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I'm looking for someone to help me eat 2000 pounds of fruit cups and Vienna sausages. Your payment will be another 200 pounds of previously opened yogurt containers, don't worry though they taste great. I don't know what you're into but I figured watching 24 legacy and old Jersey shore reruns should pass the time as we eat the fruit cups and Vienna sausages and talk about Ted Cruz in my grandmas basement.

Stains (original)

What is that? Mustard maybe? Or possibly someone finally got tired of this place and just decided to throw their shit on the ceiling. Whatever it is, I’m stuck with these disgusting spots left over my bed. I do not know what this place is or why my parents sent me here. As much as I’ve always disliked everyone and most everything, the worst part about this place is the shit colored mustard spots left on the ceiling over my bed.  “Julian, are you awake?”

I turn my head to find my annoying little shit of a room mate standing over my bed, as if my view wasn’t already bad enough. “What do you want, Jerald?” I asked annoyed. “I wet the bed again, I need you to help me fix it.” Jerald stammered on for a few more seconds but all i could think about was how I got stuck with someone 3 years younger than me.

“Jerald, look, you’re almost eight you can’t be doing this kind of stuff.  And by ‘this stuff’ I mean wake me up at three in the morning with pissed covered pj’s. Also, what do you mean by fix this, Jerald, all we can do is wash it.” YOU CAN’T FIX PISS, DUMBASS! “Look Jerald, we have to get the adults. They can wash it and they won’t be mad at you. Come on.” I took Jerald by the hand and we walked down the hall towards where that adult who walks like a lady sleeps, Mr. Blonde. When I open the door to the hallway I become quickly blinded from the searing white light.. As we’re walking down the halls, I look around and get the feeling that this place is like a hospital, but there are no sick people here. Just us kids. And the adults don’t seem like any doctor I’ve ever seen. There is also priest that gave us a really boring sermon the other day. I don’t know about what though. It’s so boring, I can’t help but look around and just try and stay away from the other little kids; they’re all so disgusting. I see them picking their noses, and rubbing it back on their clothes, like that somehow takes care of it. A walking disease, that’s what those kids are.

As we get to the door, Jerald clutches my hand tighter, afraid of what will happen. “Come on Jerald, you’ll be okay.” I tell him confidently, “You don’t understand Julian, you just got here a couple a’ days ago.” This is true. My parents didn’t tell me where they were sending me to, just that they were sending me to some place that would “fix me”. I didn’t know what they meant by this. What about me needs fixing? Something I’ve asked myself since the moment they put me on that bus.

I go to the door to knock but before my hand reaches it, it swings open to show the very neatly dressed (even in pajamas) Mr. Blonde. He has a very sour look on his face, as anyone who would have if they were woken up at three in the morning by a piss covered seven year old. “WHY ARE YOU BOYS-- UGHH! AND WHY IS HE-- UGHH! YOU BOYS ARE IN BIG TROUBLE!” I’ve never seen Mr. Blonde like this except when he spilled his fruity looking drink and shouted at his poster of “The View” he keeps on the wall. “Mr. Blonde, Jerald just wet the bed” Mr. Blonde had a slight look of embarrassment tucked underneath all of that anger, and he quickly turned his attention towards Jerald ” Are you Serious, Jerald? What is it-- three times a week now? How does it feel to be 9 years old and still wet the bed?” Jerald had a look on his face like he was close to sobbing, he faintly let out” But I’m Seve--” But before Jerald could even finish his sentence, Mr. Blonde grabbed him by the arm and dragged him down the hallway.“ Well from now on, you’re cleaning up all the bedwetters’ blankets around here until you shape up.”

Relieved to be rid of a pissy seven year old, I wandered back to my room, tired. As I got into bed and lay my head on the pillow, I once again saw the gross, old mustard stains that spotted the ceiling above my bed.

The next day I woke up to the sound of running throughout the halls. There seems to be some sort of direction to it. When I go to wake up Jerald, he’s not in his bed. I wonder if he has been with Mr. Blonde all night. I quickly make my way towards the hallway. Everyone is crowded in front of the laundry room. I walk up to the crowd to find Mr. Blonde doing crowd control, when he spots me. He pushes through the crowd to make his way towards me and through the gap, I can see Jerald. Hanging by a white sheet. I don’t know what I feel at this time; confusion more than anything, I suppose. Why would he do this? I’m sure he would stop wetting the bed eventually. When Mr. Blonde reaches me he calmly says, “Go back to your room, Julian. Breakfast will be ready in about an hour.” as if nothing happened.

Mr. Blonde had a counselor escort me to my room, Dr. Mcmaron. He was a short and scrawny fellow, however, somehow he gave me the impression that he’s never been to college in his life let alone achieve his doctorate. He walked me inside the room and quietly asked me “Did Jerald, ever talk to you about anything? Did he, maybe, talk about wanting to run away?”    “What? What are you even talking about? I just saw Jerald hanging in the laundry room, and you people have been trying to pretend nothing has happened. You’re not even doing a very good job!” Without saying anything or even changing the expression on his face, Dr. Mcmaron stood up and left the room.

I walked back over to my bed and sat there in disbelief. I looked at the clock and saw that only 9 minutes have gone by since I woke up this morning. Is this how every morning at this place will turn out? I wonder as I gaze back up into the acidic diarrhea-like stains on the ceiling.

About 45 minutes pass before I hear an announcement to come to breakfast. “Good, I’m  starving.” I say to myself, excited about breakfast. I walk into the cafeteria with the other children to find everyone eating and chatting like normal. It seems as if no one knows what happened to him. I walk over to the lunch line and I hear they’re serving eggs and bacon, a classic. I get in line to hear the two kids in front of me talking. “I heard they found another one over in the laundry room.” The first kid says. “Are you serious? That’s like the second time this month.” His friend said in response.

This made me think about what Jerald had said to me before Mr. Blonde took him off to do laundry. “You don’t know what it’s like Julian. You’ve only been here a couple a’ days.” or some shit like that. But it’s true, I realize now that he was right. Things here are much worse than they appear on the outside.

As the line moves forward and I bring up my tray to be served, I catch a glimpse of the “eggs and bacon”. The eggs looked thin and pale with a sort of gray color. The bacon, while red, was hard and rubbery. “Better this that nothing, I suppose.” I take my tray and move towards the empty seat in the far left corner of the cafeteria, when two older boys come up to me. When they reach me, they look down at me smirking and say “We heard that Jerald is gone. What, could the little faggot not take it here anymore?” I look at them for a second bewildered, and say “Where did you hear that from?” They both give me a look like I was living under a rock and said “ Dude, you’re his roommate. Didn’t Mr. Blonde tell you, he’s being going around for like the past hour to talk to the other little fags.” Realising these two mouth breathers aren’t worth my time. I go to my seat in the corner at eat this “breakfast”.

Five minutes into eating my “meal”, the priest comes out. I don’t recall his name but I notice he’s walking with a slight limp. I feel like I would have noticed this the other day, but his sermons are so boring I can barely stay awake. He walks into the center of the cafeteria and calls us all over. “Children, put your food down and come gather in a circle. I need you to listen to me for a moment, I’m looking at you, Laurence. Now, we all know about why we’re here. The devil works in mysterious ways. He’s constantly watching and he’s got a hold of all you boys.” Some of the newer children gasp while the rest have heard this speech too many times before to care. “ The devil wants to destroy your life by forcing you to question all these things. The devil wants you to question your faith to god. God wants you to stay here children, and get better. God loves you all. Now go on eat your food. We shall talk more about sins at seven o’clock in the chapel.

I thought this was odd. Why interrupt breakfast for some 30 second speech. Could this have something to do with Jerald? If so, then why didn’t he mention him? Or anything? Has this sort of thing happened before? Too much to ignore, I decide to investigate. I throw out my now cold and half eaten breakfast and head to the laundry room. When I go to leave the cafeteria I am stopped by, none other than, Mr. Blonde. “Julian, where do you think you’re going?” Confidently, I say “The laundry room, I’m gonna see Jerald.”  Looking impatient, he replies “ Julian, you won’t be seeing Jerald anymore.” “Why? Is it because he’s dead?” Mr. Blonde notices my anger and says, “Jerald is of no concern to you , Julian. You will be assigned another roommate by the end of the week. Now go back and take your seat. Reluctantly, I go back to my seat and sit quietly for the remainder of breakfast.

I get up at about one in the morning. Tonight is the night where I finally get some answers. I get dressed in all black and start heading for the door. I pause for a moment to think. How did Mr. Blonde know we were out in the hallways last night? He must have cameras or something in the halls. I am not sure of myself. I realise that most likely i will be caught and subsequently punished. I go into the hallway and head straight for the laundry room. I am worried as most likely they already know I am out of my room. When i get into the laundry room there is no body. Jerald has been moved. Which is no surprise to me but what is surprising is there seems to be a few yellow spots on top of the washing machine. It seems to be urine. I don’t know who’s though, just that it can’t be Jerald. His sheets were nearly dry by the time we took them to Mr. Blonde’s room. It actually seems that someone tried to clean this mess up, they just left the stains.

As I leave the laundry room I spot a drop of blood in the doorway, but when I go to examine it I hear radio chatter approaching. Quickly, I sneak away moving towards the chapel. It can hardly be called a chapel because it looks like a portable with a few decorations and a nice rug. As I enter, I’m instantly hit with very powerful images: Jesus on the cross bleeding and wearing a crown of thorns. The very same image my parents forced onto me. They told me it was something I just had to learn. That his suffering is for my sins. Every sin i commit is another nail hammered deeper into the crucifix. But how can someone do that to a child? There must have been an easier way to tell me not to take money out of my mom’s purse. I scoff at the image and walk deeper into the chapel, looking around for anything that might help me. I snuck into the chapel offices and saw an outdated computer on the desk. The monitor was off but the tower was still on. I go over to the computer and turn the monitor on to see the priest’s most recent internet search: “How to make a chocotini”. I look at his most recent searches on google it didn’t have anything interesting: just other weird sounding drinks, a search for house hold cleaning supplies and a camera for sale search”.

None of these seemed relevant so I went through the files to find a list of videos. Labeled 1-8. I click on the first video and I see a boy. He’s a little younger than me. He’s in the chapel whimpering in the confessional booth when suddenly a baseball hits him square in the shoulder, the boy screams and goes down. Crying he asks “What do you mean? Confess to what?” When another ball hits him on the side of the head. He goes down, not making a sound this time. When Mr. Blonde steps into view, he’s smiling. I’ve never seen him smile before. He goes to shake the boy when he sees a massive cut on the boys face. He gets up and goes to the camera and it cuts to black. When I look at the description they had created for the video it said “The boy had not been willing to play sports with the other kids and after multiple weeks of treatment he showed no signs of improvement”. Is this what they do to everyone who doesn’t make it through treatment? I rush to look at the other videos and read their descriptions.  All different children who showed no sign of improving and tortured in different ways in accordance with some minor thing the boy did.

Then I get to the eighth and final video. I press play and see the laundry room, Mr. Blonde has his penis out and is urinating on something… Or someone. Then the camera pans over to see Jerald, using his own sheets to shield himself from Mr. Blonde. When out of nowhere Jerald runs for the cameraman biting him in his thigh. The cameraman drops the camera and knees Jerald right in the face and the video cuts to black. This is all i need to put those assholes in prison forever. I quickly submit every video onto different social media websites and newspaper websites.

BANG BANG BANG! The priest, Mr. Blonde and two other adults break down the door. They quickly get to me as there is nowhere to go. The priest goes over to his computer to see what I’ve been doing. “You’re too late. You should’ve spent more money on food for us rather than high speed internet.”  Furious, he strikes me across the face with the back of his hand. The two adults don’t flinch, as i can tell they’ve seen this side of him before. Mr. Blonde doesn’t take long to realise what’s happened and flies into a rage. They repeatedly strike me in the face and i go down. I stopped feeling the blows after the first three. I can see myself being dragged now but I can feel nothing. It’s strange the only thing I can think of are the brown spotted piss colored stains above my bed.

Ode to the seventh Generation

First of all I hope you come to existence, as that is not so clear anymore. I hope you have truly equal 

opportunities, no matter where your born, or who you're born as. I hope that you don't have to pay 

extra for things that you are born with or forced upon you. I hope that you find happiness in what you 

do and that you are paid what you are truly worth. I hope you find love and learn that it is better to be 

alone than to be with people who make you feel alone. Finally above all else I hope that you don't 

spend you're whole life hoping.