It’s true that Pain has become a cliché; just another subdivision of bad, angsty poetry. Such an unfortunate circumstance, considering that I like thinking about Pain (in the strictly non-masochistic sort of way, of course). Pain and I go way back.

I’ve been playing doctor ever since the knee and rubber mallet, introduced roughly around the age of five. I could diagnose my problems extensively at ten, give an in depth analysis equipped with treatment and a prescription by twelve. I had the atrocious handwriting to make up for lacking credentials. (Official documents are overrated anyway; they get filed away and lost in the vastly Bureaucratic Land of the Free, where even the meat on your hamburger has suffered endless paperwork and several legal suits.)

But I don’t need a certified swagger and a sealed and stamped pack of syringes to give you the symptoms of Pain; headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, excessive use of the Bandaid, and strained vision from the black eye you gave yourself Fight Club-style when your computer crashed at 2 AM Sunday morning.

That last bit of Pain; that’s the one I’m sure we all know too well. He has that simpering smile of the kid who cheated off of you on the SAT and just received his acceptance letter into Princeton. He’s got that raunchy laugh of the girl who knows she’ll get The Plastic if she tells Daddy his tie looks cute when he comes home from work. He’s also the fellow who replaced his broken television with you ashis source of comic relief.

Pain’s a very self-righteous bastard and he’s happy to be Scene.