You & I - 15. Chapter 15

To Sherlock,

Happy hump day. Sorry, I didn't get to catch up with you yesterday, only I forgot to check the mailbox to see if I had any new additions. However, I did remember to check today. Yesterday was like mad crazy, and I didn't have a minute to get my mind straight. Our science teacher decided to house an in-class experiment which was going accordingly for the most part. But Nathan Brier put something in his test beaker, and a big cloud of white poof blew up. Therefore, for safety precaution, we had to clean up, but thankfully nobody was injured.

Pretty much… The guy you describe in your previous letter sounds incredibly so like the guy I ran into the other day. The caretaker, you say. I can't remember if the man had an earring in his right ear or whether his hair was a fading black. All I can remember is that it was a guy and that he was a little rude. To state the obvious, I cannot recall what I had for breakfast... Oh, wait fruitloops... never mind.

I'm afraid you have lost me with all the science mumbo-jumbo. In case you haven't already guessed it by now I'm not the brightest student in the school. I think I know the basics, but past that all I know is that science is all that fun stuff that makes the world go around. If I had a free moment, and I got talking to someone about anything, I don't believe it would be about naturally carbonated mineral water. Then again, I have not got an inkling as to what the thing is. Do you often go to the library? I presume you would be considering you're a lot smarter than me. Somebody like me doesn't usually go near the library; never mind reading a book. So for future reference, if any poor fool walks up to me and asks about carbonation, I'll hand them a bottle of mineral water. Thanks for the heads up.

Ah yeah, I want to stay healthy too.

For a moment there when you said that you were taken out of class yesterday, I thought you said that you had gotten into trouble. And I was like oh snap…. the man himself has done something crazeeey. My mind jumped to all the scenarios that you could have got in trouble for. If I were ever taken out of class, it would probably because I am in trouble. Ms. Byrne is a pretty likable teacher.

I would have no objections to seeing her go on to become the principal of the school, but I suppose then she would have to reign in her sails and stop being cool. Yeah, I guess it is a little funny. I meet hundreds of people every day, so I reckon it's not really that much of a big deal to me. I mean, if you find it funny then I guess that's neat too. Once you get to my level of popularity you kind of wish people didn't approach you so freely and frequently. Yet still, free classes are free classes.

I wonder what sort of society you guys are going to make. I am happy to hear that you have been asked to create a new club of sorts for the school. Sometimes when all you hear about is football or Lacrosse or basketball; an escape is nicely appreciated to recharge the batteries.

I can't say I've never felt small, but just sitting in an office waiting to be addressed, I guess, I can say I know what the feeling is like. Only when the two of us experience it, you seem to be moving up the ladder in your academic life, and well I seem to be grilled really hard to perform better at things that I am already trying my utmost best to show.

Not only by my parents; my father, I mean..., but also my team and the coach.

Justin Blake, I know him. The two of us occasionally talk when we pass in the hallways in school. That guy is legitimately hard-core into drama. Yes, he has no shortage of friends, but I think that's due to his feminine nature with the girls. Justin is gay, I think, and the majority of his friends are comprised of female companions. Nine times out of 10 whenever I pass him in the hallway, he is chaperoned by this huddlement of girl power. Sometimes this makes him hard to get to and well if you want to catch him on your own for a chat that's twice as hard.

I guess I have nothing to complain about if that guy can't even get a breather. I remember a while back I tried exceptionally hard to befriend him. I remember I watched a shit-ton of Glee just so I could have something to talk to him about. After all, my life revolves around sports, so I absolutely had nothing to talk to Justin about regarding hobbies.

One of the girls from the cheerleading squad came up to me one day and asked if I could approach Justin Blake to put in a good word for my friend to get some of the girls to try out for the squad. Just when I agreed to help, I realize that I had nothing in common with Justin. So, I didn't want to exactly seem like I was begging off of him considering I'd never even talked to him before.

Therefore, regrettably, I spent one weekend watching the entire box set before approaching him. All went well actually: some of the girls that parade around with him joined the cheerleading squad, and well I made a new friend even though he's from a different tribal pleb. As for the artsy girl Sofia I have no clue who she is. Although it sounds from the way, you mentioned everything that you guys are going to bond over the next couple of months really well. I hope you make some new friends, you might need them more than me.

Let me know when you organize the day you guys are going to raise funds, and I'll donate something. Who knows maybe you'll be running the same show on the night of one of my big games. And yeah, I agree Justin is not snobby in any way or form.

It's okay I've gotten used to it. Actually, my dad doesn't come to any of my games, only my mom. I think I've gotten to the point where I play contently now knowing that mom is in the stands supporting me. I remember a time I worked incredibly hard to get my father to notice me. I once was a child with the stupid notion, that if I tried hard enough, I would be worthy of his time to turn up to watch.

Instead, I got to where I wanted, but still no dad. There is some little part of me deep down wishing that if for one night I could have my father come to watch me play that would mean the world to me. I love Lacrosse, I'd even vouch to give it up if only my dad came to one game; just one game. Then I'd know that just for one time in his eyes I amounted to more than just average.

Your mom sounds pretty awesome. My mom doesn't spend much time watching TV; she mostly reads magazines about home-improvement. At home I don't spend much time on TV; my dad and Jordan fill most of the time policing the remote control. Nothing wrong with documentaries but for me, I find them lame... Blah. My head often feels congested as it is with all the bombardment from social media apps. Any headspace I get is always welcomed. Sometimes I get sick and tired of having to sit through more and more useless shit because in the first place I just want to unwind. Instead, the carefree days of opening up YouTube and playing a song is gone and replaced with an ad at the start, middle, and end of the video. Thank god I share a Spotify account with my brother.

Yeah, I guess. After a while of being second best, I surmise you're kind of left to decide whether you want to hate the one who is loved more than you. I'm no fool, but I can obviously see that Jordan is the more preferable one when it comes to my father. I don't hate my little brother, god no. Except I suppose I have come to despise my dad for picking and choosing. A small part of me wants to hate him, but a little part wants to still hold onto him because after all, he is my dad. Hate is a strong word, and although I can say it so freely here in this letter, the extent to which I feel this emotion is not of what the word lives up to be. I do not hate my dad; I just wish he saw things differently.

What sort of work does your dad do? Mine is a lawyer.

Gross, vanilla with Oreos and Oreo cheesecake… what are you thinking? Hershey's chocolate shake is the only shake that should ever matter when going to Johnny Rockets. Their food is so good; I don't know what life would be like without it.

Yeah, milkshakes rule. Can you imagine a world where the only drink we ever had was milkshakes? I can't imagine how much ice cream I'd be able to eat?

On the other hand, hot dogs are pretty tasty. Filler'er up with everything, please. I know, right… whose marvelous idea was it to design a hot dog bun that's twice as small as the actual hotdog? Sometimes I often wonder that too. How have we survived so long when a lot of us do stupid and crazy crap?

Well, you are proficient with directions. Thank you very much. You do realize that the street is like fifteen or twenty blocks.

I'll Google it at lunchtime, so I can see where it is you're talking about. Maybe by the time you read this letter, I will have visited The Old Railway Museum, and we will have something new to talk about.

It's okay you don't have to get the coordinates, but if you want to you can, it's up to you.

Innuendoes are a thing now in superhero movies. I suppose as a guy who likes movies will you ever get tired of watching superhero flicks. It seems of late that everything being released in Hollywood is some form of an adventure movie with some guy or girl running around with superpowers.

It's everywhere, it's like, it's on Netflix and in comic books now. For a moment I thought we would've been over all this showcasing. Though since most distribution companies are making more money from carrying on some of these long drawn out franchises, I'm starting to lose interest.

Even TV shows are taking a jump back to the 1980s. Everything is riding the wave of the 80s vibe because it is popular at the moment. I wonder when this phase will pass on.

Isn't the film As Good As It Gets about a guy who has extreme phobias of germs? I can't remember if I saw the movie. Again, I don't know who Sinead O'Connor is, I'll have to Google that at lunchtime too.

From recollection, however, I do remember laughing at the joke when I heard it in Ted. Now when I think about it, I'm not sure what I was laughing about.

Yes, Shia LaBeouf is the name of the actor who played the guy in Transformers.

Do you remember the time he was in a video shouting at a camera, "just do it." No idea why that surfaced but, hey, it did.

Sure, money is at the forefront of all our endeavors when it comes to exploration. Only at the same time, I don't believe the currency is the root of why we explore. You can say greed is one, but again that would tie in with money. Folks, I guess just like having something to talk about. Curiosity always gets the better of us, and I suppose a tiny part of us still wants to know what's over the other side of that hill. People are determined to recognize what can be achieved by venturing over a ridge or mountain if we can climb over it.

Knowing what motivates us to explore and venture out is not so much to do with money at the forefront, I believe. I think it's the competitiveness of our race. Everybody wants to be the first human to set foot in the new area that has never been uncovered before. Nobody ventures out for the sake of making money at first. We set out to explore, and if we come across something worth exploiting, then I guess that's how money works. All in all, we set out to do good, but at the same time, do the worst.

God, I'm turning into you. I am getting all poetic and shit here that I can't recognize my own writing anymore because it's definitely not something I'm accustomed to writing. Before we started talking, I never used big fancy words like I am now.

I don't even know where I am dragging the sentences from. It's like they are coming from the very back proportion of my head. It's like I know they've always been there, but I didn't realize at the same time.

Alaska is pretty beautiful regardless of whether your there extracting oil or ore. If anything, I think Alaska is possibly one of the most beautiful places in the United States of America. It seems untouched and lays barren to most human inhabitancy.

Occasionally dad used to watch westerns with me when I was younger before everything started to get a lot more competitive between him and me. I remember seeing these cool vast deserts of snow and sand; for some reason, I always found a liking to that sort of society. Everything seemed untouched. Maybe you're right… anything humans put their hand to, they destroy it.

Yeah, Hell in a handbasket is a reference to not being able to escape Hell because the current path you lead in life is bound to end up there. I remember hearing it somewhere, I can't remember where though. However, I googled the phrase, and it seems to be connected with slavery or something, so I'm not sure if I should be using that phrase anymore.

The phrase now seems commendable regarding your statement about how the world is overpopulated. Most people don't plan for tomorrow, and if something terrible were to happen, they'd depend on the government to keep everything operating, and that things hopefully will return to a natural order somehow. Most things that killed humans off to prevent overpopulation or any other adverse have been eradicated, and something as simple as the common cold does not seem as life-threatening as it first was.

Perhaps all these little things that we've tried so hard to get rid of in a way we're helping us in an effort that we never got this far in development. I guess we're overdue for an epidemic of sorts. The more people there are on our planet the more strain it places on not only the governments and our natural resources, but given machines are taking over the natural order, we're going to be overpopulated, over-educated and unable to provide within a reasonable balance to maintain a reasonable day-to-day life.

I know what you're talking about when it comes to being told that you have the world at your feet and that you can do anything you want. The only thing people forget to mention is that you have to sell your soul, lose originality, and equate yourself to rape in certain situations to better yourself. Everything has reached a level of a standard; if you do not fit, you must adjust. If you do not try; you're left for the pits. Everything that we have built or the hierarchy… I think that's the name of what they call the different levels in a corporation or government body. The higher you are up on that pedestal, the more likely you are to have that stool ripped out from beneath you. All we know how to do is compete. Companies like competition because they separate the strong from the weak.

Just like how America and most of the developed world has allowed experienced workers to settle in their countries. Yet people who are uneducated, and have minimal work experience beneath their belt because they do not possess a piece of paper are left out to pasture. When with experience, the person who has the least amount of paper has more experience than the person who holds a piece of paper. So is the question you're really asking when will the next epidemic arrive, who knows considering we have nearly annihilated every single natural impunity which regulates who is strong and who is weak. Instead, we have replaced it with a common courtesy in the form of a pill, which will take all the pain and all matter of sickness. We live in a world now where we no longer know who is weak and who is strong. Most people see an exterior presence when they look at a person, and they think just because that person often seems on an approach that the person is inherently soft. Which most can say is probably true. Who knows who would survive an epidemic because after all our bodies have been susceptible to all the drugs and pills, we have been given for so long, that our bodies have grown accustomed to such devices.

Yeah, the knee is looking up. However, I started to notice that anytime I seem to be walking it clicks. I can feel the bone rubbing against my kneecap anytime I'm standing for long periods or either having to get up or down. Not sure which bone it is whether it's my femur or tibia. My mom booked an appointment with the local doctor to have it checked out to make sure everything is okay with it. I'm sure it's my kneecap. It will be a pity if I have to sit out one of the games due to my knees feeling iffy. Except, it's not the first time I have played with a brace. It's not that hard to play a game with one, but sometimes I feel like I'm trudging on the field rather than running. Sometimes I wish Lacrosse or Football were that easy, but unfortunately, nobody really has that can-do attitude for, "next time."

That is true people hardly think of the player when football is being conducted. Everybody wants there favorite team to win, and when they fail that mission, people often criticize the players who didn't perform to their expectations. I know how that feels. It's like I know sometimes I underperform, and it's not something I like doing, but often or not you give it all you have until you can't anymore, and you just need to pull back. Otherwise, you'll seriously hurt yourself if you don't.

Except, when you do get times that everything is going accordingly, you just feel weightless. I don't know how to describe it, but it's like this fire that rages inside, and all I can do is keep running. I get this breathless sensation, a tingling that's charring inside and all at the same time there's like this static soaring through my veins, and all I want to do is make everybody happy. I know that if I make everybody happy, I'll be happier. Passion is funny. At the same time, love only derives from making others happy by pushing myself to the limits.

Manly voice… more like squeaky. It's like my voice has gotten substantially higher over the last couple of months, and it sounds weird to me that I no longer even recognize it anymore. I wonder when my voice will drop, and it will sound more normal. As for my brother well let's just say I don't think he would be going to class. He'd be getting a first-class trip to the toilet… swirly's are brilliant. If I can get rid of my problem, I'll flush it.

Subconsciously rolls eyes… Don't remind me; my grandmother always said that. Not anymore though she's dead; still, it is annoying when the previous generation points out all the flaws that we have. Like they don't have any to contend with. You don't see us going around, pointing out how we think their generation is lazy and lacks respect. I could speak about them… they can hardly move… and they call us lazy… I know, I know. That was a pun, I know with age you lose mobility.

The heart of any team is in the possibility of winning. It will always be that way for everyone. That is why people get rowdy when we don't win. It may be hard for fans to see their favorite team lose. However, for the players who put all on the line throughout a game, it feels like getting smacked by a bus. If that's what getting hit by a bus would feel like. I mean, you know. How pointless and gutted you feel after playing so hard.

I'd know considering I taught him everything the little dude knows. Sometimes people may have the necessary skill for such a hobby but lack the heart. Some may say what's the point of not expanding on that forefront if you have a natural talent. In a way, I guess it does seem like a pretty reasonable argument except what's the point of doing something that you don't have the heart in. Anyways our time on this planet is limited so why deprive yourself of something less when you'd want something more. For many people, they don't understand that we only have one chance to do what is right for us, and many people miss this and settle for less. Rather than starting a bit of everything focus solely on one thing that you could see yourself doing for life, but don't be afraid to of course to dabble in other experiences. Don't commit your life to it if it's not what you're passionate about. All I know is that throughout my life, I want to be able to live it with purpose. If I get to live it accordingly, then I guess that is all I need to feel complete.

I'd love to pursue Lacrosse as a career opportunity, but sometimes I know that that is not the best route to take. I've never told anybody this but… please don't judge. I like classical music and well if I were ever given a chance to become a musician, then I'd like that very much, even as much as I love sports. I don't like to tell people that I like that sort of music because it's not what everybody else is listening to and well... I just want to fit in. Yet when I listen to this music, it's like everything that I have ever believed or understood makes logical sense. As I listen to the melody's it takes me away, I can see myself doing nothing other than wanting to create such pieces to inspire other people who maybe like me.

That got deep all of a sudden… huh. Anyway, Gotham city… Yeap anarchy is pretty much the only crime that authority ever listen to. When the police force risks losing control, that's when they all panic. Do you like scary and mystifying? I'm assuming you like Halloween then. Halloween is pretty cool… I like it. Whom am I kidding, I love it. At Halloween, you can be whoever you want to be. I guess the two of us have the same twisted sense of humor.

I do like some dark amusement, but when stuff gets overly grotesque, I don't prefer it. I'll just take your word for it that there is nothing of a sinister nature at the bottom of the page and I'll sign away my life probably. Let us hope that the next ice age does not arrive earlier than expected. Otherwise, I will be an instantaneous Popsicle. Plus, that is not fair. I worked incredibly hard, moving all that junk from my desk.

Therefore, I have placed all the lovely belongings out on the curbside and labeled them free for collection. So, we might have a damages suit coming our away in a couple of days for violating clients privacy rights.

Yeah, the movie was pretty big in the gay community. You should definitely see it because it's a surprisingly good movie. So watch it.

Don't be salty… being envious does not make it all better. I should know I've been jealous long enough and it has no advancements only repercussions. From the sounds of it, everything in your life is pretty awesome, and for once in my life, I wish I could just say freely that I'm smart and that my dad has time for me. My brother is the favored one; I still love him regardless. I've often wondered what it is like to be an only child. I bet you get everything you've ever want and have parents who are so proud of you. That is why sometimes I try to remind myself that it is not Jordan's fault; it's my doubts. I don't want something that miniature in scope to come between my little brother and me because of my father's incompetence.

Amen, the days of sitting down and watching a DVD are over. I remember when we were younger, we used to go to the Blockbuster stores and pick out movies to watch and load up on snacks, drive home, and spend the entire Friday evening watching family movies.

Ah… yeah, humans have a natural habit of that. Making things harder is the sure way of weeding out the brainless ones in the pool. I'll second that vote for calling the world a money pit. True... Nobody ever thinks about animals as if they have feelings. Like any time, my mom and dad get into a bit of an argument, or when me and my brother fight, our dog Sadie goes running under tables and chairs. So, for what it's worth even though we can't always understand them. Dogs, cats, even cows, and pigs feel just how we do even if they can't talk. Humans still want to be the dominant animal, so, that's why we make rash decisions.

Anyway, I think this letter has turned into a pretty lengthy letter I must say. If you think you are geeky, then I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be. And no offense taken, I like talking to you too. It's kind of cool how our letters are getting a lot longer. I remember talking to one of my friends today. I had asked how many pages they were writing to their penpal, and well he said a couple of lines. Therefore, I think we're in the lead, that is until I find somebody else who can outdo us.

Thanks for going out of your way to find out the results of the Tigers game. It's pretty neat that you did that. I've really grown to like you as a friend; even though I've no idea you who you are. Except, I hope maybe one day the two of us can meet and carry on this friendship that we're building here because you seem real… unlike most people.

Lastly, I agree we should ask more questions to find out more things about each other.

Q1. What makes me smile?

A1. To be honest, my music. I feel like I make a difference whenever I'm playing the piano. I smile when I hear goosebump' worthy music rushing from my speakers in my bedroom. Music makes me smile. I can't imagine my life without it, it's kept me normal.

Q2. What makes me angry?

A2. Not being able to say something that's on my mind. I'm told a lot that I should keep my mouth shut because it's best for everyone and well… Sometimes I just want to voice why I am upset. Sometimes my dad does spend time with me, but not in a bonding sort of way. When we go practicing for Lacrosse or football, he is always grilling me or pushing me.

It's always… "focus Max…. or stop playing around and practice."

Yikes… Ignore that scribble. It's my name, and I forgot we're not supposed to do names here... Well not until a later point, I think. Anyway, I should really get to lunch now. I spent the majority of class writing this letter.

What about you?

Oh, and my questions are,

1. What is your favorite band or singer?

2. What is your favorite childhood memory?

Well, I should be going, I hope this letter isn't too corny.

Later,

Watson

Thank you guys for another read, as always there is more to come. Care to share your feedback, then let me know what you think   
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