jason fucking kubel.
political science
chad is a scientist.
he’s not the scientist he wants to be, though.
also, he’s alone.
it’s friday night, of the a.m. sort.
he’s working on his latest assignment,
the distance he’s keeping from his work
ruining the only relationship he’s had that’s ever lasted.
the numbers aren’t adding up just yet.
staring out the window into darkness
or maybe his leased car in the parking lot,
chad thinks back to when he was younger,
right at that age where a person could have potential
without having to worry about
wasting it,
where the phrase “you have such potential”
was still considered a compliment.
in his head, he’s now seated at his desk
in ms. billingsley’s class, sophomore year,
scrawling biology homework
into the margins of his history textbook,
a subject he was failing
and doomed to repeat.
he remembers finding himself going off on a remarkable tangent,
mid-equation,
hypothesis still unproven,
formulas awaiting data,
writing out this question to himself,
a question that he knows the answer to
but why can’t he get the numbers to add up?
“would you rather invent something amazing“i can produce keith hernandez
or have it given to you
as a thoughtful gift?”
right here within the hour.”