Exquisitely, torturously boring. Like peeling a scab. Painful and oddly absorbing. Jake indulged in his boredom. He examined all the facets of the crystal of his boredom. When he was done with that, he inhaled and memorized its scent. He thought, I never want to forget this specific sensation, and then he wondered why, since he was so miserable. He said to himself, I am a freak! I am a mental patient! And then, after a ridiculous amount of deliberation, he thought, I want to memorize this horribleness so that I never, ever allow myself to feel this way again. He felt tense all the time, tense and nervous. Scared and embarrassed. Angry and bored. He felt a million ands: and, and, and! Whatever… and so bored. So bored out of his skull, so mind-numbingly bored that he couldn’t concentrate on anything, could not divert himself out of his boredom—not with music, not with books, not with magazines. His mom wanted him to “read ahead, keep up with his studies,”
