Mobius Strip

My name is Conrad Adams and I'm not a hero.  Everyone wants to be but no one is.  That's why comic books sell the way they do.  Movies, video games, comics, your dad's corny sci-fi novels, your mom's romance books.  We buy these because we're in love with the idea of what we could be.  To live our fantasy, even if for a moment.  To escape sad, real, real reality.  Funny enough, that's why a lot of alcoholics drink, to get away.  Go figure.



In this action packed issue of Conrad's Failed Life, we'll discover that most everything you hear as a child is so sugar coated, in the end it's just a lie.  You can do anything want if you put your mind to it.  But Mommy, what about the paraplegic kid who wants to be an astronaut?  The mute kid who wants to sing opera?  Or how about the girl with muscular dystrophy who wants to play in the WNBA?



Mom, Dad.  Sorry to burst your bubble, but those two lied.  But I never hated them for it.  For a time, I even embraced the lie.  I told them I wanted to be a veterinarian, help sick animals.  And then I wanted to be a teacher.  And then the usual progression of a child's dreams to actor, singer, president.  I just told them what every kid was telling their mom.  Every child wants to help people, but every grown man and woman knows the horrible truth.  You can't help anyone from themselves.



Miss Livingston is substituting our anatomy class today.  Our usual teacher is in the hospital due to a car accident.  A freak accident that has nothing to do with me or a sheep's heart conveniently placed behind the car's brake pedal.  Ok, so obviously I did it, but the bitch told me to stop playing with it and do something useful.  And now she's paying doctors, who at one stage were probably JUST like me, to fix her broken face.  There we have the circle of our lives, one-time fuck ups getting paid to fix other fuck up's mistakes.  Maybe they'll hook her up with a facelift.



BREAKING NEWS:  No one's real anymore.  Those eyes you compare to endless whirlpools, those are contacts.  Rite Aid, thirty bucks.  The tits you think you can just get lost in and not come out for days, fake.  Courtesy of Dr. Hammond over in Hell.A.  I know what you're thinking though.  All the pleasure is still there, ripe for the taking.



My knuckles wrap tight around the edge of my desk and they go white.  This woman, Ms. Livingston, she's all over the place.  One minute she's going over the body's processes of healing and scarring, next it's genetic mutations.  What I want to tell her is I think she's getting textbooks mixed up, but I let her ramble on.



I feel the wood of the desk bend a little under the pressure of the combined strength of every muscle in my left arm.  I'm trying with everything I have to not hear this woman.  That's right, I'm not listening.  It's my little way of rebelling without burning something down.  The goal is complete, utter ignorance.  Way to stick it to the man.



I can hear the wood cry out, creaking as it attempts, with all it's might, to stay in one piece.  Ms.  Livingston's voice seems incredibly distant now.  But I imagine a lot would when it feels like your finger tips are a tree, cracking straight down the middle.  I can feel the river of blood pouring from beneath my fingernails.  Splinters pierce my skin and my fingers pierce the cheap wood.  Ms. Livingston is yelling now, I don't know what about.  Maybe it's my delirium.  With the kind of pain I'm going through, everything is white noise.  Mission progress, excellent.



And the climax.  A good portion of the desk is rendered free from the feeble metal frame.  This chunk of desk and I crumble to the floor, both lying there alone and pathetic, one and the same.  But at least I've won this bout.  Soon the school rent-a-cop is in to scrape me up off the cheap carpet floor.  This so-called teacher's already exhibited her in ability to handle any form of stress.  With all the chaos, I'm thinking she left the room at least once.  What would me and the desk know though, we're hardly here.  I know the slutty redhead next to me was determined to give me mouth to mouth.  No herpes for me today, thank you.



Dependency makes the world go round.  Don't twist my words now, kid, this is dependency, not co-dependency.  With co-dependency we're talking about 2 parties becoming complacent, content and stagnant.  Worthless cadavers occupying space on the couch, in front of you in line and several other aggravating places.  Dependency, the kind that's not reciprocated, the kind that involves a needle or a second story bedroom window.  It drives people.  It's those pistons that pump your muscles, forcing you to roll your fat ass out of bed in the morning.



Though, I imagine, it's not so much dependency that runs the world.  It's the means by which we achieve our object of desire, our vices.  It's all how we indulge.  The construction worker who works day and night to afford his liquor.  The soldier who defends his country so he may have the right to watch women dance for his mere dollars.  These same women who dance, relieving these hound's stress and tension, they want attention or education.  Everything has an end goal and it's never about what someone else is out for.



Problems arise when we are dependent on systems and items and people rather the thought or idea or concept.  Everything that is not within you, it's going to crumble.  Depend only on you, you'll never be disappointed or surprised.  We're all slaves to it and not a single one of us is a revolutionary.



I'm awake and I'm scanning the nurses office with blurried vision.  Vices line the walls in the form of pills, sprays, formulas, tonics and all sort of magic potion.  What a vile sorceress.  She's the enemy who comes in many forms, but they're all the same.  They'll sell you reassuring lies, packed, bottled and labeled ready to be gobbled up.  Nothing tastes quite as sweet and nothing comes back up quite as vile as a lie.



She's standing in the hall talking to the school security, assessing the severity of the situation or exchanging telephone numbers.  Something that's not taking care of me.  Another victim lies is sitting in a chair next to me.  First thing I notice is her brilliant brown eyes.  Foreshadowing, I think, that she's full of shit.



I get bored and when I'm bored I do stupid things.  I ask her why she's in the nurse's office.  "I threw up on the art teacher's supposed masterpiece." She says this with a sense of pride.  Her name is Lindsey, she tells me.  Her name is Lindsey and she is defiancce embodied.



Some people say your life is just a series of events, coincidences.  This is called stating the obvious.  To the point, if I had to narrow my life down to one event, at this moment, it would be those eyes.  Just those eyes and nothing else.  She told me she's working on getting contacts.  We're in the cafeteria and she tells me she wants to be nothing that she is.  That is, she wants change.  My first assumption is that she isn't very happy with how she looks.  Typical female.  No, she reassures me, this is not the case.

"Living with what God gives you is acceptance.  Our image is static, unchanging, with few exceptions.  We're stagnant.  I mean, other than old age, scars and wear and tear, we don't change.  I propose this.  Be dynamic, exciting and new.  Completely reinvent yourself.  From the fungus in your toes to the baldspot on your head.  Defy god."  She's telling me all this all while replacing certain brownies in the snackline with her own home made x-brownies.  I don't know if the x is for x-lax or Xtasy.  I don't care to know.  She holds a brownie towards me.  Thanks, I tell her.  But no thanks.



People are victims of people are victims of people.



We sit down at one of the many empty tables in the cafeteria and neither one of us is eating.  She rambles on about God and how He may exist but there's no master plan.  I just poke at my food and listen.  "There can't be a grand plan AND free will.", She's rolling an apple from one hand to the other and back. "I mean, look at the Garden of Eden.  God tells Eve no, she says yes.  God gives her a slap on the wrist and sends her on her way.  Devil 1, God 0."  God said let there be light and there was.  Then he yells "Boomshakalaka!" and the universe was created. "I mean, it's like bringing a newborn puppy home and expecting him to stay in a yard with no fence."



Psycho babble bullshit.  Processed bologna.  Political nonsense.  This girl's got more than a couple screws loose and in the worst spots.  I'm utterly enthralled, but enthralled by bullshit nonetheless.  There's a line between genius and insane and it's about as thin as a blonde cunt hair.  Just to make sure we're on the same page, this is a blonde cunt hair we're talking about.  Not brown, black or red.  Blonde.  And this girl straddles that line pretty damn good.  Could be worse, I guess, at the other end of the spectrum.  The bible thumper.



"I mean, it's just batshit retarded.  What do you think?"  Well, I think what you're saying is entirely pointless, but I'd love to see what you look like naked.  I don't say this, I think it.  I think it because it's what all men think.  She goes on again before I answer."Always reinvent yourself.  Destroy what everyone knows to be true and remake it exactly how you think it should be.  Save the world from itself.  Right?"  You're a wackjob, that hardly makes sense.  This I think to myself.



Right, I say.  And this is called communication.  This is also when 2 girls in the cafeteria decide that one can no longer tolerate the other's existence.  Female subject #1 is under the impression that female subject #2 wrote the word SLUT all over the inside of her locker due to her recent involvement with #2's boyfriend.  Of course, Lindsey tells me, this was all orchestrated by her.  Teenage girl's fighting is like watching the discovery channel.  Circling each other, sizing the other up.  A couple ferocious screeches and they pounce.  For territory, for pride.  To belong to the alpha male.  And then Ms. Livingston strolls in.



She is swift, like a gazelle.  But a gazelle is not the best mediator in a battle for pride.  She is clawed, jabbed and kicked quite incessintly, but is the victor in the end when her rhino-esque school security shows up.  Too bad for them there's really no inter-species mating.



As much of a nutcase as she is, Lindsey did manage to plan quite the entertaining event.  "FUCK!  There could've been at least 5 more minutes of hairpulling if that bitch didn't see it."  I guess I'm not very subtle, because she hears me chuckle at her displeasure.  "What?!  What's so god damned funny?"  How does she think she could've stopped her from seeing the fight, I ask her.  I mean, these days we're on such high terrorist watch, that now the students are the potential terrorists.  The mailman, he's the potential pipebomber.  The retired Marine, he's the potential sniper.  You think that no teachers would be around?



"Yeah, well what the fuck have you done lately, dickhead?"



Nothing.  I've done nothing lately, depending on how that time period's defined.  If you don't count the desk.  Or the sheep heart thing, that was about a week ago now.  Hell, I need to let loose.  Maybe this girl's onto something.  Did she have any ideas, has she been brainstorming lately.  Of course.  And she whispers all her horrible schemes in my ear.  Such sweet, sweet candy for my mind to consume.



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It's about 6 p.m. and I'm walking down empty streets.  Empty except a few thugs, some unfortunate unloved souls, me and of course my prey.  I stalk her from a distance, my identity concealed behind my hood.  I am the Wolf and she is the Sheep.  I don my wool armor and let her foolishness bring her to me.  I am harmless and weak, just like her.  Every other wolf on the streets can see right through me, but she can't.  But it takes work to keep my guise up.  All I can follow is her feet.  To bring my gaze any higher is surely to reveal myself.  So of course there would be an annoying fucking bum in the middle of the sidewalk.



"Change?!"  He yells in the most demanding tone.  Fuck fuck fuck fuck.  I don't know what to do to bring the least amount of attention to myself.  I rifle through my pockets and find a 5 dollar bill that I really don't want to part with, but I throw it at him anyways.  He grabs me and spits "CHANGE!!"  I scream obscenities at him and when he let's go I look up to find my prey again.  She's looking dead at me, right in my eyes.  She sees me now, no more guise.  She sees the violence.  Eyes are the window to the soul, some say.  They have to be at least half right.



Her stride gets longer and her pace picks up immensely.  I'd bet her heartrate even stepped up a couple beats.  I'm trying not to lose her without having to pick up to a jog, this is hard work.  Woman's got legs for miles.  She's panicking, I can hear her breathing.  I guess it get's obvious someone's out to get you when they've been following you for 8 blocks and keeps exact pace with you.  I hear her round a corner and when I look up it's an alley.  A dead end alley she's landed herself in.  Now I have all the time in the world.



My prey is cornered, ready to be drawn and quartered.  She is mine to play with.  My stomach turns and my muscle's tighten.  I am the Wolf and she is the Sheep.  I am no hero and her, well she's Ms. Livingston.



When I finally round the corner after her, someone else beat me to her.  A gang of thugs is pulling on her arms, legs and hair.  They've gotten her cotton white panties around her ankles and her blouse ripped open.  Nice body.  But I can't just watch, as much fun as that'd be.  She's seen me, she knows me.  Should she walk away from this, I'm the guy who just watched it happen.  I'll commit the deed, I'll stop it even, but I will not be the guy who watched.  What kinda role is that to play?  I'm not going to be the extra.



You ever get that adrenalin boost that slows things down just a little bit?  You get thrown from a car and it seems like it takes forever to hit the ground or you stab a man and it feels like he'll never let go of your wrist.  That's how every second felt in that alley.  I know they see me but they know I see them too.  All I can get myself to do is run as fast and hard as my legs will pump.  As each millisecond ticks by, I can see them draw pistols from their waistlines, gleaming in the moonlight.  I bet no empire ever thought death could be contained in something as small as a bullet.



I see the flash of the gunfire, instant replay slow motion style.  It's like a mini fireworks display all for me.  Adrenalin surging through my very veins, I slam into two of the would be rapists.  My bones crunching into theirs, we are malleable and soft, body's forming around the others.  I want to pause everything and ask myself why I find this the least bit logical, but nothing stops for the glory of primal instinct.  I roll off of them and I'm up in what is no way more than a second.  I find myself holding a bat and I drag it towards the sky with my one hand, hoping it hits something vital in this final degenerate.  I hear shots as I swing, but feel nothing but the shockwave through the bat.  I connected with his arm and his jaw, shattering the former.  When the two on the ground start to move, I beat them.



I beat these two for what feels like hours.  Probably only minutes.  The hard business end of the bat pulverized bone and pulped flesh and muscle.  Every swing and jab sent a wave up through my arm, tickling every nerve.  My arms felt like jelly by the time I was ready to stop.  I was so gone that I don't remember dropping the bat.  I don't remember walking home.  I don't remember falling asleep.  I remember her face and the horror on it, so genuine.  Only once have I ever felt something so complete as her terror.  And that was the feeling of destroying a being so entirely corrupt and vile.  Maybe sometimes, there is something good about being the savior rather than the villain.



The next morning my hand just feels obliterated.  Like somehow that singular extension of my body was at Hiroshima, ground zero.  I'm theorizing it's the split fingernails and the shockwaves from the bat.  Ever knock your fingernail loose?  Worst feeling in the world.  Fuck losing an arm or getting shot, they may hurt like hell, but nothing's as aggravating as searing pain every keystroke or every turn of a wheel.  But I look at my hand and it's the picture of perfection.  Not a scar, not a crack.  Hell, I could be one of them there fancy hand models with this thing.



I think even if I time traveled to find the guy who cures cancer, he couldn't explain my hand.  Even the pain subsided when I looked at it.  Like it was all in my head.  As if I just remembered there's no pain because that's what my eyes registered.  I think this is where the Twilight Zone music starts.  Of course it doesn't.  I stare at my hand and I can only wonder what's going on.  Best explanation, dream sequence.  Movies use it, why can't I?



When what you know to be true suddenly is not, it must be a dream, right?  A dream or a nightmare.  I prefer the less hopeful of the options.  At least that way, when I wake up, I'll be relieved.  Wake up from a dream and you're only mad at the day that took you from ecstasy.  Wake up from a nightmare and you're grateful for what the day isn't.





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Flashback roughly 10 years, I'm 7 years old.  I'm 7 years old and I'm laying in a sweat soaked bed.  My sweat soaked bed, to be real specific with you.  I'm sick and I can't remember why.  Flu or explosive diarrhea, or anything in between.  But I'm in bed and I'm 7 and I'm bored.  Sick little boys never be left unattended for as long as I was.  Curious little minds must explore and when subjugated to a bed, we will still explore.  Everything is innocent to us.



Just as I was figuring out what kind of smell my earwax produced, I hear shouting.  It's Dad and his lady friend.  She's naked, clutching her clothes to her chest like some security blanket, hoping it'll bring her the peace she could never find herself.  Dad's yelling, his speech is slurred but he makes enough sense that I know what's going on.  Only a child is this attuned to their father's mood, because a child doesn't analyze, they know.  She had the sudden realization she loves him.  What follows is what seems like the fury of the gods.



His hand swung wide and open and broad across her slender face.  Even from my bedroom I could see her jaw shift.  Me, I'm discovering the delights of my own bellybutton.  She crumbles to the floor, used and tossed aside, just an object that's past it's prime.  The thud she makes is a wet sound, just meat.



Now I'm discovering the joystick in my underoos.  Just an object.

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I walk outside today and the world feels wrong.  There are so many ways this place can never be whole again.  The sky is dark and fat with looming storms.  The air is polluted with wailing sirens and hollow gunshots.  Any number of disreputable people make their way through these streets.  Most of them sporting hooded sweaters, concealing their identities.  Semblance of Death.  These hooded impostors, everyone of them is someone's personal grim reaper, dealing their fates.



Every step I take away from my door I feel myself get weaker.  More and more I feel their eyes on me, these impostors.  They all act for themselves, but all of them around me feel like a pack of wolves and I may be the hunt.  The cool sweat running down the back of my neck pools and saturates my collar.  It feels like all their eyes are on me, weighing me down.  Every step is worse.  As though their gaze carried the weight of their sins.



My step and my pulse both pick up pace.  My heart feels like it's shoving itself against my ribcage, matching rhythm with my shoes, smacking the sidewalk.  I wretch my head back and cough hard, successfully giving myself the feeling of spitting up a razorblade.  I'm practically sprinting now, barely dodging all these aspiring, would-be Deaths.  I'm not entirely sure where I'm going, but would you if your hand was obliterated yesterday and this morning it's brand new?



As I force my body through these macabre, plague ridden streets, I hear their calls "This new stuff, it'll make you fly."  They long for new blood. "First time's free, kids!"  More sugar coated lies.  Temporary solutions to permanent problems.



My body vaults over a mailbox, narrowly avoiding punting a terrier like a Nerf ball.  All of this feels more like someone else is steering, like I'm not the one reacting.  I can feel my right leg tucked beneath me as I sail through the air.  But I can't extend my leg, my body'll do that on it's own.  I know my left leg is stretched, ready to greet concrete, but I shouldn't move it.  But I can and I do, leaving my knee to break the fall.



Rough concrete and speed combine to easily disintegrate chunks of denim from my jeans and flesh of my knee.  This knee-sidewalk connection serves as a launch pad to shoot me forward.  Hands jut out in front of me, my safety mechanism.  My soft palms are practically shredded, stripped from bone.  Next on the list to instinctively slow my landing is the good side of my face.  Because one side is definitely better than the other.  Grinded down, my face is showing pure white bone.  Milky, pure, white bone.  From jaw to temple, there is unforgiving bone in place of my warm, welcoming face.



I stop.  I stop and this doesn't hurt nearly as much as it should.  I stand.  I stand up in the school parking lot, 3 miles away from where I started.  I started a little over 2 minutes ago, apparently going somewhere around 80 miles an hour.  I'm a fucking cheetah.



I glance down at my feet, my 80 miles an hour feet.  My reflection in the puddle beneath my shoes, half my face is gone.  Semblance of Death, I should be dead.  There's no blood loss, no messy mess.  I feel like an action hero, just come with me if you want to live.  Come with me if you want to see a freak of nature.



It's about this point, I feel like something might be wrong.  I'm not sure what I should do here.  There's the problem at hand and there's the rest of my life.  I'm torn between this... situation and the life I lead.  Does any normal man have the ability to face something like this and move on?  I'm vulnerable, exposed and waiting.  My 80 mile an hour feet.  I don't know if a normal man can, but I'm just a kid and I can't.  The flesh of my face is growing back, like some miracle man-lizard hybrid.  I can see it on my hands, growing like a chia pet on crack.