The Human I'm Friends With

The Human I'm Friends With

E. M. Areson

I have never liked people.  Life is too short to spend with such petty creatures. They spent childhood in selfishness. Their adolescence with cruelness. Their adulthood with broken promises. And after all that, they die. Seriously, if I was going to choose my species I would have chosen to be an octopus.  They are smart, live about five years at most usually dying right after mating. Sure that doesn't leave great parent-child relationships but who needs those.

I’ve gotten off topic. My point is about humans. I have never liked people. I didn’t think I could ever like them. That is until a loud mouth, know-it-all, gobemouche interfered in my life. It was almost a ten years ago. I’d just moved to a new school in the same town I’d always lived in and was sitting on a bench at my new bus stop.

He had a medium skin color, brown hair, and average height. In other words, he was totally forgettable. In fact, the only thing unforgettable was his annoying habit of talking and calling me dude. I hate that if you want to call me something call me Mr or Sir or Maxwell, my name, but not dude. Of course, I didn’t know he had been doing it for three months.

I always wore earplugs, I hate talking. Of course, I had lost them that morning. So I was in a bad mood not looking forward to a day of listening to people. I was sitting on the bench minding my own business when he walked up.

“Hey, dude. You doing okay you look a bit upset. You wouldn't believe what happened to me this morning. My dad was all like, ‘You need to start eating eggs for breakfast instead of cereal.’ And I was all like, ‘Dude calm down there’s nothing wrong with my breakfast.’ Then he was like, ‘Don’t treat me like an idiot. I am your father.” Then I was like ‘Your Darth-’”

“Do I know you?” I interrupted.

He ran over and one-handedly hugged me, “Dude your not deaf anymore!”

“I never was, please release me.”

“Okay dude, if you're not deaf then why haven’t you ever responded to me?” He stepped back, it was like he thought he was my best friend or something.

“I wear earplugs so I don’t have to deal with people. I lost them today.”

He sadly at me for a moment, then smelled, “Oh well, we can start over dude! I’m Alex. What’s your name, dude?”

“My name is Maxwell.”

Somehow, though I’m not sure how that’s how I met my best friend. We shared a class schedule, a college dorm and then moved into the same apartment building as adults. How we’re friends? I have no clue to this day, but we are. Somehow I now like some people, and somehow I don’t think all people are idiots anymore. Strange what a friend can to do to a guy. Or as Alex would say, ‘Friends make everyone better, dude.’

Photo by David Kennedy