a short introduction to retard

I’m not sure yet. But I’m thinking about writing a story. I hesitate to say “book” because that would imply publishing. I figure the best way to go about it would be to write it bit by bit, post bits and pieces online, and if it draws enough intrigue, maybe look at getting it some more exposure.

below is the first draft of the first few pages. I cannot stress enough how much I would like your feedback on this writing. I haven’t gone over it yet, so I’m sure there are mistakes. If you contribute any ideas, corrections, etc… I think you whole-heartedly in advance.

Retard, 1-3

I can recall the night of March 19th, 2003 well. Smoking a cigarette on the 5th floor of a hotel in Florida. I was on vacation with a few friends over spring break. All was not well in my life, but for the duration of this weeklong excursion, an escape from my troublesome university mishap of an education, I felt at ease. We had one more day of joking and fucking about on the beach ahead of us before we were scheduled to depart from this warm, almost-paradise state, and back to what our generation had learned to dread; learning.
Our generation. A group of simpletons raised by semi-intellectual egoists. We were the inevitable result of a twenty-year bash involving psychedelics and rock and roll music. We were the children of the babies of the boom. And what an ugly crowd we were. No one could tell you, without some doubt, what had gone wrong, but somewhere in a mess of bad parenting, mass amphetamine prescriptions, and a trashy cultural decline, something had gone terribly awry.
We, the youngsters, were a monster made of apathy. Politically unmotivated, and thus, misrepresented as complete nonissues, we had faded into a comfortable obscurity. Gone now, are the days when a college student’s opinion mattered, when we could protest about something we felt strongly about, when we could be heard. Colleges turned from cultural melting pots into tepid cesspools filled with illiterate nobodies. We were the nothing masters.
We, the students, did not want to learn. Bred to question authority, but not to think for ourselves, we had become obsessed with the tales of our revolutionary forefathers. We all dreamt of celebrity, we all wanted to make a difference. And somehow, we’d convinced ourselves that we were. And I, like so many of my peers had failed to see that never in my life had I taken a firm stance on anything. Nobody dared say it, but we were all ghosts. Had I reflected like this on that balcony, maybe when the railing gave way beneath my elbows, I would have fallen right side up, instead of upside down.
My stomach lurched as I realized what was happening. I had rested my arms on the railing of our balcony, and put my weight against it. It creaked a bit under the burden I presented, but for fucks sake, it was made of metal and held together by bolts, just like a car! And god knows those things are safer than your mother’s arms. Like an idiot, I ignored the steel’s kind warning and relaxed, inhaling deeply, and leaning in on the rail at something like a 55 degree angle. Somewhere around the 8th drag, it creaked again as I repositioned, and before I had time to think about standing up straight and smoking my cigarette, it all came undone.
The railing had been made in five sections. Three sections connected in a straight line, accompanied by one section of rail on each end to provide a perfectly safe, closed space for the hotel’s patrons to enjoy the outdoors from however many stories above the ground. Minutes prior, as I entered onto the balcony, I had examined the railing for not more than 5 seconds. I peered from left to right, and for whatever reason, my eyes fell upon the far right area of the rail, where I promptly positioned myself and obediently waited for fate to enrich my life with crippling pain.
The rail gave way. I flailed. I lost my cigarette, which is my single greatest regret. To have had that thing in my mouth when they found me would have been just – picture perfect. But instead, I lost it. Actually, it fell out of my hand and hit me in the face as I fell, providing a stinging blindness, and an all too necessary “fuck!”
I plummeted, not five, but four stories. There was an above ground garage positioned directly below our room, and at the end of my descent, I met it with my right shoulder, promptly followed by the right side of my forehead. Doctors would later inform my parents that this strange “shoulder-head” collision was the sole reason for my survival. I would later dream of simply diving off the balcony with perfect form, straight as a pencil, dropping like lead, right on my head, certainly dead. What a shame.