The last thing Shawn could remember was Gus hanging up on him, and after that, everything got fuzzy.

This was remarkably disturbing. With his gift of observation came the gift of photographic memory. He had come to rely on his memory as one of his greatest assets. He remembered everything- it was his gimmick- his shtick. He was not supposed to forget long periods of time- it just didn’t happen to him (of course, this only applied while he was at least mostly sober, but he didn‘t feel at all hung over at the moment…). That, however, was only a contributing factor to his current state of unrest. What truly worried him was his location- not, as he would have hoped, in his apartment, his father’s home, Gus’s place, the station, or anywhere else good. Actually, the only thing he could say with certainty, was that nearly anywhere else would be better than where he was now.

“Here” was in a van. Now, normally that wouldn’t have been a real big deal. Actually, a van was usually a fairly good place to find oneself. However, at the moment, he was in a van upside down, which was definitely NOT the way a van was supposed to be. Furthermore, his hands were tied behind his back- and the guy lying crumpled up on the roof beneath him had a gun sticking out of the back of his pants. There was another guy in the van, too-- up in front. He was moaning, and his arms hung limply down at his side, so that his hands rested on the ceiling. Both were in varying states of unconsciousness, except possibly the one on the floor- the one on the floor wasn’t moving, and Shawn couldn’t tell if he was breathing, either. Shawn could only contribute his own awareness to the fact that he, ironically, was the only one wearing his seat belt properly- over his lap and across his chest. Groaning-Guy had his over his lap only. Evidently, floor-guy hadn’t been wearing one at all.“F-fuck…”

Deciding to move was easy- but moving was harder. As mentioned before, his arms were tied behind his back, and as his arms were tied, his hands were successfully incapacitated as well. This, thought Shawn, had probably been the intent all along. Stupid kidnappers with their terrible driving and not using seat belts… stupid cars with their seat belts which required hands to undo them… stupid…

“Fuck!” at some point during his internal whining, he’d managed to get his hands on the button for the seatbelt and released himself. Of course, with gravity being what it was, he immediately dropped down onto the floor-- or, ceiling, rather-- landing head first on floor-guy. Floor-guy ‘oomphed!’ and groaned, moving a little. Well, he wasn’t dead, anyway. Shawn wasn’t sure whether he should be glad that he hadn’t just landed on a dead guy, or worried about one more kidnapper with a gun. At any rate, he scrambled furiously to get off of floor guy and to the door. Sure, he was glad floor-guy wasn’t dead-floor-guy, but just the same, he didn’t want to be on top of someone who was bound to either die or wake up and start shooting at any time. He backed up, right against the door, half-numb fingers already questing for the handle.

This proved harder than expected.

The door handle rested right about even with Shawn’s shoulders, and the floor (real floor, of course- not the ceiling) was two low for him to even come close to standing up to reach it. He had to stand in an awkward half stoop, groping around thin air to reach the handle. He became so engrossed in this endeavor that he was only dimly aware of another thud and ‘oomph’ coming from the front of the van as the groaning guy undid his belt and crashed face first into ceiling; and, perhaps it was the head trauma, but he was slow to react. Slow enough, apparently, for groaning-guy to hold up his gun in a wobbly hand and growl “Don’t move!” In pain-shakey tones.Well, damn…

“Sit down, and move away from the door.”

As he obeyed the pale, bleeding guy with the gun, it occurred to Shawn that if he didn’t know where he was, it was a good bet that no one else knew where he was either. That… wasn’t good. Actually, it was pretty bad. He would have gladly put up with lectures from his dad, Gus, and Lassiter if it meant not being on the other end of the gun just then. “Right, sure, no problem! No need to point guns at me, don’t want to be any trouble at all…”

The guy was still laying down, and with the distance between them being only a few feet, Shawn could make out that the guy’s leg was sticking sideways at a weird angle- broken, probably. He was wearing a silver cross around his neck on a worn leather band, and he spoke with a vague southern accent. Shawn filed this all away in his head- at the moment it didn’t seem all that important. What seemed most important was the way the man’s trigger finger was shaking violently.

“Sh-shut up.” Shawn shut up, snapping his jaw shut with a click. For a long moment there was only silence as the man lay his head down, temporarily lowering the gun. Shawn had a few seconds to entertain the idea of rushing the guy, but before he could tell himself it was a stupid idea that would get him killed, the guy had raised his head again and nodded at Floor-Guy. “He breathing?”

Shawn nodded.

“Oh thank God.” Shawn was tempted, but determined not to mention the fact that the guy’s relief might have been premature. The guy behind him was breathing, yes, but it was slow and labored, and the way having a hundred and something pound man fall on him hadn’t woken him up didn’t bode well. No need to share that bit of info, though… The man shifted, struggling to get upright, finally managing to get into a sitting position and lean against the front window, which was somehow miraculously still in place- though cracked in about a hundred places. He sat there for a long moment, pale faced and eyes closed. “Move and I’ll kill you.” He muttered, waving the gun.

For the moment, Shawn thought obeying might be in his best interest.

***
By this point, Gus was rather proud of himself. It had been four hours since he’d gotten off the phone with Shawn, and this was the first worried thought he’d had yet. Not bad, considering the fact that Shawn had called complaining of noises outside his apartment complex and begged Gus over. An obvious ploy, of course. Had he gone to the apartment, Gus knew without a doubt that Shawn would, doubtless, leap out of the bushes, scaring the ever-living shit out the him. It was a scenario that had been played out again and again, and Gus felt confident enough that this was merely a repeat to wait four full hours before calling Shawn back.

Of course, it probably would have been a bigger accomplishment if it wasn’t five in the morning, and he hadn’t stayed up worried all night.

But that was all beside the point. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand as he punched in the numbers. Shawn’s phone rang, once, twice, three times on the other end before;

“Shawn here,”

“Oh, hey Shawn, just wanted to call and-”

“Oh, hey, how’s it going?” That was weird, Shawn had cut in mid sentence, and his tone was sort of off…

“Uh, fine, just wondering if you’d heard anymore sounds out-”

“That’s cool. Hey, wanna here a secret?” Uh, oookaaay… that was sort of out of context…

“…Sure?”

There was a strange, drawn out pause at the other end, before Shawn’s voice whispered rather loudly over the line. “This is my answering machine! Leave a message at the beep- I‘ll get back to you when I feel like it!”

“Goddamnit Shawn!” The tone beeped, and Gus hung up in disgust. Damn it, that was the third time this week that the stupid machine had fooled him. He had yelled at him about a thousand times to change it, but so far Shawn wasn’t budging on the matter. Well, screw it, then- Shawn was on his own. If there really was something outside his apartment, it would serve Shawn right for being an ass hole. Gus went back to bed with a renewed sense of righteous indignation and tossed and turned until morning. Stupid Shawn… Gus would feel a lot better if he could convince the guy to wear some sort of tracking device… Oh yeah… that would be a dream come true…

***

“I, uh... I don’t know if your open to suggestions… but calling for help might be a good idea t this point…”

“Shut up.” Groaning-Guy, who Shawn had now affectionately nicknamed Gun-Guy, was sitting with his broken leg stretched awkwardly out in front of him, using a pen-knife to cut down on of the seat belts. Shawn was able to shut up for what he guessed was about a full minute before trying again.

“I mean, your friend… he looks pretty bad…”

“There’s a box on top of the bottom of the seat over your head. Get it.” Shawn very carefully didn’t comment on the fact that that was probably the most confusing sentence ever uttered. Instead, he rose to a crouch and felt around until he felt something, then carefully pulled out a polished, wooden case with a nice leather handle. It looked expensive, in perfect condition save for some bumps and scrapes it had apparently suffered during the crash. Balancing it awkwardly in his bound hands, so as not to hit floor-guy with it, he handed it over to the man.

He was almost worried to find out what was in it, but when the guy opened it, all that it turned out to be was two halves of a disassembled pool cue. “Pool player?” He asked, slightly confused. Maybe the guy had gotten hit over the head a little harder than Shawn had originally thought…

“My brother‘s. They also make great splints.” Shawn felt he was achieving some success in establishing rapport with his kidnapper- the guy hadn’t added a ‘shut up’ to the end of this sentence. Shawn took this as an invitation to keep talking as the guy clumsily used the seatbelts to tie the makeshift splints to either side of his broken leg.

“I mean… if you wanted to call for help, then I’d be totally content leaving out the part where you kidnapped me. We could just go our separate ways, and just forget this ever happened…”

“Seriously, man, shut up.”

“Yeah, ok.” The guy looked serious this time, and shot a pointed look at the gun. Shawn sighed and kept his mouth closed. This was looking bad, but he had, after all, told Gus that he’d been hearing sounds outside. Surely Gus would be worried enough to start looking for him soon

Seriously, my life has spiraled down into a bottomless void of nothingness, and I just can't take it anymore... Isaac spilled water all over my sketch book. ALL OVER IT! And it soaked through, and all the markers bled through the pages and totally ruined my drawing of breakfast man. I mean, now he looks like two face. And the drawing of my hairy leg, too- it looks gangrenous. And that's to say nothing of iPod Salesmen, who is totally beyond all hope of saving, and way too big to re-draw. I have nothing to do in class or in bed now, and I'm so tired all the time, even though I go to bed at like eight and sleep in past seven. Oh god, I hate it, and my peripherals are all messed up. Like, all messed up. I can hardly see, you know? And I'm just so goddamned tired... Its eleven forty three now because I tried to go to bed early, but the basement is too cold- even though the rest of the house is really hot. Its like the basement gives away all its heat and the rest of the house sucks it up. Anyway, its too cold and I dont have enough blankets so I cant sleep. I cant sleep so I wrote this entry... Damn. I need to go to bed. I'm gonna try again now. Yeah, yeah... bed...

A friend of mine, or maybe it was one of my brothers, once told me that hoards of baby birds died everytime there is a thunder storm, because the parents fly off, and can't get back to the nest in time to save their off spring from drowning or freezing to death; and I, being a troublesome and cantankerous child who enjoyed the wild, uprouriousness of storms and gloried in the racous and noise and explosions going off in the sky, would there after stop in the midst of my crazed revelries at a single bird cry; images of freezing, drowning fledglings fluttering through my mind. To this day, during thunderstorms, I will the first glorious, chaotic momments in a pleasent frenzy- out on the trampoline or patio, soaking myself to the bone in the feirce rians; until, inevitably, sme bird sings out and the horror comes back, and I, dismally, must trudge back into the house and shelter myself from the thoughts under a screen of music, comic books, and any other available distraction.

Well, I got detention again- and yet again from my bitchy study hall procter, Ms. Warner. Seriously, that woman hates me- and for completely unjust reasons, as well! Honestly, I've never intentionally done anything to annoy her. Today for example: I get a note from my guidance counselor, summoning me to his office (he wanted to discuss the issue of my grades, obviously) at ten forty-five, during study hall. So I go to study hall, show Ms. Warner the pass, then stare at her goddamned analogue clock until I am relatively certain that it does indeed read ten forty-five, and leave.

Apparently, it didn't, because when I get back to class she goes off on a rampage about my leaving ten minutes early and ditching class. I tried to explain to her that I suck at telling time, but she refused to believe me. Actually, come to think of it, the last three times were also related to my not being able to read clocks... hm... I'm beginning to sense a pattern here. It would appear that all my problems with her seem to stem from my ineffectiveness with clocks. Well, then. It looks like there's only two options from here on out- either she's gonna have to change her ways and learn to believe me, or I'm gonna have to get something digital.

And I can't afford a watch!

List of Priorities (in order of importance) for my life after graduation:

1. Move to Chicago

2. Go to College

3. Get a job working with kids

4. Adopt kids

5. Write a succesful screenplay

6. See the world

7. Settle down somewhere

8. Make some real, close friends

9. Be succesful at something

10. Gain some self confindence

Graduations coming up, and I'm so stressed out... Things at home have been crazy lately, what with abe being in and out of the hospital for his lupus and Bolan, our dog, going blind. My grades have suffered- I'm failing three classes, and while I think I can pull English and Ethics up, my criminology grade is pretty much unredeemable. It'll take a miracle just to bring it up to a seventy. God, I just want this to end...

The stress is seriosly getting to my head- I covered Eva's little purple chair in these nonsensical math equations, and while that wouldn't normally be all that worrying, the worrying part is that at the time I was certain I was solving the answer to the universe- you know, Douglas Adam's whole thing about 42 being the answer to the universe? I figured it was the answer to some math equation. I could explain it all now, but it just wouldnt make any sense. Jesus... I need to get some sleep... Maybe that will help?

In psychology we learned that the triggering cause of most, if not all, mental illnesses is extreme stress. I dont think I have a mental illness, but even so, stress can't be healthy even for the sane ones, can it? 

God, how should I know, anyway? I just need a break. A real, honest to god, stress free, break.

Been feeling a little close to the edge lately, so I decided to start this journal. If nothing else, just to track my ascent into insanity. No- I'm just being melodramatic... I have been wondering, though- if you self-narrate your life, does that count as a symptom of insanity? I know having a narrator commenting on your life is a sign- but I always thought it was only if it was someone else's voice. Well. whatever, I'm going to try not to worry about it.

I'm more worried about the other stuff- like, on monday I started getting a cold, and I told my brother Isaac that it was because the blood demons had crawled out of my walls and into my nose. I think I was kidding- but I'm not so sure, and that's what worried me. I mean, this is a pretty common question but... do crazy people know they're crazy? I think they can sometimes, but I don't know... Shit, if I keep up with this, I'm going to worry myself crazy anyway. On friday I drew a picture of Snake Baby and scared myself. Snake Baby is this crazy little doodle of a baby with a scary face and a little tiny snake tail for a body. It scares the shit out of me, but sometimes when I'm not paying attention I'll doodle it anyway. I chewed it up and spat it out in the halls, so that it couldn't come back and get me or possess me or anything- but I got detention for spitting in the hall. I tried to explain about Snake Baby, but they thought I was just fucking around with them, so I got two detentions.

I've been drawing lately, and I plan on putting some of them up. Uh... that's all for now. I'm too tired to keep typing. Plus, senior retreat is tomorrow, and I don't want to be too tired during it. Its late, you know?

Current Mood: cold