I just needed to do something rash. I think I just wanted a big, fat, dramatic display of emotion. It didn’t matter what it was. It just needed to be something big—A bank robbery. A shooting! So I took Dad’s car. And the tree, the tree just got in the way!
I was in that crazy mood, you know, where you don’t know if you want to hit someone, or sob, or laugh maniacally until tears come, or just sit there, and space out.... Do you know that feeling? It’s weird. Up and down at the same time. Like a crash landing, where your stomach’s still going up and up and up while you’re just falling.
I guess that feeling is just a part of life—like bills, and taxes, and stopped-up sinks. No...It’s more like...I don’t know...helicopters. Yeah, helicopters! You know how helicopters hover over the ground, loudly, and distractingly? They draw too much attention to themselves. They make everyone anxious. They loop all over the sky, as if they were trying to make words. Sometimes, though, they’re so high up you don’t notice them. But that doesn’t mean they’re not there. Sometimes they take nose dives, crash, and kill everyone on board. I just wanted to shoot down the helicopter, before I got shot first....
See, I’ve been feeling stifled by school, and everything’s so busy. I’ve got no time for writing or crying, or art, or emotional kind of stuff. I mean, I’m so busy I hardly even DREAM anymore. I think I just needed an outlet, for the emotion, ideas, tears, energy, memories. Don’t you hate that tapless state of fullness? Busting to the brim with song and on the verge of weeping all at the same time? I hate that feeling.
I can’t find any answers. They're there—I know they’re there. They always are. Just, all the wrong ones are there, too. The right and wrong lined up at the starting line, waiting to begin, but when the gun goes off, who’s going to win? Why can’t they just sit still, divided by a nice, neat little wall like perfect military men all lined up by rank and serial number? Instead, they trip and tumble all over one another. Incomprehensible. Disordered. Imperfect. Sharp. I want to draw the lines between right and wrong, but everything’s down to a shot in the dark, because they’ve turned off my eyes and nose and ears. I feel nothing but the trigger. A shot in the dark.