- Pronouns
- he / him / his
Written by HEM Tiberius
ENN took some time away from politics, elections, and that shit to cover some much-neglected local issues. A collection of assistant editors, unpaid interns, and overworked freelancers were dispatched to the wonderfully chaotic region of Osiris to do some "human interest" bullshit that's supposed to help with the ratings.
A little after noon we arrived at Osiris Fraternal Order High School, where our team would be covering the 2016 High School Beauty pageant. Before the proceedings even began, I had the opportunity to talk to Cormac, who is widely regarded as one of the "cool girls" and a frontrunner in the contest.
"I fully expect to win," Cormac told us, brushing his luscious blonde locks to one side. "I am the prettiest girl in the whole school, allllllllllll my friends say so."
I ask Cormac about some criticisms he's received, namely switching dress colors often, and stabbing some peers in the back (he once shafted the poor sod who was running for student council secretary. Like who wants to be the secretary anyway?)
"I don't respond to negativity!" Cormac huffed, knocking my pad of paper out of my hand, and stormed away, flocked by his legion of admirers.
As the beauty pageant began, the ENN contingent got situated toward the back of the bleachers in the school gymnasium. The advertisements for the program promised that sandwiches and soup would be catered for press, but all we got were backrow seats and some f*cking Sun Chips. Oh well, can't leave now.
Cormac enters the stage with a wispy pink dress. He begins doing a little dance, almost transfixing. He lunges across the stage, throwing a baton into the air and catching it in his left hand. 9/10, very graceful. His face contorts in concentration as he spins and does an even more ambitious leap into the air. This time, however, he slips upon takeoff, and comes plunging to the floor. As if in slow motion, we can see horror dance across Cormac's face, as he falls flat onto the stage. The entire room is silent, as reporters scurry to take notes.
Cormac stands up, tinkers with his dress, takes a slow bow, and leaves the stage. He receives polite applause, as the performance was still oddly impressive.
As the quiet clapping dies down, the next contestant steps onto the stage. I glance onto the beauty pageant programming bulletin we were handed, to see their name. As I look back up, I see who I assume is Almighty Jesus Whale, step onto the stage. They are wearing a plain dress, plain hair, and generally just look they showed up for the free food (like us).
Instead of breaking out into dance, Almighty Jesus Whale clears their throat and begins to speak:
"Hey guys, this competition seems kinda lame. We're all beautiful. Let's just hang out a little bit and do some stuff. Who cares about our schools values or that shit. Let's just have a good time here."
Almighty Jesus Whale steps off the stage, and the audience breaks into a rancorous applause.
"ALRIGHTY," A white-haired lady who doubled as the cafeteria worked and the librarian croaked up out of nowhere, "IT IS TIME TO VOTE. GET YOUR BALLOTS HERE!"
The entire school picked up their ballots, and for a while the room was quiet aside for the sound of pencils on paper, and some guy having sex with his girlfriend under the bleachers.
After a time, the cafeteria lady / librarian / vote collector gathered up the votes and began counting.
"IT WAS A CLOSE ELECTION," she continued, still shouting for unknown reasons.
"90 VOTES FOR CORMAC, AND 100 VOTES FOR ALMIGHTY JESUS WHALE! CONGRATS TO ALMIGHTY JESUS WHALE, THE WINNER OF OUR 2016 BEAUTY PAGEANT AND MISS OSIRIS FRATERNAL ORDER HIGH SCHOOL 2016."
"Now fuck off," me and one of ENN's graphic freelances swore we heard her mutter conclusively under her breath.
Meanwhile, Cormac was in the corner of the gym, sweating bullets and ranting to anyone who would give him time of day.
"HOW DID THIS HAPPEN!!!" He cried, tears streaming from his eyes, "I am the prettiest girl at Osiris High! AJW isn't even pretty at all! I asked everyone, nobody thinks they are pretty. All my friends say AWJ is EXTREMELY ugly! The system is rigged!"
Tears and sweat streaming down his face into one indecipherable stream of body liquid. Cormac pointed some of his mean girl goons to slam the gym doors shut, as he ran up to the voter counter, shoved her onto her face, and grabbed the swaths of ballots that fell upon the ground.
"HEAR ME OSIRIS!"
Everyone turned to Cormac.
"I'm pretty! I'm pretty, right? Please, someone tell me I'm pretty!"
"You're pretty, Cormac." Tim responded.
"SEE!" Cormac exclaimed. "I AM pretty! I knew it!"
Everyone seemed to be getting fairly bored of this spectacle. Almighty Jesus Whale was watching with amusement by the gymnasium doors when Cormac surged across the room, and ejected them right out of the room. Tim locked the door immediately afterward.
"What this high school needs," Cormac mused, "is some stability. We need a pageant queen who is pretty, which we have all agreed that I am. This is a tremendous burden, but I think it goes without saying that we all unanimously agree on this matter. I will be the pageant queen and Miss Osiris Fraternal Order High School 2016"
As the crowd dispersed for lunchtime — which would probably be sparse, seeing as Cormac assailed the lunch lady — Cormac approached the ENN delegation in the back of the room.
"What say you, ENN? Will you support me in this and write a story favorable to the sacrifice I had to make today?"
Most of our team was, I kid you not, fast asleep, but unfortunately I was not.
"You mean support you assaulting a lunch lady and stealing the election from the rightful winner and then ejecting them from the room?" I mused. "Not sure how I can spin that your way."
"With stability!" Cormac said with a smile.
"What?" I asked.
"Stability." Cormac repeated.
"But like, how do I make the readers understand the horrible and downright things you've done?"
"Stability." Cormac said with a smile.
"But like, you've circumvented the democratic process, deemed yourself a god over informed voters, and kicked some poor kid's teeth in."
"S-T-A-B-I-L-I-T-Y." Cormac responded again, with an irritated tone in his voice.
"Well, erm, I think I'm going to have to report on things as I saw them," I offered diplomatically.
Cormac snorted at me, and gave a high-pitched little laugh.
"You're not pretty." He said with a note of finality, "As a matter of fact, you are as disappointing as I should have always expected. Have fun at the loser's table, loser!"
"I, uhm, I don't go to school here?" I tried to respond helpfully, but Cormac had just made his hand into an "L" and pinned it on his forehead, mouthing the word "loser" over and over again at me.
Popular kids are literally the worst.
