"You go on. You set one foot in front of the other, and if a thin voice cries out, somewhere behind you, you pretend not to hear, and keep going."

The lighter flicked open, and up went the flame. The cap came down and it disappeared, closed again. Open. Closed. Open. He left it open for a moment, and let his eyes burn a hole in to the head that was in front of him. He wondered what it would feel like to really burn a hole in something; someone. He thought about the way the guy would scream, or if he'd simply turn and hit him. He thought about how it would feel to hear the crack of your own jaw and know that it was broken. He thought about how it would hurt: the flame, the crack. He closed the lighter and sat it down, pretending to ignore the weight that was lifted when those behind him finally stopped watching him. He hated being observed, but he'd come to terms with the fact that he was always going to be the type of person that others wanted to watch - his steps were off beat and he was never one for relevance. He listened to his professor, and couldn't bear to make it past the first few words before he was gone again; staring out the window. He watched the students walk past him and gave them each a life story. A name, a personality. The one in the blue had gotten his heartbroken last week, and the one with the red purse was rushing off for a class that she was late for. He nodded to himself; she's always late. She looks like the kind that would always be late.

He wondered what kind he looked like, but he didn't wonder long.
He looked like someone who was crazy,
who was wasting an education that had fallen in to his lap because of the kind of dumb luck that others dream about being born in to. He looked like he'd never really had a friend, never really had someone to go home to. He looked like school was his very last straw, and once it was over he would be, too. He looked like the kind of guy who took everything to extremities; who was flying when he was up and only came down when it was in a flame of self pity.

He looked like the kind of guy who would have a lighter but never actually need it.
He looked like the kind of guy that you could look at and know exactly what kind of guy he was.

Nodding to himself, he closed his laptop. He closed his eyes; he was tired of burning holes in to people. He let the professor finish his lecture, and then he filed out as the last of his peers. He placed his textbook on the desk at the front of the room once he reached it, and gently set the lighter on top of it. In one, brief glance, he said good bye to the classroom and the aged professor who was watching him from ten feet away. Four steps later, he was out the door and walking away; in the middle of his semester and at the end of his rope. He had spent a long time burning holes in to the backs of heads and giving people lives through windows. In all of those years, he had forgotten to live his own.

He didn't know what kind of guy he was, or if he was really any kind at all.
He just knew what kind he was tired of looking like.