Intro

Intro

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. An early twenties male, well-educated, suffers from an inexplicable disease, a sort of “reverse mid-life crisis,” a “young man’s burden” what-have-you, in which he allows the crux of being grown up and a collapsing economy to actually crush his spirit into mash.

Still have problems envisioning that? Ok…..here’s another angle. Focus on a young man waking up in Batman pajamas. He is red-eyed, hair stands on one side of his head, and hair covers his body resembling a young black bear. His body feels as if it has only slept for four hours. He has problems getting out of bed. With the speed of a sloth, he rises, stretches, and drags ass out of bed. He is up early this morning. It is only eleven o’clock.

He walks into the kitchen and pours himself a cup of coffee. Proceeding to the living room, he turns on the television and watches Sportscenter. For three hours. Nothing changes from hour-to-hour, just the sportcasters. He watches although he already knows the scores by heart. Knowing he should get up and do something but not having the strength, he flips through the channels only to find nothing is on. Back to Sportscenter. God, he can’t stand Hannah Storm.

Zoom in to a shower scene. His body is some-what impressive but not overly “worked” on. The concept of showering for an extended period of time always seems odd to him, so he speeds through his cleaning. He has always felt trapped in the shower, claustrophobic, like a telephone booth that is slowly filling with water. Don’t get it misconstrued; he cleans his body effectively, just the concept of marinating in the shower has always disgusted him.

He gets dressed. Quite the snazzy dresser. Something about dressing up has always been slightly erotic to him. He gets off on it. Italian jeans, Dress shirts, skinny ties: all devices of fornication. Though more often than not, he finds himself dressed to the teeth with nowhere to go. The prom queen that doesn’t have a date. Still, appearance means a lot to him. The clothes make the man and all that jazz.

After dressed, he proceeds to the bathroom. Although he has always had a fancy for finer clothes, his external appearance has always come across as “haphazard.” He wants to appear as though he just woke up. Like he spent no time in front of the mirror. The messy hair, the half-grown in beard; its all a façade to make you believe that he is indeed not that “vain.” He also wants to remain true to his roots, his essence. Inside of him lurks a smug, intelligent, Bukowski-quoting, Klosterman-envying, hipster who is too afraid to show his full appearance. But part of him wants to remain desirable to “attractive” women and hipster women are far from it with their sweaty palms, flat chests, and awful haircuts (except for Zooey Deschanel, but then again, she is the ideal hipster girl). Plus the whole aura of the hipster seems false to him, pretending to not care and be ironic, when it is quite obvious that defense is only kiddie-pool deep. These were the kids who were picked on in high school and know feel like they need to agree and nod in order to fit in with another kind of clique, a clique that “gets them.” The need to be understood yet an individual is something that plagues him on a daily basis. He blames his lack of sleep on it.

He has no one to call. He wants to go out but he knows he will wind up driving around aimlessly if he does. All dressed up with nowhere to go. Ashamed, he retreats to the basement to find some solace in video games. He tries to lose himself amongst the blood and shootouts but finds himself feeling like a dork, wasting time on something that really means squat. There are no life-affirming moments that come from games, just sore thumbs and slipping knowledge of the opposite sex.

The scene fades with him sitting on his bed later at night reading a book. His brow is scrunched, eyes focused on the pages, hands gripping the waxy cover. His demeanor is calm but he seems to be searching for something, eyes staring through the words, the ink, looking for a real meaning behind the author’s trick, the magician’s wand he shakes over his prose to conceal what connects us all together; the human element. He doesn’t mind the cat-and-mouse game, but much like the women in his life, he wishes that they would be open with him. He has spent most of his life confused and tricked by what he believed was right or what he felt was instinctual and natural for a young man to do and now all he wants is a little advice. Someone to tell him what to do. Losing himself in books and music, he hopes one will ultimate reveal his path for transcendence. Or at least get him high, momentarily. His luck has been so-so.

Scene fades as he closes the book, dims the light, and arches his back on his ever-uncomfortable futon. He rolls around; the bed creaks incessantly as the metal bar digs into his back. Need to buy an eggcrate is etched into his list of things to do but probably not going to happen list. Finding a comfortable spot, his head heavy, he closes his eyes and hopes to dream. Good luck, champ.

*****

This man is me. My name is Max O’Brien. Somewhere along the line, my life turned into a Smiths song.