Derrick

His eyes closed against the pressure of the sun, Derrick watches small vitreous fibers float through the hot pink sea inside his head. He has chosen the spot on the beach that’s as far away from people as possible. He opens his eyes and looks down at his legs, tinged a sickly yellow from the SPF 100 he’s just slathered on. He sits under an umbrella, arms crossed over his favorite Warhammer t-shirt. The old towel he’d taken from his parents’ linen closet has a large faded Tigger on it, the image punctured by white and orange pilling. Gently placing his hand on Tigger’s muted face, he begins to mumble under his breath in a monotone refrain: 

The wonderful thing about tiggers / Is tiggers are wonderful things / Their tops are made out of rubber / Their bottoms are made out of springs / They’re bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun / But the most wonderful thing about tiggers is I’m the only one / IIIII’m the only one!

He stops abruptly, staring at the reflection of the sun on the water. The ocean unsettles him; he’s watched just shy of 30 documentaries exploring the mysteries below. It’s an alien world full of ancient beasts, some we may never even know exist. And the violence of it! His mouth thins into a hard line. Nature is brutal, unforgiving, primal. And here are these idiots, splashing around like they don’t have a care in the world. 

Picking up the worn spiral notebook resting beside him, he notes down that this is the third time he’s heard a mother scold her toddler for running too quickly – and done nothing to actively stop him. He also notes the bright neon green of her bathing suit, that she clearly hasn’t washed her hair (possibly in days), and that the toddler seems especially hyperactive. In the margins he scribbles, “Sugar? Bad mother? Childhood trauma? ADHD? Poverty?” 

Though his weekly trips to the beach always put him in a bad mood, he considers them necessary expeditions, absolutely crucial to his research. He had lost his job at 1-2-3 Pizza! a year and a half ago, which only spurred on his belief that he is woefully misunderstood. Why was it so wrong to try and convince customers that vegan pizza is superior? Have they thought about how the horrific mixture of animal entrails once belonged to a living, breathing being? That the small circles of compressed flesh they were consuming had felt joy, pain, sadness, pleasure in the same way they had? Monsters, all of them – a pox. Which is why these anthropological outings are so important. Outside of his secondary research, he needs primary source material to prove the individualistic manifestations of the capitalist system.