Content Farm

The man looked up from the will sitting on his oak desk at the teenage girl in a black velvet dress.

“My deepest condolences…. But I can’t stop myself from asking: how do you feel knowing you’re the third richest person in the world?”

“Lost.” The girl’s eyes squinted as they focused on her lawyer’s smile.

“Haha! Well, don’t let THEM know that!” The lawyer glanced at the people outside the window, passing by the skyscraper like ants overshadowed by a tree’s grandeur.

“They’ll all jump in to sell you maps.”

Renata squeezed her hands into a fist, tried to force a smile, but changed her mind. She just sprang from her chair, opened the door, and looked back at the lawyer who was arranging his documents.

“By the way, it’s in poor taste to remind someone they’re wealthier than you when they’re going through a tragedy. I’m having second thoughts about keeping you as my lawyer. ”

“I agree, so is reminding someone else you’re wealthier than them and turning that into a tragedy.”

She smiled and rolled her eyes.

“Never mind. ”He just reminded her why he was the company lawyer.

She entered the elevator and passed two people by the water cooler:

“Ew.”

“Shut up. She’ll hear you!”

The girl looked down at her velvet dress. She never cared about appearances, but it seemed like everyone else did. Even her parents had a problem with how she expressed herself… mostly it was about her eccentric love for hats.

She entered the white limousine, only for her hat to bump into the car frame and fall onto the asphalt. She could hear her mother’s disapproval hissing from the grave: “Stop it with the stupid hats already!” Her face turned red as she grabbed the hat and dragged it over her head, covering her eyebrows.

“Where to, Miss Renatta?”

“Home.” She jumped onto the back seat. Renata looked out the window as the car passed the local businesses. Her hand covered her mouth by pushing her lips into her fist, as if to stop herself from even acknowledging her own uncoolness. She glanced into the rearview mirror, hoping to strike up a conversation with Harold.

“By the way… Harold…” she sheepishly said.

“Oh! Of course! My apologies, Miss!” And he pressed a button to raise the window dividing them.

“No, I…” But the window had already closed by the time she protested. All she could see was her own face reflected in the window.

When she entered her house, she looked around… a sea of white: everything was impeccably white: the walls, the floor, the furniture. She started to question why white was a symbol of wealth in the first place.

“What is it with white? It’s impossible to maintain, it stains easily, and it turns yellow with time. I guess it’s just… pure… arrogance.” She looked at the lint collected on her black clothes, and that’s when it hit her:

“Black! That’s what the new premium car model’s default color should be!

“It’s elegant, annoying to maintain, but at least it stays that way! We’ll call the next model, Arrogance. It’s saying, we’re like you, we know this is silly, and so do you. But this is a cool car, and we’ll call it what it is!” ”

She started pacing around the room as she lost herself in her thoughts. Her forehead began to sweat, and she threw her hat towards the couch. It accidentally hit a vacation photo with her parents from her childhood. She looked at the broken frame as it fell onto the white floor, and shards of glass flew everywhere. Renatta yelled out:

“Felicia! Come clean this up! I’m thinking about stuff!”

The kitchen door opened wide, and a woman in her late 40s rushed inside.

“Yes, Miss!” And as Felicia ran inside, a shard poked through her cheap cardboard shoes. Felicia grabbed her foot and tried to avoid spilling blood on the white carpet as she was frantically apologizing.

Renatta raised her hands dismissively before saying:

“Never mind. I have something to do outside anyway.”

“Have fun!” Felicia fake-smiled as she limped back into the kitchen.

Renatta closed the door and looked around the empty garden. The blooming roses were the only company she needed. She sat down on a bench and began to cry by herself, thinking:

“I wish someone liked me for who I am for once. Just one person, is that too much to ask for?”

“Oh,it’s pointless! No one here understands me.” Trees are terrible listeners.

In a high school hallway, a girl with long, flowing chestnut hair was holding a note, squinting at it.

“Huh? What do you mean? I don’t understand. Your handwriting is too messy. ” The girl handed back the piece of paper to the boy.

The girl slowly backed away, as Dev was left behind. He bit his lower lip to stop himself from blowing up. He crumpled the note,ripped it to shreds, and threw it in the bin. He stopped, looked back, and returned to kick the waste bin at full force. The pieces of paper flew out of it, leaving a mess behind. The girls sitting in the front of the class began yelling at him, but Dev didn’t even notice them.

His deskmate raised his hand and called him over. He started to write on the edge of Dev’s notebook:

“So what did she say? “

“She said she doesn’t understand.” Wrote back, Dev.

“Fuck! What a bitch!”

“She said my handwriting was too messy.”

“Oh, she understood all right. She just didn’t have the balls to say no. Well, fuck her, you’re better off without her. She has zero standards! I heard she slept with half the guys from our class anyway. ”

“Gee, thanks. Now I feel much worse! That’s just a rumour anyway.”

“No, it ain’t, she slept with me too!”

“Dang! Now I know for sure she has no standards!”Dev snickered as he wrote that.

“Hey! Fuck you, man! I’m trying to make you feel better….”And the teacher began to grab the notebook sitting between the two boys before reading the last line out loud.

“Riveting.” The teacher slammed Dev’s notebook against his desk.

“What do you have to say about this?” wrote down the teacher. Dev grabbed his pen and just wrote in giant letters across the whole notebook one word:

“Hm… Shit indeed, how fitting. To the principal, both of you!”

Dev dragged his feet down the hallway while Bobby was shaking in his sneakers.

“Fuck! Mom’s going to kill me!”Bobby panicked. He looked at Dev, who was totally indifferent. They both waited in front of the Principal’s office. Bobby started to type on his phone.

’’Man, you’re so lucky your folks don’t come to school! It’s the worst! Too bad they never bought you a phone.”

“Um.. Bobby? I haven’t told you this yet, but I don’t have parents.”

“What do you mean? Did they die or something? I’m sorry, man, I didn’t know.”

“I have no idea if they’re dead. I don’t remember them… My social worker said that they weren’t expecting me to be mute.”

“FUCK! :’( That’s messed up!”

“Meh. :-/ “

“Bobby Johnson! In my office! ”

Dev wanted to hand Bobby his phone back, but Bobby rushed into the principal’s office without a second thought.

Dev looked down at the phone and started writing in the messaging app. He started erasing the meh and started typing this instead:

“You know what? It is messed up! They can just go fuck themselves! They’re such fucking assholes for ditching me at the orphanage, I don’t even fucking care what the fuck their names are. Some dumb bit-” and he ran out of space.

“Devin Lych? Oh, wait, he can’t hear.” The principal got up and waved her hand in front of his face.

Dev frantically tried erasing the message as she gestured for him to join her in the office.

She asked for the cellphone, and after she read the message,she sighed deeply. She raised her eyebrows, nodded, and returned the phone. Dev stopped in the doorway, peeking his head through it.

“She said it all without needing a word. Too bad she won’t be this mysterious for long,”