Young Writers Society

You slide into your chair. You pull out a pencil and scribble for a while. The scribbles are weak. Frustrated, you try breaking the pencil instead. Much better. You break the pencil into smaller pieces: snap, snap, snap. Eventually it can break no further. Pencils are weak. You tap the table for a while, twisting and scrunching your mouth. You can hear Henry scratching at the window outside. What a painful animal. 

Your flitting eyes catch a glimpse of your reflection in the laptop screen. You stare at yourself. When you can bear no more, you switch on your laptop.

Loading, password, desktop, Internet, Facebook, Pornhub, Facebook, and now YouTube. Everything is such a waste of time. You watch some animal compilation videos. So fucking lame. Dislike. You switch to DeviantArt. Scroll, scroll, scroll. It’s not much better, but you do find yourself occasionally pausing at some of the art. You stop at one particular drawing. It’s one of those fake digital drawings everybody loves so much. “What junk,” you mutter to yourself. But you like this drawing. You look at it for well over two minutes. That’s a long time. You finally decide to favourite it.

***

Class seems to drag on forever. Your mind drifts to Henry and you realise that you forgot to let him in this morning. You start to feel pity, but then the class is dismissed and you’re overcome with a sense of relief instead.

Schoolchildren flood the train as the doors open into Flemington. You feel the old woman beside you inhale sharply. You’re tempted to whisper “I know” into her ear. The schoolkids reek of puberty. One of them stands in front of you. She is holding onto the handrails above. Her face is spotted and her breasts small. But she has a nice ass. You watch carefully when she bends down for her bag and exits the carriage. You decide she is wearing blue underwear.

The train enters a tunnel. Your reflection appears across the carriage glass and watches you. You thank god when the train is back outside.

You return home relatively tired. There is cereal above the fridge. You walk past Henry meowing outside the window and make yourself a large bowl before settling back onto your desk. Your appetite begins to fade when you find yourself staring at your glaring laptop screen yet again. Your phone rings suddenly. It’s your mother.

“How are you sweetie?”

“Hi mum, not bad.”

“How’s my baby doing these days?”

“Not bad”

You scroll through your newsfeed as she chatters about how much weight she’s put on and how much she misses you and how she’s got it so tough these days and how she wishes you would visit her. You notice Jessica updated her profile picture.

“Okay mum,”

“You’ll be okay. Don’t forget how much I love you okay? Oh, and how’s Henry doing?”

“He’s fine. Goodbye mum.”

Max has shared something about the benefits of marijuana. What a dumb hippie fuck.

“Oh and one last thing,”

“Yes mum?”

“Have you been taking your-

“Goodbye mum.”

You hang up and pause briefly. Your fingernails rhythmically move up and down against the table surface: tap, tap, tap. Someone sends you a message on Facebook.

“Hi Jay, hope ur doing ok. i heard u havent been attending class lately. Ly told me abt what happend. Hope to talk soon. J”

You close Facebook and play some Cannibal Corpse, leaning back on your chair with your legs folded. Your foot moves up and down, but not in rhythm to the music. Eventually you doze off.

It’s 1:42AM when you wake. Your neck aches and your breath smells. You readjust yourself and stare, yet again, at the reflection in your blackened laptop screen. Almost immediately, your hand guides itself towards the mouse, waking the asleep computer. You click on Facebook and see that fifteen people have commented on Jessica’s picture. You hold back laughter at her updated caption.

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow

Learn as if you were to live forever.

Mahatma Gandhi”

You can’t believe it. What a joke. You’ve known Jessica for twelve years and the bitch probably doesn’t even know who Gandhi is. Without much thought, you begin typing in a comment:

“You’ll probably die at 20 and not have learned a single fucking thing.”

You snicker at yourself. It’s not very clever or creative, but it’s much better than everybody else’s.

Something rubs up against your leg. You look down to meet a pair of feline eyes. When the hell did he get in here? You push the cat aside and return to Eve’s message.

“Jesus Christ, you are so annoying. Just piss off will you.”

You’re smiling now; what a riot. You picture her face when she reads your response.

Henry continues to persist down below. He’s hungry and annoying. You ignore him and continue with your laptop.

You’re scrolling back now; up, up, up, back to all those posts and pictures and videos you already saw. You begin commenting.

“This is the most cancerous thing I’ve seen all day” You could improve it a little.

“You dumb feminist fuck, I hope you get molested.” You might have gone a little far here.

“Nobody cares about your shitty children.” This one is true.

“Actually kill yourself.”

“Stupid goatfucker, learn some English.”

“I wish I could slit your wrists for you.”

You’re actually chuckling. You’re quite impressed by yourself, save your lack of originality. You’re also flushing a little, pumped with adrenaline and satisfaction at long last.

Henry paws at your seat and you reach below to pat his head.

“Stupid furball,” you grin.

You switch off your laptop and take your uneaten glob of a cereal back into the kitchen. Your neighbours are playing their weird Spanish music again. You would scream at them if they weren’t all 200 pounds of satanic sombrero-wearing drug lords.

As you empty your cereal into the trash, you catch site of your reflection from across the room. It’s watching you from the kitchen window. Its lips move slowly, carefully. You know it’s telling you something.

“For god’s sake Jay, feed the cat.”