Resistance Is Futile (Xe)

a short story

Xe is getting dragged behind Barney at school. Not physically, but it’s like the dude has a little eddy that forms behind him wherever he goes, and you can just end up there, and then you’re getting dragged around. Or at least carried around. Somewhere between inexorably pulled and voluntarily directed. Almost like Xe could get out, but it would take more effort, and there’s no real reason to exert that much effort.

This might be why people just seem to like the dude no matter what he does. It’s like it takes less effort to be his friend than not. Which is strange because Xe doesn’t typically like — what is he trying to say? He doesn’t usually make new friends. Which is a sad thing to admit, but Barney is friends with everyone. So it seemed natural that you would not reject that or something. It’s like everyone else is doing it.

Coincidentally, he’s ended up in this situation where the dude wants to hang out with him on purpose at school. Xe doesn’t know why, but he’s very, very lost. He likes that being at school allows him to have experiences like this sometimes, but it’s also very stressful. There’s nothing worse than the normal boring life that will happen if you sit back and don’t do anything, but it’s still stressful when it happens. Your life gets exciting, and then you’re like, “Wait. Maybe I liked it better when it was boring.”

With Barney around, you don’t have to try to make anything exciting. The dude is a natural interest machine. Everybody wants to talk to him, and whatever he’s asked to do, he seems to always say yes to. Like that movie where Jim Carrey can’t stop saying yes.

“Hey, Barney.”

“Hey, Barney.”

“Hey, mister president. Barney.”

“Hey, Barney.”

“Hey, Zee.”

“Hey, Barney.”

Many, many, many girls are saying hi to him. Dudes too, though they’re a little bit quieter — fist bumps and head nods and stuff. But the girls make it a fucking thing to say his name very loud every time they speak. It’s so obvious it’s not just popularity. Clearly, they all have crushes, but the dude is sort of like a mini celebrity too, at least at school.

It feels so strange to know someone isn’t that special in terms of their personality — like, they’re just a normal person — but people talk about them like they’re extraordinary. You can hear other people talking about them all the time. You can tune in to the gossip, and it’s like everybody just takes it for granted that he’s worthy of being gossiped about.

That’s probably one of the most celebrity-like qualities that gets tolerated at school. You just start gossiping about people, people that you don’t really know necessarily. You talk about their lives. You talk shit about them.

“Did you hear that they did this?”

“And that person did that?”

“And then you hear that person did this?”

“And that person did that and this?”

And then you’re speaking to that person later. And it’s so weird. You have this whole backstory about their life from conversations they weren’t part of. Meanwhile, they don’t know anything about you. So you’re asking questions like they’re a celebrity. You take it for granted that they’re not going to know anything about you compared to how much you know about them. It’s weird enough when it happens to real celebrities, but the fact that it can happen in small communities too is odd.

Barney has probably acted like this since he arrived at Saint Mary’s. It’s probably how he acts wherever he goes. He just becomes friends with everyone. Maybe because he can’t be bothered not to. It’s not like he wants to know everything about you, but Xe is only interested in Alanna, really, and Barney seems to be interested in all girls and all guys and everybody that he can get to know. Teachers, janitors, anybody he can talk to, he talks to them like he really cares about what their life is like.

That just seems strange. You’d expect the dude would only be interested in hot chicks or something. Xe doesn’t know what to tell you. But maybe that’s what makes Barney like him. That he doesn’t overthink their friendship.

The easiest way of going through life is not overthinking stuff. You see stuff, try not to overthink it. Xe’s not the best at that, and especially if he’s really in his head, he’ll become the greatest overthinker of all time. But that isn’t his natural personality or tendency. It’s more like the anxiety of social life and the confusion of having to interact with people always produces stress in response to a stimulus that would make anybody freeze up.

It’s not weird to be shocked by a flashbang grenade, and that’s what’s going off in his head. It would probably be weirder to not get shocked by a flashbang. That’s how he sees it. His school life has always been a series of grenades. And he just tries to dive on the ones he’s supposed to and not let the ear ringing and retinal burn from the flashbangs interact with his psyche too much. To overthink that part of it would probably make his reactions stand out even more. It’s like no one else is having grenades going off in their heads.

Except maybe they are?

Xe watches Barney move through the hallway like he’s gliding. Everyone turns to him, everyone wants something from him, and he seems to handle it all with this effortlessness that you can’t fake. But sometimes — and Xe has noticed this more and more lately — sometimes there are tiny fractures in Barney’s expressions. This millisecond where the smile falters, or doesn’t reach his eyes all the way. Like maybe he’s got grenades too. Masking. Putting on this spotless social performance that everyone buys, but underneath it all, is he just as confused?

What if everyone is walking around with their own private explosions? What if the difference between him and everyone else isn’t that they don’t experience the world as painfully bright and loud, but that they’ve just gotten better at pretending they don’t? Comforting. Or, no, terrifying because — Jesus, if everyone feels this way and still manages to function, then what the hell is wrong with him that he can barely keep it together?!But then maybe he’s not the extraterrestrial he always felt like he’s been?

There’s a concept in psychology called “theory of mind” — the ability to understand that other people have different thoughts, feelings, and perspectives than your own. Xe has always thought his problem was too much. He doesn’t just recognize that other people have different thoughts: he becomes paralyzed trying to predict what those thoughts might be. Every social interaction, a chess game, he’s trying to anticipate moves ahead.

But Barney doesn’t even play. Like he’s figured out that nobody really knows what they’re doing anyway. Not outwardly analyzing or calculating. More just responding. Talking to the janitor with the same interest as the hot girl or the hot teacher or Xe himself.

Maybe that’s why Xe feels so comfortable in Barney’s eddy. Dude doesn’t seem to expect anything from him. There’s no performance required.

“Bro,” Barney says over his shoulder, looking down and breaking Xe’s train of thought. “I have to show up at Milano’s after school.”

“Alanna?”

“Yep.”

“That’s the pizza place everyone likes?” Xe asks, immediately visualizing the crowded red barstools of the pizzeria, full of loud voices, impossible to have a conversation, all weapons-grade social ordinance. Alanna and all the girls, in a tiny dining area.

Barney’s eyes soften. “Just a few people. If we take my car, we can leave whenever. No pressure.”

“You can’t keep driving me home, buddy.”

“You’re good company, bro. It’s the least I can do to repay you.”

“You’re too nice, Barney.”

“Nah. You’re too hard on yourself, broski.”

And maybe that was the thing about him. He didn’t just seem to navigate the social world better, it sometimes seemed like he was actually holding the door open for others, nudging them to pass through. Letting them know it’s okay to duck out when the psychic SWAT teams come crashing through the plate window.

Swallowing, Xe nods. The hallway doesn’t feel like as much of a gauntlet after a deep breath. Just a hallway with some people in it. People who might have their own inner bombs going off, private battles they fight while we all collectively pretend we’re doing just fine.

“Yeah, cool, I’ll come then,” he says. “I’ll come.”

“Sweet!” Big smile. Fist bump. Hard not to smile back. Barney’s face hits your mirror neurons too fast to notice.

As Xe steps behind his giant silhouette again, the current carries him forward.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Very hard to tell if he’s letting it happen or if one person can be so psychically charming that any resistance is futile.