Banalities

A short story I wrote for Creative Writing. It is horrid and dreadful.

Once upon a time, there lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a girl called Maddie; she was fabulously rich, strikingly average, and moderately complacent; one day she abandoned her friends for the possibility of a similarly average boyfriend; she was loved by one, lost her love to another; and her life progressed in mundane continuation.

This is the whole story and we might have left it there at that had there not been points to be earned and words to be graded (despite the inherent subjective nature of feeling-writing and emotion-pouring); there is, in fact, no pleasure in telling this tale, as a reader might presuppose, for not only is the plot dull to the point of willful death, but there seeps a sardonic, bitter tone, a sentiment known to all melancholic teenage girls, boiling over the edge with angst, masochistically isolated, who’ve encountered their inane female counterparts to their ego-driven self-induced retitled ostensibly “misunderstood” psyches. My only wish is to be allowed to write this.

Maddie was not one of these girls. Typical feminine name, it is�"second most popular name, behind Emily, given to girls born in the year two thousand and one. And this, in fact, is most befitting as a title for this almost-woman, Maddie Johnson, of seventeen years young. And why is this so? Behold, reader, the most average, consistently inconsistent, classical mold of a teenage girl to have ever existed. In Maddie Johnson’s mind was there little substance; indeed, the stark averageness of her psyche was what beheld her as unique.

The Johnson family of sixteen Wolman Drive perfectly conformed to the government-certified average statistics of the American household as conducted by the US Census Bureau in the year two-thousand and twelve. They had a white picket fence (bitterly deemed WPF) that blinded passersby on hot summer days, and a literal two point five children�"Unimportant Sister who only loved reading, and Little Bobby who had lost all of his limbs in a car accident and now hobbled around on his little stub body. Pitiful thing.

But beside Bobby, whose handicap was used to the Johnson’s advantage in garnering feigned sympathy and academic scholarships, there was nothing peculiar about sixteen Wolman Drive. Mr. Johnson was the Chief Financial Officer of a large company and earned hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. He was outstandingly typical, with kind brown eyes offset by an unbecoming Anglo-Saxon nose. Mr. Jonson liked the curves of his wife’s body, the way she groomed herself, and how she took baths with authentic Asian-jade salts. His wife, Mrs. Johnson, was born and raised in the quaint suburban city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Mrs. Johnson was an attractive parasite to Mr. Johnson, though neither saw it as such; regardless, she wasted her days away prancing around her mirror in nude spanx, prettily caressing her children faces, and cuddling up to the mammoth-hair skin settled on Mr. Johnson’s corpulence.

Indeed, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson were a lovely couple; existence was easy, and fruitfulness was abundant. Maddie, as the oldest, was by far the most spoiled, especially in her youth, and so, having had everything handed to her on a platter, Maddie took no interest in books or learning or hobbies that didn’t have to do with perpetuating her hyperfemininity, and her cells remained neglected to the fruits of the world. Her mind, not a flower, not a sponge, wilted and withered like dementia from her lack of academic intake; she had but one thing to show off�"her bulbous heaves.

As a senior in high school with but a scant few sunny months left until she’d be deposed from the nest, she decided that she’d better have practice, you know, dating a boy, before she went off to college (which was, in classic pursuit, a local, lowly-ranked state university). Anxious but determined, she imitated her mother’s gestures and gamboled through pallid schoolhalls like an effervescent bunny, garnished in next to nothing, showing off her lackluster countenance stained pink with all her bumbling hopping and frolicking and dabs from the recent line of Sephora’s lemon-scented rose Powderpuff blush.

But to no avail. There was no boy Maddie could attract, for it had only been approximately two (seemingly interminable!) weeks and she had made no effort to speak to any masculine soul, only to lustily gaze. Maddie fell into a minor depression that really wasn’t a depression at all because there was not a lack of serotonin in her brain but rather an astounding lack of glial cells which fortify the neurons in the brain by cementing cozy myelin sheaths that insulate the axons.

The only other person Maddie had told of her woes was Sara, her best friend since the first grade, except they weren’t actually best friends since the first grade, as all they did in first grade was hit each other with their jean jackets and spurt glue onto each other’s slimy faces out of boredom, but Maddie was rich and Sara was charming so Sara took it upon herself to make frequent acquaintances with the similarly-attractive Maddie girl, and they often played with their American Girl Dolls (Sara had but one Native American themed doll with the ugliest black braids called Standing Water; Maddie had all thirty-four dolls in the collection), and so they made fast friends, but in middle school Sara slept over with the pretty popular girls instead of Maddie even though she promised to sleep over, so Maddie had to watch The Breakfast Club all by her lonesome chocolate-engorged self, and she didn’t even really like the movie, though she did identify with Claire, and she was only watching it because Sara had wanted to, but Sara had only wanted to because flaxen-haired James Carlton had offhandedly said it was his favorite movie and pretty-boy flaxen-haired James Carlton was the cutest boy on the soccer team, and his opinion was valued far more than those of the unfortunately painted sort.

One boy, though, had unknowingly burrowed his way into Maddie’s vapid heart. Chad Stravinsky was in a peculiar situation; he was not the star quarterback of the football team but a mere running back. He was not the star drummer of the drumline but a mere cymbalist. He wasn’t even the Beast in the high school’s rendition of the musical Beauty and the Beast; he’d been only allowed to play the part of a fat, annoying clock (not the sarcastic Cogsworth, but just an extra clock in the cute dance scenes). Maddie had subconsciously taken in the fact that he was almost always next to the spotlight, never in, and in her duly noted averageness she’d recognized that she’d never get to take the quarterback or the guitarist or the Beast but rather the cast-aside second banana.

        But Chad and Maddie didn’t even have a class together! She’d only met him through friends of friends of elder brother’s of younger friends and the only reason she liked him (consciously) was because he was hot, but he wasn’t even that hot because he had acne on his cheeks and flimsy hay hair and chubby thighs, and no one likes chub on a man’s thighs. Sara, tired after hearing Maddie’s whines about indefinite singleness and being forever alone, decided to have a party where she’d gather all three of her friends on Friday night for a drunken shindig whereupon Maddie would sight Chad and Chad would sight Maddie they’d fall madly in love and finally leave Sara bitterly alone.
        As soon as Maddie arrived at Sara’s house, Sara attacked her. Not like any violent sort of attack, but rather the feigned affection of loud squeals and girlish hugs teenage girls of this nature so often inflict upon each other. There really shouldn’t be a reason why they’d be so attached just a day after their previous engagement, so the only natural thing to guess would be that the squeezing was for attention, all for male attention, as their feminine caresses were calculated enough to seem like fairy dust to dumb male socialites. It was genius, really, what these girls were doing. Except not at all. Maddie and Sara embraced and embraced and embraced and the reader might note that this story should end here but the banalities will continue until brains are atrophied from the lack of learning and knowledge acquired through this story. It shall persist (unfortunately).
        Chad was sitting on the couch, drinking a chilled Dr. Pepper (which was, in fact, slowly dissolving any healthy bacteria that lived in his small intestine), casually splayed across the cushions discussing with a friend (incidentally, Sara’s hopeful lover) the upcoming concert that would be held in school. A concert? In his youth, Chad had realized his sideways attention, so he took it upon himself to learn how to pluck the guitar, and in fingering the strings he garnered the attention of many other stupid vapid girls, for any male who has any hint of any semblance of any shred of real raw emotion would be the perfect boy, music and singing being all skills necessary to pollinate the naive female population. Music is the perfect way to get girls.
        Sara giggled and subtly pointed to Chad’s position on the couch, whispering to Maddie, “Hey hon, you might want to go over to him and put your head on his shoulder or something. He’s just sitting there all lonely and, you know, he might want some company or something!”
        “Oh Sara,” Maddie blushed, “it’s really just the four of us?”
        Yes, in fact, in ingenious operation, for Sara was far more cunning than Maddie, she had set her potential lover as Chad’s friend and invited only Chad and his friend and Maddie over so they could have a four-person party; Maddie was glad.
        The girls went over there and sat down. Now, dear reader, you might be glad in knowing that this part of the story (with its conversational qualities and inexcusable banalities) will be skipped entirely. There is nothing to be learned from these sorts of people of anything interesting.
        In short, as the shadows grew long and the night grew brisk, Maddie slid closer and closer to the mysterious and quiet sort of figure of Chad, that miserable wretch, slightly akin to Bobby in his pitiful languorous appeal, and they’d ended up kissing on the floor of Sara’s house quietly (there may or may not have been sorts of intoxicable fluids permeating their blood). How darling and romantic. Sara ended up hating the boy she’d set herself up with, as he was stupid and boring and had eyes like a weasel; how sad for her. Maddie and Chad had left the house as boyfriend and girlfriend, and Sara had left the night as disappointed that only part of her plan worked. How miserable indeed.
        Well that was a lovely summary.

Now Maddie was officially swimming in love. Her every thought was permeated with images of Chad’s chubby countenance, a face of thin lips and ruddy cheeks and sparkling blue eyes. She could not concentrate on anything�"not her homework, not her friends, not even the girl who had set the two of them up. The early stages of obsessive compulsive disorder barraged her brain and destroyed probably half its cells (which weren’t being used for much anyway), but her foolish lust did not proceed without some sort of consequence.

Sara was mad. Sara was really, really mad. She’d taken all the time and trouble of setting up a wonderful lovely perfect party for not only her benefit but also for her friend’s, and this girl was not one prone to usual altruism. And what did Maddie do? She frolicked off into Chad’s bulbous arms, Electra in fatherly nature, matched only by those of Maddie’s bulbous heaves, and they slobbered over each other’s faces like rabid bull dogs, tongues lolling over each other’s chins and cheeks indiscriminately, spittled and dribbled pinkish mouths. And she, the sole initiator of this too-much contact, was cast aside, she, the loyal best friend, she, the more-attractive-than-Maddie-why-don’t-I-have-a-boyfriend. Sara was damaged goods, inkily minded, distraught with anger, fear, rampaging jealousy. Sara was mad.

Vapid vain-hearted Maddie did nothing to alleviate this situation. She means, like, it was her turn to have a boyfriend, not Sara’s, so there wasn’t really anything to be done over this not-so-situation situation. It wasn’t fair that during the lovely candlelit nighttimes in Chad Stravinsky’s arms that she’d have to occupy herself with worries over Sara and her lovelife, or rather, her lack of. Eyeliner-clad Sara had darkened the green rage in her eyes to the point that she would refuse to talk to Maddie. Conversations went something like this:

“Hey Sara!”

“...”

“So, like, Chad and I did the most ridiculous thing this weekend. So you know how he’s been growing out his facial hair, right? Well, like, we were in his room making out for a really, really long time, and like, you see these scars under my lip? It’s crazy, I know, but we made out for so long that his stubble scratched my mouth and now it’s bleeding like crazy! Hee hee! My chin is an undercooked steak! Isn’t that crazy?”

“...”

And so they went. Maddie gushed and Sara ignored.

Maddie wasn’t kidding. Incidentally, the skin patched under her mouth was indeed bloody with lustful presses, as they in fact made out for seven hours, which must be a record for something somewhere, and Chad came out of it buzzed and happy and sexually satiated and Maddie came out of it with a raw face, pinkish from love flushes, red from the excess of blood that poured down her face, her round chin looking like ground beef. And she held her pallor with pride. It seems an impossibility that one would make out for so long as to rub the skin raw like a grater had been rubbed on the chin, but they were both lonely and aroused in their mutually assured insipidity that neither found it a problem that the blood seeped into their mouths and made their kisses not sweet but unbearably iron-filled salty, an anemic tongue touch.

Well this is getting to be much too long for anyone’s tastes so let’s get straight to the point. Maddie was happy and in love. Sara was jealous. In the end after a series of nothing and nothing nothings, nothing happened and they ended up back in content equilibrium. Chad left for Mankato State and Maddie for the University of Minnesota. They said they’d stay together but they ended up breaking up. How sad. Maddie left him happy and wiser than before (which is not, in fact, to say wise at all. Not at all wise. Do not think she became so). Chad ended up joining a frat and picking up the deplorable habit of inhaling marijuana. Alas, his case came to a pitiful end after a bong-incident in which his asthma was irritated by the THC in the marijuana, and his inhaler was not on his person at the time, so he ended up suffocating on the smoke he inhaled and dying during a frat party. How pitiful indeed these banalities are.