FicWad

-Derek sat miserably in his chair which formed a circle with several other students. Mrs. Renburg, his own councilor, had taken it upon herself to “humanize” him. All of her efforts had thus far been in vain, and Derek had dared believed that she had given up; at least he had until she had pulled him out of class and dragged his demoralized ass to the auditorium.

-“Do you know why you’re all here?” Renburg asked.

-“Because you enjoy meddling in others people’s lives?” Derek offered.

-She shot him an irritated glance before continuing: “You are here because the school is worried about you. You have acted out in a way that is disconcerting, so you’re here to talk about what’s upsetting you.”

-Derek sighed and endured half an hour of sniveling from people who were mad about ridiculous things like not getting picked first in gym, or failing their test because they thought the teacher didn’t like them. Then the topic came around to their home lives and one emo girl said that the kid should have a say in whether or not parents could get divorced. Derek couldn’t contain his laughter over that little remark.

-“Do you have something to add, Derek?” Renburg asked.

-“Sure, why not,” Derek said as he looked at the girl. “You’re a moron. You think a kid, who can’t even get decent grades in school, should have a say as to whether or not two adults who can no longer STAND each other should stay together? Yeah, you know what happens when little Suzy says mommy and daddy HAVE to stay together? Daddy comes home with a 12-gauge and paints the wall with mommy’s brains. Then he goes into little Suzie’s room while she’s asleep and bashes her skull in with a lead pipe before hanging himself from the ceiling fan.”

-The other students all stared at Derek wide-eyed and open-mouthed while Mrs. Renburg tried to compose herself. “I noticed that you haven’t shared with the group yet. Why don’t you tell us what’s upsetting you.”

-Derek took a deep breath; this was going to take awhile. “I’m upset that I get searched four times a day when I have never had a gun, a death list, a bomb, or so much as a fucking NAIL-FILE on me, and yet I never get so much as an apology, let alone the satisfaction of seeing the person who OBVIOUSLY LIED punished in any way, shape, or form. Instead, I am sent to this retarded ass group to tell you retards that YOU’RE THE ONES PISSING ME OFF!”

-After Derek’s outburst, none of the others had the nerve to say much. They realized how trivial their complaints were to Derek’s problems, especially when he went into them with more detail, but the fun really started when mrs. Renburg suggested that he embrace Jesus Christ.

-“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!? I would only embrace Jesus to CRUSH THE LIFE OUT OF HIM! His fucking dick sucking duke of douchdom father masturbates to my misery on a DAILY BASIS, so WHY THE FUCK would I want to pray to that WHORE MONGER?”

-Shortly after that rant, the group broke up and went to their classes. From the look on mrs. Renburg’s face, Derek guessed that there wouldn’t be a second meeting.

-Derek went to his English class with his paper ready. The teacher came in and glared at all of them, especially Stacey who sat smugly in her seat. The teacher, however, did not look at her with the same enthusiasm.

-“Well I must say, this time I got some interesting papers,” the teacher announced with an displeased tone in her voice. “Mrs. Grats, I must say that your paper stood out more than any other; so much so that I would like you to read it in front of the class.”

-Stacey got up with a cocky smile as she made her way to the front of the class. Derek had his head down, so she didn’t notice how hard he was trying not to laugh. Stacey claimed her paper and turned to face everyone, took a deep breath, and read loudly: “Why it’s good to be a whore.”

-The smile quickly faded from her face and several students stared at her with shocked expressions. Stacey tried to stop reading while murmurs and chuckles filled the air, but Mrs. France would not have it. Stacey read on in as quiet a voice as she was able.

-“It’s great being a whore, because all I have to do is get on my knees to get through life. I don’t have to learn anything; I don’t have to know anything. The Kama sutra is the only book I’ve ever read. Why break my back doing hard work, when all I have to do is lay on it while someone else works me. Then I can have that guy bully another guy into doing my homework for me.”

-Stacey read on with tears in her eyes, describing how she could always become a hooker if she couldn’t find a rich guy to marry. Many of the boys in class were laughing out loud, and even a few of the girls. Derek looked as though he was having a seizure as he tried to hold back his cries of delighted. He knew that there was going to be hell to pay, but it was well worth it.

-Derek made managed to make it to gym class alive, but he would soon wish that he hadn’t. His gym teacher, Mr. Grimes was the most sadistic individual Derek had ever met. Derek couldn’t figure out for the life of him how the man had ever gotten a teaching license; not a day went by that someone in his class wasn’t sent to the nurse, or the hospital.

-Derek looked around and saw that the girls were not present. Grimes had probably sent them to the exercise-bike room. He only did that when the game they were playing was especially rough.

-“Alright you little pussies!” Grimes roared as he stepped out onto the basketball court carrying a very large bag over his bulky shoulder; most people believed that the Grimes had been raised on a mixture of steroids and PCP. “It’s time I turned you little bitches into MEN!” He emptied the bag’s contents onto the ground, and several excited chuckles came from the less-evolved members of Derek’s class.

-At first, Derek didn’t believe what he saw. It looked like a pile of medieval weapons were resting on the gym floor. Upon closer inspection Derek realized that they were padded weapons made out of PVC pipe and foam, but they still looked dangerous.

-Mr. Grimes picked up a round shield and a claymore while he explained: “You will each grab a weapon, and maybe a shield. You will spread out in the gym, and on my order you will precede to kill each other; figuratively speaking of course. If you are hit in the leg, you drop to your knees. If you are hit in the arm, you drop whatever you are holding in that arm and let it hang limply at your side. Head and body shots are death. When you are dead, sit down where you died and wait for the game’s end. Any questions?”

-“Yeah,” Derek said. “Is this legal?”

-“No,” Grimes said bluntly. “Now stop being a wussy, and act like a man. Everyone, grab a weapon!”

-Derek got himself a round shield and a regular sword; he wasn’t expecting to last very long at this game. He found himself a dark corner and waited. He looked around and felt as if he were in some movie about roman gladiators. There were flails, claymores, spears, daggers, and even white rocks made out of hacky-sacks on the ground to throw at people. Grimes blew his whistle, and Derek got ready to fight.

-Twenty minutes later, Derek was surprised to find himself still in the game. Three people where sitting down in front of him, looking pitiful. Ironically, Derek’s casual and disinterested approach seemed to work wonders. Another boy found himself separated from the fray in the middle of the gym and looked at Derek as though he were a helpless victim. He had the same weapon setup as Derek, but he still seemed to think he had an advantage.

-Derek couldn’t have been more indifferent. He simply stood at ease, his shield practically hanging from his arm. The boy came in and quickly tried to swipe at Derek’s legs. Derek crouched low enough to block his ankle with his shield and swung his sword to smack the boy on his exposed shoulder; kill number four.

-The boy cursed and plopped down next to the others as Derek went back to standing lazily, watching the intense fighting in the middle. Boys were screaming and hollering as they jumped around to dodge sword blows and roared as they lunged forward to deliver their own. Finally it was down to four, and Larry was one of them.

-Derek watched with concern as Larry whispered to the other three boys, and all four of them looked in Derek’s direction. It seemed that they had formed a truce to gang up on him. The boys approached like a pack of wolves, their weapons raised. Derek knew that being in a corner was no longer a good idea, and he stepped out to where he could move. His opponents looked exhausted from their frantic fighting, but Derek hadn’t even broken a sweat yet. He hoped that it would make a difference.

-Larry held a claymore, as did the boy to his left. A long-haired boy on the far right carried a flail, and the fat kid at the opposite end had a spear and a tower shield that was as wide as he was. The four of them circled around Derek and laughed at him. Part of Derek wanted to beat them just out of spite, but he knew he had no chance.

-The boy with the flail attacked first. Derek raised his shield to block the blow, but the ball wrapped around it and smashed him in the nose. Before Derek could sit down, the fat kid with the spear saw an opening and thrust forward, hitting Derek in the nuts. As Derek started to double over, a claymore connected with the back of his neck in a decapitating swing that sent him tumbling forward. Derek’s left leg tried to stop his fall, and he felt a sharp pain in his thigh. As he tried to right himself, Larry delivered the coudegrace by brining his claymore down right on top of Derek’s head.

-Derek’s head felt like his skull was splitting open, and his left leg was in terrible pain as well. His eyes were closed, but all he saw was red. He heard some shouting nearby, and then the sound of heavy footsteps approaching him. “You alive?” a man asked in an irritated voice. Derek felt someone carelessly kick his arm.

-Derek slowly opened his eyes and raised his right hand over his face before replying: “Unfortunately.”

-Derek limped his way to the nurses office, after watching in disgust as Larry won the game. His head had never hurt so bad in all his life, and he didn’t know what was wrong with his leg. The nurse didn’t seem surprised to see him; it was no secret that she thought Grimes was a psycho. She told him that he had a mild concussion and probably a partially-torn thigh muscle. She wrapped his leg in some kind of elastic gauze and sent him on his way with a doctor note for his job.

-As he left the, the class bell rang. Several people bumped into him, aggravating his injury. Several others stared at the funny way he was walking. While leaving the school, somebody taped him on the shoulder.

-As he turned around, Derek expected to see a fist coming at his face, but what greeted him was the smiling face of a pretty girl. She handed him a note and then hurried off.

-Derek’s head was aching too much for him to want to read anything, or to try and understand what had just happened. He got to his car, amazed that Stacey hadn’t keyed it up, and went home.

-When he went into his house, his mother told him that they were having his dad’s birthday party that day, and she wanted to know if he could call in for work. “It won’t be a problem, right,” she asked as if she already knew he would agree.

-“Actually it is,” Derek replied angrily. “I have to ask for an optional day two weeks in advance, and you’re only telling me about this now?”

-“Alright then,” she replied. “Just come to the club after work; you should at least show up.”

-And after that little guilt trip, Derek decided to clean his turtle’s tank before work. He put his pet in the tub and emptied out the tank’s water. He was just about to start refilling it when the doorbell rang. Derek answered it, and a man greeted him and explained that his house’s water would be turned off for about an hour. “Perfect timing,” Derek muttered after closing the door.

-A little over an hour later, Derek left for work. His turtle would have to stay in the tub until he came home. It wouldn’t take him long, not with a torn muscle and a doctor’s note, or so he thought.

-Half an hour after arriving at work, Derek was still standing in the HR room, waiting for someone to come walk him out. Apparently he was being put on disability for a week and wouldn’t be aloud to come back until he had a doctor’s note saying he was alright. Derek didn’t like the thought of being considered “disabled” he just had a torn leg muscle. It hurt, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t deal with.

-He limped out of the building, looking like the walking dead. Two people stopped to ask if he was ok, and Derek quickly explained them away. It hurt his pride more than his actual leg. He got in his car and drove off.

-after arriving home, Derek quickly finished tending to his pet’s needs. He had just sat down when the phone rang; it was his mother. Derek didn’t even bother answering it, he knew what she wanted.

-The club that his dad’s surprise birthday was being held at was a good distance away; Derek had to take the bypass. Unfortunately, it seemed that the road was under construction; as he approached an overpass, he spotted orange cones and a detour sign. Believing the road to be closed, Derek was forced to take the off ramp, planning to get back on the other side of the bridge. As he left, he saw two other cars go between the cones. “Mother fucker…” Derek grumbled.

-He managed to turn around and head up the onramp, but found a construction crew working. They waved him through, but Derek was now getting on a bypass at a crawl; not a good thing. To make matters worse, a white worker’s van was blocking his view of oncoming traffic. Rather than be worried, Derek chuckled and floored it; what was the worst thing that could happen?

-He spotted a car speeding towards him, and Derek nearly hit one of the water barrels that the work crew used as a barrier, but he came out unscathed. He laughed out loud as he sped on towards his destination. It was the only laughing he would be doing for the rest of the night.

-Derek got to the club and came in to find the party already dying down. His mother quickly spotted him and came over. “Oh good, you’re just in time to help clean up.”

-Twenty minutes later, Derek was standing in he club’s kitchen washing dishes. “God damn….stupid sonova…I hate my life,” Derek sighed. Outside the kitchen, people were still socializing, though most had left. The only glimpse Derek got of anyone was when someone came in to drop more things in the sink for him to wash. The injustice of the whole situation pissed him off to no end. He went into the small hallway to the vending machine. He was thirsty and he didn’t give a damn how much his mother griped about him not washing the dishes.

-Derek put in a dollar and made his selection. The pop dropped, but not all the way. It got stuck just above the shoot. Derek clenched his fist, his whole body shaking with rage until finally he could no longer contain it. “YOU VILE WORTHLESS PIECE OF SHIT!” he screamed as he began hitting the side of the machine and shaking it back and forth. “Is it too much to ask that I get a fucking SODA!? You just had to throw one more in there didn’t you, YOU PRICK!”

-Derek rocked the vending machine back and forth, growling with anger as he imagined it crushing him. Not the most pleasant way to go, but he was well beyond thinking rationally. “Tip over you FAT FUCK!” and then it did. The large machine fell in Derek’s direction, knocking him to the floor, but the top of the machine hit the opposite wall, stopping it just above his body.

-“…Shit,” Derek spat as he realized he was trapped. At least he would have an excuse not to do the dished.