The Fanatic​​

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During my sixth year in college, I started to think the solution to my problems was that I needed something to believe in. Anything. I wasn’t sure what—but I was a hundred percent convinced that I couldn’t survive another year casually drifting through my comfortable, forgettable life. I thought it would lead to a spiritual death that would haunt me till the day I died.

 

I wanted my boyfriend of two years, Harold, to take the leap with me—to believe in something too. He laughed in my face. He said belief was for people who didn’t have money or a future. Our families guaranteed both, so what was I worried about? We had it made. And, according to him, nobody really believed anything. They just thought they should. It was an aesthetic, a posture. At best, it was a way of making boredom look like urgency. At worst, it was people pretending to be revolutionaries because they thought it was cool or sexy.

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“We don’t need another anxious college student pretending to be a revolutionary,” he said. “None of them know what they’re talking about. And most just want a picture with something burning nearby while they raise their fist in defiance so they can pretend they changed something. When the only thing they changed was their profile pic.”  

 

I broke up with him a week later. I thought it was going to hurt or be messy—it was my longest relationship at the time—but it was surprisingly easy. It ended the way most of our dates had: casually, with nothing worth remembering. He didn’t even fight or argue. He was so calm it scared me. Harold was never one to explode, but I expected him to be at least a little mad. Instead, he just shrugged and said, “If that’s what you want, that’s what you want.”

 

My older sister tried to talk me out of it. She said I didn’t sound like myself anymore, that I was chasing a costume instead of a cause. She reminded me how rich Harold and his family were. She assured me I would regret it. I called her a narcissist and blocked her for a week. I don’t remember what she said back, but I remember how smug I felt hanging up. It didn’t feel like losing a family member. It felt like I was getting closer to a better version of myself.

 

Two weeks later I was dating Matthew, a gorgeous sophomore with thick curly hair who ran a political group and blog. The group organized many of the local protests, held charged weekly political discussions, and volunteered for local like-minded charities.

 

To this day, I have no clue what they were really about. I tried to learn—many times. I read the articles. I watched the documentaries. I even went to the book club meetings. But I always left more confused than before. There never seemed to be a clear, concise description—nothing someone like me could comprehend or hold onto. Any time I thought I was beginning to understand, something new would be added into the mix and I would be lost all over again.

 

I spent so much time trying to understand the group and its mechanics that I bombed an English midterm. My professor emailed to say she was disappointed in my “intellectual decline”. I deleted the message. Matthew stopped rehearsing his next planned passionate outburst in the bathroom mirror to tell me grades were a tool of oppression. I believed him. I needed a good reason not to care about my failing grades. I needed a good reason to justify the negative changes in my life. And he was more than willing to help.

 

Matthew was always nice and encouraging that way. He never explained things clearly, but he made me feel like not knowing was part of the process.
 

“It’s all really complicated,” he’d say, smiling, like that was supposed to comfort me.

 

Or: “It’s not about having answers—it’s about asking the right questions.”
 

I wanted to believe that was true. But I was never quite sure what the questions were.
 

If I told him I didn’t understand something, he’d smile and say, “You do though. You just don’t realize it yet.” Or, “That’s your inner discomfort processing the truth.”
 

I started to feel like understanding wasn’t allowed—like the whole point was to be lost together, but pretend we weren’t.
 

When I finally got the courage to press him for a real explanation, he’d say, “That’s a huge question,” and then launch into a story about some professor he admired or a time he “disrupted a narrative” on campus. He’d talk for twenty minutes and never circle back to my question.
 

Maybe that was the answer. Just keep talking until no one remembers what was asked.

 

At the weekly meetings, nobody ever disagreed with anything, even though we were always disagreeing with something. Someone would say the housing crisis was a symptom of colonial architecture, and we’d all nod like they’d just shared a tragic secret. Another girl said the real crisis was “asymmetrical memory distribution in late-stage dialectics.” Matthew repeated it twice like it was a mantra. I had no clue what it meant, but I clapped. Everyone clapped. I underlined the phrase three times in my notebook. I never opened it again.

 

During one of our protests—I forget what it was for—I began feeling like I understood the group and was truly a part of something. I held my sign high and chanted along with everyone, even though I didn’t understand what the chant meant. The energy felt pure.

 

Matthew squeezed my hand and said, “You’re glowing right now.”

 

“It’s the sunlight,” I joked, and someone nearby said, “No—it’s alignment.”

 

Then a girl passed out bracelets made of recycled ethernet cables and said wearing one was a vow of “informational celibacy.” I put mine on and pretended it made sense. Later, someone said it was part of the data fast. I didn’t know what that meant but I liked how it sounded.

 

Later, after an impromptu dance party to reinvigorate the protest, another girl with a nose ring handed me a sticker and told me to put it on my water bottle for the algorithm. I did without thinking or asking why or what that meant.

 

Afterward, someone asked how I felt.

 

“Whole,” I said. “Like I’m learning how to listen differently.”

 

They nodded solemnly and said, “Yes. Listening is an act of decolonization.”

 

That was confusing yet comforting to hear. Like I was being reassured in a language I didn’t speak. For some reason it felt good to be confused, like confusion meant I was finally paying attention. But I think I just didn’t want to feel alone.

 

To calm Matthew down and quiet some of his fears about my family money, I sold a necklace my grandmother gave me and donated the money to the cause. I don’t remember what the cause was — a community garden for liberation or something to do with food apartheid. The site link’s broken now. But everyone clapped when I announced it at the next meeting.

 

“You’re really becoming one of us,” Matthew whispered, which felt good to hear. Especially since it seemed like I was sacrificing more and more to be a part of the group.

 

Then, just when everything was starting to make sense, the phrase neuroimperialist aftershock emerged gradually, like a gas leak. One day it wasn’t there. Then suddenly it was in every pamphlet, every group chat, every aside from Matthew when he wanted to sound thoughtful. People said it with reverence, like it explained something unspeakable about the world. At first I thought it was a joke—one of those ironic phrases that gets passed around for fun. But then I realized no one was laughing.

 

At a meeting, one hairy guy insisted on pronouncing it with a fake French accent: “neuro-im-pair-ee-ah-LEEST.” Someone groaned and everyone pretended not to notice. Another girl claimed saying it too casually “flattened its semantic resistance.” I wasn’t sure the best way to say it but I was positive we would figure it out.

 

The more I heard it, the more I started to believe it meant something. Or at least, it was safer to pretend it did.

 

“That’s a neuroimperialist aftershock,” Matthew said one night after I told him I had a weird dream about my phone apologizing to me. It sounded serious and cool, like something you couldn’t question without exposing yourself.

 

When we were alone, I asked what it meant and he said, “It’s a framework more than a definition.”

 

After that, everyone just nodded when it came up. I stopped asking for explanations. I didn’t think anyone knew what it meant. But everyone started using it like they did.

 

I started hearing rumors about Harold being the one who coined neuroimperialist aftershock, but I didn’t believe them at first. It sounded too weird, too petty, too perfectly Harold. Every few days, someone would say, “Wait, didn’t your ex invent that?” and I’d fake a cough and shrug like I didn’t hear them. And besides, no one that smug would actually go viral—right?

 

To my shock and surprise, it turned out Harold had invented the term neuroimperialist aftershock. I found out from a link someone posted on Discord titled What the Aftershock Actually Means. I clicked it and nearly dropped my phone. There he was: sunglasses on, chin down, fist raised like he was posing for a revolutionary funeral. Apparently, college groups were paying him thousands for speeches over Zoom.

 

I thought it was a joke. Like the universe had found a way to mock me. But no—it was real. He’d made it up on a dare, I think, or maybe just to see what would happen. Now it was everywhere. His social media was full of black-and-white photos of him looking solemn with his fist raised. The caption said, “Aftershocks are everywhere.”

 

When Matthew found out I used to date him, he asked if I’d reach out and convince him to speak to our group.

 

“He might give a talk for free,” he said.

 

I said, “I probably shouldn’t. Things are still weird between us.”

 

But when Matthew messaged him, Harold agreed. Immediately.

 

In the greenroom, on the night of the speech, Matthew hovered around Harold like a student meeting his favorite professor. He kept asking wide-eyed questions and nodding furiously at every vague answer Harold gave. It was gross. He asked Harold at least fifteen questions in a row. What books inspired him? What exactly did he mean by “aftershock”? Did he feel pressure being the voice of a generation? Harold gave half-answers with a smirk, like he was barely listening.

 

“That’s so true,” Matthew kept whispering. “That’s exactly how I’ve felt.”

 

I stood there, trying not to cringe out of my body. I couldn’t take it.

 

I thought, “Maybe Harold was right from the start: revolution didn’t have to be real—it just had to look good on camera.”

 

The moment Matthew said, “Honestly, you’re kind of a hero to us,” I walked out. I found a seat near the front and tried to focus on breathing. I stared at the stage, hoping I’d misheard something. A few minutes later, Matthew slid in next to me, beaming.

 

“This is gonna be good,” he said.

 

When Harold walked out, the applause was loud enough to hurt. The sound hit me like a wave, and for a moment, I almost believed he deserved it.

 

That scared me more than anything.

 

To be fair, I clapped too, but only because not clapping would’ve drawn more attention. I didn’t want to look like the only person in the room who knew the joke was on them.

 

When he started speaking, I felt something twist in my stomach—pride, maybe. Or shame. Or whatever emotion comes from watching the worst person you know become the voice of something you wanted to believe in.

 

He opened with: “To understand the aftershock, you must first amputate the self.”

 

People gasped like he’d said something beautiful. I scribbled it down, even though I knew it didn’t mean anything. I think that’s when I started sweating.

 

A lot.

 

He always said belief was just another performance.

 

And maybe the worst part was, I finally understood what he meant.

 

The speech was long. Too long, in my opinion, but everyone cheered and applauded when Harold stopped after he seemingly made a point. I don’t remember the specifics, but it’s online if you really want to suffer through it.

 

But if you knew Harold—really knew him—you could hear it. The entire thing was satire. Every vague phrase, every over-enunciated “aftershock,” every dramatic pause—he was mocking the group, top to bottom. Every sentence was a test. A test to see how far he could push the group, how hollow the words could get before someone called him out. No one ever did. He layered the speech with contradictions, fake citations, and phrases he once told me he made up just to see if people would nod. It worked. He said, “Solidarity is a myth, but myths are the most honest form of truth.” Then two minutes later: “Truth is a colonial framework we must demolish brick by brick.” No one noticed the contradiction. They applauded both lines. They nodded. I couldn’t stop sweating. I wanted to scream, but instead I smiled and pressed my hands to my lap.

 

To keep my mind occupied I counted how many times he said “aftershock.” He said it thirty-seven times. Thirty-seven. At one point he said, “There are aftershocks to the aftershocks of the aftershocks.”

 

The audience clapped like it was poetry.

 

I don’t remember all the details. To be fair, I don’t think they were meant to be. Just felt. And what I felt—sitting there, smiling too hard, sweating through my shirt—was humiliation.

 

Harold even cited “Klara Weintraub’s elasticity doctrine” like it was common knowledge. Later that night I googled it and found nothing. He had made her up.

 

At one point, he said, “The real tragedy of the aftershock is how many of you mistake echo for thought.”

 

No one flinched. Someone even stood up and yelled in agreement.

 

After the speech ended, I sat in my chair and watched Matthew spend the next hour asking Harold the same questions I once asked Matthew in bed while stroking his beautiful curly hair—what books he loved, what he was afraid of, what the future of revolution looked like. A few people got selfies or autographs.

 

I slipped out while no one was looking and texted Matthew that I felt sick and needed to be alone. It was the truth.

 

It made me sick to be the only one who got the joke.

 

In the days that followed, I kept waiting for someone to admit that Harold had mocked us the whole time with his speech. But no one did. Matthew repeated Harold’s lines like they were his own. Matthew still talked about neuroimperialist aftershocks with reverence, as if Harold hadn’t spent an hour laughing at us. To make it worse, the group started using new words Harold had made up, and I felt like I was living in a satire or was the star of a very long practical joke.

 

When, after a rather boring and argumentative dinner, I finally hinted that Harold might’ve been mocking us, Matthew said, “No, that’s just meta praxis. He’s exposing the performance of belief through belief itself.”

 

I almost asked him to repeat that. Then I realized he didn’t know what it meant either.

 

The next morning, as part of his last laugh at us, Harold dropped a link to a manifesto in the description box for the video of his speech. The manifesto was mostly an AI-generated string of phrases like “reclaim the episteme of dissociation” and “vandalize your memory’s archive.” It finished with, “Say something confusing enough and they’ll call it vision.” He didn’t even erase the text exchanges with the ChatGPT bot. No one seemed to notice. Or care. It felt like to point it out would be wrong or harmful to the cause.

 

A week later, I saw a photo from the event circulating online. I was in the front row, clapping, smiling. The caption said, “True believers always show up.”

 

I didn’t recognize my own face.

 

I figured my relationship with Matthew was done after that. But somehow, we weren’t. We didn’t talk about the speech again. That helped.

 

The final straw was when, a few weeks later, Harold convinced Matthew to shave his head on a livestream for an atrocity that might not have happened.

 

The relationship didn’t last long after that. I could forgive a lot, but not the loss of that beautiful hair. Once it was gone, so were we.

 

I checked his profile a few days later. He was posting shirtless photos from a “recovery retreat.” The caption said: Healing is a radical act.

 

Around that time, I saw an ad for neuroimperialist aftershock–branded water bottles. The caption said: “Stay hydrated while dismantling inherited trauma.”

 

They sold out in three hours.

 

After it came out Harold’s family were behind the water bottles all along—that they’d made millions off the movement—he texted me, “I told you so.”

 

I left it unread. Then I blocked him.

 

I had never been more embarrassed.

 

And the worst part was, years later, I still catch myself using the word. I even said it in front of my sister to make a point. She nodded like she understood. Like I had won the argument.

 

But I don’t think she did.

 

I didn’t.

 

But that didn’t matter.

 

It worked.

 

It just did.

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By Wyatt Robinette

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Wyatt Robinette lives in Tucson, AZ with two very cute cats. His work has appeared in Bourbon Penn, Citywide Lunch, and The Pixelated Shroud. It is forthcoming in Blood + Honey and Scaffold Lit.

 

X: @vvyattrr