RoboChildren

by James Hunt

  door slam

  Hm. [to editor] What was that?

  Editor: Phil's gone man.

  james: PHIL STOP IT!

  Brandi: What? This isn't funny, I can't hear you!

  james: No, no, you're fine... Okay, well, um. Um.... I have to say goodnight.

  Brandi: Alright?

  [hang up]

  * * *

  james: WOW, I thought you were going to kill yourself out there!

  Phil: Why?

  I don't know, it just got epic.

  What did? Why?

  I don't know, it just got epic, you were stomping all my shit and then you were trying to go driving. I just thought you were going to drive into a tree or something. OH MAN OH MAN!

  Yeah, me and Editor the whole time were like, 'this is a bad idea!' Fuck it, I'll stay awake, I'll just lose my job tomorrow. Whatever.

  Phil, tonight we accomplished something.

  No, we accomplished nothing!!

  No, it was good, this was good! We got that little recording device.

  NO THIS WAS BAD. [to recorder] DESPITE WHAT JAMES TELLS YOU, IT WAS A HORRIBLE NIGHT WITH NOTHING ACCOMPLISHED!

  Technology is a wonderful thing, Phil. In that little recording device I have THE FINAL CHAPTER!!!

  What’s the final chapter?

  I don't know yet. I'll just make it up, I guess.

  That's Gonzo right there... No wait, that's just straight up lying...

  laughter

  * * *

  james: grunting I don’t know how to convert this into a book...

  Editor: Well let’s see...

  It was hard to get us to take the drugs...

  Editor: Yeah, that's a good way to start.

  We started tripping right as you walked in the door.

  Phil: Where's your sister at? Is this thing recording?

  james: I just hit buttons then threw it to the ground. I thought you were going to kill yourself....

  Phil: What happened when I left?

  Editor: He said Uh... HAVE A GOOD NIGHT!

  james: PHIL'S GONE CRAZY! Rewind a little bit.

  No.

  What? Why not?

  You've got nothing!

  Is it still recording?

  Yeah, it's at four hours now!

  Editor: When did you start it?

  Phil: I have no idea.

  james: WOW, that was a crazy night!!

  Editor: Yeah... Umm... I guess....

  james: I think we accomplished a lot.

  Editor: Sure james...

  Phil: What did we accomplish?

  james: THE FINAL CHAPTER!

  Phil: What? You have no idea what you're going to do!!

  james: What was my idea? I forget.

  Editor: Don't worry about it until tomorrow, I guess.

  * * *

  Phil: Just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should.

  james: I've got you guys on three mediums now!

  Editor: What?

  james: Yeah, I've got recordings, writings, and VIDEOS of you guys while you're on drugs.

  Editor: I'm not on drugs, james.

  Phil: I want to watch 'House.'

  james: We can't leave this place man.

  Phil: Man, watching 'House' would be totally RoboChildren of us. You know that.

  james: Which is worse? Kohl's or Hollister?

  Editor: Hollister, definitely.

  * * *

  IT’S THE RAPE SCENE... SHE ENJOYS IT. HAHA.

  Those guys don't have balls. That’s why they are so girly.

  Editor: As I started editing, I started rewriting a lot of sentences. I don't know if editors are supposed to do that but... You've got a few things in there, like... you're not really saying anything. You've got so much going on in your head you can't express it so you use words like “insanity” or “crazy.”

  james: Do I use that word too much?

  Editor: Not too much. Just in places where you are describing things we have no idea what you're talking about. Like people who don't know it already... Like even me.

  james: That makes sense, because I was on the drugs I was writing about when I wrote it... Did you finish reading the book then?

  Editor: Yeah, I've read everything but the “Case Study” thing.

  james: That's part three. I've come up with a part four! It's called “overdosing on time.” This is it, actually.

  Editor: Overdosing on time? Hm. Yeah.. You've spent too much time out of time... I guess you can't say that... You don't spend time out of time...

  james: Kind of...

  Editor: Yeah... I guess we're about to overdose on words...

  james: Do you have any final questions? Cuz I'm fucking sick of writing for this fucking book.

  Editor: Well, okay, you mentioned drug combinations a couple times, and I think you could expound on that:

  [MAX COMBOS:

  Gary- 3 Promethazine, 12 Dramamine, 24 oz. Beer (at least), marijuana.

  James- 7.5 packets of morning glory seeds, 16 Corocidin pills, 16 oz. Beer, marijuana.

  Phil- 32 Dramamine, Marijuana, 32 oz. Beer.

  Zach- 10 Mucidex, 24 Dramamine, 8 oz. Beer.

  This sparks in my mind, the concept of the drug hierarchy (in order from greatest to shittiest):

  1 Quality Psychedelics

  2 Robotussin

  3 Alcohol

  4 Pain killers/Opiates

  5 Sober

  6 Marijuana

  * * *

  james: I don't know why he went through with it. Or why he thought killing himself was justified at all. He still went to hell.

  Phil: He killed himself with a jellyfish?

  james: Ya. He killed himself with a fucking jellyfish. Now that's original.

  Phil: I'm jumping.

  james: That's not original at all. But if you do it from the Statue of Liberty in a Spiderman outfit, that would be original.

  Editor: laughter What?

  Phil: Right. That's what I mean.

  james: How long do I get to mourn your death and be self-centered about it?

  Editor: Self-centered about his death?

  james: Yeah, I get all the attention when he dies.

  Phil: You don't get the attention anymore.

  james: What?! Why not?

  Phil: You don't even hang out with me anymore.

  james: Whom are you giving the attention rights to then? Fox? Monty? Brandi?

  Phil: Mmhmm.

  james: You're not going to give it to... You can't give it to Brandi, you don't ever see her!

  Phil: Well when they find the note in my pocket...

  james: Oh my god, you bastard! I'm taking the attention... I don't care.

  Editor: You'll find his body in a red and blue puddle and be like IT'S MINE! Just take the note and pencil in your name in place of Brandi's.

  laughter

  james: What if you defaced someone’s suicide letter?

  Phil: That'd be fucked up.

  Editor: They'll be like, 'NO I ONLY GOT TO TRY THIS ONCE! I CAN’T DO IT AGAIN!'

  james: I hope I die.

  Editor: I can assure you, you will.

  Phil: laughter

  james: No, I mean, I hope I die soon.

  Editor: Yeah, I might die sometime too.

  james: Because--you might kill yourself?

  Editor: Eh? What?

  Phil: Does the average person contemplate suicide? Do you think about suicide?

  Editor: Uh... I have.

  james: That is the understatement of the CENTURY! You are the person who introduced the concept of suicide to me.

  Editor: laughter Really? Like it was just out of the question before?

  james: I just thought it was something that people say... He was always talking about it.

  Editor: I didn't always talk about...

  james: Yeah, you did! You talked about it in church!

  Editor: Yeah, I remember when things would slip out and you'd freak out and b
e like, “STOP!”

  james: You used to say it would be cool to hang yourself from the flagpole outside of school.

  Editor: Yup. It'd be hard to climb up there, though. I remember you'd always say you'd hate to drown. Not that I would like it.

  james: Yeah, that’s like the worst death, burning or drowning. Or being buried alive... there's a lot of deaths that would be bad... slow, painful deaths.

  Editor: Yeah, what do you think about that? Deaths you can witness?

  james: I don't want to realize it at all.

  Editor: Really?

  Phil: Being slowly eaten to death by worms.

  Editor: From the inside? Like tapeworms?

  Phil: Eh, from the inside? Yikes! I mean like real worms.

  james: Like earthworms? Earthworms can kill you?

  Phil: Yeah, well eventually they will decompose you.

  james: horrible noise You'd die of starvation before that happened.

  Phil: No. People would feed you. Like a death sentence.

  Editor: Ooooh...You mean they bury you but keep you on life support so you're alive while they are trying to break you down and turn you into soil?

  james: That would just be expensive...

  laughter

  Phil: Not any more expensive than keeping them nourished in a cell.

  Editor: Right, right.

  Phil: How much do worms cost? That's not so bad.

  Editor: Well you have to keep him alive... Maybe paralyze him.

  Phil: No you can't affect his peripheral neuropathy because he wouldn't feel the worms.

  james: How do you make someone not move, but still feel the pain?

  Editor: Hmmm...

  Phil: Just let him move, fuck it.

  james: No, the worms won't eat him if he’s movin' and twitchin.'

  Phil: How long do you think he's gonna be able to twitch?

  Editor: You can just beat him quite a bit so he just doesn't want to move.

  laughter

  Phil: You could strap him down so he doesn't move.

  Editor: Yeah.

  james: You could just super glue him down.

  Editor: Like gorilla glue him!

  james: I'm talking a hardcore glue-job. To a board or something.

  Phil: Underground?

  james: Wait what? Oh, yeah I guess you would need to bury him...

  Editor: Well yeah, like underground in a box inside a building, or out in the dirt.

  james: Just keep him covered in dirt. Give him goggles and, like, a breathing tube.

  Editor: Yeah, his head could be sticking out.

  Phil: Have fields of them. Like cabbages.

  laughter

  james: Oh my god.... We just opened a whole new can of worms...

  Editor: I was reading this book by Kafka, and he was describing a machine that turns the guilty man over and writes into his back with needles the crime he committed and then washes out the wound then turns him over and does it to his other side. It just keeps turning him over and over doing this. That's an idea.

  james: Hm...That doesn't sound fun. I want to die in a way that’s fun.

  Editor: You want to die in a way where you can watch it? Like hanging, that’s pretty quick – beheading.

  james: No, see, I know the blade's there, I know I'm about to die. I don't want to know I'm about to die. I just want to be do do do–DEAD! I just want to be sniped.

  Phil: I contemplate that so much. I wish there was a button you could just click. You don't have to feel the pain of your body shutting down.

  Editor: Hm.

  james: Just an off button. Yeah, why isn't there a convenient way to kill yourself?

  Phil: I ask myself this everyday.

  Editor: Injection is pretty close to that.

  james: See? Overdosing, that's where it's at! You just go to sleep and you're not even aware of it.

  Phil: Good way to go.

  james: So let's just all go out and kill someone, get the injection. That’s a good way to kill yourself.

  Editor: Whoa, what? Hold on there, james.

  Phil: Wait, don't we still do the electric chair in Ohio?

  james: Oh yeah... That's no good. Forget that idea. Still an interesting concept – killing someone as a way to commit suicide.

  Editor: You don't want to get shot? You don't think that would be good at all?

  james: Shot? Maybe in the head. I still think that the last few seconds would suck so bad.

  Editor: Really? You don't want to taste it at all?

  james: Taste what? The blood?

  Editor: The pain.

  Phil: Oooo... woooow...

  james: Yeah, see? I told you, he's a sick fucker!

  Phil: Yeah, wow.

  Editor: You don't want to experience it at all?

  Phil: Wait, I might now, you talked me in to it.

  Editor: I couldn't handle being stabbed though. I just couldn't take that.

  james: So you want a way that doesn't hurt? I thought you just said you want to taste the pain.

  [james stabs editor to death and he and Phil eat body over a period of two months]

  As the relationship between myself and Kristal deteriorated

  and my mind did the same,

  I was forced to face the harsh reality:

  drugs were not saving us.

  I was getting further away from the answer.

  But I knew it was out there somewhere.

  Maybe in college.

  Maybe just on the road.

  A cliché problem with cliché solutions,

  each more depressing than the last.

  Whatever the case, I needed to get out of Ohio.

  Reality was becoming too much for the RoboChildren.

  We were splintering into maddness,

  we were no longer having fun.

  There was a sick desperation in all of us.

  A hunger for death.

  The others wanted blood.

  I just wanted out of my head.

  I was trapped.

  Final Chapter

  Run

  I awoke sometime in the month of November in Phil’s mother’s house in a room that consisted of two mattresses and a very small television repeating the same four episodes of House endlessly. There were words carved into the wall above my head, “DIE FUCKERS,” with a ruggedness emphasizing an emotion I could feel to the core of me. Someone had made a pathetic attempt to hide the disturbing message by filling it with an off-color plaster.

  Was I dying? I had felt lows before, but this was beyond any of the awful depressions I had gone through in the past. My self-absorbed thoughts of loss and wasted time looped inside my skull – pulsating like a cancer. I had become a solipsistic fly on the wall of my own life. A deranged, nihilistic insect bent on destroying everything. I lost the girl I had initially sunk into madness for – I drove her away, seeking the devil inside me instead – I lost my sanity which was barely existent to begin with, I had no idea what was going on in the real world and worst of all I had no purpose.

  I had just woken up from a yearlong dream, or coma rather. To find myself without anyone who truly cared about me, nor did I care about anyone else. Phil was lying on the mattress next to mine, staring mindlessly at the television. I stood up and said, “I’m done.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes.”

  “What does that mean exactly?”

  “I’m leaving… I’m going home… Colorado.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, I fucking hate this place and everyone who lives here.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes. I’m going to college, and I’m going to make something of myself, Phil. Can’t you understand that?”

  “Nope. Waste of time… we’re useless and that’s how it will always be…”