Fitting In

Note to self—scratch that.

Note to anyone who has never had beer: I would advise one to refrain! No matter how alluring the idea of drinking English ale in an English pub is, no matter how one’s mouth drips at that rich, tempting amber, glistening glass. Sometimes it isn’t worth fitting in.

How deliciously do those drops swim in sequence—perhaps, by the color, as sweet as spiced wine at Christmastime; by the frothy foam, caramel cream, a delightful dessert, a topping atop an apple pie in all its glory. All, misleading as a siren’s song; all, an angry attempt to part stingy soul from pound sterling; all, deathly, ghastly, toxic toxins poured down by willing hand. The devil is in it.

Slowly, so slowly, the beautifully, fearfully, wonderfully wrought amber morphs to that petrified piece containing the corpse of some poor dead insect specimen who once in sap begins its forever-sleep. That I was that insect! To spare me from this foreign place full of foreigners to the place, nearly alone but for this unyielding, yeasty, ferocious opponent opposite me. It’s a duel—I have no second.

No longer willing. I am Dumbledore, partaking of the putrid poison in the dark of the lake in the cave by the sea; what an accursed eucharist this is. I have not the will for this. Infinitely more appealing are shame and waste. Who would subject themselves to enough of this arsenic to acquire the taste for it?

I’m frustrated as I confirm with each bitter sip the little difficulties in fitting in… Not one to mingle needlessly, not one to drink casually. A week has passed and the cliques have already formed, too late to break into. It’s the first day of school all over again, and as always, by the end of which I feel very much alone.