Once Upon A Time

If this were a movie, and if I were the main character, the movie would start off showing bits and pieces of my life and I would start to narrate "It was a long time ago when I.." and then I would establish the introduction to whatever bit of my life I was going to tell you. Then, with a swooping camera shot you would see a person, and I would explain that that person was me. I would comment on how idiotic or heroic or romantic I would be looking at this moment.

If this were a movie, I would probably not be sitting on my bed, sorting through a pile of papers dug out of my backpack. I would not look like some generic combination of the 'American Boy,' with brown hair and brown eyes and the sort of wardrobe that has staples rather than statements and are always in a dubious state of cleanliness. I would probabaly not be looking for the piece of paper that had the words scribbled across the top "I declare" and along the blue lines of the notebook in barely legible handwriting, a signed legal document. Had this been a movie or some pathetic intro to a t.v. nightime soap opera this paper would have nice handwriting, perhaps a drawing, certainly be on a nice bit of a paper.

I will say this, the reason for me searching fruitlessly through a giant pile of paper that looked like I had run it through the washer a few times, the reason that there was somewhere a piece of paper with a fake legal document scribbled on it could possibly be the subject of some b-rated movie. I think I saw something of the sort around 2 last night on the sci-fi channel. This particular show had used a bit too much rubber in my opinion, so that all of the varied beasts and demons were extreamly shiny. Perhaps you can see where this internal dialouge is headed.

During third period, just before lunch yesterday my friend signed his soul over to me infront of several credible witnesses and the prying eyes of Jess who sits in the row behind us. Normally, this things isn't a problem. When the teachers start rambling about certain tenses that are used only in the past subjuntive my mind searches for anything that can keep me from falling off my chair. On the rare occasion that I don't find something I tend to break things. Chairs, tables, my head or arm. It'd be funny if it weren't so sad, really. So yesterday the french teacher started on subjunctive and I asked to buy my friends soul. I have, in the past collected several souls by various means. Usually there are alot of qualifiers on this but yesterday was hot and our hearts were not really in it.

"What are you doing" hissed Jess. She was the type, the hanger-on, the girl-who-laughed-too-loud. Her existance and purpose seemed only to grab onto somebody else's fun and enjoyment and try and get herself involved. If you think at the end of this story I will end up falling for this girl, you have never met her. Just looking at her sets your nerves all on the edge for no other reason than she exudes 'desperate.'

We told her to shut up, that we were doing her mother, and that if she wanted we could do her next. That sort of thing normally stoped most peoples attemts at conversing with us. It seemed to work for a while, anyways. That or the fact that the french teacher was glaring at her. As a rule, she generally ignore my friends and I. Teachers seemed to do that to us alot, attempt at civilizing and then attemt to ignore.

So, we wrote the legal document and left. Unfortunatly, I was beginning to suspect that we had left the classroom while the 'document' never had. I was also beginning to suspect that this one barely legible note was going to cause much more trouble than any of us had actually thought.



"He's sick? Again? Thats the third day this week" normal morning jabber, talking about the lucky bastards that didnt have to come to school.
"So? People get sick. Three days ain't much." sometimes I sicken myself by the company I keep. Ain't? Honestly.
"Yeah, but he never gets sick. He hasn't missed a day of school since he pulled out all the stops in that major drama he threw at his mom the day that Ali wanted to ask him out. Four years ago. Plus he never said anything to any one of us." Perfectly true, he never said anything. His mother had called me the night before asking about the food he had eaten or the drugs we had taken. Usually, I would be offended. However, since my friend had fallen asleep at lunch three days ago and hadn't woken up at all in that period of time I wasn't going to say anything. I just said that we didn't do any drugs and that he had fallen asleep before we could get any food in him.
The guys I hung out with shrugged, some looked disturbed, maybe worried. There isn't alot of 'emotion' that any one shows when these guys are involved. Not any stupid jock humor, but no emo angst either. All for the better, but it makes for a hard judge of moods when it comes down to it.
I changed the subject to ease the mood and to try and ignore the feeling in the pit of my stomach that made me want to throw up. Everything is fine, I thought, this has nothing to do with that stupid piece of paper that we wrote in French.
About thirty minutes later I had ditched the guys and was fruitlessly digging around in my locker trying to find that simple slip of paper. THe bad feeling got worse when I couldn't find it even after ditching english to clean out the damn thing. Sitting there doing everything in my power to try and stay calm when, to my great dismay, Jess walks by. Being incapable of judging any situation correctly she found it her duty to talk to me. "What's wrong Mike? I see you actually cleaned out the rat hole" (her best friend has the locker next to me and she named my locker based on the fact that there was a rat in there a couple months ago. A guy can't help it if he's a tad messy, you know?)
"Fuck off, Jess. I'm just looking for my homework."
Jess doesn't get, as usual, and continues trying to talk "Hey, thats not very nice" she giggles, I want to kill her "You never turn in homework anyways. Maybe you are looking for something more... spiritual?" Her eyes kindof spark and my bad feeling gets much worse.
"What the hell are you talking about Jess?"
"Well, just that I saw what you guys were doing yesterday and I think it was really stupid, but I also saw that you forgot a few things in the classroom yesterday and one of them was that stupid contract." In this movie of my life Jess would be played by some ungodly unattractive actress and everytime you saw her you would feel as sick as I do know. Unfortunatly Jess is fairly normal looking so you wouldn't know that she was evil by just looking at her. She is however, its a proven fact now. "God damn it Jess, what the fuck did you do with it?"
She looks taken back, maybe I was a tad overzealous but I really want this paper back "Nothing, I just threw it away. Its sooooo juvinile to do things like that. God" only she says it without pronouncing the d " I can't beleive you guys are so incredably lame." She stands up and stalks off down the hall.
The sick feeling subsides and I just feel like shit instead. Gods what the hell am I supposed to do know? For some reason I cannot deny the fact that this paper has some weird connection with scotts illness and its serious. Whatever it is, is fucking serious