"The Question" - Fiction Piece - by Eric Shapiro
Her eyes fall on you and the burning starts. You begin to empathize with the ants that you so mercilessly fried beneath your grandmother’s magnifying glass. She walks through the crowd with the ease of a star and you put your hands in your pocket, wishing you too could disappear into the dark recesses of your Old Navy jeans. You can’t help envying the money you usually lust after as you crush it in an embrace of fear. The pain you feel as it digs into your skin provides a cathartic release as you anticipate the coming stress, but the girl with the fancy shoes and the big boobs gives you a look and she might as well be pulling your hands out of the safety of your pockets. You can’t help blushing a little as she links arms with her friends and she whispers something to them. They share a private laugh and you wonder if you are the butt of the joke.
The subject of your affections has now stopped and is leaning on the wall checking her schedule. She looks up at you and you know that she has detected your stairs. You know she is freaked out; she must thinks you’re a stalker. Or does she not notice you at all? You don’t know which is worse.
Your mind orders you to make your move, but your legs carry you behind a crowd of stoners. One of them blows smoke in your face; you cough loudly and everyone turns to stare at you, like drivers staring in shock at a deer suddenly illuminated in their headlights. And you feel like the deer. Shocked, eager to escape but paralyzed; blinded by the glare.
You sigh in relief as the class clown breaks the silence by yanking out his balls. Everyone is laughing hysterically, because they know that if they don’t they’ll seem uptight and there’s nothing worse than being uptight. You remain silent and figure they must think you are the epitome of uptight. That’s why you never laugh at any lewd jokes or slap a girl on the ass as she walks through the hallway. Slapping a girl on the ass the ultimate way to show you’re a man, completely un-effected by the moral standards of the adult world. And it’s not like you’re hurting the girl; if anything, you’re making her feel more attractive. You’ve never understood why teenage girls liked to feel like whores. At that moment, the guy with his balls hanging out decides to indulge one of them via a quick grope of her breast. She tackles him to the floor, thumping him on the chest as he laughs hysterically. He turns her over and everyone pretends not to be impressed by the dry-humping-disguised-as-play-fighting that ensues. But your eyes are glued to the spot and a sudden wave of rage prevents you from caring if everyone thinks you’re a pervert. You don’t know why this type of situation always provokes such anger, and you don’t particularly care. All you want to do is tear the two fuckers apart, from each other, and then limb from limb.
A voice cuts through your head, dissipating the plumes of red haze swirling around you and causing your muscles to clench. “You haven’t asked her yet.” It says. “Ask her now.” You turn your attention back the object of your desires. Oddly enough she is still rifling through her folder. A friend comes up to embrace her and plant a quick kiss on her cheek (not a sign of affection, but the female equivalent of a pound) but she whispers something urgently and again you feel the butterflies in your stomach. Her friend walks away and she continues to look for whatever eludes her in her plain pink folder.
The names of a hundred bands run through your head like wildfire. Who was the guitar player for Dinosaur Jr.? You can never remember. Of course you can remember Metallica’s lead singer. Wait, what’s his name again? It starts with a J. James something. The girl clears her throat and suddenly you don’t care much anymore. As the hands on your watch inch closer and closer to 8:35 (the start of first period), you realize with trepidation that it’s now or never. You have always been a procrastinator.
You find that it is difficult to move your legs and you imagine the contents of your breakfast (scrambled eggs and prunes) lapping at the walls of your stomach like waves on a jetty. The familiar feeling of approaching doom overwhelms your delicate façade of confidence and your lip starts to twitch. Up down, up down, like its being pulled on a string. She is a few feet away from you and time seems to slow down. As you open your mouth to ask the all-important question, the question that has been lurking in the recesses of your brain since the middle 10th grade, you can’t help but obsess over everything that looks wrong.
Your shoes are old and dirty. Your hair is covered in oil and sweat from your desperate jog to school. Your lips are peeling from a nervous habit of licking them in a smooth circular motion. Your jeans are just a little bit too short. There is a small yellow speck on your right sock from when you missed the toilet because you were in such a rush get to school to ask this one beautiful girl this one simple question.
Your mouth opens and she looks up from her folder and you realize it is too late to walk away now. Lines of saliva stretch between your dry mouth until they can no longer support themselves. You ask the question: “do you want to go to a movie this weekend?”
But she doesn’t hear you. You don’t even hear yourself. Instead, the harsh, repetitive pangs of the fire alarm. Immediately, a door across the hall swings open and Mr. Kaufman yells at the top of his lungs: “everyone into lines now! I won’t have a repeat of last weeks chaos.”
Fucker! You feel like walking up to the pompous balding asshole and yanking out the last of his hair, then shoving his head down a toilet full of his own shit. These angry thoughts distract you from you failure. The girl’s friends tap her on the shoulder and drag her over to the line on the opposite side of the wall. You wish you could kill them too. You wish you could kill yourself. Your rage seems to mount with each echoing ring of the alarm and red mist surrounds you again.
As she is pulled away from you, the girl mouths: “find me later,” and you awkwardly nod you head. You know you will find her later, but you doubt that you will be able to work up the courage to ask the question again. Instead, you will probably just ask her a question about the science paper to which you already know the answer.
The subject of your affections has now stopped and is leaning on the wall checking her schedule. She looks up at you and you know that she has detected your stairs. You know she is freaked out; she must thinks you’re a stalker. Or does she not notice you at all? You don’t know which is worse.
Your mind orders you to make your move, but your legs carry you behind a crowd of stoners. One of them blows smoke in your face; you cough loudly and everyone turns to stare at you, like drivers staring in shock at a deer suddenly illuminated in their headlights. And you feel like the deer. Shocked, eager to escape but paralyzed; blinded by the glare.
You sigh in relief as the class clown breaks the silence by yanking out his balls. Everyone is laughing hysterically, because they know that if they don’t they’ll seem uptight and there’s nothing worse than being uptight. You remain silent and figure they must think you are the epitome of uptight. That’s why you never laugh at any lewd jokes or slap a girl on the ass as she walks through the hallway. Slapping a girl on the ass the ultimate way to show you’re a man, completely un-effected by the moral standards of the adult world. And it’s not like you’re hurting the girl; if anything, you’re making her feel more attractive. You’ve never understood why teenage girls liked to feel like whores. At that moment, the guy with his balls hanging out decides to indulge one of them via a quick grope of her breast. She tackles him to the floor, thumping him on the chest as he laughs hysterically. He turns her over and everyone pretends not to be impressed by the dry-humping-disguised-as-play-fighting that ensues. But your eyes are glued to the spot and a sudden wave of rage prevents you from caring if everyone thinks you’re a pervert. You don’t know why this type of situation always provokes such anger, and you don’t particularly care. All you want to do is tear the two fuckers apart, from each other, and then limb from limb.
A voice cuts through your head, dissipating the plumes of red haze swirling around you and causing your muscles to clench. “You haven’t asked her yet.” It says. “Ask her now.” You turn your attention back the object of your desires. Oddly enough she is still rifling through her folder. A friend comes up to embrace her and plant a quick kiss on her cheek (not a sign of affection, but the female equivalent of a pound) but she whispers something urgently and again you feel the butterflies in your stomach. Her friend walks away and she continues to look for whatever eludes her in her plain pink folder.
The names of a hundred bands run through your head like wildfire. Who was the guitar player for Dinosaur Jr.? You can never remember. Of course you can remember Metallica’s lead singer. Wait, what’s his name again? It starts with a J. James something. The girl clears her throat and suddenly you don’t care much anymore. As the hands on your watch inch closer and closer to 8:35 (the start of first period), you realize with trepidation that it’s now or never. You have always been a procrastinator.
You find that it is difficult to move your legs and you imagine the contents of your breakfast (scrambled eggs and prunes) lapping at the walls of your stomach like waves on a jetty. The familiar feeling of approaching doom overwhelms your delicate façade of confidence and your lip starts to twitch. Up down, up down, like its being pulled on a string. She is a few feet away from you and time seems to slow down. As you open your mouth to ask the all-important question, the question that has been lurking in the recesses of your brain since the middle 10th grade, you can’t help but obsess over everything that looks wrong.
Your shoes are old and dirty. Your hair is covered in oil and sweat from your desperate jog to school. Your lips are peeling from a nervous habit of licking them in a smooth circular motion. Your jeans are just a little bit too short. There is a small yellow speck on your right sock from when you missed the toilet because you were in such a rush get to school to ask this one beautiful girl this one simple question.
Your mouth opens and she looks up from her folder and you realize it is too late to walk away now. Lines of saliva stretch between your dry mouth until they can no longer support themselves. You ask the question: “do you want to go to a movie this weekend?”
But she doesn’t hear you. You don’t even hear yourself. Instead, the harsh, repetitive pangs of the fire alarm. Immediately, a door across the hall swings open and Mr. Kaufman yells at the top of his lungs: “everyone into lines now! I won’t have a repeat of last weeks chaos.”
Fucker! You feel like walking up to the pompous balding asshole and yanking out the last of his hair, then shoving his head down a toilet full of his own shit. These angry thoughts distract you from you failure. The girl’s friends tap her on the shoulder and drag her over to the line on the opposite side of the wall. You wish you could kill them too. You wish you could kill yourself. Your rage seems to mount with each echoing ring of the alarm and red mist surrounds you again.
As she is pulled away from you, the girl mouths: “find me later,” and you awkwardly nod you head. You know you will find her later, but you doubt that you will be able to work up the courage to ask the question again. Instead, you will probably just ask her a question about the science paper to which you already know the answer.