Early teens, 14 maybe 15, doesn’t yet display the resolve of someone who has maneuvered a car down a city street or even a country lane … he’s a pretty child, large brown eyes and soft straight dark hair that he keeps however long it grows before his mother proclaims him a ‘savage’ and takes him for a cut. He doesn’t care much about the hair, he doesn’t really keep it any kind of way, it’s just there.
Blue t-shirt under a grey hoodie, skinny jeans and New Balance in black. There is nondescript schmutz on the toe of the right shoe. He sees it and registers and blinks and is gone again. Staring at the paper in front of him he is photograph still, pen in hand, barely breathing, notebook balanced on his lap – his face is placid, so still it frightens his father sometimes. Inscrutable.
Behind the still eyes and delicate jawline there is mild confusion and a slowly tripping discord. He knows there are structures and rules and guidelines for how to approach the assignment, they talked about it in class and he knew it then but now he’s just lost and unsure and has found that sitting still and quiet is so much easier than the energy it would take to move the pen an inch to the paper and begin. Besides, he doesn’t really know where to start. His father will be angry and his mother disappointed and he feels a lukewarm desire to please them and a lukewarm desire to sit quietly and a lukewarm desire to jump up and scream and throw things and a lukewarm desire to take a nap .. and a chili dog sounds good.
Decisive he moves quickly, notebook and pen abandoned on the coffee table. He’s still under 5 foot, small and exhilarated by a sensation that is not lukewarm. Chili dog. Hormel no beans open, Heritage Farm dogs sliced from the package and no buns…. NO FUCKING BUNS. Something in his chest feels hotter than lukewarm at the grocering failure that is his mother. A deep breath and groan later the dog is in a bowl, chili dumped on top and all thrown in the microwave for a minute. He chops through the dog with his spoon, shovels hot chili and cold hot dog into his mouth and is uninspired.
There is still the essay to write, there are still no buns and he’s still unsure about the bowling trip for his PE class and how the whole shoe thing works. He doesn’t want to look foolish not knowing, the attention paid to foolish is so unpleasant. Attention is so unpleasant. The eyes and the talking and the unsure. He meanders to the couch with his bowl of ‘chili dog’, sits and blinks at the notebook. Narrative essay, that’s the assignment. He can write about anything he wants, provided he uses the correct structures .. but it’s all gone, the class and the structure and his memory of either.
His mind slides to the left and wonders what to write about. He knows he can find the structure online. He knows that with a small ten minute investment and $2.99 he can get hot dog buns and do the dogs right. But what to write about? Who cares really? He hasn’t done anything or been anywhere.
Hey Siri – what are good narrative essay topics?
Ok, I found this on the web for ‘what are good narrative essay topics’ check it out:
77 Best Topic Ideas for Narrative Essays – paperowl.com
https://papersowl.com/blog/narrative-essay-topics
- A memorable teacher. – hahaha nah
- Starting a new job. – not applicable
- The day you faced a natural disaster or helped other people who had such an experience – not applicable
- The experience of little inventions made by you – not applicable
- Losing or gaining faith – not applicable
- A dangerous experience – fell off a bike once?
- A conflict with another person – does my mom count?
- The first journey to countryside – who says that?
- An experience that changed your behavior – spankings? Grounding?
- Funny episodes based on a misunderstanding or other issues – jesus
- A time people helped each other in a crisis. – not applicable
- Episodes that changed your opinion about other people – not applicable
- Episodes from a summer vacation in your childhood – hahahaha, um, Skyrim?
- The experience of creating secret places or other things that refer to your childhood – what does that even mean?
- An experience that helped you to understand that parents or other people were right – haha nah
- An experience when you overcame a fear of specific things – not applicable
- An experience of losing your prejudiced views because of the behavior of other people – not applicable
- A time when you’ve decided what your future job should be – yeah no
- Funny episodes with much greater meaning – what does that even mean
- The special moment when you got your first pet – not applicable
- An embarrassing experience – why would anyone want to relive an embarrassing experience and hand it over to a teacher?
- The first time when you faced a big storm or even a tornado – lame
- An experience you had with a person who you didn’t like first, but who later became a good friend of yours – not applicable
- A time when you got lost – not applicable
- A sporting experience – oh god not soccer
- An experience of attending specific sports, music or political events – not applicable
- A moment when people who you underestimated acted kindly or wisely – not applicable
- How you faced an episodes that touched the whole country – I can’t even with any of this … there’s nothing here for me.
He leaves the notebook on the table, along with the refuse of his chili dog failure and wanders up to his room. Uninspired, uninvited, unremarkable .. he is the essence of dull and bored and flat. His father believes the affect to be a guise for boiling rage, his mother believes it a sign of deep thinking and ‘old soul’ wisdom.
They are both wrong. His vacancy is a true emptiness. There is no passion for him, no burning fire of inspiration or hatred or beauty or love. He is not dissatisfied with life except in that it’s always mildly confusing – he is not inspired by life except that it just keeps going on and on. Nothing hurts overmuch and nothing feels overgood. Chili dogs bring a momentary light to his eyes, and the bun failure brought a momentary heat to his chest … and then it passed and the soft fuzziness of disinterest and mild disappointment enveloped him in its easy neutrality.
As we pan out there is no poetic way to wrap up the description of a boy who is so empty, except, perhaps to mull what components are required for humans to become full.
Who am I drinking? 