Skin Nation
Page 3
The Carl Dickens Tri-Life Theory consist of three BS ideas that supposedly were the key to a successful life.
1.No relationships, no relations.
Carl Dickens believed in order for people to get everything they wanted out of life, they needed to only live for one person only: them. He even went as far as saying that parents should train their children using the EMFH technique as early as thirteen years old, which I heard stood for every man for himself. This rule also had a sub-rule:
Commitment = Confusion & Single = Successful
I have my opinions about why Dickens wrote this one, but I'll keep them to myself. Then, there's:
2.Drink heartedly, smoke often.
Recently, the drinking age was shrunk down to eighteen. The Gov stated something like If you're old enough to smoke at eighteen, why not let you drink? Of course in short speak it looked more like:
If ur old enuff 2 smoke @ 18, y not let u drink?
Everyone was a big fan of the new lingo. It's fun to read! It's fast and convenient! It's BS!
It makes me feel more dumb every time I read it! Everyone's also a big fan of Rule 2. Smoking and drinking? Good for you? No one thought it was possible. And, it isn't! Idiots just think it is because if it's on TV, it must be legit!
Last, but certainly not anymore idiot relieving:
3.Trust technology, not past college degree
When I first heard this rule, I didn't think anyone would Follow it.
“Well, we already missed an hour...maybe a few minutes in heaven will motivate us for the next period?” Josh smiled over.
I looked him over—like, really looked him over. Josh was nice looking. I mean, he had normal shaped mystical light green eyes and a little larger than normal sized nose, and these full-kissable lips. Why not?
I smiled before I leaned in to kiss him even though inside I was shaking from unreasonable fear. I had kissed guys before, but this time felt different. I was actually nervous. We didn't do much in the car. Just kissing. Kisses on my neck, on his neck, lips, face, lips again. I didn't know what it was about that moment. I had never given in to his begging before but it was almost like for once, no consequences would come to mind and guilt my conscience.
Then, he asked if I was ready to join the Mass yet. I left the car and he Followed. I wasn't mad at Josh for asking. I mean, he asked me all the time; that was his job as a member of the Mass. I just needed some air all of a sudden, I guess. I started to wonder what I was really fighting against.
I had never kissed Josh before. I had kissed plenty of other guys before-at parties, social events, the two Mass meetings I went to when I was actually considering for rebellious reasons-but his kisses were different. They felt sincere and learned. Maybe Josh had more experience than I knew about. I'm sure the Mass was so proud.
“Can I just confess something?”
Josh pulled on my shirt and I found myself staring into the center of his white V-neck. I tried to remember the day he no longer was my height and no vivid memory of his sudden growth spurt came to mind. I imagined him next to my mother's two night stander, Frank, and laughed when I realized that Josh could totally take him. Although Josh was to Frank's eyes in height, he was bigger in the arms.
“Shoot,” I smiled.
“...In another life...I would marry you.”
I scoped the school hall quick to see if any of the security cameras moved. After a gang from another province vandalized the school walls over the previous summer, the school installed cameras with sound to capture suspicious voices. Of course, we never saw the graffiti and never figured out what vandalizing school property had to do with sound cameras inside the school. So, after their installation, everyone waited to “Mass Talk” at lunch or outside of school, but this wasn't even Mass Talk. This was forbidden talk about the M word. Talking about marriage was like bringing up stories of Old Nation wars. I was surprised Josh was taking that chance, even though he said it in a complete whisper.
Still, he didn't have me convinced. “You're not gonna get lucky saying that-”
“I'm not trying to, okay? Just hear me out, Bleu...I like you. I've liked you for a long time...a lot.”
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“...I finally...I don't know.”
“Finally what? Got the balls-”
“Do you like me?”
I hesitated and took a step back. Did I like him? Was it possible that because I noticed his kisses were different from the others that meant I...liked Josh? I tried to see it in my mind. Me and Josh holding hands down the hallway. Me and Josh talking at a lunch circle with his Mass friends and my two good friends, Blythe and Marty. Me and Josh making out in his car. It was really clear, and then not.
“I really...don't know.”
The bell chimed twice and floods of kids robotically walked around us heading for their next class without a word to anyone passing by in the hallway. You would never think those were the same kids strutting down XYM Avenue on Wednesdays.
“Lunch?”
I nodded to him and walked up the flight of stairs to my P2 class. Lunch. Where there's food and possible heartbreak.
I entered the white-molding green room and the set up appeared just like it always remained. Rows after rows of small desks lined the room, TS-i's-which stood for Teaching System-i have no idea-were hooked to the side of the desks for the screens to face us when we sat down, and a white cable that always downloaded the right section of notes for the day into our PocketDroids for night study ran across the desk for easy plug-in. I sat down at my usual desk close to the right of the room, but still somehow felt in the middle. I signed it with the touch of my palm to the screen in front of me and waited for the bell and the four other kids that showed up to this class to enter.
A lady dressed in a fitted white suit with red sequins stitched on her jacket and the bottom left of her knee-high skirt walked in to check the “efficiency” of the TS-i's to start the lesson.
“Plug in your PDs to the note feeder and plug in your earphones. You have sixty minutes.”
The lady left the room and the TS-BS began. My P2 was Economics. It would've been History, but that class got taken out by The System the year before I could enroll into it.
Why think back when we're only moving forward? Another famous Dickens quote.
I was just about to plug my PD into the note feeder's white cable when it lit up. I rose from my seat to take the call outside and no one in the room even stopped to look up from their screens.
“Hello?”
“Hey, you wanna skip? I'm dying in Biology.”
“Don't know yet. I haven't even wired in. What's going on?”
“Evolution versus Genetics.”
“Gross,” I said, biting my lower lip.
“So, you in?”
I gave it some thought. Josh and I did need to talk. I wondered if what happened between us before class was part of the reason why he wanted to skip. He never wanted to skip Biology. “Um...nah. I think I'll skip out this time.”
Josh sighed and before I could say another word, I heard the phone click. I checked my phone as if my ears had deceived me and shoved it back into my jean pocket. I didn't give his reaction much thought. Josh always did that when he didn't get his way. Instead, I plugged in my PD, covered my ears with the wireless earbuds on the edge of the desk and started my Economics thing. 137 days. Just 137 days left of this pretentious YA crap.
FOUR