The path from birth to death is a struggle for conformity, individuals molding into the sizes and proportions that fit society's 'norm'. If you happen to be a little bit different, or a lot different, the line you walk will never be straight enough to truly succeed. The world, and culture we live in exists by a single rule, the same barbaric mantra our ancestors lived by; 'survival of the fittest'. Those deemed unfit will be persecuted by society into a life of misunderstood solitude and undeserved hatred. I guess that's where I fit in. No matter how hard I try to blend in, I'll always stick out in a crowd like a sore thumb. Or like a twitchy, frizzy-haired spaz with a severe caffeine addiction. Believe me when I say that the glares and gazes I often receive are unwanted, especially when it lands me where I was right now, sitting alone in the purgatory of red plastic chairs lining the entrance to the hell hole that was Mr. Davis's office. The teachers at North Park High had the tendency to lose their minds towards the end of the school year, something about 'the stressors of us unruly kids', and this year was no exception. Of course, the unintentionally disruptive, frightened little blonde kid was the favored victim of cruel and unusual punishments in the form of detentions, extra assignments and trips to the councilor's office for petty crimes of misdemeanor. Somewhere between being tricked into taking the blame for the shenanigans of the other delinquents in the junior year, and the rare manic outbursts I actually supplied myself, I had created a pretty bad name for myself among the faculty. I wasn't even sure exactly why I wound up in the office most of the time, I usually find out once I'm inside. Physics class today had barely started before the sound of my name was screeching through the room, and a red-painted finger was sharply pointing to the door. Knowing the drill, I pulled my chunky headphones over my ears and dragged my ratty backpack down the hall with a severe lack of enthusiasm. Now I heard, but barely registered Davis's annoyed tone as I peeled myself from my slouched position and proceeded dragging my bag behind my feet as I followed him into the seventh layer of hell; a heavily cluttered, paper coated excuse for an office. The chipping blue paint was almost completely obscured by frames of average-looking figures, and collections of diplomas and crayon drawings. I wanted to get out of here as soon as possible, so I cut to the chase.

"What did I do now." Davis frowned, uncrossing his legs and gesturing to my arms.

"Now Tweek, we've gone over this many times before. This is putting you at serious risk of ink poisoning." I crossed my sharpie-coated arms and sighed in annoyance.

"The ink has to be injected into your bloodstream i-in order to harm someone. Tattoos, for example. This is h-how I spend my time during class."

"You should be paying attention? This is the fourth time you've been sent here for coloring yourself during class. This is disruptive behavior, and we at the school, are starting to become concerned about your attention-getting problem." That did it. Maybe it was the amount of caffeine in my system, maybe it was the lack of sleep. But I was not about to sit here and have this fucking nonsense drilled through my head once again. For sixteen years I've been forced to listen to constant sporadic bullshit about the opinions of others, directed at myself. That I was a sociopath, a liar, a psycho, that I must have been abused as a child. I can't forget about the ingenious theory that I was a meth addict, that I was a starving cannibal, or that my insomnia was charged by possession by the devil. But perhaps the worst thing I've heard about myself, in all of my sixteen years, was the completely-untrue rumor that nearly everyone believed; all of the eccentric points of my personality were being faked, because I wanted attention. Let it be known that today, March 17th 2011, 11:34 am, was the day that Tweek Tweak completely lost his shit. I stood up so fast my head spun and my chair toppled, and before I realized what I was doing, my hands had slammed onto his desk and I was screeching with rage into his disbelieving face.

"ATTENTION‽ OBVIOUSLY THAT'S THE F-FUCKING REASON I 'ACT OUT' HUH‽ I MUST…MUST TELEPATHICALLY COMMAND PEOPLE TO SH-SHOUT AT ME FOR ALL OF THE RIDICULOUS FUCKING THINGS THAT EVERY OTHER STUDENT D-DOES, WITHOUT ASINGLEFUCKINGGLANCE SENT THEIR WAY! 'TWEEK COLORS WITH MARKERS, SEND HIM TO THE OFFICE WITH SI-SIXTYSEVEN DETENTIONS!' HELL, I P-PROBABLY GET OFF ON THE TORTURES OF FAKING PARANOIA, SO TH-THAT ALL OF THE OBNOXIOUS PEOPLE I COULDN'T CA…COULDN'T GIVE LESS OF A SHIT ABOUT WILL LOOK MY WAY AND F-FEEL PITY FOR S-SUCH A LITTLE OVERMEDICATED, WAYWARD, CHILD. OR I'M A, A MASOCHIST HUH‽ CAN'T RESIST THE O-OPPORTUNITY FOR SOMEONE TO PUSHMEAROUNDALITTLEBIT, AND INFORM ME THAT I LIE AH, ABOUT THE THINGS I DESPISE THE MOST ABOUT MYSELF, BECAUSE GOD KNOWS, TH-THEY HAVE THE RIGHT TO! CHRIST, ISN'T JUST W-WONDERFUL TO EXPLOIT YOURSELF TO THE POINT OF BEING A FUCKING…MENTAL-PATIENT STERIOTYPE‽ BECAUSE WHO THE F-FUCK, DOESN'T LOVE HAVING A TWITCHY, FREAK OF A S-SIDESHOW TO GAWK AT, DURING ALL HOURS OF THE SCHOOL DAY‽ OH B-BUT MAYBE I'M JUST DOING IT FOR ATTENTION! MAYBE…MAYBE I MAKE ART BECAUSE I W-WANT PEOPLE TO NOTICE HOW MUCH OF A SPECIAL F-F-FUCKING SNOWFLAKE I AM! YOU REALLY THINK I WANT YOU; TO ACKNOWLEDGE MY EXISTANCE‽ I HATE YOU AND Y-YOUR IGNORANT BRAINS. I F-FUCKING HATE, EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU NARSISSISSTIC DOUCHEROCKETS! GET IT THROUGH YOUR THICK F-FUCKING SKULL DAVIS!"

Once the blood vessels on his forehead were noticeably swollen to the point of bursting, I quickly thought over my explosive rant and realized that I may have overdone it.

"Expelled‽ I thought I raised you better than this! Tweek I…I can't even believe this…" Jen ran her hands through her long, caramel hair and tugged. Despite the paranoid anxiety that plagued us both, I'd never seen her quite this disheveled before, and it was starting to make me extremely nervous. "Where are you going to go to school‽ Oh Jesus, we're going to have to move, aren't we. I'll have to drive hours to get to work every day…unless…of course…"

I knew better than to bother my mom when she was talking to herself, and so I held my position with my ass planted firmly on the couch and my arms around my knees as my mother frantically paced around the living room, tugging on her hair and muttering about the government's plots to drag our house from under our feet and condemn us to a life of change-begging and cardboard boxes.

"Tweek. Don't you get it. They've been planning this for years! We have to go back to South Park if we want the torment to end."

"What torment? And y-you-know-who is still doing you-know-what in you-know-where." I couldn't help but notice just how much I resembled Jen as she grit her teeth and tugged on her hair, spinning her tiny body as she stomped around the floor in a manner akin to a rampaging toddler. When she found out about my father's mistress, she had completely lost it, packing our things and moving to North Park, where we lived alone in a haphazard whirlwind of a creaky old house. The place was cramped and spooky, despite the tightly packed potted plants and surrealism painting adorning the walls-at least the walls that weren't completely covered by tapestries and blankets in abstract shapes and patterns. It was strange, but suited our dysfunctional, makeshift family. It had been years since we'd left South Park, and no matter how un-thought-through the whole plan was, my gut was screaming with a mixture of excitement and dread I had begun to associate with the word 'adventure'. Even if the possibility of coming in contact with my father and his blooming coffee house could drive Mom to lose the rest of her sanity, I was almost ready to run upstairs and pack my shit immediately, with the ache of creaking floorboards and squeaking door hinges behind me at last. I did, however, have a manic mother to attend to before any arrangements were made.

"Jen. You n-need to calm down. Everything is going to be o-okay. We d-don't have to make any…no decisions right now. Okay? Doyouwantsometea?" Mom had since plopped her skinny butt on the floor in front of the black-and-white tv, and slowly nodded her head in solemn agreement, urging me to charge into my crowded kitchen, eager for a remedy for her anxiety. I mixed together the things I needed as quickly as I could manage without scalding myself with boiling water. I returned to the living room, teacup in hand, and I noticed Jen missing from her place on the floor. This could be bad. This could be very bad. Leaving the teacup on the table, I hurried upstairs with paranoia guiding my feet, skidding down the narrow hallway. I came to a stop at the last door-Jen's room. The sound of muffled sobs and ripping paper assaulted my ears, bringing with it a strange sense of responsibility otherwise foreign to me. I decided quickly that entering with a gift would appear much more welcoming to Jen in her current state, and quietly descended back into the fog of our incense-filled living room.

Jen's bedroom was even messier than the rest of the house, and the torn pages of her journal that currently littered the floor definitely did not help the situation. She sat, crumpled looking, on her favorite corner of her floor-mattress, the one the walls met at. Jen's wild brown hair was just a little too long, and the parts that couldn't be tucked behind her ears fell in her face, hiding the bloodshot-red from her hazel eyes, the ones that looked like mine. I sat on the mattress, silently offering my mother her tea.

"'D-do you wish, nngh...Do you wanna tell me wh-what you were doing?" Jen shook her head, dragging what was left of her leather diary close to her turquoise-clothed chest. That was one of the few things that remained from my childhood with my father; my mother loved wearing blue. In any shade at all. She said something about being 'one with the sky', a quote I would have once grouped together with the coffee metaphors my father overwhelmed my brain with, but I guess a lot has changed since then. I thought about this as I drew Jen close to me, wrapping my arms around her frail shoulders and allowing her to sob into mine.

The next few days were a blur of oversleeping, uninspiring artwork, and of course, Jen running frantically from room to room mumbling to herself about aliens. I had never seen her clean the house with such vigor, and the amount of paperwork she was filling out was strange. It shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did when after a week of quick errands and hushed phone calls, she announced that we were moving back to South Park.

"I thou…I d-didn't know you were serious!" Jen nodded her head vigorously, sending sideways glances in both directions before replying.

"We're staying on the other side of town. I have the house picked out already. It'll be a little out of the way but…we can be out of here in a week."

"You…you're kidding."

"Of course not, if they want us to leave, we can't just go about making them angry, now can we?"

"The wall-faces?" Jen often spoke of small whispers she heard, from faces in the wooden patterns of our walls. Her mental state was as unstable as her son's when she was refusing to take her medications, the ones that my father suggested she get prescribed to her. She nodded in agreement, leaving me to realize that she had her own logic, as well as the current lack of my schooling career to back up the impulsive decision, and that was about all the argument I could muster before I was being shooed upstairs to begin packing up my things.