Satin Trousers

 

Simon sat listlessly staring at his shin, wondering uncaringly whether it would make any more sudden moves. It did not. It seemed the shin had sufficed itself with harsh painful jerking for the time being and had settled down to behave as a normal human shin.

 

He looked up to notice the teacher was leering angrily over him again. She pointed viciously at the paper he had before him and then at the chalk board. The board said “Pages 57-59 odd” and his paper had the word “Carp” written on it 731 times.

 

“You are going to fail this class young man and I am not going to put up with you for another year. Now get to work!” She hit him in the cheek with a No. 2 pencil and he collapsed over into his imagination once again. Flocks of oily door hinges where flying about his head and singing in a melodious light lilt. He listened carefully to make out what they were saying but could only discern the warning to avoid applying denture cream on your genitals as it causes a severe and painful rash. The masochistic part of him dutifully cataloged this for future use and he leaned back up straight in his desk again.

 

Barbara was staring at his nose again. This was a daily habit she had developed after getting through puberty. She would spend between eight and sixteen minutes of the classtime staring at his nose, but no one ever saw her doing it but Simon himself and she seemed to regard him with the same disdain she usually did when she snapped back out of it. He began to make circles with his nose and watched as her eyes dutifully followed. He tried to hide it under his hand, but she could still tell it was there and would continue to stare until her allotted time for the study had passed.

 

Finally the bell rang and he was able to leave math. Unfortunately that only meant that it was time for biology and another fun filled day with Edgar. Edgar was already waiting at their table when Simon arrived. He had taken seven pieces of industrial wiring each approximately three and a half inches long and shoved the ends of them into the table so that they stood crookedly jutting out of it. He was now taking a thin copper wire and connected the ends of each wire to each other and then to a D size battery. From the D battery he had run a final copper wire that was pushed into the soft skin of his wrist. He had run this final wire about two inches into his forearm and somehow kept it near the surface of the skin so it was easy to see and also drew a minimal amount of blood. Of course the whole procedure was completely unscientific and pointless but not even the teacher would dare interrupt Edgar from his self annihilation. Simon found himself kicking Edgar in the leg out of disgust and dislike and promptly quit as he had not intended to do such a thing.

 

“Why do I have such a big hand?” He wondered to himself looking miserably at it. A bizarre deformation of his left eye threw random objects into queer distortions and he always noticed how much bigger his left hand was to the right one. He hated catching anything and always walked with the big hand in his pocket. He had even carefully torn the pockets on all his pants as he was certain his hand would not fit in them normally. Some nights he would run cold water over it hoping to reduce the swelling or whatever it was that made his hand so huge, but this usually left him sick since he would fall asleep to the soothing sound of running water and wake to find his face smashed up against the mirror, his pants wet with his urine and a fever from having been chilled by the cold running water all night. His mother would never understand his problem and would continually pummel him when he missed school screaming “Idiot! Idiot! Idiot!”

“Simon, why don’t you write the answer on the chalkboard for us.” His heart started to race as he awoke from his hand delusion. He had no idea what to write on the chalkboard. In fact in his terror stricken state he could not understand what a chalkboard was. “I’m sorry sir, I missed the question.”

 

“Did you hear that class? Simon missed the question. Oh, poor Simon. Whatever did we take you away from that demanded so much more attention that Biology?”

 

“Nothing sir, I was just daydreaming.” He tried to hide his hideous hand under the table as his cheeks flushed bright red.

 

“Daydreaming! I’m so sorry I didn’t realise I was interrupting your sleepy time Simon! How insensitive of me! To think you would be listening during your Biology lesson has to be the most incredulous idea I have come up with in a long time. Wont you forgive me Simon and get up and write the answer to question number three on page 289.”

 

Simon quickly turned to page 289 in hope that it would ask something like Which is taller, a giraffe or a balloon? Instead the question was Name the fatty layer between the outer skin and the inner body.

 

Simon dragged his feet slowly towards the blackboard, wishing it would start moving backwards away from him so he would never reach it. Unfortunately it didn’t take long before he had the chalk in his trembling small hand. The other was dutifully plugged deep in his pocket. He stared blankly at the board noticing the streaks of white from words that had been erased and trying to see if he could make out an answer from the previous class. He finally made out something starting with an S and ended spelling the word Sacramento.

 

The teacher nodded unsurprised as Simon trudged back to his desk. Simon looked on as Edgar jerked in his chair with his eyes glazed over. The D battery was foaming over with acid and the copper wire had already gone green.

“Class this is what happens when baboons mate. ”The teacher said pointing at Simon’s receding form. “If stupid people would simply stay away from each other we would be alright. Just leave us smart people to pork each other and we’ll have a wonderful little world here.”

 

Simon blanked out from the ridicule and woke again as the buzzer sounded once more. He started to get up to leave class when he noticed a note on his lap. It was written with a dull pencil and was difficult to read but was definitely a girl’s handwriting. It said, 'Simon I think its awful the way he makes fun of you and I think they should take his teaching license away. I also think its wonderful the way you keep your hand in your pocket and I wish you’d put it in mine. Take me big boy take me for a wild ride.' He didn’t need to read anymore to realise it was from Marcie the youthful whore of the high school. He was relatively certain she was still a virgin but that was mainly due to bad luck more than caution. Then again, he was only 13 and didn’t know anything about anything.

 

“I wish I understood the cruelty of this world and could find a way to end all the suffering.”

 

“Aw shut up ya fag!” Lawrence the bully grabbed him from behind and shoved his face into an open locker. “You fags really make me mad.” He said and slammed the locker into the back of Simon’s head. His head cracked from the simple force and air sifted in to disturb the pressure around his brain. He saw flashes of various colors sparkle before his eyes when a three ring binder toppled over and the loose unspiralled end dug deep in the folds of his mind. Sounds began to echo and fade when Simon smiled, visualising the answer to his own question.