Ian calmly walked out of the front door of his girlfriend’s tin can, and slammed it behind him.

“You act like such a woman sometimes,” Cyd yelled, as if that was a bad thing.

She had no real reason to be angry. He just asked her a question. He was the one that should have been angry. It’s not that she was a tart, but she was pretty close. But maybe he was just too possessive, as she always said.

All of his friends said she was trouble, especially Crash and the glitter punk. Not that they would know anything about it. Maybe he should have listened. People always do stupid things when they’re “in love.”

If he had Cyd’s heart, he would have crushed it. Instead, he trampled the stupid little mini roses they had planted together. Now he had pink red petals and tiny thorns in his beautiful orange Doc Martens.

Our great rebellion, he thought, is following the rules. It’s all about going to college and getting a degree, a job, a wife, and kids. There are no more freaks. He was part of a dying breed. But maybe it was just because he was in the middle of suburban America.

Ian lit a cigarette, standing in the driveway for a moment, facing the street. He knew it wasn’t good for him – he even called them cancers – but he figured that, the way his life was going, he wasn’t going to live to fifty-something or whenever you get old and die.

A couple of girls walked by, gossiping excitedly in that dull teenage drama queen way. They were all “Like, that’s so gay” and all that stereotypical idiocy. The fake and bake bleached blonde said, “My mom is so –“

The girls stopped walking. Fake And Bake was staring stupidly at Ian, at a loss for words. Her mouth was even hanging open a little. He little pony-tailed friend joined in on the fun.

“Oi,” Ian said. He wasn’t even doing anything. Then again, he must have been pretty scary, standing there sucking on a cigarette, a whole 6’3’’ and 140 lbs. with creepy pale blue eyes. It wasn’t that he tried to look like that; it just sort of happened.

They didn’t say anything. No one ever did. The little brunette’s pony tail whipped around, nearly smacking Fake and Bake in the face, and they continued down the road. The petty conversation was over.

Ian flicked his cancer in the neighbor’s sad excuse for a lawn, bored of it. He popped a mint and checked out the deserted trailer court. Apparently, old people didn’t go outside that much.

Old people, he thought, have it made. They have an excuse not to work, other than “They won’t hire me because I look funny.” If they wanted to, they could sit there and write poetry all day. Instead of writing their memoirs, they just watched TV and gained weight, waiting to die.

A woman was singing an old song somewhere. It was “Gloomy Sunday,” the song that’s supposed to make people commit suicide (best by self-defenestration). Ian was somewhat surprised that he knew that. Wikipedia was a gift of God.

He walked down the road in the opposite direction of the drama queens, and turned left. Walks were helpful sometimes. Maybe Cyd would forgive him by the time he got back. That’s how messed up it was. He felt like it was his fault she was probably cheating on him. How pathetic.

Across the street, there was a daycare center, complete with tiny children screaming and playing. That sort of stupid thing made Ian laugh. Not a loud, obnoxious laugh. Well, enough to smile, anyway. They were just too cute and innocent.

Ian went further down the road, past the rundown trailer court with the ABC’s for street names, past the “I <3 NICKIE” graffiti on the sidewalk, and through a broken beer bottle. There was always glass everywhere. You’d think that there’d be people who were supposed to clean that stuff up, but they never did.

A little past the street with people names, a big, poofy dog started to run back and forth behind its fence, yelling at Ian. The dog probably could have jumped over it if he tried hard enough. For a moment, Ian thought the dog was kind of cute and cuddly-looking, but then he noticed that it was sort of foaming at the mouth. He almost felt bad for the poor, rabid animal. Maybe it wasn’t so excited; maybe it just wanted to kill him.

The sidewalk ended on that side of the road soon after that. He had to wait for about twenty cars and trucks to drive by, and listen to the dog barking. Its owner yelled at it to shut up.

The problem with the world today, he thought, is that people rely too much on cars. They love the convenience. Cars are the only reason suburbia exists. Even though they’re a huge waste of money, most people would rather drive the 0.7 miles down the road to the gas station for a pack of cancers than walk. There were about three crosswalks in the whole town, at least the parts he was familiar with.

He ran to the other side without dying. There was more broken class on the sidewalk by the disgusting creek, brook, stream, whatever it was. You could probably fall off the sidewalk and roll into the brown water. It was a bit dilapidated, with a fallen power line and trash everywhere. It was pretty cool and a little pitiable at the same time.

At the “Industrial” or whatever part of the road, the sidewalk completely disappeared, so he walked in the road. It was a wide road, but it was still irritating. People drove by, some shouting obscenities at Ian, all to the lovely backdrop of businesses American flags, manicured lawns, and identical planted trees (probably put there after they destroyed the woods for it).

The next intersection still had no sidewalk. There was just another gross creek (or it could have been the same one; he wasn’t sure) probably filled with industrial waste. A tiny, broken alcohol bottle was lying next to the road. All kinds of things were lying next to the road. Mostly cigarette butts, but never any money.

Ian soon found himself at a sidewalk, of course next to a nice neighborhood. Sidewalks were only on main roads and next to nice neighborhoods, because you know, a person with money can’t be seen walking on the road by their nice little houses. The weird thing about the sidewalk was that it was behind the houses as well as in front of them. He could roll down the hill right into one of their lawns “Patrolled by Border Collie” (well, the ones without fences anyway).

A man was reading on his back porch, hidden partially by a short fence. He was only in shorts and this lame Hawaiian T-shirt, and in shades, as if it were eighty degrees out, even though it was probably under sixty and very, very windy. Ian didn’t even notice him until he looked up. He hated shades. You could never see expressions or make proper eye contact at all.

A little down the road, there was a poorly constructed “bridge” over another (or the same one) little gross creek. Rusted barbed wire covered some sort of pipe and these electrical box-type things that you always see, like they were special or something. The bridge hardly protected people from falling off and drowning. It wasn’t that deep, but Ian couldn’t swim anyway.

He was getting slightly bored. The wind blew had, and he wished that he hadn’t stormed out of the house without grabbing his jacket. He walked past a nicer neighborhood (without a sidewalk) with a sign that said “ROCK GUITAR LESSONS” and an unbuilt house that looked sort of like a castle. A church sign said “TRUST GOD… CHOOSE LIFE.”

People, he thought, seem to like to yell at each other. On the Internet, on signs, and in car commercials, especially. For some reason, they thought it would be more effective at convincing you to share their opinion or buy their things. It was the same everywhere. Did they really think—?

“HEY!” some stupid guys yelled, “YOU WITH THE BOOTS!” Ian pretended not to hear them, even though he didn’t have the excuse of headphones. Usually when someone yells “HEY!” at you, they don’t want anything especially important. If they did, they would have risked running across the road, like they expected him to.

He walked up a steep hill, expecting a sidewalk at least by the little church school. No sidewalk, but a crosswalk, as if they wanted you to risk your life walking on the road. Because kids really want to cross a busy street to get to school. The church sign up the road said, “PONDER CHRIST’S PASSION.”

The sidewalk finally returned near some So & So ATTORNEYS AT LAW place that looked like a house. It even had a playground in the back. Why anyone would decide to have a business in what’s obviously a house, he did not know. Who would know that it even exists? A little bit further up the road, there was a SOCIAL SECURITY SERVICES or whatever building. They looked like they got as much business as the other place.

Now he was at the Walgreens plaza-type place. The gross creek (or maybe a different one) ran under the road. This part had chunks of concrete and plastic bags, and a poorly constructed bridge-side type thing. There was a hidden business college with a lame theme song that gets stuck in your head every time you hear/read the name hidden in the back. Next to it was his favorite place ever, The Salvation Army. It always amused him to see the old ladies that shop there glaring him down, when the people who work there were always so nice about everything. But then again, they could be happy to get business, or they could just like his voice.

He decided not to go into Walgreens, but he stood outside of it for a moment. Across the street was the school that Crash and the glitter punk went to (and naturally hated). It was kind of sad that his friends were all younger than him.

Ian sighed and walked past all of the daffodils, trailers and nice houses, and tattered signs/banners to remind you that you were in the middle of nowhere. He passed an angry guy wearing a bandana and a hat (which looked rather redundant, he thought) and a smiling old man. The people in town annoyed him endlessly, but he didn’t know why.

He was almost finished with his huge circle. The streets were named after loud, obnoxious birds. “JAY” was written in the sidewalk, along with “TAKE…” something, “BK” and the word “NIGGER.” He stopped, wanting to get rid of it somehow, but it must have been put there when the concrete was still wet. Stupid suburbia.

Almost there. He was at another (or the same) dirty little creek. The bridge had all sorts of graffiti on it. Mostly that they really didn’t like some girl by the name of Libby, and that she was exceedingly unfaithful. “666 SATAN 666” looked like it had been spray painted there about thirty years ago.

At the nearby church, there was the only crosswalk on that road (because churches are special and need that sort of thing for the old people, he assumed). He cut through the shrubbery into Cyd’s trailer court. It smelled strongly of some sort of peppery chicken. He walked past the neighbor who always sat on his porch, smoking a cancer with this irritated look on his face.

Ian nearly passed out when he reached her trailer. Everything he owned (which really wasn’t that much) was strewn all over the porch and on the lawn. His journals were blown open, torn pages of poetry and stupid little doodles flying into the next yard. Tattered pages of a tattered life. She must have really hated him by that point.

He made up his mind. If he was going to do this, he was going to look good. He took his MP3 player (for inspirational music, of course), put on his leather jacket, and put more Vaseline in his hair. The wallet was tempting, but he decided that he wouldn’t need it. Everything else, he left.

For some reason, he was listening to Chopin’s “Funeral March”. He speed walked through the bushes, past the church sign that yelled, “EVERYONE WELCOME, past all of the identical houses and cigarette butts, and past the tiny, failing car dealership. Only because he was slightly tired, he slowed down at the sad excuse for a park. Next to all of the “VOTE FOR …whoever” signs was a sign that screamed “GOT CHURCH?” Some people in the tiny bit of woods at the edge waved at him. He smiled a little and waved back, even though it was silly.

“Szomorú Vasárnap*” was a better song. He slowly made his way to the bridge. It was big, white, hideous, and new, very much in the style of a town in the middle of nowhere pretending to be modern. The muddy river below was slightly flooded, and some guy in some sort of weird boat sped by underneath. He kind of wished he had his camera, even though it wasn’t much of a sight.

Ian leisurely pulled himself to the top of the fence. It was supposed to be kind of spiked to prevent that sort of thing, but it really wasn’t made too well. There was too much water. The sky was his window. He threw himself through the glass.