Original: Excrutiate
Title: Excrutiate
Warnings: Don't read it if you're looking for something happy or fluffy.
Status: Complete.
Notes: Less of fiction than a ranting and railing and general outlet for negative thingues. I have not had a good night, in general. But still it's got really nothing to do with anything at all. Just a series of observations, I suppose.
It is - excruciating, to say the least, to walk alone down a busy street when all around are the giggling groups of girls or the boisterous bunches of boys, walking in pairs or threes or tens and forging their way recklessly down, parting the seas of pedestrians with their solidarity, utterly and absolutely fearless.
She's heard it talked about, that sense of losing all sense of individuality when in a group. At the same time, as she notes ironically now, you lose your reserve and better judgement. She sneers as she walks past a group that's garnering a lot of stares for their raucous laughter, thinking about how they were like sheep, with no visible head or tail, moving in a pack and 'baa'-ing loudly and ridiculously for all the world to hear.
If she could hear them she would probably throw something preferably heavy and large and hard at them. Goodness knows that the human race is already deteriorating far enough without mindless conversations about shoes and ball games - it surprises her, time and again, how much people can live in their own little glass-bubble worlds, surrounded by their creature comforts and fickle distractions, and just forget that there are things out there, people out there, whose only similarity with the portion of the human race living in the lap of luxury are that their worlds shatter just as easily. The difference is that theirs shatter more often, or already have.
But she understands that in a purely cosmetic world, some things are lost in translation. She thinks, hatefully, that all that girl in the bright green shirt and white tights need do is to find out who made that bag she's clutching under her arm. Chances are that it's some poor child, probably the age of her brat of a younger brother, hunched over in some crowded factory with red fingertips and callouses on his palms, dusty feet and sores on his legs, sitting through a 10-hour day with a 6-cent pay.
It is just as well that her earphones are in her ears, creating a bubble of sound around her that makes her feel invincible, untouchable, giving her the power to sneer at those mindless sheep. She sees the irony and hypocrisy in her own actions, but she doesn't think about how music makes her feel less lonely. Doesn't think about how she hasn't spoken in the past 6 hours because there simply isn't anyone to speak to, doesn't frustrate herself over how people's eyes just slide right past her. She fools herself on a regular basis, thinking and telling herself that she's better off alone, that she doesn't need these erstwhile acquaintances that people call 'friends', but when she catches her reflection in the glass of a shop window, she stares, surprised, as her own eyes take in her downturned lips and tears rising in her eyes.
And she can't help but think - if misery loves company, then why is she walking solitary down this busy street?
Warnings: Don't read it if you're looking for something happy or fluffy.
Status: Complete.
Notes: Less of fiction than a ranting and railing and general outlet for negative thingues. I have not had a good night, in general. But still it's got really nothing to do with anything at all. Just a series of observations, I suppose.
It is - excruciating, to say the least, to walk alone down a busy street when all around are the giggling groups of girls or the boisterous bunches of boys, walking in pairs or threes or tens and forging their way recklessly down, parting the seas of pedestrians with their solidarity, utterly and absolutely fearless.
She's heard it talked about, that sense of losing all sense of individuality when in a group. At the same time, as she notes ironically now, you lose your reserve and better judgement. She sneers as she walks past a group that's garnering a lot of stares for their raucous laughter, thinking about how they were like sheep, with no visible head or tail, moving in a pack and 'baa'-ing loudly and ridiculously for all the world to hear.
If she could hear them she would probably throw something preferably heavy and large and hard at them. Goodness knows that the human race is already deteriorating far enough without mindless conversations about shoes and ball games - it surprises her, time and again, how much people can live in their own little glass-bubble worlds, surrounded by their creature comforts and fickle distractions, and just forget that there are things out there, people out there, whose only similarity with the portion of the human race living in the lap of luxury are that their worlds shatter just as easily. The difference is that theirs shatter more often, or already have.
But she understands that in a purely cosmetic world, some things are lost in translation. She thinks, hatefully, that all that girl in the bright green shirt and white tights need do is to find out who made that bag she's clutching under her arm. Chances are that it's some poor child, probably the age of her brat of a younger brother, hunched over in some crowded factory with red fingertips and callouses on his palms, dusty feet and sores on his legs, sitting through a 10-hour day with a 6-cent pay.
It is just as well that her earphones are in her ears, creating a bubble of sound around her that makes her feel invincible, untouchable, giving her the power to sneer at those mindless sheep. She sees the irony and hypocrisy in her own actions, but she doesn't think about how music makes her feel less lonely. Doesn't think about how she hasn't spoken in the past 6 hours because there simply isn't anyone to speak to, doesn't frustrate herself over how people's eyes just slide right past her. She fools herself on a regular basis, thinking and telling herself that she's better off alone, that she doesn't need these erstwhile acquaintances that people call 'friends', but when she catches her reflection in the glass of a shop window, she stares, surprised, as her own eyes take in her downturned lips and tears rising in her eyes.
And she can't help but think - if misery loves company, then why is she walking solitary down this busy street?