-1-
LSD: Lysergic Acid Diethyl-amide. The truth is that the drug was ultimately a failure, at least in the eyes of the CIA. In a bizarre instance of irony, it seemed that the drug facilitated free-thinking and spurred a psychological revolution in the 60’s that bled into the 70’s, in which Wayne’s story begins.
In the eighth year of the decade, Wayne decided he had nothing left to lose. Both of his parents had passed away unexpectedly the year before, and the anxiety of an uncertain future (in combination with the stench of un-showered hopelessness that, thankfully, insured that none of his peers came within a 5 yard radius of his increasingly-gaunt figure) trailed behind Wayne wherever he begrudgingly dragged his feet. At 17 years old and already in the latter half of his sophomore year in college, his dorm had become his makeshift foster home for all intents and purposes. The university had agreed to house him for the upcoming summer, as Wayne had absolutely nowhere else to go and was evidently a gifted child given he’d skipped both kindergarten and his junior year of high school. As the end of the semester approached, Wayne let his grades slip down to the B range for the first time in his academic career, raising concern among his professors but prompting no response from his typically hovering parents. At one time reflecting on this thought, Wayne couldn’t help but croak out a strained chuckle as the sarcastic-atheist-voice spoke up in the back of his head: “though who’s to say they haven’t gone to hover elsewhere?” Hah!
Wayne cut ties with everyone he’d once considered a friend, much to their relief. Wayne’s grief made them uncomfortable, and his isolation was a convenient way for his peers to dodge confrontation. At first feeling mild-pangs of guilt for their desertion in discussions amongst themselves, his friends eventually settled on the selfish rationalization that they “didn’t sign up for this shit!” and carried on with their meaningless lives, lives consisting of little more than beer pong rivalries and cocaine abuse. Those boys had found it amusing to have such an extraordinary 17 year old in their social circle, even labeling him with his own catchy nickname (“Whiz,” in reference to Wayne being titled a so-called “whiz-kid” for the wonderful wit, whimsy, and wisdom found within his written work at school, witnessed by his teachers even while watching him withstand a workload of a worker twice his age during his weeks as a mere whippersnapper and whatnot), but the novelty that Wayne had mistaken for his belonging faded the same moment he interrupted flip-cup to tell them about the news he’d just received regarding his parents. Wayne was promptly labeled a burden and outcasted over the course of the following weekend, as there’s no room for such a large volume of grief at a crowded college house party, where space is already limited and the volume is already turned up to maximum.
Still, Wayne barely had the mental energy to notice his expulsion from the shoal of clown fish, as he “had bigger fish to fry,” so to speak. Somehow, it seemed as if he’d forgotten how to flip his brain’s off-switch, leaving his thoughts, unregulated by the intermission of sleeping, free to circulate 24 hours a day and, at this point, Wayne had simply “had it up to Here” (Here, of course, being Wayne’s incessantly pounding temple). If only someone could give him a straight answer of what came next. If only someone had the balls to even look him the eye. If only these fake-fucks would knock it off with the generic and infuriatingly useless dialogue of pity they’d copied from each instance of loss and pasted into the next in a blatantly obvious attempt to inflate their own swollen egos with a few pumps of synthetic morality. If only someone would Just. Fucking. Listen.
If only,
if only.
