OK, so this is my first South Park fic. All the chapters are short and not meant to be long at all. Until the epilogue, every chapter is a letter from Cartman to someone close to him. So, here it goes.

Dear Mom,

I know I'm only sixteen. I know that grown-ups think that if you're only sixteen you don't know enough about the world. Sixteen-year-olds don't understand complex emotions like love and hate and sorrow. I think everyone who says that is a fucking moron. We might be young, but we feel too. We might not have experienced as much as someone older, but we have experienced. I grew up in South fucking Park. Of course I've experienced things. I've seen war, greed, murder, and horrific deaths of innocents. I've seen them all. And they've all made me feel.

Everyone has always thought horribly of me. For a while, back when I was really young, pre-school times, I can remember people giving me pitiful looks when they saw me or were told that I was the Cartman boy. I didn't understand then, but now I know that those pitying looks were because of you. They felt sorry for me because I was the son of the town slut. But then they heard or saw things that I did. I was labeled as the town's own asshole. I was the little brat, the egotistical, manic, racist sociopath, as the Jew so eloquently puts it. They all hate me. They hate when I'm right about things that their pathetic minds can't admit to. Because they hated me, I hated them more. I hated them all so much. I never hid that from anyone. I've never seen the point in dancing around people like that. Most of the people in this town have nothing to do with me. I never needed to be deceptive towards them. Situations never called for that.

I don't know why I've always felt the need, the burning, aching desire, to be such a bastard to everyone. I've even always been a bastard to you. But that's what I am, right? A bastard child. Until third grade I had thought that I never knew my father. Turns out I never knew my mother. But I always still called you mom. You always acted the part of the loving mother. You always had a tray of cookies in the oven. You always looked ready for polite company to arrive. If I had to pin a stereotype on you, it would be the typical housewife of the 1950s. Of course those mothers didn't have your type of night job.

I knew about that. The other kids knew about it too. That was one of their favorite insults to me, that my mom was on the cover of Crack Whore Magazine. It pissed me off every time they said it. I don't know if it was so much them saying something against you as saying something insulting to me. But even though you were like that, you still loved me. You saw how excited I was about toothfairy money to give me enough to make us go bankrupt for a while. You always had treats ready to cheer me up if something at school had pissed me off. When I was grounded, it was only in name. I could still watch TV, play outside, go with Butters to California, or get presents. None of the other kids got that privilege. It was pretty sweet. I never appreciated it though. I'm selfish. I always wanted more. I always thought what I had wasn't good enough. In a way it wasn't. None of the other kids had a mother who would rather have sex with a random stranger that show a moment of concern over her Traper Keeper possessed son.

There's been a lot of late nights that I've sat up thinking about that. How you'd rather get your ass pounded than take care of me. What did you do when you learned about my conception? I'm sure it pissed you off. You'd have to change your whoring ways to take care of me. Why didn't you leave me to my actual mother? I used to wonder if she would have treated me better. From an outsider's point of view, I had it good. My mother let me do pretty much what I wanted. It always served my purpose well. I could convince you to do anything I wanted, even if you found it morally wrong. I proved that by getting you to sign me up for the Special Olympics in under five minutes. But corny and gay as this might sound, you never really gave me what I needed. You were never the sort of mother that I needed to make me a good person. The other guys had mothers that taught them morals and values and sensibility. You let me run wild.

Even though you did all that, you are still my mom, and I do love you. I promise I love you, Mom. I know what I've done is selfish, but hey, you won't have to spend money on me anymore. You won't have to work your schedule around me. You'll be free to do as you please. You won't have to worry about your child's feelings or reputation, not like you ever gave a damn before.

You'll be the one to find me. You'll probably find all the other letters too. Send them off for me. When you find me, you'll try to wake me up, but I'll never open my eyes again. That's the way I want it. I can't stand this place—this life—anymore. I could sound like myself and say that I can't take all the fags, Jews, and hippies anymore, but it's more than that. Every morning when I wake up, I want to cry because I have to go out and face the world that I hate. It's a chore—a real fucking chore—to pull myself out of bed. I look at everyone around me and I want to kill them. Kill them or myself. I've settled for the latter.

I'm not one of those faggy goth kids. I didn't do this because I couldn't stand the conformists. I didn't loose my girlfriend and couldn't take the heartbreak. I didn't have a drug addiction that only death could overcome. I just honestly can't handle this any more. It isn't healthy the way I think. I look at my so-called friends and I hate them. I hate their happiness. I hate that they are loved. I hate that they can love. They can love, but I can't. There is no one that I can look at and not hate. Everyone I see causes the blood in my veins to boil. I get called a Nazi for it, the reincarnation of Hitler. Who knows, maybe Hitler had the right idea.

Why is it that I can't love and be loved? I know that I can't be loved because I can't love. So maybe the proper question is why can't I love? What is it that keeps me from doing this when every other homo out there can do it? I don't know the answer. Now I never will. I'm ending it all in a few minutes. I'm ending my pathetic existence on this shit-hole planet. Religion tells me I'll go to Heaven for believing the Truth. Catholicism tells me I'll go to Purgatory for taking my own life. Everyone else says I'll go to Hell for all of the horrible things I've done. Kenny said Hell's not too bad. There won't be any fucking Mormons there. I don't know where I'll end up. All I know is that it'll be better than this. Better than this place, these people, this life. I said before that grown-ups would think I don't understand sorrow. To me, the greatest sorrow is my existence. It is when you pray for death every night before going to bed. Sorrow is not getting that death you've begged God for. Sorrow is not getting what you deserve. I'm the town's asshole. I deserved death. God won't give it to me. I have to give it to myself.

It might not make sense to you. It might not make sense to anyone else. But this is what it's come down to. They've always been right when they've said love is the key to a happy life. I have no love. I have no happiness. I have no life. I have nothing to keep me going, nothing to keep me sane, nothing to bring me back. I can't ask you to understand, Mom. No one ever has understood me. I used to say that it was because I was just more mature or more intelligent than everyone else. I've even said that God had picked me out to be better. That wasn't all true. God had picked me out, but He didn't do it because He liked me. He did it because He needed a laugh. He did it because not everyone can be happy. There has to be people who suffer so that the high and mighty can see how good they have it. There has to be people that snotty bitches can point at and tell their children not to become scum.

It's late. I'm tired. My eyes are bloodshot. I cried before I wrote this letter. I am sorry I'm leaving you, Mom. I know that you'll cry. You shouldn't, but I know you will. Don't cry for long, Mom. Just get up and go on. Continue with your life like I never was. You'll be happier that way.

I've put this off for too long now. There'll be an empty container off pills in the bathroom cabinet. You'll find them later, I'm sure. They're what I'm using. I'll take them all and then go to bed. I'll go to sleep and never wake up again. Then everyone can be happy. I'll have finally done something good for someone else.

I love you, Mom.

Eric