Creating Character Emotions: Apathy #2

Manga emotions (Photo credit: Wikipedia)For the second exercise we had to write about someone who is indifferent due to a personal agenda. I originally wrote this for the first exercise but felt that it fit this one better.

“Can I get your signature? Just your name please. Will you sign this, you don’t even need to read it? Please sign this petition to save the children’s home. No, that’s okay.” We need two hundred signatures to save the children’s home from being torn down. Just two hundred, it seems almost impossible. I had hoped that coming to a college campus that it might be easier to get some signatures.

“Sir, just a second of your time, could you sign this, please just a second to save orphans. No, thanks anyways.” Still the same story, trying to get signatures, but people walk right past s if I am invisible. College students stream by me, carrying their backpacks, trudging their way to wherever they are going. So focused on getting there, they don’t see the world around them.

“Could you please spare a second? An orphanage is going to be destroyed, if we can’t get enough signatures. Please sign this.” Some don’t even bother to respond, they just walk past. I can even see some students changing directions just to avoid me. What will it take to get people to sign? What should I do?

“Orphans are being kicked out into the street. Sign this to stop it. Stop orphans from being kicked out. Sign this,” still no responses. I walk around the quad and head towards the student recreation center. Maybe some students there will spare a second. The center is packed with students playing games, working out, and hanging out.

“Orphans being murdered on the streets, orphans being sold as prostitutes, stop it by signing this.” The students run around me, ignoring me. Even here, even though it seems full of life and activity, the students’ dead eyes show that there is nothing here. They play and talk, but most of all, they pretend not to see or hear me.

“Children using drugs. Children forced into lives of crime. Sign this.” I move through the large building, looking for hope while I act like a carnival barker or some tv salesman. I want them to pay attention, but it as if I don’t exist to them. Do I exist? Do the children exist? Maybe the students I am calling to don’t exist.

“Sign, Sign, Sign this. Help. Please Help. Help me.” I leave the building and feel like I am fading away. Maybe, I never existed. I float towards one of the dining halls. In there, people stuff food into their mouths. They do not care what they eat so they eat. They are too busy cramming to notice me. Too busy eating to hear or see or anything, but the food in front of them.

“Can anyone hear me?” I fade away nothing matters. My fliers fly away; maybe someone else can help them. The papers drift on by; they don’t matter. I don’t matter. The orphans should help themselves. There are no orphans. There is no I.

“Can I get your signature? Just your name please. Will you sign this, you don’t even need to read it? Please sign this petition to save the children’s home.” A voice fills the air, but it makes no impact on me. Words filled with no substance. I drift on by.

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Creating Character Emotions: Apathy

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - OCTOBER 24: A man dressed as a zombie sits next to a woman on a park bench during the Sydney Zombie Walk on October 24, 2010 in Sydney, Australia. The Sydney Zombie Walk saw participants travel a route through the business district starting and culminating at Sydney's Hyde Park. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)For the first exercise in Apathy we had to write a short inspired by the story Orientation by Daniel Orozco. My first attempt at this did not go well. After writing the first and second exercises, I felt that I should reverse the order, because what I wrote for the second exercise worked better than the first one did.

The hunger was intense, so intense it blocked out everything else. I no longer cared about anything. Bills did not matter. Love and friendship are nothing to me. I ate my best friend. She temporarily stalled the hunger. I ate my dogs; they did nothing for the hunger. That was when I knew only the flesh of the living humans would cure my hunger pangs.

I still tried to eat animals from time to time as it became harder and harder to find humans who do not suffer the same condition as I. I tried to bite one once; it was horrible. The flesh of infected or dead just makes me feel ill. The only thing that matters is finding the living and eating them.

I spot two other infected, one of them is missing an arm. They are both heading in the same direction. Maybe they know where some people are. I shamble after them. Soon others join us, all of us are heading in the same direction. There must be people, why else would we all be heading this way.

We walk forward until we hit a wall. We continue to walk forward. I am being crushed in the crowd, but I don’t feel anything. All that matters is walking forward to get to the food. The armless one falls after the loud crack of a gun. I knew that there were people here. I walk forward. My skin scrapes the hard concrete wall. Two more fall to the gun.

There is a loud crashing sound as a vehicle crashes through a gate. I turn to follow it. I walk and walk. Even though I don’t know where it has gone or where I am going, I walk. The endless hunger forces me to hunt until the end.

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