CARLA: When I was a kid we moved around a lot, so I never really had any friends most of the time. But one time, we stayed put long enough for me to kind of get to know this one kid. His name was Larry, but everybody called him Gothic Larry.

GOTHIC LARRY: I am soooooo boooooooored.

CARLA: He was like a year older than me, but we hung out cuz we both smoked out in the parking lot at lunch.

GOTHIC LARRY: Every aspect of my life is absolute total tedium, do you understand me? The technical term is “ennui.” I am drowning in a massive tidal wave of “ennui,” Carla, do you understand me?

CARLA: Sort of. I mean, if you’re so bored, Gothic Larry, why don’t you read a book?

GOTHIC LARRY: You’re so childlike in your simple ignorance, Carla. Do you not see that all a book could possibly do is reflect back to me the epic futility I already fully realize with every fiber of what passes for my tiny, miserable soul?

CARLA: Why don’t you get a hobby?

GOTHIC LARRY: You mean a mindless and temporary distraction from the pointless emptiness of the world?

CARLA: I guess.

GOTHIC LARRY: No thank you, I’m good.

CARLA: But so I tried to explain Gothic Larry to my dad, and he was like-

DAD: Maybe your friend’s depressed.

CARLA: He says he’s just bored.

DAD: Sure, boredom or listlessness or apathy could all be symptoms of a deeper, underlying condition. Might be depression, might be something else.

CARLA: If he’s depressed, how do I cheer him up?

DAD: Well I don’t know if it’s that simple, Carla. How much do you know about his home life?

CARLA: I don’t know anything about him really.

DAD: How’d you wind up friends with him?

CARLA: Because we both like - eating lunch outside - when it’s nice out.

DAD: I see.

CARLA: Which was Dad’s way of saying “you can blame Gothic Larry for the smoke smell on your clothes, but you ain’t fooling me.” But he let me get away with stuff because he felt bad for moving us around so much.

GOTHIC LARRY: “Depressed”? Is that what your dad said?

CARLA: I guess, yeah.

GOTHIC LARRY: Is your father a practicing psychotherapist or a licensed psychiatrist by chance?

CARLA: No.

GOTHIC LARRY: Then spare me his rudimentary long-distance analysis of my emotional well-being.

CARLA: But then why are you so unhappy all the time?

GOTHIC LARRY: Look around, Carla. You are surrounded on all sides by a swarming sea of neonatal brutality, poised for little more than brainless reproduction and gleeful over-consumption.

CARLA: I know, but we’re not going to live here in this town forever, right?

GOTHIC LARRY: We’re not going to live forever period, thank the placeholder noun substitute for a god that cannot possibly exist.

DAD: Well it’s interesting that he said that, don’t you think?

CARLA: I don’t know. A lot of people don’t believe in God, right?

DAD: Not that. I mean that he’s thankful that he’s not going to live forever. The subtext could be that he’s so depressed about this life of his that he’s looking forward to no longer living it.

CARLA: You mean he wants to kill himself?

DAD: Or he wants to make you think he does. Maybe it’s just a ploy for your attention.

CARLA: Why my attention?

DAD: Well does anyone else eat lunch with him in the parking lot?

CARLA: No. He’s really weird.

DAD: If you’re his only friend, Carla, he might be trying to tell you something, without knowing exactly how to say it. Understand?

CARLA: I guess. But if he wants to kill himself, shouldn’t I tell somebody? Wouldn’t the school counselor be able to help? I mean I don’t think he’d ever speak to me again if I told the school counselor without talking to him first, but I have to do something, right?

DAD: Sounds like you’ve already answered your own question.

CARLA: Which one? I asked like three questions.

GOTHIC LARRY: Sure I want to kill myself. All the time.

CARLA: Why? Just because you’re bored?

GOTHIC LARRY: “Just” because I’m trapped in a psychic hell hole of a reality, you mean?

CARLA: But if it’s so horrible, why haven’t you killed yourself already?

GOTHIC LARRY: Sounds like you’re trying to convince me.

CARLA: Of course I’m not.

GOTHIC LARRY: You should take calls for a suicide hotline, Carla. Let’s be clear, not a suicide prevention hotline, but like if people are truly on the fence about suicide, they could call you up to get that friendly little nudge into oblivion.

CARLA: I’m being serious, Gothic Larry! Why are you even still alive?

GOTHIC LARRY: Because I’m waiting for my mother to die! Okay? Because it would break her heart. Because I can wait until she’s gone to do something so selfish. Okay? Are you satisfied?

CARLA: So you do care about something in this world.

GOTHIC LARRY: Maybe I do, you nosy little brat, but it’s not you. Find someone else to bum Davidoffs from!

CARLA: Nobody else in this school smokes Davidoffs.

GOTHIC LARRY: I realize that! I guess Swiss luxury tobacco is the one other thing in this world I care about! He storms out.

CARLA: I did the right thing, didn’t I? I had to at least ask him, right?

DAD: I don’t know your friend as well as you, sweetheart…

CARLA: He’s not my friend. Not anymore. I’m not one of the few things he cares about.

DAD: Maybe. But look, friends talk about their feelings with each other, even the hard ones. I suspect he wouldn’t have admitted so much to you in the first place if he didn’t care about you at least a little.

CARLA: I guess. Dad - how much longer are we staying in this town?

DAD: Anxious to leave already?

CARLA: Maybe. That’s the one good thing about moving so much - I don’t ever, ever get bored.

END