—
I’m done being there for others
They have their pain and so do I
Don’t need to feel it all over
I try to hold on and you bring me down

We wait, we hate
We try to get away
Mistake my pain
It has been lead astray
I’m looking around, I drop to the ground
Why does it have to end this way

Feeling numb, so long
Oh God it’s just everything
It’s everything
Now I pray for all of them to go away!

I’m done being there for others
They have their pain and so do I
Don’t need to feel it all over
I try to hold on and you bring me down
– Korn, “I’m Done”
—
Todd sat in his basement room. He was listening to Korn, cranked up to the point that almost hurt his years. Despite the trashing around and headbanging that Korn usually inspired, Todd sat still on his futon matress. He was holding the keys to Uncle Ralph’s house – his house – and just staring at them. It wasn’t a big house, but it had felt like a dusty maze when he’d last been there. Why in the hell would old Uncle Ralph give him something so big, worth so much, hell, with so much responsibility attached?

He closed his fist around the keys, and drew his arm back to throw them across the room. At the last second, he stoped, and made a disgusted face. If he threw them, he’d likely never find them again. Clothes, CD cases, comic books, and video game magazines literally covered the floor. The often-used incense was the only thing keeping the air breatheable down here.

Todd’s parents never came down here any more, anyway. They were big believers in privacy and respecting each other’s space. That made it really easy to hide the beer and the weed. The Korn track ended, filling the world with silence for a moment that lasted forever. He tossed his headpones onto the matress and turned off his sereo. He grabbed his black hoodie sweatshirt and pulled it over his head. He slipped his feet into his laceless Sketchers and grabbed his car keys.

He took the basement stairs two at a time; he would have to be going pretty fast to avoid any of his parents’ attempts at being “involved” – especially so soon after the funeral and reading of the will – as he headed out the door.

Their questions of “Where are you off to?” and “Todd, when are you going to clean your room?” were barely deflected by the door as he raced out of the house. He certainly didn’t hear his father, Richard, say to his mother, Vanessa, “I hate to say it, ‘Ness, but I don’t think he’s ready for such a big responsibility.”

He swung the door shut on his thirteen-year-old rustbucket car, trying to think of a reason not to go to the house. He shoved in the clutch and turned the key, listening to the engine cough to life. The muffler roared and rattled in protest, so he turned up the music to compensate. The bouncy style of Soul Coughing lifted his mood on the way to explore his new house.
—
I don’t mind the worry following me like a dinosaur…
I don’t fear I am descending into the molten core…
So far, I have not found the science,
But the numbers keep on circling me.

The numbers keep on circling me.
– Soul Coughing, “So Far I Have Not Found the Science”
—