Perpy grew up thinking that the world was simple.
That the more you work, the bigger the reward. A linear relation.
That bad people got what they deserved, and good ones prevailed in the end.
That everything could be studied, and subsequently, systematized into a finite number of variations to be learned and understood.
Everything was certain to him, one way or the other. No room for ambiguity, complex matters or conspiracies of bigger things taking place under the surface.
“Oh why can’t you be like Perpy,” the teacher addressed her other students, “he’s always getting near-perfect scores in exams. He’s calm, polite, and he’s a well-mannered boy too! If I had a daughter, I’d marry her to him.”
Some girls in the class admired him, because of the attention he received from the highest authority in the classroom, while others sneered and paid him no attention.
Boys’ reactions were more extreme. On one side, some of them spoke only good things to him, saying that they hope to be more like him. They were good kids, but there was nothing remarkable about them.
As for the other group of boys, they laughed at him. Calling him a piece of shit, the teacher’s dog, or even nerdy-nerd at times.
Besides, even though he had some friends, like his best friend Mike that went cycling with him multiple times a week, he was never a stable member at any friend group. For one reason or another, he ended up being an outcast.
Perhaps he was too different from most of the other kids to begin with, and the preferential treatment by the teacher made it even worse.
After many attempts to fit in, he somehow could make it work, but the roles he was assigned at the friend groups weren’t to his liking.
The Bottom of The Ladder, that was the role that Perpy was stuck with.
For the longest time, Perpy wondered about it.
What was it that made fitting in so hard to him. He tried complimenting the leaders of the groups, telling them he could ask the teacher to let them do cool things that would be otherwise forbidden, and how girls were too delicate to insult.
“Looking back, it’s probably that last one haha,” Perpy laughed as he remembered those happy moments of his childhood.
The current Perpy laughed at those memories, for the bullying turned out to be a very good memory that brought him laughs when things got tougher. His flusteredness, and how he couldn’t deal with such light bullying always brought a smirk to his face.
Nonetheless, after trying for so long to join those friend groups, he realised it.
There was a little problem.
He didn’t see the world the way they saw it.
Perpy had many weaknesses, but he could observe well. Observation from far-away was one of his fortes, and he could do it continuously for inhumane durations.
The other kids were more callous with words and beliefs, and most of them didn’t have the noble aspirations he had. At least not in the way he had them.
Sure, many of them said that love was one of their biggest dreams, and they’d be delighted for it to come true. Also happiness was a big theme for them.
Perpy, on the other hand, only dreamt of very precise things. He wanted five supercars, a wife that had blue eyes, blonde hair with slender legs and a firm butt, and to make at least one million dollar a year.
He even imagined the personality of his dream girl, and how he’d protect her and court her to the end of the world and back.
He understood his naivety, and that his upbringing, getting praised for academic achievements more than he should’ve, and maternal conditioning when growing up stunted his social growth.
He was truly clueless about the way that the world worked.
He was twelve years old when he realised it consciously, and at the time, he still wasn’t part of any friend group even though he had a plethora of surface-level friends and acquaintances.
And for the first time in his life, he could empathize with peers’ dreams.
He realised that emotional experiences mattered a whole lot more than material items, and to win somebody’s approval, he needed to cater to their emotional needs more than their rational, obvious ones.
In no time, Perpy started to understand social cues more and more. The improvement was out of this world.
Ironically, this developement came up when he cared the least about belonging to a friend group or achieving love.
“Hey Perpy, nice hat you got there. I want a similar one, but in gray,” Christian, one of the class’ cool jocks said, “Come sit with us.”
He was getting invited to tables with others. Some of them were the same ones that rejected him back in the day.
Even though he wasn’t that elated with the new state of things, he accepted it and made the most use of it.
He got his first girlfriend, which he was shy to even hold hand with in front of others, and spoke to many other girls too. He went to cool places, at least by a middle schooler’s standards, and learned a whole lot.
Once a week, he went on a date with his girlfriend Maggy, and even though he wanted to meet her more times, she was always busy.
She wasn’t the most beautiful girl in school for sure, but it’s what on the inside that counts, right?
“I really believed that love was ‘it’ at the time, huh,” Perpy nodded as he remembered how he was before.
At the point in life, he valued comradership, unity and sticking with one another. He was happy as long as the group he was involved with was happy too.
Positive emotions were the central point in his life, and what he built his dream around.
To find happiness no matter how, have a loving family, or get the acceptance of the current alpha male. They were all his dreams at the time.
But it gets worse.
One day, he witnessed his girl getting backshots in under a stairway in the school, by none other than Christian, the one who complimented his cool hat.
Perpy wasn’t that socially-savvy yet, but he had a strategic mind at least. He didn’t do anything to let them know he was onto them at the time; he just took a couple clear photos and went on his merry way.
Then, he observed.
No matter how hard he looked, none of the words uttered by those two when they were around one another could incriminate them or allude to something going on between them.
However, Perpy didn’t give up and he persevered and looked even harder.
Nothing.
Then, through blind luck, he even tried to concentrate less on them as a pair and focus on the whole group instead.
“I dunno man, I think Christian is hopeless when it comes to school,” one of the boys, named Alijah, said, “You’ll be mowing grass in no time, buddy!”
“Naah bro, don’t remind of the future,” Christian replied, “That shit’s boring.”
The boy who spoke first laughed awkwardly, then Maggy added.
“If nothing, then you can be a plumber,” she said, “Call it my feminine intuition, but I know you’d be good at fixing malfunctioning pipes.”
Everyone laughed, stealing quick glances at Perpy who pretended to be focused on the novel in his hands, Madame Bovary.
“Feminine intuition is crazy, yo!” Alijah nodded, “Not the first time someone recommended being a plumber to Christian, so I guess there might some truth to it, aye?”
“Must be the way I carry myself, and my strong posture,” Christina ran his fingers through his hair, “It’s all in the hips, Alijah. That’s where confidence comes from.”
Everyone laughed, including Maggy. Perpy joined in to make them even more oblivious to the fact that he notice the exchange, and the gears started turning in his head.
They just spoke to one another…
Really, they did speak to one another. But for the first time in his life, he could understand something behind the words said by people.
Completely by chance, he realise that everyone in the group knew of Christian fucking Maggy, and they enjoyed talking about it.
This coded language’s existence was a foreign concept to Perpy, for he took the words he heard previously in his life for granted, thinking everything meant what it meant.
He went home like usual, but he was horrified.
First of all, he called his girl to take care of urgent matters. The break up needed to take place immediately.
“Why?? We’ve been the perfect couple!”
“Oh yeah, we were! But I’m more interested in a personal carreer right now,” Perpy spoke with a smile on his face, “Christian invited me to his house the other day, and he told me that to improve one’s craft you must dedicate your time to it and take photos to see how you’re doing from an external perspective. You said he’d make for a good plumber? I can’t disagree, that guy’s a serious one.”
It was true that Perpy went to Christian’s house the other day, and the latter showed him some of his work.
Christian was a woodworker, and he made little statues out of logs.
He liked to take photos of them, and occasionally post them online to ask for people’s opinions.
So, in reality, Perpy wasn’t lying. However, because he had crucial knowledge, he could spin those seemingly unrelated events to give Maggy the impression that Christian told Perpy about the affair, and posted it on the internet too.
“Plumbing, what are you talking about?” she spoke after pausing for around ten seconds.”
“Clearing pipes is definitely something he would be able to do, he had the dexterity for it. He showed me all the photos of what he could do, and I was awed at times. I didn’t expect him to have such a side at all,” Perpy nodded, “Sometimes, he posts such pictures on forums, and people give them their opinions. He even sold one picture once.”
There was silence on the phone.
Five Seconds.
Ten Seconds.
Fifteen Seconds.
This was the most crucial part for his plan to work. He wasn’t bluffing. He really knew of the affair and had proof of it, that’s why the silence wasn’t awkward at all.
Then, Maggy spoke.
“So that’s why you’re breaking up with me? He told you about our affair? and he posts pictures of it online?” She started sobbing, “I swear I only love you, and you’re the one for me. I was tricked, he forced it upon me then blackmailed, saying he’ll hurt you if I told anyone!”
What a farce, and even funnier, I would’ve totally believed if I saw such thing happen days ago.
“Oh really?” Perpy probed for more. He needed to pull Maggy out, leaving her no chance to retreat or to swallow her words.
“Yeah, and we’ve only done it like twice, and I forced him away as soon as I could.”
Not what it seemed like to me when I saw it…
“Wait wait, you cheated on me Maggy? With Christian? I’ve only processed what you said,” Perpy said, “What photos are you talking about? All I said was that Christian showed me pictures of his woodworking? Oh god, I’m hanging up. I wasn’t wrong to break up with you.”
Maggy called him back multiple times, but he didn’t answer.
He had other things to take care of.
Sweating more than ever on his way home, he thought of all the possible interactions that took place just under his nose, without him gleaning the true essence behind them.
Even though he was a member of the group, he still wasn’t privy to the useful secrets.
Or was he?
This time around, the affair itself was to his detriment, that’s why it wasn’t revealed to him in obviously understandable language.
But there were many times where he had access to knowledge that others in the group didn’t.
Like the time when they stole Alijah’s money and pretended like they didn’t know a thing. Perpy was in on that joke, so he tried to remember how he behaved and how others did too.
Funny enough, it was just like that day.
Alijah was asking, not knowing a thing, while others feigned ignorance at the same time as they shared plausibly deniable information on who had the money at the time.
Because they had access to the information, understanding the coded language was easy.
It was a type of communication that had true stakes to gamble, and Perpy studied it for six months obsessively.
Some people called it powertalk, but he just called it realtalk, because it was really the only valid mode of communication.
Using it wasn’t easy, as it had many requirements.
- The person needed to have real stakes, and to protect them at all costs, only alluding to their existence convincingly.
- The stakes, information/Knowledge/Connections/Resources needed to be valuable enough that if they fell on the wrong hands, someone or more could get hurt real bad
- The user must be able to back his claims. If he’s bluffing, then the others might call his posturing and he’ll be revealed to be a fraud and lose mighty status.
- Have an agenda in mind, something you want that you’re willing to give your stakes away for.
- The exchange of stakes happened in this same coded language, lest they fell to the wrong hands.
- Plausible deniability must be maintained at all times.
There were many other subtle rules, but these were the most important ones.
He realised it. The true purpose behind communication was never material things, or emotions. It was exchanging value effectively.
There was no greater divine. There was no good or bad.
There was only the self, and what interested it.
Perpy yearned for god to save him from this wretched world, but he didn’t get a response.
He’s fallen down so hard.
He was now a fully-fledged power player, someone to be called a sociopath.. He discarded his morals, and nothing was beneath him anymore.
He formed cliques of his own, experimented with human behavior, took value from others, and even dominated interactions he had no right to even be part of.
And the worse he fell, the better he got at hiding his tracks.
He claimed the credit for the good things, while letting the others take the blame if things went south.
The clueless liked to blame themselves when shit hit the fan because they believed the world to be just, while the losers blamed one another because they believed that the world was a mirror for their emotions.
Perpy continued to get better and better, amassing blackmail material, connections, and networking oppotunities with other power players who were always glad to find someone who’s not a loser or a clueless.
It took him the shock of seeing his girl getting railed by another guy to ascend, so it wasn’t easy at all.
And the emptier he got on the inside, the more the losers and the clueless ones idolized him.
This was the start of Perpy’s Apotheosis Path.
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