What to do.
Sweetheart, you'll find...
"I'm leaving", I say, as I look towards the void that approaches.
"What the hell are you talking about?", replies the void, known as Aftercollege, the beast from the Netherlands.
Aftercollege is a fierce beast, with a gestation period of 4 years, typically. His tentacles are known to ensnare dreams and squeeze the life out of them. He then feasts on this life force, and once his victim's dreams are drained, he moves on to another. He resembles a squid, with a beak, and coloring of bright yellow. Obnoxious, he is not liked by even his "friends".
I was walking off of campus for the last time when he approached me. He slithered up and said something to the effect of, "Hey kid, where you going?"
"Brooklyn?"
"Lot's of dreams, eh?"
"You might say that."
Aftercollege then looked at me awkwardly, not really sure of what to do. For his hideous appearance, and his forthright nature in approaching students that are fresh out of college, for all of that, he is still terribly awkward. Especially with girls. His social anxiety stems from an incident in the 3rd grade where he was chased by the other students for eating the class rat. The kids did not like this, and decided to exact revenge for their friend, the rodentia. Ever since then, and since little Betty Sue smacked him right in the beak, he has trouble interacting with people, especially students. This makes his life quite hard.
"So...those dreams..."
"Yes?"
"Can I eat them?"
"What?", I said, puzzled, as is indicated by the question mark.
Aftercollege then informed me that he had no dreams of his own thanks to a rough childhood, and how he never really felt ok with things ever since that incident with the rat. In high school he had been involved with a cheer leader, but she was doing him, and it, on a dare. He lost the last of his confidence then, even though he did make all state bass clarinet. This is quite a feat, considering that he had no lips.
It is at this point where I say the line that I opened with, and he gets belligerent. His obnoxiousness in addressing me disturbed my post collegic high, and made me want to leave his presence. I tried to do so, but his tentacles lashed out towards me. Thinking quickly, I let them him me squarely in the face. Thinking even more quickly, I think how I should have moved instead of thinking about lunch.
We are now in his lair. There is college memorabilia everywhere, and none of it matches up. Why would one have both a Harvard and Yale pennant? Absurdity. He just collects this stuff to look good. No wonder he does not have anyone to call a friend. Once someone asked him about the memorabilia. He did not want to talk about it, and succinctly ate the dreams of the inquisitor. He really is a bad man. Squid.
In his lair he dangles me over a stew pot filled with a punch. There are oranges and limes floating in the punch, and he threatens me with them. I tell him that his threats really do not make any sense, and are thus comical. He says, "Oh yeah!"
"Yeah. They really make no sense. I mean, it looks good."
"Good, eh? We'll see how good it is!"
With this he dunked me into the vat. Thanks to the wide opening, I could easily poke my head out from underneath the surface, but the mouthfuls of the punch that I swallowed were delicious. I really wondered where he got the recipe, and if a non squid like person could replicate it. It was dreamy.
So after drinking a lot of the punch myself and Aftercollege started talking about his problems. I promised to give him one of my dreams if he opened up to me, and he did. We talked about the mean little girls, the bullies with sticks, and the rampant aggression of sushi chefs. We talked about it all. He cried some, but it was ok. He needed to.
After talking for a few years, we settled down in a suburb. Things were good. I was driving a sedan, he was making the home. One day our little squidlings came home to find him sucking the dreams out of my head. How embarrassing. How do you explain that to your kids? They have enough trouble being the mutant children of a homosexual squid and human couple, but how do you explain telepathic theft? That is the sort of thing that sticks in their mind and does not let go.
For all our best efforts, we failed them, and planted the seeds for dysfunction. We can only hope that they do not end up like Aftercollege, and that they can find their own place in the world, a place where mutants are welcomed, and where students will not mind if a pesky, good for nothing rat gets eaten. This place is in Arizona. The dry climate would play havoc upon their slimy skin, but they would fit in. Maybe they just need wide brimmed hats. And lotions.
The question still remained though, what to do about Aftercollege? He hurt our kids with his hunger, and frankly, it was the last time. I took off my dusting apron, part of the getup he likes, and I said that I had had enough, that I put the non-dream food on the table, and that he should respect me, and my work. Aftercollege rolled his eyes at me, and looked generally obnoxious. His manner had always irked me, and this was the last straw. I took the kids, got into my sedan, with its heated seats and xenon lights, and started driving west. The climate may not be the best, but my kids would grow up far better there than with that annoying beast called Aftercollege.
I heard that he cried when I left, and that he went to a bar and drank himself silly. He got into fights, he became a mess. He would sit by the elementary school with a bottle of whiskey, making fun of the bullies until the cops would come and put him in the drunk tank. His pain was visible, and audible. He played his bass clarinet for the first time in a decade, at midnight, in the junkyard. The music enticed a large rat, and a confrontation ensued. In the morning they found Aftercollege with 6 slugs in his belly, and a rat in his mouth.
I'll always remember him as I saw him that morning, a bulbous rat half poking out of that pointed beak. The rat, for his accord, had emptied his revolver, but Aftercollege had been drunk, and did not feel the first four shots. A video camera caught the event. The rat had been dealing to mice, but the music had touched him deep inside of his primordial soul. He had to follow it. He did, right into the jaws of death. Death however is not bulletproof.
Thanks to his time in the Marines, Aftercollege was given a state funeral. We got to meet the president, in a PR moment. He was taking heat on diversity, and we were the perfect example he needed. We chatted briefly, but I could tell he was uncomfortable. I sued him for emotional damages and won. I now own the White House. I rent it out to the government, as I now reside in Arizona, with my two kids, and the memories of that rough period that was Aftercollege.
-ccm
