I don’t know what to think. Everything’s broken, ruined, and I feel absolutely nothing. It’s times like right now where the car could lift off the ground and I would be able to ignore it.
Reality is, I’m hurting. I’ve been hurt. I said I wasn’t nervous and I wasn’t really excited about this, but yeah, truth is I was. I just couldn’t feel it going in. I felt nothing because that’s what I’ve been feeling since this stuff started. I feel mostly nothing, even when I’m angry or afraid.
Everything’s, like, some kind of other object. My feelings aren’t really mine. They’re just there, and I can feel them if I want.
But I don’t. Especially now, I don’t.
I sit in my car for hours. At some point, I reach into the backseat and get my laptop. It’s the one thing I care about right now. Work, damn you, work. There’s power. It’s definitely on. Black screen for way too long. It’s like it’s holding back, not wanting to actually work.
What does it take for it to work? Me caring? Even a little? Then fine, I care. I really care.
It’s kind of sad to think that this laptop is my real window to anything I like. I have no other real connection with anything living or dead. This stupid laptop is my gate. It lets me seek out what I’ll never get to see if I didn’t have that access. Yeah, I know it’s sad. But a lot of things are sad.
It’ll be sadder if this thing is really broken.
I leave it sitting on the front passenger seat and I stare up at the sky. I don’t see any stars. Maybe I don’t want to see any stars and that’s why things look so miserable. Nothing to see up there or around me, so I rest my head on the steering wheel. Things happen, I guess, but I’m right here, sitting in my car.
But then I hear it — the sound of the computer starting up.
And it’s almost the kind of sound that I could map to the feeling of things getting better.
But instead, I take the laptop and sign in.
I avoid signing in to any social media. Instead, I go right to a video. I click on the one at the top of my recently viewed, which is, ironically, the one with the two guys, the one that is a skit but it seems like they are both actual friends. I forget where or how I saw it until the second viewing. I remember that night when my laptop went missing. I remember the video that was open when I got it back.
This is the video.
This is the same video.
What does that mean?
Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. I don’t know. But it’s cool, the video. Both guys get what’s going on. They don’t pretend to be anything they’re not. It’s a skit, but I feel like it’s, um, what’s the word, improvised. Yeah.
I open up a new document. I notice that the laptop battery is at full charge, but I’m too tired to take it as real. It goes into the big group of stuff that I’m not thinking about. I scroll through the various notes I’ve typed to myself, wasting time. It really feels like there’s nowhere else to go from here.
I’m looking at notes, notes I type to myself because I know I’ll never actually look at them again.
There’s nothing else left.
Seriously.
Like here’s one: “yearbook bio/what you’ll be remembered for.”
I still haven’t written one. Well, I’m going to write one now.
Here I go, typing out the truth:
“I won’t be remembered for being haunted. I’ll be remembered for being like everyone else, but maybe a little more sincere. I’m not fickle like everyone else who latched on to me when really they should have just, like, gotten away. Let me get the help I need. I’m Hunter Warden, a senior at Meadows, who hasn’t declared what his major in college will be. I’m Hunter Warden and we probably had a few classes together. I’m Hunter Warden, and yes, I drive a shitty Japanese car that’s, like, eight or ten years old. I’m Hunter Warden, and no, I don’t find that new hip-hop artist interesting. I’m Hunter Warden and I don’t like football, basketball, or any of the other sports all of you guys are so hyped and happy about. I’m Hunter Warden and I don’t want to join your band. I’m Hunter Warden, and what makes you think we are the same? I’m Hunter Warden and I’m actually a nice guy, if you actually talked to me about something other than the stuff you always talk about. I don’t want to be any different from anyone else. I don’t. I’m like you: I want to fit in. But, like, I don’t like the same things you do. And all anyone talks about is the stuff they like. It’s all stuff, stuff, stuff. There’s got to be more to talk about than just stuff. When it isn’t stuff, it’s who got into the better college, who got the better SAT score. I’m Hunter Warden and we could have been friends.”
I read it back and, man — this is bad. It’s all wrong when I just want to be right. It should be a bio, not a rant. It should be written so that I’m not saying it, right? It should read, like, “Hunter Warden is a B+ student, set to attend State in the fall.” Something like that. Yeah, that’s better.
I’m going to close this document now.
Save and exit?
Yeah, whatever.
I know. I know: The truth is they will remember me for what’s happening now. They’ll never let me live it down. I’m the one in the middle of it, stuck with having to live with it. I mean, it’ll go away sometime, right?
People will forget. They always forget.
There’s always State. Bigger group of people. A fresh start.
So then I just have to wait. Something about that seems depressing — really, really bleak — like I won’t make it that far. Won’t make it past graduation.
I’ll be stuck in high school with everyone acting like I’m the shit for something I shouldn’t have done. Most don’t even know my full name.
There’s really something wrong about being remembered for something you had no part of, something that’s actually trying to hurt you, you know? That’s what’s really scary. I think I’m going to stay in the car tonight. There’s no way I’m going to be able to walk inside.
I’ll stay here all night. No problem.
I’ll find something to do online. I’ll fixate on something that isn’t my situation. I don’t want to think about it. Maybe I’ll actually fall asleep. Either way, the laptop stays at full charge all night. It doesn’t even dip below 90 percent.
I don’t realize I’m asleep until I fall twenty stories from the top of a building and I’m able to stand back up without a scratch. I look like shit, but it’s only because the dream is right out of a movie and the main character in that movie gets ripped up, bleeding and bloody, but keeps running.
I keep running, being chased by what I won’t see until later, when it’s that part of the movie where the main character ends up cornered, dead end, and he’s frantically looking for some other exit.
But there is no exit.
The only way I really can leave this is if I wake up. When you’re in the dream, you think that you can just think, “Wake up,” and you’ll wake up.
I think that but it only makes the dream seem more real than it is.
I shouldn’t be running. I shouldn’t be shooting at the unseen enemy. I shouldn’t be saying the lines that the main character says in the movie — stuff like, “If you want me, you’ll have to kill me!” and, into a phone that I didn’t have until it appeared on-screen, “Fourth and Front Street! Fourth and Front Street! Five minutes! If you’re late, I’m dead!”
I should just wake up because my dreams are never like this. My dreams are never this interesting.
Never this… real.
But I keep running.
And I love this.
It goes from one city street to the next, and I’m running up walls, doing parkour like a pro, and my heart just has to be beating like crazy. I’m sweating in bed and it’s cold as hell in my room. I mean, I know what’s happening.