Impulse - Phan (discontinued)

chapter one - phil

chapter one - phil

Walking into a new school that is four hours away from your old house, friends, sports-- your old everything, is nerve-wracking for most. Luckily, I don't fit into the 'most' category as my mother likes to point out with a loving laugh. I have to agree. My brother, Martyn, certainly does, but is cool in his own way I have to admit.

Martyn is at University. He got good grades, followed the rules, he has an understanding of life. He want to become a physicist. String theory and quantum mechanics make sense to him as if someone asked him to draw a square. He's a giant nerd and science is just too weird for my liking. Honestly, what a weird and useless subject.

I guess the thought of moving didn't scare me because I could start over. It's not like I had some dark past, just made a couple of bad friends and maybe, accidentally, blew up a toilet. Long story short, don't get a toilet paper roll, set it on fire, and flush it. It ends up in a big explosion and a few of out of school suspensions.

My record was full of little things, detentions for turning in things late, talking back to teachers, skipping with those bad friends, but nothing major. I wasn't caught for blowing up the toilet, maybe I lied my way out of it, bribed the librarian at the time, non-other than my brother, and got off with a lecture from the principal about not making bad choices and the guidance counselor making me watch a video that sang: 'do, do, do unto others, as you would do, do, do unto you' over and over again.

I did have one good friend, her name was Amanda. People thought we dated, but we never even thought about that. We were just there for each other when we needed it. Amanda was good at most things, but excelled at theatre and is probably the reason why I love it and English class today. Amanda was pretty obsessive compulsive, she was actually diagnosed and freaked out at people when they said they were because they liked to organize things.

People weren't really that nice to her because of her little rituals, but I understood and accepted them. She was a good friend until she moved away and started going to an Arts' High School and we stopped talking. Nothing bad happened, just general loss of contact lead to loss of friends. She said I could call her up if I ever needed a helper with diction because whenever I made fun of her when she was practicing, she always told me to go suck a dick. She often sang it like opera.

Good times.

So here I am, teetering on the balls of my feet at the bus stop, practicing her diction exercises in my head, a nervous habit, looking down the street. I would drive, but Martyn took his car when he went to Uni. He said I could drive all year if he didn't get in and had to take a gap year, then he got accepted. Remember how I said I wasn't nervous? That was a little bit of a lie. Amanda told me I was a good actor.

'Diction is done with the tip of the tongue and the t.'

I think silently. My lips are moving along with my tongue. I hear them making barely audible noises. I stop. The bus turns a corner down the block and slowly approaches where I stand. I slowly climb the steps, nod at the driver, and take a seat near the front.

'Diction is done with the tip of the tongue and the t.'

I'm doing it again. I roll my eyes and bite my lip looking out the window. I think of Amanda again. I'm not nervous. I'm just a little anxious, apprehensive even, about this new school. Sure, it used to be a nervous habit to repeat diction exercises, but, I'm just carrying out a habit. Like Amanda would do. I smile half-heartedly.

We're nearing school. I kind of wish that mum and dad could have picked a house further away, but life is life and I have to deal with whatever crap it decided to throw at me. Hopefully I can dodge this shit. I smirk again. I think of blowing up the toilet. How the ball of white went up in flames then was gone, gone under the pipes, followed by a loud boom and the kids laughing as they covered their ears.