MRE

written
by

Mre,
was
a
girl
who
went
to
college;
all
of
her
life
she
dreamt
of
people.
Engaging people. Speaking to them, listening to them,
singing to them, and writing for the people...
but would she get to the chance to do it all?
You'll see if she will.
Maria Maxwell, took a break, and sat in a chair, across from a person who is equal to the
Dean’s assistant. She was in the main office section of a famous African-American college.

“And now, we have come to this question: ‘Why did you choose our school as the school, in
your heart, you wanted to attend?’”

“Ever since I was in the uterus, I have heard, ‘You must go to this school. Go to this school!’
Without a doubt, I intended…”

Both, at different times: “Not to go to this school.”

“Why are you here, then? “

“When you’re born to hate something, you sometimes start liking that thing. That’s why I’m
here, in your office.” Stared at him.

“Let’s stop talking like this. Unless you’re going to be majoring in psychology.”

“Yes, I’m deeply interested in psychology. The real-life psyche is much more interesting than
the ones sometimes displayed in films.”

Needless to say Maria started in the fall. Maria looks good in fall. The dark colors on her body
brought out her restful nature. She looks good in it but she doesn’t know how to wear it. She
wears loose pantsuits, hoodies, and skirt suits. And Maria has one of those faces that is, and
that you know will be, attractive, once you take the glasses off her and place her into some
contact lenses.

Her primary peers weren’t much to her. Of course, out of respect for them and society, she
hung out with her family when they needed her. She always knew how to help out. If it wasn’t
for her, her parents would still be eating their aggression. And she made her brother and sister
realize a brother-sister drug dancing team was not automatically their aptitudes. Maria, as for
herself, she did not have a seating with herself.

She wanted secondary groups’ attention. The attention would be for her deep rendering on the
research of the science of psychology.

In classes, her peer groups would commend her. They shouldn’t have done that. Commended
themselves, by working on their own theses.

When it came to showing her intelligence publicly, she jumped at the chance. In classes, at
parties, student lounges.

On all the exams, she would place kisses on the commendations. It would be easier just to kiss
her professors’ backsides, but she didn’t.

Helping PEERS was not her specialty. She wanted to, but she couldn’t. She wanted to relate
to them but she thought she couldn’t relate to anybody.

People did not recognize her at the time they knew her. She was always in the background in
all the college photos.

Maria was the darling of the (con)science world. However, her “darling” was not in a
subcategory- scientist or physicists’ way, but by local recognized ones in the field of psychology,
in this lit world.

The girl would let loose once in a while, go out to a recreational place, dance club, excessive
food place or movie theater. But the work also came along. The studies and research wouldn’t
be just built upon and built upon. But she would store the findings somewhere when she’d
finished one project.

Maria hated computers. (She also hated indentation and purposely avoided the serrations.)
She knew them literally inside and exteriorly, but she loathed the significance it plays in today’s
human communication. But what would she know about that because she rarely talked to
anyone.

People talked to her, she drained them out because they weren’t the “people” she wanted to talk
with.

Enthralling, capturing, and appealing.

Those kinds of people never come to you. You have to search for them (withdraw the
repetition), seek them. You can’t gather those types of people and put them on paper… wait, I
think you can. Enthralling, capturing, and appealing persons seem to like each other. But, no,
not enough to die together.

This was Maria’s new assignment: Find the aforementioned-type people.

At first, she just gaped at them. A lot of specimen would stand before the fountain. Talk about
things that weren’t so private. Everything intentionally innuendo. No straightforward, clear
speech. Over and above straightforward, and far from clear. The ears get coarse and used to
these things (sometimes). When written, these sayings are a lot like ad-libs. Dirty, disgusting
ad-libs. She wasn’t accustomed to the sayings -she heard them in her upbringing, like most of
us- but never gotten use to such evocations.

The next day, after she had risen out of the fountain, she would utilize it to get started on the
second part of her self-assignment.

In the student lounge she listened to more chats. Music, Sex, Sex, Sex, Sex, Games, Movies,
Sex, Sex, Sex, Drugs. Get the pattern? It was in the itinerary to know the drugs that pervaded
remaining discussions, but you were not demanded to use them.

The adjoining day, she did the same thing.

Two weeks later, she did the same thing. The day after that, she was planning to do the same
thing. Two days later, she was watching again and learned a few (one) more thing(s). Maria
garnered her pieces of investigation. She squatted out of her chair, and into the chest of one of
her subjects.
“Hey, wassup. “

“Ummmm…, uh…, nothing. “ This was perhaps the first flustering of her old life. Subsequently,
the ill at ease look turned into a face of magnetism. A glance away and then back. “You’re not
mad? I just ran into you, and you’re not upset with me? “

“No, I often have shawties “bumping” into me. It’s nothing to get upset about. I understand.”

“Understand what?”

He walked away.

She was kind of sad the acquaintance was not longer. She would probably never see him again
on that campus.

The next day, Maria did the same thing somewhere else. Considering the work, all she thought
about was how she forgot to ask that guy’s name. She would then have a name and a face to
live on.

Three weeks after doing the same stuff would probably bore me and might bore you. The
project was over. She went back and reiterated it into her mind. Maria boxed up the project
and placed it somewhere out of sight, in her project closet. It was next to her deep examination
of the mind of media. On top of the project of obsessive compulsiveness.

Over 100 mind projects later, she was preparing to graduate quiet valedictorian.

This was one project she was in real life trying to avoid.

Between one and two hundred-fifty words she knew she wanted to say, another bland crowd-
pleasing word. A word to put minds at ease, not hers’; the audiences’. Not at ease for any one
thing, just put it at ease.

“…I should be incredibly denied by you all, …at this moment. All of the other (moments), I don’t
think I did anything for you to notice me, even look at me. And I hope you can forgive me for
that. I don’t forgive myself. I’m just going to say; remember people for their quality. I will. And I
hope you will see me as someone recognizable and productive as you all are, one day.”

Maria ended up in a threadbare apartment, without any work. You would think a
psychotherapist would get work like that (snap of a finger). It goes without saying, that there are
many people with problems of a mental nature and willing to pay people who can’t even help
themselves.

With her waitressing money dwindling, she was about to become a dog groomer. Miss Maxwell
was walking down 20th Street, dreading her own pathetic breath, which kept her living for her
boring, widespread life. Where could she live that she wouldn’t be able to afford? Everywhere.
Ah, the mind of a recent college grad.

Where could a person find another person? Everywhere. The other person was the guy that
she couldn’t stop thinking about, that she stopped thinking about. She thought he was better-
looking under pressure and stress. Maria knew she wasn’t in his mind, because she didn’t
really say anything extensive at their prior and only meeting.

“Hi. “

“Hey.” He then, walked past her, and was on his way somewhere. When you’ve wanted to see
someone for so long, that’s what you end up doing: Just see that person. You want to talk until
you give out, but can’t think up the starting point.

From four cement blocks away, “Hey you dropped something.”

After turning around, “No, I didn’t. You just wanted to talk with me some more.”

“No, I didn’t want to see your wallpaper any more.” He gave her back a cell phone.

Coming closer to her, “You know you liked it, otherwise, you wouldn’t have noticed.”

“You can tell you’ve been to college for psychology, with your reasoning.”

“I can’t say the same thing for you. No human communication has rubbed off on you. You were
so timorous just a second ago, that you almost let me go.”

“Maybe, that was what I wanted. I don’t know you. You think I want to stop you, have a
conversation, and build some sort of familiarity? No, I don’t have time for your awakening. I
know it would fulfill your daydream, esensually but I won’t have lunch with you.”

“Wait, what do you mean; awakening? I didn’t want to have lunch with you!”

“You may be a fully grown, college grad. But you don’t know your own confidence- you have it.”

“Yes, but uh…, what does that have to do with esensually?”

“I don’t know. I was thinking sensuously at the time.”

“That’s cheesy.”

The water was dripping off the mug. The steam subsided from the wanna_be bagels scones,
with cheese inside. Maria was eating. The guy was eating. They both were eating together,
from two tables away. It’s not clear who followed whom, but they ended up eating together.

One year later, Maria and Henry were married. Maria was still unemployed. Minimally,
unemployed to herself. The job did not bring her any fulfillment next to her self-respect, so she
had to quit it.

Headfonz was Henry’s name at work. Over the past year, and for most of college, Headfonz
was deeply invested in a studio, that he owned, and finding talent for his label. His own album
was about come out soon, after the EP’s piled up.

At this time, Maria was hugged at all times; Hugged by her husband, her family members (that
she still visited from time to time), and most of the time, by her wardrobe that flattered her curvy
physique.

Headfonz’s album went quintuple platinum, in both digital downloaded and physical albums. His
marriage to Maria couldn’t be described the same. They’d only been married three and a half
years, and, and, there’s not much to say about it.

One of them strayed.

Both of them, in the public eye, became hip-hop icons. A hip-hop couple, that seemed to
change the face of musical entertainment. His humanly conscious music revved up hip-hop
once more. Her red-carpet interviews encouraged viewers to listen to his music and others like
him.

They were not married anymore, when she started dating Ostalicize, Headfonz’s friend and one
of his label’s multi-platinum-selling artists. Yet, fame (money and that likeability factor that can
be presumed from afar) did not take Henry’s consciousness. He wanted of course, wanted - - - .
He thought he wanted Marie (what Maria was now called). I’m sure millions knew what he
wanted.

Was the thing between Marie and Ostalicize real? No; at least it wasn’t to Marie. She did not
take it seriously.

The relationship was in the news, but not as much as the former relationship.
“Newsmagazines” would go back now and then and show retrospective segments on the famed
couple in history. Marie would reminisce, on her own time, from era to era. She would think
about the sweet, cool, sexiness of it all. Some days she would look at him and her eyes would
water from happiness. And at that moment, she could hear piano music and view the love (from
their first meeting). And then, she would hear his voice…

Yo, Yo if she’d just be my wife

I would keep her in all my life
The things I want or need to say
Around her, come out right away
She doesn’t worry about things to ban
She’s not anybody’s but her own woman

The thought of marriage did not even pop up in the mind of Marie. It was on repeat in
“Ostalicize’s”. He was one of those types that thought he was in love just because she was
there.

If she weren’t there she’d be in love. Maybe not with a person, but with a feeling. A feeling of
being fun and free. ? .

Where would she not be? The clubs, film premieres, record release parties. Alone? Why?
She would switch up her dates.

She was never deserted by the media for too long. Marie felt like she was receiving a lot of
unnecessary attention, because she hadn’t created anything of note on her own yet. She
wanted to construct art that was accessible and artistic. Marie would make an album.

“Hi.”

“Hey.”

“How are you?”

“I’m just a little bit above all right,” Marie answered.

Producer Kwah6 questioned, “So what do you want this album to sound like?”

“I don’t know what I want it to sound like. I just want to be built around the words that I have to
say.” She handed over her loose leaves.

Producer Rbitrary, “About your look, I think you’ve been doing the right thing all along. You got
your sexiness on and locked. And your confidence is mind-blowin.”

Marie looked at him, acknowledging that she already knew that.

“These lyrics are smart and dope. But they ain’t right for your first album,” Kwah6 implicitly
explicated.

“What would be right for my first album?” Marie unwillingly threw out there for suggestions.

Rbitrary selflessly recommended, “You want your first album to be full of bangin’ club hits.”

“That doesn’t sound violent at all,” she briefly interrupted.

“And a few slow jams where the notes will be soaring all over the place,” Rbitrary finished.

She deserted them both, when she got “intermittently” tired. Marie would go to her secret
secrete on one of the Line Islands. Marie would never take the time to relax herself, except for
the private beaches, shopping, and restaurant-eating. Furs, ice, and these trips she would not
accept from the world of friendly people or award shows. She’d pay for her own for
preciousness and insolence.

Speaking of award shows’; there was one that Mre attended, and it was much talk about it. It
was a few months after record-breaking album release. Fandemonium was real high and the
expectation of her first televised performance wasn’t lower. Mre wasn’t the best singer out
there, or the worst. She was adequate in her vocal skills- extending the chords sometimes, to
reach the stronger or harder notes. She accomplished a pretty good performance; her vocals
were there and so were the choreographed dance moves. The stage dancing or the danse du
ventre was all right with her, because she was able to do it to the perspicacious lyrics she snuck
in. The audience gave an early-in-her-career standing ovation. She went back to her seat that
constantly had cameras pointed to it, and watched some more of the show. The most talked-
about moment of the show was about occur. It was during Headfonz’s performance. Headfonz
was spittin’ the opening verse of his No. 1 hit song, “Better Than That”,

I should have never treated her the way that I did

Now there is some fool I have to get rid
It should be very easy to win her back
Because you don’t have the skills
Of a decent mack
Yes, I went to the old-school
But still I can make you look like a new fool
Have you heard me rhyme what I had rhymed originally?
Or do you think it is different because you changed it digitally?
Don’t you know that she doesn’t want you?
You can’t even admit that she unofficially dumped you

when…

Headfonz came onto the stage. This part of Headfonz’s performance was not planned.
However, Ostalicize somehow had a working mic. As you may have noticed, the rhymes have
been cleaned up.

Yes, she unofficially dumped me

Last night she was the one who bumped into…
me
You’re the one who was an idiot to let her free
Now she’s smart and going home with me
Now you can go on and leave as JUST a nominee

Ostalicize dropped the mic, left the stage, and sat in the vacated seat next to MRE.

Headfonz, breathlessly, (here meaning, not gaspingly, but describing how he did not take a
breath when he…) looked at HER for seconds, which seemed to last as a few minutes (but
couldn’t because award shows don’t give people to much time for contemplation). He left the
stage, MRE as restrained as she was during the verses, left her seat. Seat-filler fulfilling, her
task, prompted Ostalicize to get up and moving, also.

The public (the media and those fall easily in line with every word they upload or print) grabbed
onto that moment and a-b’d the obscurity out of it.

When MRE looked at the repeated video many details popped out to her, in High-Definition.
Why O was jealous of H was explicable; but what was the inexplicable reason why he joined
him onstage for an impromptu rap battle was not. Was she some prize because one of them
thought they had her? That last, rhetorical question doesn’t even need to be responded to. She
knew the all too common-knowledge solution to her challenge poser. She would tell Oswaldo,
straight to his face, that they were no longer in a relationship. MRE could not be had.

Another element of digitized moment she couldn’t junk: How her hair appeared too capacious.
She wanted to rewind back before that event and have her hairdresser put in less weave or
none at all.

MRE, never one to rest with people believing she is one to get the most out of public stunts; she
released more pondering-but-not-preachy music, successfully toured the globe, and started
acting in serious films.

Her star power was expanding and expanding or whatever is the precedent to a star’s
supernova. Everyone hoped that this star would not have a supernova or a too common
burnout. Her work was getting respect from popular critics and people. You know what that
means; more awards and accolades. However (unquestionably), she did not feel fulfilled,
emotionally. Unquestionably, you know with whom she should still be married. However, in
fiction and sometimes in life, people keep away from the ones they love the most; just to keep
the readers, viewers, or nosey spectators interested and involved.

The camera’s (now) digital gases would be blindness of a private life.

The Leaf was the Atlanta hot spot, which served as the locale of a turning point in MRE’s fame.

“I would like a glass of water and Fusilli with Pepper and Shrimp.”

“Sorry, Ms. MRE, the last of the Fusilli was given to that gentlemen.”

“Yeah, that’s my Fusilli,” in a crunk way.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you wouldn’t miss it.” Luring the plate away.

Pulling the plate back in to him, with an eating utensil. “No, you’re wrong. I would miss it like I
miss my family in College Park, when I’m in crappy L.A. “

“So, you’re from here, Atlanta, now in Los Angeles. Do you like it out there?” Still pulling it
towards her way.

“I do, because of the inspiration I used to have there, the (natural) setting itself, and the money.
But you got to think about it; Would you lick a dollar?”

Continuing lull at the table. “What?”

“Most of the time it’s dirty. And not the good kind. It's a killa, man. In every big city, people are
trying to make you sell your dignity, integrity, whatever else somebody wants to typically buy or
manipulatively steal from someone else.”

MRE: Pushing the plate back towards this man. You may need this more than I.

"That’s one thing people don’t try to take from me; food. That's generous. No, you have it."
Pushing the plate towards her. “I like my women very, very, very, very, thick."
“No, I wouldn’t have guessed that.” Somehow, this redundant phrase struck some kind of
flattery within Marie.

“I think your music is… better than it used to be. Before, with you, it was all about getting
people dancing or at other times, showing what vocal skills you think you have with meaningless
songs. Now, after some (a lot of) gradual tightening of musical strength you have…, just being
real, you gained the ability to make great music.”

“Thank you for commenting on the creative control of my music that I was able to attain with the
hard-to-accomplish album sales in a sometimes faltering industry.”

“Welcome. You’re very wordy, you like to talk.”

The same could be said for this man.

“It seems you like to talk, too.”

“Talk, that’s what a lot of the music (now) seems to be, talk.”

“I know we, as musicians, should be able to make music without saying something,” MRE never
had the chance (before people wanted to listen to her) to use her sarcasm.

“No, I don’t mean like that; I mean there’s a lot of negative talk, putting people down and
threatening them. People think that’s all it is, when sometimes that “talk” becomes actions that
are also negative towards somebody.”

“You never mistreated anyone?” The female superstar questioned.

“Yes, and I’ve hurt people.”

“You say ‘people’ a lot. You care about ‘people’?”

“Yes, some cool people.”

“Like me?”

“Like you.”

“Your music is school, ‘cause you are positive even when you are talking about negative things.”

“You are the same way. The lyric in one of your songs about giving a bum some ice was hot.”

“Thank you. It’s not that I’m trying to clean up hip-hop (as you can tell by lyrics in my other
songs). I’m trying take out the garbage that’s all up in it.”

“Which garbage, in particular, are you talking about?”

“Where hip-hop has become infiltrated by ‘artists’, who are rappers and singers who talk about
what they have when they just starting out.”

“I know, I agree with you there. Also, all of those videos in dimly lit clubs. Young people aren’t
always dancing, partying, and drinking.”

“Yeah,” in agreement.

“I rather a music video in a person’s neighborhood, with people they actually know.”

“Yeah. Ost has been in my video like that. He wouldn’t be in my next one.”

“I was going to tell you that I think you handled that whole public debacle quite well.”

“The same could be said to you. And I am saying it now; I think you handled that whole public
debacle quite well.

“And I’m going to step aside and let you and Ost have whatever you both are having.”

“And I’m not going to that for you.”

“What? You’re afraid one of us will get killed?”

“Yes, and it sounds as if you are, also- especially after what you just said to me.”

“No, you don’t have to worry. I won’t try to hurt him, unless he tries to hurt me first.”

“Once again, I think that’s what’s going happen. I’m calculating that he will come after you and
maybe me too, because I want to be with you.”

In
The Much
Loved
Memory
Of

MRE
That whole thing was an obituary written by Oswaldo “Ostalicize” Nole.

He wrote the entire thing for MRE, with a backing track (starting out as a poetic biography for
the love of his life).
Ost hired hands to do what his shouldn’t or couldn’t do. He didn’t care if they were together, or
if Headfonz was alone, he wanted something done.

Headfonz was alone one day, about to come out of an upcoming venue. Ostalicize noticed he
was ahead of schedule and that the newest members of his staff were late. He would go in and
stall him and get out of there before he was an eyewitness.

“Yo.”

“Yo.”

“Yeah, I know it’s been a minute. You stole the woman that I stole from you. I should be real
upset. But you were like a brother to me before. Maybe, you can be like my brother who stole
my woman.” A half-hearted, fake, hurried chuckle.

“You know if you came to me and said that a week ago; I would have knocked you out without
explanation because you would know why. But after what someone said to me I’m going to
forget about that.” Henry initiated a cool handshake.

“So, see you later.” Oswaldo turned around and he was on knees and fell slowly forward.
Something was done. He killed himself. He hired someone to kill the man he wanted out of the
way and/or the woman he couldn’t live without, and they ended up killing him.

Marie knew something like this would happen. After all, she was a psych major. However, she
couldn’t help because she didn’t know what help he needed because she was too close, or
perhaps, not close enough to the would-have-been (psychological) patient.

Marie put her career on hold for the other career she had put on hold a few years back. She
wanted to help people (from all walks of life) that needed mental help. Too many people who
achieve fame, success, and then, death (early in their lives) didn’t have a person to help them
out with their situation. Oswaldo’s was control. Control of everything, except his own life- but
able to control his death. He wanted to control Marie’s life. He made up the affections he
thought Marie should have had for him. Marie discovered that early on in their abbreviated
romance.

“I love you.

“I love you.”

Henry and Maria were married again. Maria was able to find her dream job as a psychologist.
So, it was on to the next assignment.