Class of 2012

It's evident to everyone who knows me that I love music, I'm a true classic rocker. It might be the year 2029 and times have changed but my tunes haven't. Music today lacks substance. Everything is so overly processed. What happened to the days when people actually played instruments and sang a little off key at their concerts? Man, what I would do to see The Who, or Fleetwood Mac or even Def Leopard play live. That would be heaven. Instead, I result to surfing You Tube when I get that carnal craving to satisfy my eyes and ears with the music of yesterday's raw talent.

I've had some great times and experiences that I wouldn't trade for anything, but my life took a sudden turn one Saturday evening...

I had just woken up from a great night of sleep. The first song playing on the juke box in my head was Lover Boy- "Everybody's working for the weekend" GREAT FRICKEN TRACK! It was the perfect tune to enjoy a cup of Joe.

I was high-strung without coffee and probably annoyed the fuck out of people. But who cares. I wanted to have fun all day every day. That's the way to stay happy! Why would I want to wake up just to sulk in sorrow because the light bill was going to be late? That wasn't me. I was the give zero fucks kind of guy...

Ahh, the smell of bacon and eggs in the morning equals bliss. OH! and you got to have OJ or it's not quite a rounded nutritious breakfast. At least that was the kind of crap my mom taught me. Love that woman to death but she couldn't cook to save her life. Anyway, it was almost time for some college football. I showered, turned on some tunes and went into the den of my bachelor pad.

Everyone made fun of my lime green leather sectional couch that sat low and had built-in cup holders on either end. It was bitchin' to me. Plus, I wasn't an interior designer, that shit is for chicks. This sexist outlook was probably the reason why I was single at the time. But that was ok, my buddy Jason was on his way to get that morning's party started right!

As I sat there flipping through channels. I looked down at my phone and scrolled through my recent notifications. I saw an image alert for my doorbell camera that recorded when I was in the shower. I loaded the clip and watched as a Jarvis drone landed at the base of my doorsteps and dropped a package. The Jarvis corporation was in swift competition with Amazon, but I hadn't ordered anything from either of them. I closed the feed and kept scrolling, quickly forgetting about the package that was more than likely delivered to the wrong address. A few minutes later, Jason comes busting in the door. He never knocks and I didn't care. He was my bro!

"Aaron man! What are you doing, turn the game on! Michigan State just scored! I've been listening to it on Sirus. Oh, and looks like your tampons arrived." He laughed as he set the unknown package down with the rest of the miscellaneous crap on my glass end table beside the couch.

I laughed too, "Dude chill, and grab a beer out the fridge. I'll turn the game on right after I finish texting my dad back from last night." Jason was the man! We became friends in ninth grade and twenty years later we still hung tough!

The football game was a tragic waste of time, only because Michigan State lost to Perdue 17-10. Obviously, we had to blame someone for the upset and made excuses for their shortcomings. Those are the kind of things us alpha males did. We're never wrong and take shit from no one.

After letting our ego's take a break from football, we met up with a couple of our friends and played eighteen holes at Woodward Greens, not too far from my pad. Four hours and seven beers later, Jason drove me home. I was done early and didn't want to go hang at the bars. I was tired and just wanted to chill and see if I could get a date to come over.

I loaded Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon on my Bluetooth speakers and began to clean, just a little though. I wanted to keep the appearance that I really didn't give a shit how my place looked. That's when I saw the package delivered earlier. It was a perfect square, measuring about 12 inches on all sides. Oh shit! I thought. I should probably see if it belongs to one of my neighbors. I grabbed it, looked at the label. It read, Aaron Archer 144 Granier Ln. It was addressed to me with no return address. I rarely order stuff online. I would rather go out to shop. You never know when you might meet one of those fine women browsing for shit they don't need.

Oh well, I thought to myself. Maybe it's from a secret admirer. I walked into my filthy ass kitchen for a knife. I couldn't tell you the last time I ran the dishwasher. Dirty plates and glasses were everywhere. Pizza boxes, empty beer cans and Stouffer's mac-n-cheese containers littered the place like someone emptied a bag of garbage all over the counters. But it didn't bother me. I grabbed the nearest blade I could find to slice through the packing tape of the box. I ripped it off and opened it. It was full of those annoying Styrofoam balls that were already spilling onto the floor. "Dammit!" I fished around inside the box spilling more. I finally touched something at the bottom. It felt like a book! I pulled it all the way out; it was a yearbook wrapped in plastic from my high school. It was from 2012, the year I graduated. What the fuck, was my next thought. Why would someone send me something like this? Our twenty-year reunion wasn't for another 3 years, and I already had a copy. I kept fishing around for anything else that might be in the box but found nothing. This was a pretty odd and random occurrence. I was intrigued. It made me think about all the crazy shit I did growing up. I grabbed a beer even though I said I was done drinking for the night and sat down on my awesomely unattractive couch. I tore off the plastic and turned to the first page of the book. The first picture I saw was Principal Garret, what a douche! He didn't like me at all. We had a no-love, hate-only relationship. I kept him busy with my day-to-day antics like pulling the fire alarm and getting away with it. One time in the cafeteria I laced a three-gallon stainless steel container of Iced Tea with hot sauce. That was one of my better pranks, but I was caught red-handed for it. Mr. Garret found the empty bottle of hot sauce in my locker; it was in an evidence bag on his desk when he called me in to confront me.

Even though I was a pain in the ass, no one could deny that I was a straight A student. The principal and my teachers couldn't figure out how I kept my grades up while getting into so much trouble all the time. They didn't know my motivation was my father, he would kick my ass if I brought home a failing grade. But at the same time, he was the type that laughed at some of the stuff I was accused of doing at school.

The next several pages in the book were staff, mainly teachers, including Mrs. Padua. She was the Health Class teacher and a babe, no, she was a MILF! Her long blond hair and her curvy hips kept most guys on edge. Wherever she appeared, all eyes were on her. I mean ALL eyes, girls and boys alike. ZZ Top's, She's got Legs was the song that best describes her.

When I turned to the sports page, the football team was the first picture. My face was crossed out. That was weird and changed the tone right away. Why would someone cross out my pic? I flipped a few more pages to the wrestling team, again my pic was scribbled out. This made me wonder if all my pics had been erased. I quickly flipped to where my senior photo was. It wasn't scratched out, instead someone pasted a donkey's ass over my face, leaving my neck and shoulders intact. I was starting to get mad and couldn't believe someone was fucking with my head. Who sent this book to me? I grabbed the box and looked again for a return address. Nothing, it was blank. I grabbed the book and went to every page where I should have been and sure enough, every image of me was altered or defiled. This was pure disrespect. When I flipped towards the final pages where people sign it. It was filled with anonymous deranged quotes, like some kind of lunatic was taunting me. It had to be from someone I pissed off all those years ago... On the very last page, written ten or more times with a permanent maker were the words. DID YOU SEE PAGE 129. I hadn't seen that page since I was only flipping to the pages with my pics. I flipped backwards until I got there. An extra page was attached to it with eight photos of guys cut out and pasted together in a circle with the words, Remember Us? written in the center of the photo circle.

I remembered them alright. They were a bunch of losers that I use to terrorize in the halls, on the playground, on the bus. Anywhere really. My adrenaline began to flow. I wanted to go out and find the freak who sent me this book and punch him in the face a few times. But which one was the idiotic offender? At the bottom of their photo collage, it read, Check out the next page dumb ass! with a laughing till you cry emoji after it. I turned beet red as the anger compiled. They didn't have the guts to say all this to my face! I turned to the next page. Both sides were blank other than the words WHO'S THE LOSER NOW? As soon as I read the last word, I heard a small pop, then white powder flew into the air and all over my face and into my mouth. I jumped off the couch with quickness, flinging the book off my lap onto the floor. I started spitting the powdery stuff out while I ran to the bathroom to wash it off my face. Now, I was livid. Whoever it was took this a little too far. I clicked the bathroom light on and turned the handle to the hot water on the sink. I looked at my reflection in the mirror and it began to spin. My face was contorting like I was in the house of mirrors at the carnival. I didn't feel right. Nausea began to take over. I looked down at my left hand that was placed on the sink, and it began to bubble. It looked like my skin was boiling as the bubbles multiplied and pushed each other around. My eyes grew alarmed at the sight of this. I looked in the mirror again wondering what the fuck was happening to me. Then I saw my reflection become independent, it started smirking at me, soon it was laughing and pointing at me. Then it spoke. The voice was muffled like I was wearing headphones and I could faintly hear Queen's, Another one bites the dust in the background.

"What's wrong bro, you can't take a joke. Hahahaha. You're the biggest cry baby of them all. Pretending to be this macho man all your life, when we both know you're a pansy ass-no woman having, pillow humping dork!"

I freaked out and almost broke my neck trying to get out of the bathroom. I took off down the hall towards the den. Everything looked like it was made of fluid and wiggled like jello when the weight of my feet landed on the ground with every stride.

"And another one down and another one down, another one bites the dust." I fell to the hardwood floor before making it to my phone. One of those bastards poisoned me... This was the last thought I remembered having. I blacked out...

My next memory was of yellow balloons covering the sky. Silent blackbirds sat on top of the fence surrounding the playground I grew up visiting as a kid. There was no one in sight except one man brandishing a crossbow, shooting the balloons out of the sky. He turned to me, smiled and said,

"You're so lucky, you get to go back!"

Suddenly, it felt like the air was being sucked out of my lungs as I was being forced off my feet and pulled backwards at a considerable amount of speed. I began hearing snippets of classic tracks that I love, then everything began to fade to black as I came to a sudden halt. I opened my eyes to blurred vision. I looked over towards the daylight of the window in the room I was in. I saw an image sitting in a chair. It looked like my sister. I quickly sat up and was met with pain in every joint that moved. The image jumped out of the chair at the sight of me moving and shouted,

"AARON?...AARON!...IT"S YOU! YOUR AWAKE." It was my sister Heather. She hugged me, which was also painful, then made a phone call while shouting for doctors. Several medical staff came running into the room. They began hastily checking my vitals. I began to panic from all the movement and curious eyes peering at me. One of the doctors spoke.

"How do you feel Mr. Archer? You defied the odds! We gave you a ten percent chance of surviving until you started showing signs of increased brain activity. In the last few weeks, you began to smile and twitch."

I still didn't know what was going on. I timidly opened my mouth and asked, "How long have I been here?"

"Let's see, today is December 19, that's eighty-three days I believe."

My eyes lit up and I blurted in a loud whisper, "HOLY SHIT, ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS? I tried sitting up further but the piercing aches in my joints gave way to too much pain. I fell back on the pillow and winced.

"Take it easy, take it easy, relax." The doctor said. "I know this comes as a shock, but you can't do anything about it right now. The anthrax you consumed put you in a coma and did some nerve damage. You're going to need therapy. You should be eligible for release within the next two weeks."

I couldn't believe I was away from my life that long. What happened to my I.T. job at Honda? Who took care of my responsibilities? The medical staff were finishing up with checking me out and began to clear away. My sister walks up to me with a somber smile. She spoke,

"Mom and dad are on their way. How are you feeling?"

"I feel okay. I just can't believe this!"

"Yeah, we've been taking turns checking up on you and sitting with you. You scared us all to death Aaron! I have to ask... Why...why did you want to take your own life?"

"ME, take my own life! Is that what everyone thinks? You're joking right?"

"Well, we found the suicide note you left at your place, and a vial of poison was right beside your body, it was half empty."

"No, no, no! This was attempted murder! Didn't they find the package or the yearbook? It was sent to me from someone who wanted revenge for all the stupid shit I did to them in high school."

"We didn't find anything like that. I guess you can check with the police, but I was there right before they transported you to ICU. It was frightening seeing your almost lifeless body being taken away on a stretcher...You know you can talk to me anytime you want, about problems and stuff."

"Heather! I didn't try to kill myself! Geez! You know me. I barely give a shit about anything. It's okay, I have proof."

I underestimated this situation. Whoever did this to me meticulously planned this. They did an awesome clean-up job to cover it up. If I would have died, my death certificate would have read Suicide. This made me angry all over again.

I was released from the hospital eleven days later. I had time to think about what happened and the part I played in my murder attempt. There were some deep lessons to be learned. It changed me. I vowed to be a better person and treat others with respect. I started looking into different volunteering ventures to show that I cared for the wellbeing of others. I was allowed to live. I knew someone was looking down on me, protecting me.

My buddy Jason was the only one to believe my story. All my camera history was erased and wasn't saved on the cloud. I forgave my would-be killer(s), but never really got over the paranoia of them possibly knowing I survived. Hopefully, if they are still watching me, they see I'm a changed man because of them. We could all learn from this...