This is a story about a boy named Alexander Green.

Alexander really wanted to be a goth. Lots of boys at his school were goth kids and he thought they were very cool. He would often try to hang out with them, but they told him to go away because of his apparent love of conformity and rules. They told him that he didn’t understand. Ironically, Alexander didn’t understand what it was that he was being accused of not understanding.

One day, Alexander decided to become a goth.

Alexander wanted to change his Facebook name to something a bit edgier, and after contemplating ‘Lex’, he went with ‘Xander’.

Xander went to the shop to buy some eyeliner, but he accidentally spent all of his pocket money on sweets and a comic book. The goth kids wouldn’t be happy.

After walking home from the shops, trying not to enjoy the lovely weather as he went, Xander decided to borrow his mother’s mascara. He practiced applying it in the mirror for a little while, but he kept poking himself in the eye. He tried some other makeup, but he spilled the nail polish and the lipstick tasted awful.

Next, he decided to get some dye to blacken his blond hair. However, upon remembering he had spent all his money, he had to ask his mother to lend him some, to which she happily agreed. The goth kids wouldn’t be pleased with that either. He would have to remember to try and hate his parents a little bit more. Although they were very nice.

He began strolling to the shop, but upon remembering his intention, he decided to listlessly meander to the shop instead. He looked at all the different hair dyes with excitement, but then remedied that excitement with a weary sigh. As someone walked past, he pretended to grab whichever box his hand fell upon; but little did the passer-by know that he had in fact already carefully weighed up cost against customer review and made a logical decision based on these factors.

He went to the cashier while furiously rehearsing the upcoming discourse in his mind. This was the conversation that took place:

“Anything else, young man?”

“Pfft… wha’ever.”

“Pardon?

“I mean, thank you. No, that’s it. Thank you. Thanks.”

Again, he pictured the goth kids shaking their heads. In fact, they were actually just flicking their hair from their faces; but still, they probably weren’t happy.

On the walk home, Xander was concentrating on looking at the floor. After bumping into several people, he decided that that was a skill that would take some practice.

He returned home and had to ask his little sister to help him dye his hair because he couldn’t figure it out on his own. Again, not very good.

As he waited for the dye to take effect, he rummaged through his older sister’s clothes, in the hope of finding something to aid his new-found image. The spiky belt hurt his hand and all the bracelets were far too heavy, but he did manage to find some jeans that fitted him very tightly, and a black top that was clearly meant to be for a girl… which is apparently a good thing.

Next, he rinsed the dye while his little sister held the shower head.

Xander then watched a video on YouTube about applying goth makeup, and he was eager to try it out.

The application was a moderate success, and his hair had become ‘oil-slick black’, meaning he was well on his way to becoming a goth.

He opened his laptop and tried listening to My Chemical Romance, but he soon got bored and irritated, so he started listening to Bob Dylan instead. He could work on that later.

Now it was time to go to the shopping mall to try to blend in.

It was not successful. They said he was fake. He almost cried… which, in hindsight, may have actually helped him fit in.

He returned home in a genuinely bad mood. He had a penknife in his desk that he had gotten for a recent scouts trip, and he decided to take his new persona to the next level. He tried to cut his arm a little bit but the blade was very blunt, and if he pressed too hard, it started hurting. He soon gave up. He was quite proud of the thin faint red mark on the back of his elbow though.

He tried reading about Gerard Way on Wikipedia, but he kept page surfing until he unknowingly began reading about the The Seven Wonders of The Ancient World.

Finally, after a bit of confused googling, Xander decided that if he wanted to be a proper goth kid, he would have to hang himself.

He rolled up a blanket and tried to tie it to the light fixture on his ceiling. It was quite fun trying to throw it up through the loop and catch it on the other side to secure it, and he was rather pleased with himself for the very notion.

Eventually, he found it too difficult, and decided that trying to be a goth was a bit boring anyway.

Xander went and asked his mother for some more money to dye his hair back to normal.

All in all, he’d had a good day, and he no longer cared what the goth kids thought of him. He decided that it’s a lot easier to be yourself, than it is to pretend to be someone else.

The end.