Noah Cicero
The Collected Works of Noah Cicero Vol. II
THE INSURGENT
BOOK 1
1
I should kill myself.
Things would be better if I did.
For me anyway.
I don’t know how it would affect global warming or penguins in Antarctica.
But it might help me.
I’m lying on the floor in my living room.
Curled up in the fetal position.
In the fetal position nothing can hurt me.
I’m safe.
Today is my day off.
I don’t know what to do with myself.
Time will pass and another dreary day will come.
My sister Sasha is on the computer playing solitaire.
She looks dissatisfied.
She takes care of me.
No one else will.
Everyone wants me to die and go to hell and be burned for eternity.
I’m not even sure why.
This is so horrible.
Sasha says, “Vasily, what the fuck are you doing?”
“I’m hiding.”
“From what?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Have you heard?”
“Heard what, that God is dead and we are alone?”
“Somebody named Cho shot a bunch of people.”
“Who the hell is Cho?”
“Cho is like the new superstar murderer.”
“How many did he kill?”
“Thirty-two.”
“That’s not nearly enough to make a difference,” I say.
“It says he made videos.”
“Like on YouTube?”
“I don’t know. Something like he made videos and rambled about how everyone hated him and shit.”
“I don’t need this.”
Sasha gets up and goes into the kitchen. I don’t know why she went in there. She seems to be doing something involving the refrigerator. I hear some liquid pouring.
I wonder if she is going to get a gun and kill me.
She should.
Killing me would be a good idea for her.
It would save her money.
I make only seven dollars an hour dishwashing at a steakhouse.
She has to feed me most days.
I can’t afford to live on this planet and eat.
I’m an atrocity to humankind.
Sasha returns from the kitchen and says, “Seriously, what is wrong? You’ve been on the floor for over an hour.”
“I got a letter.”
“What did it say?”
I pull the letter out of my pocket and hand it to her.
“Holy shit, Vasily, it says you owe the student loan people $10,000 and you have to pay it in one installment because you neglected to pay anything at all.”
“Yes, I know what it fucking says.”
“That’s bad.”
“My life is over. I am condemned to a life of misery. I will never succeed. Count me out of the game of life. I should kill myself.”
“Don’t say that. It reminds me of Lizaveta.”
“Lizaveta is dead.”
“I know Lizaveta is dead.”
“She has chosen to be no more.”
“You need to shut the fuck up,” Sasha says.
Lizaveta is our sister. Or was our sister. Lizaveta killed herself. She has been dead for a good while. I miss her sometimes.
“Let’s not talk about Lizaveta,” Sasha says.
“That sounds good.”
“So what are you going to do about this bill?”
“I suppose I’ll wait it out.”
“How are you going to wait it out?”
“I don’t fucking know. Die.”
“Die?”
“Yes, I’ll fucking die and then I’ll have no more $10,000 bill to pay back in one giant installment.”
“That’s not a good plan.”
“You got a better one?”
“No, I can’t think of anything.”
“See, I’m fucked, I’m condemned, I’m ruined. My life on this planet is ruined.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
“I can’t be a doctor or a lawyer or president with a bill like that.”
“No, that would be impossible.”
“See, impossible. My life is caged in. There is no escape. I’m going to die poor, alone, and naked.”
“And naked?”
“Yes, fucking naked!”
“Maybe you could get a better job.”
“A better job? Doing what? I have no skills, I didn’t finish college.”
“That’s true. You have no skills.”
“I’ll never get laid again.”
2
I’m sitting with Chang in his bathroom. Chang is in the bathtub washing himself. He is scrubbing like he is trying to remove his skin.
If you go to Chang’s house, you will most likely have to talk to him while he is in the bathtub. Out of politeness, he takes a bubble bath so you don’t have to see him fully naked. Even his parents have to endure this.
Chang looks at me and says, “You know why I’m washing myself, right?”
Chang does this routine about once a week.
“Yes, I know.”
“You know, when I was little. When I was coming over on the boat from China, they stuck my family and me down in a dark black hole to live in. We weren’t allowed out and there was no bathroom. So everyone shit in the corner of the room. It was horrible. The stink of shit was horrible. All you could smell was shit for weeks.”
“That sounds horrible.”
“Yes, it was terrible. But it became worse. My fucking brother Dong, that stupid asshole, decided to, out of a joke, throw me in the fucking shit!” Chang pauses for a second. A look of total anger comes over his face, then he goes, “My fucking brother threw me in the shit, then stood there laughing. Of course I was crying and screaming because I was five, and all he did was stand there laughing. Then my mother ran over in the darkness and beat the shit out of Dong, which almost made me feel better about being covered in shit, but didn’t, and never has.
“My mother picked me up out of the shit and carried me back over to our little corner of the hole we were traveling in. We could not spare any water so my mother took off my clothes and threw them in the shit, then began spitting on me so she could wipe the shit off. I was not only covered in shit, but then covered in spit. It was horrible, fucking horrible.” Chang pauses dramatically. “I still smell the shit. I still do. That’s why I take these baths, you know, because I still smell the shit.”
“Chang, when my dad threw me over the Berlin Wall, I got shot by a fucking Cossack. Getting shot is worse than getting shit on you.”
“I would take the bullet any day. What do you know of being covered in shit?”
“I know my fucking leg hurt like a bitch,” I say.
“It probably did hurt.”
“No shit, it fucking did.”
We sit there for a long time in silence.
We don’t do anything.
Times passes.
We don’t know what to say to each other. But we don’t expect anything to be said.
We know our lives are boring.
Chang lives in a tiny bedroom living off of SSI checks for post-traumatic stress disorder.
I go to work and sit alone waiting to die.
Our lives do not amount to much.
We are not powerful men.
We are weak little men.
We are so weak, pitiful and catastrophic.
Neither of us has any money in the bank.
We have no property.
People talk about
getting what you want out of life, grabbing life by the balls, sucking the marrow out of bones, going for your dreams, living the life of your dreams, being successful, working hard playing hard, taking advantage of all that is the American Dream.