The Smile Never Left but Changed

Pierre did not remember seeing a welcome sign on entering the state, though he saw one for every other state.  

While diffident and quiet, he was quite friendly.  Pierre often had a small group of friends and that was good for him as he didn't like too many friends.  Crowds were stress, but their members liked the electricity.  Pierre fell into conversation with some people when there was no one else around.  Pierre was a popular alternative.  They would talk their fill and when the large electric crowd approached, it signaled the conversations end.  Sometimes Pierre wanted to talk a little longer, but it wasn't his place to hold the people to him.  He would do a lot for his friends.  He would invite them over for pizza and give them candy sometimes and he always tried to be friendly.  

He was awfully defiant by questioning his position as a second priority.

Pierre would be invited to parties because more people generated more electricity.  Its like the wood that fuels a fire.  The parties were quite stressful and most of all, loud.  But loudness generated electricity.  Pierre's conversations were usually interrupted but for the most part he was persistent.  

Maybe it was that which made him less like-able.  Maybe he was annoying or maybe ugly.  Perhaps the pubescent peach-fuzz on his upper lip was left unshaved for too long.  Or the occasional white heads on his nose were overly distracting.

It was at one party when Pierre found himself quite alone at a baseball field, formerly inhabited by a party.  They had gone out to have fun but had now left without him.  The diamond was shaded with dark strips where the dry dust had been upturned.  The wind blew lightly and from the west approached dark clouds; it was morose.  Suddenly Pierre heard a feminine laugh echo from the distance.  Filled with desire to be among them he ran, with a smile of expectancy.  Racing down the street he came to the end and turned right.  His bones were thoroughly shattered, and his skin could scarcely contain the shards.  His head was emptied on the road, but not to be an inconvenience, because rain was on the way.  The car had slowed to let a crowd of kids pass and immediately accelerated.  

It was a week after when the funeral was held.  Two days prior, Pierre's mother received a call.  The phone on the other end was on speaker, as could be told from crackly voices and echoey sound.  Laughs rang out in the room.  Two people began to ask whether the funeral could be held, like, some other day because there was this awesome party on Wednesday and they didn't want to miss it.  With a light movement of her weak hand, Pierre's mother hung up the phone thinking it to be a sick joke.

The day of the funeral it was drizzling.  There were four other people there, besides his mother; one Pierre's father, another Pierre's brother, another one of Pierre's teachers, another Pierre's grandfather.  Pierre's sister was at the party.

There wasn't any electricity where Pierre went and he liked it there.

Reviews

[E. L. Foley]

Bittersweet.

Your use of "electricity" is interesting, but a bit hard to follow--if you could explain a bit more of what you mean by that in the piece, I think it would pull together better.