybe become a meal for some hungry animal. They will be fed and nourished after I’ve passed. The ground will be livelier and the grass greener when I’m gone.

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