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by Kai Martin

In a small city filled with prosperity and joy, there was an unremarkable house filled with

neither. Inside the unremarkable house was an equally unremarkable boy. The boy’s name was David and his only outstanding quality was his long blond hair, which his father hated and his peers talked about behind his back. David, preferring comfort over style, wore a big black sweater and checkered blue pajama bottoms. His expression was blank, but his throat was dry and his heart was racing. His eyes scanned the computer screen searching, yearning for the number that would change his life. He scrolled through the email, nothing, he scrolled further, and there it was—1100. His face fell. Another average score for the average boy. Normally he could roll with it, but the SAT meant more than all his other scores, it could determine his future. David realized he needed to punish himself for this unacceptable failure.

Ever since David was a young boy he learned that when he failed he needed to be

punished, his father was a perfectionist who demanded perfection from him, and so whenever David performed outside of his expectations, a slap across the face from his old man was a certainty. As David grew older he became better at hiding his shortcomings from his father and took it upon himself to deliver the pain he thought he deserved, he almost began to find joy in the control he had, and would devise new ways to make himself suffer, he began to stylize his punishments after the incidents leading to them. His favorite one so far happened when he couldn’t bench 130 pounds during gym class. After the class, he went to the bathroom, and once the gym was empty he snuck inside and dropped a 20-pound weight on his toes. David assumed that everyone around him lived like this, and because he always punished himself secretly, he also assumed that they were doing it in private. 

As David reeled back in his chair after deciding to punish himself he began to think of

ideas. He was too tired and thirsty to come up with a creative punishment, so he simply had to pick something that brought him the most pain. He considered his options. Banging his head against the wall—no, it would give him a headache the day after and he had a presentation to do then. Slapping himself—no, it reminded him too much of his father. There had to be something different. David saw his lengthy blond hair in the reflection of his computer, he knew what he had to do, he reached for the scissors on his desk and raised them up next to a lock of hair. Then he heard a voice, “Boy, bring me a beer” his dad called from the other room. David stopped, he knew they were out of beer, his dad just wanted an excuse to hit him. He also knew that his dad despised his hair, and David didn’t want to give him any satisfaction. He slowly rolled up the sleeve of his sweater, deciding to cut somewhere else instead.

The scissors piercing his skin felt like stepping into a hot shower, it made David feel

connected to his body, as if he were a surgeon working on a patient, he felt like a ball that had just been popped, all of the pressure stored up inside being set free. This was something he’d never experienced before. As he started to draw a line down his arm he noticed something strange, instead of fresh red blood oozing out of the open gash in his arm, there was something else coming out of his veins, he recognized its smell, beer. David gasped, this was just what he needed, he rushed to grab a glass, and held his arm over it, filling the glass up. When he stopped bleeding beer, he rolled up his sleeve and brought the glass to his father, who was slumped on the sofa. The man looked surprised when David handed him the glass, and accepted it with a grunt of thanks. Elated, David headed back to his room. He quickly rolled up his other sleeve and began to slice again, this time, the water that his dry throat so desperately desired poured from his body, and he brought his arm to his mouth and began to drink. David went to bed that night the happiest he had been in months, the test score was out of his mind, all he could think about was cutting himself. The next morning David jauntily skipped out of the door to catch the school bus, but when he stepped on the bus all his joy vanished, he had forgotten how people looked at him. Suddenly his posture slumped, his hands folded into his pockets and he solemnly scurried his way to the back of the bus. He opened his backpack and grabbed his father's razor, which he had snatched on the way out the door. He felt its pull, urging him to use it on his soft skin, but he knew the bus was too public, he wouldn’t get away with it. David didn’t find an opportunity tuse the razor until lunchtime when he spotted a girl talking to a vending machine, “Dammit,” the girl yelled as she turned towards David, noticing he had been watching, she attempted to explain herself, “it’s out of Dr Pepper.” David knew this was his opportunity, smiling, he said, “I can get you some Dr Pepper.” The girl leaned forward, confused, “How?” “Just wait here,” David smirked. Instantly he walked over to the food service area and grabbed a plastic cup, he rushed to the bathroom and began working on cutting one of his legs with the razor. As fresh Dr. Pepper poured into the cup David felt like all of his stress and hurt from the rest of the day was also flooding out of him. Rejuvenated, David finished filling the cup and used a paper towel to wipe off his leg. Then he scrambled to return to the girl and handed her the cup. She suspiciously sipped, and once she had confirmed the liquid to be Dr Pepper she turned to David with a smile on her face,

“Thank you very much...” “David,” David said, entranced by her smile. “...David, it’s nice to meet you, I’m Emma,” The girl extended her hand. David shook it, and although their hands came apart, David's eyes couldn’t help but follow Emma as she walked over to a lunch table to sit with her friends. Emma left David's mind as soon as he returned to his house, as he ignored the gargled demands of his father and raced to his room. He raced to get his schoolwork done, but when he grabbed his scissors he realized how tired and drained he was, he satisfied himself with just a small cut on his hand—which he would later blame on an unfortunate encounter with a neighborhood dog—and drank some refreshing coconut water from the wound before going to bed exhausted. Throughout the week David continued to cut himself, sometimes to procure a drink for someone, sometimes to release his stress, sometimes to punish himself for messing up, it seemed like all his problems could be solved with just a few seconds with the razor or the scissors. David also continued to talk to Emma, and they developed a companionship of sorts, he would walk up to her with a cup of Dr Pepper—the school had not bothered to restock the vending machines—and she would smile at him and they would talk about anything on their minds. On some of the days that David talked to Emma, he didn’t cut himself before bed, an occurrence that he didn't realize, but that made a difference in his energy the next day. On Friday something unexpected happened to David, Emma invited him to her birthday party over the weekend. David was so excited he didn’t hurt himself a single time before the party. On the night of Emma's party, David took a long shower, put on his most dapper outfit, and styled his hair just right. As he prepared to leave the house, he took a long look at the razor on his desk, and resignedly slipped it into his pocket. When David arrived at the venue, clutching his gift for Emma in his hand, he didn’t know what to expect, but when he opened the door and walked in, he thought he must be in hell. Masses of people he didn’t know huddled in clumps, dancing to music he didn’t like, he tried looking around for somebody that he knew but saw nobody, he was alone again. He walked around trying to find a bathroom to escape to, but he found nothing. After a while, he made up his mind to leave, but just as he approached the exit he saw Emma. “Emma!” he cried out. She turned to look at him with a blank expression on her face, which slowly turned into one of recognition. “Da..vid,” she slurred, making her way toward him. David's face fell, the girl was obviously drunk. “David... we need more te...” she trailed off. David looked at her confused. “What do you need?” he asked “Tequila David,” she exclaimed, “Justin was supposed to bring more but I haven’t heard from him, something must have gone wrong, I hope he’s okay.” David’s face stiffened at Emma's apparent concern for Justin's well-being. David had seen Justin talking to Emma a lot, and he often put his arm around her, David was not a fan of Justin. “I can get you some tequila,” he said coldly, “how much?” “As much as you can get,” Emma pleaded, pointing at a table covered in empty bottles. David knew this was his moment, he marched over to the table and grabbed as many bottles as he could. He then barged his way through the crowd until he discovered the entrance to a bathroom. Once inside, he pulled out his razor and stared at it as if it were the most valuable thing in the world. Then he began to cut, opening as many fissures in his skin as he could, on his legs, on his legs, on his arms, from his forehead. He didn’t notice any pain, he simply felt the rush. As all of the bottles began to fill with tequila, David noticed something strange about the substance gushing from his body; it had begun to turn red.

“I wonder what red tequila tastes like,” David thought before consciousness left his body

and he collapsed bleeding onto the floor.

When David woke up he felt very, very, cold. The hospital room was very air-conditioned

and the blanket covering his weak body was much too thin to keep him comfy. David was affected by the cold, but it left his mind when he noticed all the stares from the people in the room that had started as soon as he opened his eyes. The hospital staff's concerned glances bothered him, but not as much as the piercing stare from his father, who was sitting in an old gray folding chair at the back of the room. David felt himself shrink into the bed, collecting his thoughts. While he had been passed out he had relived the moment before his collapse several times and had come to a disturbing realization about what might have happened to his powers of production. Before anybody in the room could stop him, David scratched so deep into his side that blood started coming out. Not Kool-aid, not Dr Pepper, certainly not red tequila, bright red human blood. As people swarmed around him, trying to clean Davids's self-inflicted wound, he lay back on his bed and stared at the ceiling with a despondent look on his face. He was so defeated that when his father walked over to stand at his bedside, he got up and collapsed into his arms, to his surprise his fathe_r hugged him tight, and when he pulled away, there were tears in the old man's eyes. David felt a strange tingly feeling come over him after he hugged his father, and that feeling remained when he went over to the water filling station on the hospital wall to get himself a glass of water. He looked around as he filled it, observing people moving through the halls, but when he brought the plastic cup to his lips, he tasted something unexpected. Hot chocolate filled his mouth and when he swallowed the warmth filled his body, making him feel rejuvenated. When David left the hospital, he left with a smirk. Later that day, he would throw away all the scissors in the house and convince his dad to grow his beard out so that his razor could join the scissors in the trash can.