Liberate a fish, don't explode a bunny!

One, two, three… “EXPLODING SPIDERS”… one two three, “KILLER RABBITS”… one, two, three… “EXPLODING MITTENS! Ughh, transform already!” 1

Angrier than he had been in months, and that included since his girl friend dumped him, his baby gold fish had died, and he had discovered a suicide note from his mother on the front door the day after she had stepped in front of that train, Justin Tibby yelled at the sheet of paper before his eyes, in a desperate attempt to invent a last minute story line, or something that would help him to escape the hell that was his reality. 2

One, two, three… he counted again in his head. What were the right words that he needed to describe his agony? 3

“DRUG ADDICTED LAMMAS!” 4

He shouted out the words, louder than he had shouted out any of the previous ones and yet, nothing. He slammed his head against the table. Great, just great, he was going to have to go see the therapist tomorrow. 5

The therapist had been court ordered, after the third suicide attempt, and after the fact that he had not been able to provide the Judge with any proof that he was working on his own self therapy: a poetry collection. 6

The therapist’s name was Dr. Anne V. Telouse, aka the most unattractively tantalizing woman that Justin had ever met in his life. She was ugly, that was for sure. God damn ugly, with what was sure to be a prosthetic leg, a boob job gone bad, and fading gray hair that she always kept inside the sharp confides of a bun. But at the same time she always wore a tight black suit that showed off her not yet aging figure, and wore a sort of perfume that he had only smelled once… while walking through Victoria Secret’s with an old girlfriend… that was before she had done the blonde guy in one of the Dillard’s dressing rooms… 7

“So, Justin.” 8

“Anne?” He replied, walking into the office, and very promptly, just like he did every day, plopped himself onto the sofa. There he stared at the wall examining all the degrees that the woman had received. An undergrad in psych from Kentucky State, a masters in forensic psychology from Princeton, and his personal favorite, a PHd from Oxford University. He liked to stare at it staring at him from beneath its mahogany frame and envision the funny British accents that the men who issued it had probably worn. 9

Piercing her sharp lips, the woman smiled. She curved her legs around the legs of her chair and primping her skirt took out her clipboard and her pencil. 10

“Did you have a good week at school?” 11

“Ehh about the same. Only considered suicide once this week though, considered hanging myself in the locker room.” 12

“Really… how come?” 13

“Writer’s block.” Justin responded, drifting his eyes away from the woman to back to the PHd. 14

“Hmm suicide over writer’s block. That’s a new one.” 15

“Well it sounds better, doesn’t it? Less clichéd than if I said that I was going to kill myself because my mother left a suicide note on the for me on the front door saying that she was going to go jump in front of a train because she didn’t love me anymore.” 16

“And that’s important to you, being less clichéd Justin?” 17

“Yes.” Justin said, staring up at the PHd certificate. He didn’t say anything else during that session. 18

Pretty eyed fish, pretty eyed cats, and then the pretty eyed girl who stood behind the counter of the pet store. The more Just thought about it, the more he realized that he didn’t want his life to sound like a Life Time Movie. He wanted it to sound like a Dr. Seuss book. He wanted it to rhyme. 19

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish. He thought, looking at the fish swimming around in the tank. He hoped that if he stared at them long enough she would come over, and she did. She was the most beautiful girl whom he had ever seen. Beautiful to him, comprising of this: small tits, nonbleach blonde hair, and a height and a weight that surpassed his. 20

To him, she was beautiful. This sales girl who was taller than him, fatter than him and fitted with braces and curly red hair. 21

“May I help you sir?” She asked, practically snorting the words through her nose. 22

Justin smiled. 23

“Yes, you can… Veronica…” He read the name off of her name tag. 24

“What’s her name?” Anne V. Telouse asked, the next week. 25

“Veronica Shillings.” Justin responded, looking up at the Oxford certificate. 26

“What have you told her about yourself?” 27

“That I’m an orphaned senior in high school who is trying to write his way into the world. The relationship works out well, she’s a junior, and the seventh man off the bench for Gilly High’s girl’s junior varsity basketball team. She likes ice cream. Her mother works the night shift at McDonalds; her father is a security guard at a used car dealership. They both work double shifts so that she can go to college in two years. She wants to become a vegetarian.” 28

“You mean veterinarian?” 29

“No vegetarian. Veronica works at the pet shop because she is an avid animal rights activist. She also enjoys eating ice cream every Saturday at Cold Stone’s on the small bench outside. She’s mentally retarded.” 30

“I see. And you like her…?” 31

“Because she’s different. I want my life to be non clichéd doctor, less dramatic.” 32

“I see. I want you now Justin to focus on something new, I want you to look at these pictures and…” 33

Justin turned over his head, and sighed. He was done talking. This was when therapy started to become clichéd. 34

Clichéd, Justin pondered the word over and over again as gradually his life drifted into what was really on everyone’s mind: college.35

“Mr. Tibby, I want you to take this test seriously. Here at Rothwell High school we believe that all of our fine students, not only the one’s college bound, can amount to something in this world.” The counselor, Mr. Richmond said, during their meeting. It was a tradition at Rothwell High school, a necessary evil, that the school guidance counselor met with all of the seniors, and encouraged the ones that weren’t going to college to do something more productive with their lives. Productive meaning deciding what kind of job would be better: a job at the local McDonalds or a job at the dying city furniture factory, right down the road. The means by which this path was discovered was of course, the career test. 36

“I’ll do my best to take it as seriously as I can, Mr. Richmond.” Justin responded, taking out a pencil and leaning back into the wooden chair. Mr. Richmond passed him the paper. 37

Question One: How often do you take a hike in the woods?38

a) Everyday.39

b ) Once a week.40

c) Once a month.41

d) Only when the weather is nice.42

All Justin had to do was look at the first question, and instantly he was bored. Like he did with every standardized question that he didn’t want to answer he bubbled the middle answer “C” very darkly and very deeply with his pencil.43

“So what did you do this week, Justin?”44

Anne asked him, curving out the texture of her pin stripe skirt. It was new, Justin observed as he sat down in the seat. Maybe after therapy was over, he could write a story about pinstriped elephants. That would be original, wouldn’t it?45

“I took a career test, Anne.” He responded, smiling brightly.46

“Really? So tell me, how did that go?”47

“I answered C for everything—but I got a different career this time, last time my God ordained career was Marine Biologist.”48

“And this time?”49

“Janitor.”50

“I see. Why do you think that the results were so different this time, Justin?”51

“Because I’m not going to college, Anne.”52

“Why? The judge assured me that you were a straight A student, with a little bit of a dilemma.”53

Blinking Justin looked up from her pinstripe skirt, and at her face.54

“Can you imagine my college application? I’ve seen the essay prompts, describe one obstacle that you’ve over come in your life and how it shaped you. In my case, it would be describe twenty obstacles in your life, and explain how they’ve all screwed you up. The story itself would bore the person who was reading my app. He has better things to do then read 20 pages worth of someone’s personal dilemmas.”55

“Three suicide attempts, a dead mother, a dramatic end to a high school relationship, and a father who--…” 56

“Don’t talk about my father! … It just makes things so much more clichéd than they already are.” He said, and very abruptly, laid down upon the sofa and closed his eyes. He was done talking.57

“Justin?” He heard his name called, from amidst the licking of an ice cream cone.58

“Yes, Veronica?” He responded, looking away from the big SUV that had just pulled into the parking lot and at the girl sitting on the bench beside him, enjoying her favorite Saturday special: A French Vanilla creation, with sprinkles.59

“Where do you live?” She asked, twisting her tongue around the ice cream.60

“In my mother’s apartment… why?” He asked, smiling at how cute she looked.61

“Oh, nothing. Because mom, dad and I live in a house.”62

“What’s your house look like?” He asked, still smiling as she slurped through the ice cream.63

“It’s pink on the outside. But mostly gray on the inside. Though once dad gets that promotion we’re going to paint it white, that’s mom’s favorite color. What’s your apartment look like, Justin?”64

Justin’s smile fell.65

“Gray.” He responded, noticing with a little bit of disappointment at how the girl’s eyes changed. They reduced in size, and her tongue, began to drift slowly through the ice cream.66

“When your dad gets a promotion, will he paint it your mother’s favorite color?”67

“I don’t talk to my father. Veronica.” It pained him, for some unexplainable reason to watch as suddenly her tongue stopped moving altogether, and her attention completely dislocated from her ice cream to his speech. 68

“Why? Did he do something wrong?”69

“No.”70

“Then why don’t you talk to him?”71

“Because he’s done everything right.” Justin responded, watching with a smile as confusion rose upon the girl’s face.72

“That’s a funny excuse not to talk to someone. What’s he do for a living?”73

“He manages a Chicken farm.”74

Instantly the girl’s expression turned sour and with a crinkle of her nose she went back to licking her creation.75

“What a disgusting man! Poor chickens.”76

“Yeah.”77

Justin had never believed in the saying “Speak of the Devil”, partly because his mother had said it all the time, but when the intercom buzzed during his second period and told him to report to the main office, he became very suspicious.78

It was the way that his father did things. He did them in style. Only his father would come to a city high school, dressed in a black business suit that smelled like blood. Only his father would stand at the front desk of the office, flirting with Stacy Velmer’s mother, who used be a playboy bunny before she became fat. Only his father, only his father…79

“People used to say that I looked like my father, when I was little, Anne.” Justin said, looking at the certificate mounted on the wall from Oxford.80

“What does your father look like, Justin?”81

“Tall, dark, handsome. Ha. He looks like a modern day John Wayne.”82

“I always thought that John Wayne was a very attractive man, Justin… Tell me, what exactly do you have against your father?”83

“He’s clichéd, Anne. He’s perfect. He’s handsome; he’s a successful business man, who in his desire to be on top left my mother when I was five…”84

“His wife committed suicide by jumping out in front of a train.”85

“It only makes his life more perfect, because that’s the perfect way to die. It’s dramatic. Its clichéd.”86

He was expecting to get bored, for Anne to ask him an additional question about this train of thought. But she didn’t and just when he was about to close his eyes and not pay attention, she posed something very interesting.87

“What did your father do, when he came to pick you up at school Justin?”88

“He took me out to lunch. KFC.”89

“What happened?”90

“I didn’t eat anything.”91

“Why?”92

“Because of animal rights. I’m going to become a vegetarian instead of going to college.”93

“What did your father and you talk about?”94

“Things…”95

“What sort of things?”96

“Important things…”97

Things that the world didn’t need to know. He thought when the exacerbated land lord knocked on his door at 3 am the following morning.98

It didn’t surprise him. His father always managed to do things in style. It was the perfect way to go, getting shot. He had left his mother, this very apartment for perfection: a blonde intern with fake breasts. Now he had had the ultimate end, killed by a gunshot wound to the head. He had been in deep, for the last couple of years. Beneath all that perfection there laid an addiction to high stakes internet poker. There had been a recent game of poker that had become so high stake that what his father ended up owing by the end of it was more than two of Justin’s college funds put together. 99

It was an interesting conversation, for a son to have with a father. A conversation which consisted of first learning that even if you wanted to go to college and be like him, you did not have the means to do so, and then learning later on, that your father wasn’t perfect. He had a gambling addiction, and had used up your entire college fund in an attempt to pay off his debt. Only once the college fund was used up, what was left to pay the debts? The answer was plain and simple and was in Justin’s suit pocket that afternoon, at the funeral.100

It rained and rained, making the dirt turn into mud around the hole where his father’s coffin was going to be laid. His father was broke; he hadn’t left him with any money. At the same time however, he hadn’t left him with any debts either. All debts were paid now, now that the coffin was placed into its grave. All debts were paid, which made the death threat that his father had received a piece of trash. Within the contents of his suit pocket, Justin’s thumbs played tug of war and eventually tore the piece of paper in half. The piece of paper with the threat on it just made the whole incident more stylish, more dramatic, more clichéd.101

One, two, three… “MAFFIA GANGSTERS!” One, two, three… “Pinstriped elephants!” One, two, three… “Polka dotted leopards!”102

It was the worst case of writer’s block that Justin had ever had in his entire life. Nothing, not even the death of his father, seemed to break it.103

He was in the gray living area of his apartment that evening. Trying to write instead of doing his homework. If he managed to break this writer’s block, and write lots of depressing poems it would sure as hell make the double dose of court ordered therapy, and the recent suicide watch more bearable. If he could write depressing poetry, Anne and himself could talk about that. She could critique it; give him PHd quality comments, instead of protruding into his own, boring, overdramatic clichéd life. 104

It surprised Justin that there was a knock on the door at midnight that night. With both parents dead who would want to speak to him at this late hour?105

He opened the door, pleasantly surprised to see a pair of brown eyes looking down upon him.106

“Veronica.” He said smiling. Veronica, however, was not smiling. Very quickly she rushed into the room.107

“I hope I haven’t been followed Justin.”108

“What’s wrong Veronica?” Justin questioned, curiously looking at the girl. It was very odd; Veronica had a strict schedule surrounding her wardrobe. She only wore her work uniform to work, between the hours of 4 and 8. It was midnight. She should have changed hours ago.109

“I-I did something bad.”110

“How bad?”111

“I stole…”112

Curiously, Justin regarded the girl, and very quickly a smile grew upon his face when he saw what she pulled out of her purse.113

“Will you help us, Justin?”114

“Walking is probably the quickest way.”115

Seriously, Veronica nodded.116

How did you make a life that was so terribly and horribly trite, original? How were you supposed to heal so many old wounds and so many old memories? 117

The answer was simple, the more Justin thought about it. He discovered the solution that night, when Veronica approached him in his apartment with her problem. That visit changed his life. 118

The answer was simple, the answer was sweet. You didn’t spend long nights gazing at a sheet of paper and yelling out phrases about exploding animals. You didn’t make out in the mall with ugly big boobed beach blonde girls only to have your heart broken. You didn’t yell at your mother every night after dinner, only to find her one day snapped in two by a train. You didn’t spend millions of dollars on your image, only to have it literally blown away by an underlying poker addiction. You didn’t spend hours talking to a therapist, about all the things that were going wrong in your life. You didn’t bubble “C” in all the spaces on your career tests. No, you were nice to people. You respected life, and you looked at things with a very innocent eye. 119

You helped your mentally retarded romance interest in the task of freeing millions of spotted fish, who were going to be fed to aquatic snakes if they weren’t sold by Friday. 120

There was a creek behind the apartment where he lived. It just took a little walk to get there. In the dark, however, this was complicated, especially when the cargo consisted of twenty plastic bags filled to the brim with water stuffed into an oversized purse, and the only light source available was a pen sized flashlight. In the dark it was harder to see, not only how to get to the creek, but upon arrival how to burst the plastic bags with a sewing needle so that the refugees could be free.121

“Eeek, Justin let me handle Spotty!”122

“But he looks like all the other spotties.”123

“This one is different, he’s my favorite!”124

For the first time in a while, a long while, Justin began to laugh, really honest to God laugh and then smile, Justin sincerely smiled, as another plop echoed in the dark. Another fish was free!125

That was how Justin Tibby cured his writer’s block, and consequently his life: in those laughs, and in that feeling of liberation.126