Summertime (Frerard)

8: An Abundance Of Gerards

Education had always been a major priority for me, because despite how slow, long and boring the process was, it was the sole thing that could get you anywhere in life. Good looks and inherited riches could only go so for and I wasn't exactly that well equipped with either of the two, so sitting for endless six hour runs of the corrupted educatory hell our country likes to call school is a necessary form of torture for me. I hate where I am now and despite how much I hate that bloody school with its sadistic socialist hierarchy and corrupted policies, and of course the dickheads, such as my loving friends 'The Killers' who like to pick on the less fortunate, such as myself, despite all of that, I have to go every single day and listen to the mindless drivel of heartless teachers to drain the slightest bit of education from their irrelevant rants in a desperate attempt to pass any kind of exam that could possibly save me from this hell.

For one, it gives me six guaranteed safe hours away from home, my father and the violence that follows him like a swarm of flies on a rotting corpse with a particularly nasty and far too pungent stench. On the other hand, it's the only thing that's going to get me out of here, and some days that maybe the only thing I wake up for, make the effort for, keeping breathing for is that single strong hope that one day I'll wake up in a good world that I worked for myself. I'd smile because all of this paid off and I would have made my mother proud. She always said that you can do anything if you put your mind to it and those words shield me from the monstrosities that life just loves to throw at me. Life and I just get along brilliantly, as you can tell of course.

Because, no matter how downright shitty it is now, one day I'm going to wake up in my own house, a nice house and I'm going to walk past walls that aren't dented in by fists and doors that aren't barely clinging to their hinges for being slammed shut far too many times, and I'm going to make myself breakfast; there's going to be food that's edible, that I want to eat, that I paid for. I don't want to ever skip breakfast, I don't want to ever steal breakfast, I don't want to ever cut the mouldy bits off the end of my sandwiches. Because, I've done that all too many times and I need a change of fucking scenery.

Once I'd eaten breakfast and gotten ready in clothes that I liked and that fitted me, with no holes or stains or spiders nesting and breeding inside of them, (this actually happened once and believe me, for an arachnophobiac this is in no way fun) I'd then go to work. I'd have a job that well-paying, that I enjoyed, or maybe I'd be in a band; that sounded cool and despite how very well I knew how small the chance of it happening is, I'd like to be in band. I'd like to play my guitar and then I'd have friends that'd be in my band with me: I'd have this guy with crazy hair, you've got to have that one guy with the hair, or it really just doesn't cut it as a band; I'd have a guy that's quiet, but brilliant and hella awkward, but maybe sort of an asshole to his friends; then there'd be that guy that I just fucking hated, but also fucking loved, he'd be the outspoken guy with ideas and messed up past, I'd hate him to hell, but he'd definitely be my best friend - there was no doubt about that. I think I'd like to have a best friend, that'd be nice, but who knows? I'm hardly experienced in that matter, so maybe it could be downright hell. Maybe I'd have to experiment- No. Maybe he'd just be my friend that sounds a little less commitment heavy and therefore much more comfortable.

Then once I got home I'd get home to a house that was calm and empty- no wait, that'd be kind of lonely. Maybe I lived with friends; possibly we even lived together as band - that'd be cool. Or maybe I'd even have someone, a girlfriend what would her name be? Something cute, I don't know. She'd have red hair; I like red hair, and she'd be kind of creepy, but overall cute, and she'd like art and music and generally the same things as me and she'd take me to a new forest and show me something more to love and, I'd finally be fucking happy. No, to put happiness in one person is very unhealthy, because most relationships don't last forever; the truth is, they're either going to marry you or leave you. It's a rather dramatic and somewhat terrifying way to look at things, but it's realistic and realism doesn't make me sick to my stomach.