Pain

There’s nothing better than reading a really wet and soppy SCAB. Yeah. You know what I mean. 

You are approaching what feels like your lowest point of the week. You are sat on the bus, you have 45 minutes of travelling before you get home for a 10pm, cold dinner, so you flip open your phone to indulge in the stories of some poor sucker who has had it even worse than you that week. Perhaps they have lost their laptop, they have had a break up, their pet has died, they lost their portfolio. It’s really hard for them, and it makes you smile. Because at this stage of the year, all of the happiness has leaked out of our bodies, and to witness the pain of others is our only remaining salvation.

Yesterday I sat on the couch doing a crossword at lunch break. While I was relaxing, just a few metres away, my fellow student was crying on the shoulder of another fellow student. It would have been polite to get up and move, to allow them some privacy. Instead, I scooched closer until I was within spitting distance of these two, so that I could catch every intonation of sorrow in their voices.

“I just don’t think anybody really gets how hard it is for me.” Said the student.

I laughed out loud, and they turned and looked at me as though I were a lunatic.

As I walked away, I scratched the word PAIN into the crossword. A four letter emotion that can be a substitute for passion.

It’s all we know right now. And I suppose that we all think that we have it the hardest. And I suppose it’s because we do so much of it to ourselves, that even the slightest imbalance outside of the school can completely throw us off. If you are reading, the only solution I can propose is that you start to really enjoy the suffering of others. There’s plenty of it to soak up.

It’s messed up, and it reminds me of my days as a teenager, spending my morning breaks watching The Pain Olympics with my best friends. The five of you sit there, huddled around a screen while a man staples his testicles to a desk on YouTube. You cover your eyes. It’s grotesque, and part of you doesn’t want to watch. But then, as you recognise the screams, the sound of human pain, some force pulls your fingers apart, opening a gap just wide enough to make sure you get a damn good look.