The Experiment

I’m going to play with the psychology of my fiction class — like it is a toy. Each story I turn in to workshop will be first person, about a girl, with my first name, or some derivative, and how she’s the nicest little shyest thing around, and her kindness is only met with exploitation and the venom of WASPy cunts. And oh NYC, how ruthless you are.

I’m going to play with the psychology of my fiction class - they'll never see it coming. Some real experimental shit. The character will freak out in a sea of tears, a drunken stagger through a cold city, night after lonely night, until finally she snaps and cuts her hair short and peroxides it. The next day I’ll come to class blonde.
Stories have a way of transforming.

Their eyeballs will glance from my hair to the white sheets of papers they hold in their hands with my byline; back and forth, between body and story, slowly, so as not to draw attention. The large clock on the wall will click, and they’ll cough, worried to critique me too roughly.

They’ll all feel the guilt of being spectators to a self-revealing, maladjusted human being.

Last week I told them all I was gay.
I’m not.

I’m going to play with their psychology, take notes, see if they start acting nicer, kinder, more generous in their conversation towards me. What reactions will new variables induce?

They won’t know what a real bitch I am; always two steps ahead. They won’t know the lengths I’ll go to get a real good story, based on real human psychology…
Some people just don't understand dedication.

In my stories, after the characters freak out and tumble to their lowest low, they all become Jesus freaks. One story, after the other, all the same ending: it’s the Second Coming and justice is doled out none too nicely.
Then, then… there’s the sinister laugh of the peroxide blonde. Her crushed ego arising anew like a phoenix, licking up the blood of revenge in a city consumed by fire.
This is the part where my classmates all shift uneasily in their chairs.
Stories have a way of transforming people.

Then, for my final workshop, I’ll turn this piece in.

Will they exhale a sigh of relief?
Will they get the avant-garde angle, the scientific merits of this exhausting experiment?

In my final bow, on that final day, I’ll impart them with my conclusions, meticulously noted:

Stories have a way of transforming reality.