Attack of the Real World

This is an old piece of mine, from back in April. It's fairly surrealist gonzo fiction, so dive in and have fun. 

Attack of the Real World:

I’ve heard it said by a friend that any graduate student is actively avoiding the “Real World”. And by “avoiding”, said speaker made it seem that grad students think of that place the way a cat thinks of a bath; that we’re dragged in, clawing and screaming obscenities. She could also be saying that we’ll look like wet rats when we’re done – I can never be sure with Sue.

Is she a graduate student herself? Of course not. She’s an atypically uneducated angry feminist. She doesn’t believe in higher education; only righteous fury, drugged up croissants, and tit-thumping. The last thing is her masochistic way of bringing equality to the hyper-masculine – and until you’ve seen somebody like Sue beat her chest like a silverback gorilla, you haven’t lived. Or feared. It’s a bit of both.

Up until a month ago, I deigned to listen to her rage-filled wisdom. I ignored her, and clung on to the debt-ride with all the tenacity of a capuchin on crystal that just chugged two liters of Mountain Dew. There’s no goddamned fun in running away from a Real World that doesn’t scare me anymore. It used to, though. God’s wounds, it was fearsome!

It broke into my apartment last month, snarling and breathing out of phone bill-shaped nostrils, drooling all over my carpet – Hey, you fucker, I’m going to have to clean that up, I yelled from behind a very comfortable couch, as it screeched and a spittle of responsibility went splat on my wall. I ducked, and watched the paper loogie trickle down the off-white wall with a slowed, glue-like consistency. The Real World stomped its way into the living room, knocking over an Apples to Apples box and breaking the nice big ol’ coffee table I got at a garage sale for $20 and turning its giant, ugly, fiendish face my way. I looked it right in the goddamned eyeholes and I felt the hot breath rushing into my face, as it found a foothold on my very comfortable couch and stared me down.

I blinked, and it breathed heavier. We stared at each other, its form not unlike a hybrid of mountain cat, tiger shark, and pure toothy slobbering nightmare. A measure of composure was all I could try to hold on to, because the Real World was on my couch, wrecking my apartment, and breathing in my face.

Sue walked in the open front door and said, Oh, hey, I see you finally let it in, as if she was talking about me changing the pictures on the wall, a fine quiche, or reading the book-of-the-month from six books-of-the-month ago. She seemed remarkably calm, given the fact that the Real World was less than five inches away from making my trademark grin into a face-quiche. I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything – the goddamned thing wanted to mangle me beyond recognition. If I made the slightest move at ALL - an eye twitch, a sneeze, or an utterly freaked-out cry for help - it would attack, and my days would’ve been over.

I took a slow, slow, deep breath, and decided to chance it, screaming at the monstrosity and diving to the right. It leapt and plowed right into my roommate’s room, knocking her off her bed as it crashed through the drywall in a giant, messy affair. I did the only reasonable, rational thing that could be done in such a situation; I grabbed a big fucking knife and take Sue hostage.

DON’T MOVE, YOU SON OF A BITCH, OR THE TIT-THUMPER GETS IT! I howled at the beast, and moved the knife quickly to her throat. I MEAN IT!

The Real World repositioned itself, leaping back into the living room and - YOU FUCKER! - it ripped through part of the couch. My big knife tensed up; I really did like that couch. It looked, watched, and examined me the way I look at a Porterhouse steak. Except I didn’t look medium rare and delicious – I was a steak with an oversized stabbing utensil, damn it, and I wouldn’t get shish-kebab’d without a fight.

It growled with feral intent and eyed me carefully. It didn’t care about Sue. Crap. I immediately realized that I should’ve grabbed one of the kittens, like First Job, Internship, or Living At Home - they always make better bargaining chips with the Real World, to stay the mother’s fierce guardian hand.

But that would never work. The Real World jealously guards its young, and only lets you get so close as to pet them once in a while. You’d have to be brave or damn near insane to think about grabbing one and running off, screaming like a fire engine as big bad momma Real World tries to take a giant chomp out of your posterior. You need an ass of steel, not iron-clad reproductives. She gets a chomp in, you’re done, limping along until she strikes and viscerally finishes the job.

I didn’t even have a bronze nose, much less buns of steel, so all I could do is wave my big fucking that-ain’t-a-knife-THIS-is-a-knife around. She swatted and poked right at me, around Sue, proving that the tactical use of a Feminist as a human shield does nothing – after all, the Real World ignores them, and if it did acknowledge them, they’d hardly be a threat.

I was just full of bad fucking moves that day.

I threw Sue aside, frantically looking around for a better form of rhetoric to defend myself with. Nothing. I used up the last of my Hedonism the week before at a law school rager, and I didn’t care enough to get more Apathy. It was just me and the beast. I couldn’t have throw Derrida, Barthes, or even Conquergoode at it - the Real World never thought academia was worth a damn - so I’m all on my own, as it bared its fangs and lunges for a bite.

GAH damn it, I looked down at the wound, and it was barely a papercut, but how? How did something hurt so goddamn bad in my head do so little damage? And then I got it.

I got it, and Deus Ex Machina ahoy, my new Perspective Frames dropped from a hand in the ceiling - Sweet, thanks, I said to the chimerical hand, and put them on. All of the sudden, the Real World became something much smaller and more manageable – a housecat. It hurt like a god damned mother, but with that new perspective, I was all set, and I couldn’t stop laughing at the little bastard I thought was so much bigger. It sidled up to my leg, and I feel the brush of crumpled paper as it purrs. Son of a bitch, it likes me.

Unfortunately, the damage was done. My nice big ol’ coffee table and the very comfortable couch were in mangled pieces. Sue just looked at me, laughing, because she saw the whole thing as it was – even in spite of being held hostage, she was laughing. And then she called me the crazy one.

She, tit-thumper of the wacky croissants, was calling ME crazy? Shit. I couldn’t even wrap my mind around it. My frightened roommate peeked out through the hole and said What the hell just happened?

The Real World bounded on its little kitty legs over to the hole, and with dexterous faculty, leapt up the couch, licked its paws, and mewed at my roommate. She didn’t see the Real World the way I did. She fainted, I laughed, and then called up a guy to have the wall fixed. The Real World curled up on my butchered couch and fell asleep.

I don’t run away anymore. I just leave out a saucer of milk and I’m all set, because let’s face it – you take care of the Real World, it takes care of you.

And if you don’t, it’ll pee on your couch.