Survival Of The Fittest

So why ask it then?

Ben hadn't been particularly close to actually blurting that shit out. Yeah she'd asked for his opinion, but she hadn't asked for his lip. Man. What was it with people and blowing all social situations way out there? Bringing their goddamn rail guns to the fistfight. Ben wasn't going to be the one who prescribed all his peers calm the fuck down for once in their overstimulated, overinflated egotist lives.

But he was going to be the one, at least sans vocalization.

"Well you did ask it." There, that was something to say. Don't take it the wrong way, personally, or anything else that will make you say something stupid, Rea. "It's like... shit." Very good points in his opening statement, but Ben was just getting warmed up. State position, expound. "I swear everyone nowadays just takes talking to their fellow peers way too seriously. All this anxiety and fear of misstep, I think. I mean I guess it makes sense in modern political climes, but if it's just between folks from your school I don't think it works at all, you know? Guess what I'm trying to say is relax. Don't overthink it or psyche yourself out. People are judging you less than you think they are, I'm sure."

Man, that had been a mouthful. Ben's flexed his jaw a bit, chewing on his words a bit while they simmered.

After Ben's Oscar-winning monologue, silence enveloped the pair. It was just them, standing there by themselves, alone in a deserted school.

The Dwarf and the Giant.

The Soldier and the Healer.

The Boy and the Girl.

After years of sycophancy, pretentiousness and snobbery, surrounded by wealth, and wealthy people, taught that those below them were scum that didn't study well enough at school, or didn't work hard enough, or were just slackers that smoked pot all day and sat around on welfare all day or whatever.

And then here comes this random kid, this guy that she'd never seen before, some bloke who'd got out of an ancient Honda, and had lived here all his life.

His name was Ben fields. He said the most real thing she'd ever heard. Not sycophancy, not pretentiousness. Real. It broke through to her.

Sure, to most other people who hadn't spent their life as virtual royalty, this may not have been the most amazing thing anyone has ever said. Kind of underwhelming, by most standards.

But to Rea, it was powerful. It cut right through everything she had ever learned like a scalpel.

So these were going to be the type of people she'd spend the rest of her school life with. Sure, they may be a bit rough around the edges, but she could get over that.

This place wasn't going to be that bad after all.

She could live with this.


((And so after that overreaction to something that wasn't all that powerful, Rea is continued in International Relations))

Almost before he was done Ben knew his spiel had amounted to a shit pundit rant. He knew what 'effective' was, and that hadn't been it. Rea gave him a moment of silence. In memoriam of his fallen stock, probably.

Shit, anyways. They had to get on with it. Rea still had a class to find. Ben held up two fingers, time out in the guise of dusty knuckles. Swept his hand down the hall in a brisk motion.

"Let's keep going."

Maybe they were friends, maybe they weren't. Maybe they'd actually find Rea's class or maybe it would turn out to not be on the map, the administrative cock up of legend. Either way. Only an idiot with too much time on their hands put that much thought into it before all was said and done. On and on it went.

((Ben Fields continued in Is This It))