My Name Is Martin

Martin Alan Ashton.

Martin after my father, Alan after my mother's father. Ashton is a surname going back a long long way. How long, they never told me.

I've never tried writing like this before. Tonight is my second night as a 17-year-old. I swear I was just 13, or 8, or in Kindergarten. School crawls by, summer flies, and so do the years.

My parents have left me alone tonight. My sister is out with her friends. And I am sitting in my room writing in my brand new journal. I hate to be boring, but I must. Let me tell you a little about myself.

I am one of those strange kids that has interesting talents. One of them is eating without gaining any weight. Another is reflexes. Some of the guys like to mess with me. They'll throw things at me and the next moment I've snatched it out of the air. They guffaw and clap. I throw it back. They call me a NexGen, but I asked Mom one day if I was engineered. She said, "No Martin. You are our son. You're just pretty!"

And fast, and sharp (too sharp, sometimes I scare me), and I have a ginger afro. I also have freckles. I look like a proper NexGen. I know I don't have to explain this, but a NexGen is what happens when GenenTech gets ahold of your mother's egg and your father's contributions. Then they make the perfect you. Am I a perfect me? I don't think so.

The Olympics are tomorrow. I am watching a NexGen named Brian Clades. He is everything Michael Phelps wanted to be when he raced. It's crazy. Hereafter every swimmer will be compared to 18-year-old . . .

No. He turned 19 yesterday! It's cool that his birthday is the same as mine. Hereafter every swimmer will be the "next Brian Clades." I don't know if that's cheating or not, using genetic manipulation. Many claim it is. They kind of go off on it, like they did on doping when that was the thing. I swear the human race has lost its mind. Bigger, better, faster, harder, until we have completely lost our identity.

I have largely been left to my own development. A lot of people have personality quirks that make them interesting and able to appeal to the general population. Me. My mind is erupting with ideas and intuition, but what I find is that I am unable to really express them. I have been compared to the towering inferno, and to the timid mouse. There is not much in between. I get good grades, I do my homework. I don't go out much. I am confident, but not so slick with the women.

The truth is I find them terribly boring. Don't get me wrong. I have the urges and the overwhelming desire to replicate my DNA, but not with these fawns. They are pretty but just . . . shallow. I don't know how else to put it. My sister calls them Barbie dolls, all surface and hollow inside. That is not necessarily universal. Not everyone comes out of a cookie-cutter but I've yet to find a peer that is up to the task of growing up.

So I hang at home. I dream. My parents are pretty active about trying to get me to do things like sports and extra-curricular activities. Those things hardly interest me. I like to run, but I'm not partial to muscle heads. Maybe I'm just easily bored. Maybe, just maybe, I haven't found my niche.

I can't wait for the races tomorrow.