"Hmmpff..."

This muffled sound came out of me, and it pretty much summarized every thing wrong with my life.

"Anything planned for the future?" asked my sympathetic and almost centenarian English teacher, Mr. Patterson, in the middle of one uneventful day, as I got dangerously close to high school graduation. What a standard, business-like question this was, I thought at the time, so I simply waved my hand around and carelessly chortled.

"Everything's gonna be alright," I claimed with the negligent foresight of an eighteen-year-old that thinks the world will just obey to his demands.

The future was unclear, there was no doubt about that, but when college started peering right around the corner, I had no idea what to expect from it, but I somehow thought it was going to magically make things better.

Yet here I was, a year later and in the beginning of my second year, hmmpff-ing my way through college.

Where could I even start?

My life was monotonous at best, my days felt as long as they were insanely boring, and while I was plain clueless on what to do with my life, it gave the impression that wherever I'd look, everyone seemed to have it all figured out, as if it was just so easy.

I quickly learned the lesson, too, that women wouldn't just line up at my door because I was a college erudite now—something that television had tricked me into considering effective. I suppose my childish features, lanky posture, and slow, patchy beard growth didn't help my cause, either.

So, this was me: confused, sarcastic, fresh-faced, boyish-looking Chandler, who had no idea what to do with his life but waste it away by lying on his perpetually unmade bed with his head buried in his pillow.

I desperately wanted to come up with a term for what was wrong with me. I wanted to say depressed, but that didn't quite cover it. I didn't feel complete sadness, but it was hard to wake up in the morning.

Who knew, maybe, just maybe, I simply was fond of sleeping.

But anyway. By that time, my rather pessimistic thoughts got interrupted by a key entering the lock. This seemingly simple action took me through another train of thought about how locks and keys—two inanimate objects with no feelings whatsoever—had better lasting relationships than me.

"Hey, man," Ross, my roommate, said cheerfully once the door had swung open. I didn't even bother to roll over, but I was polite enough to send another hmmpff his way. This caused Ross to clear his throat—a sound he unconsciously based his entire existence upon. "Dude, someone special paid me a visit and I want you to meet her."

Ross' someone special came to mind. Her name was Carol, and even though they'd been dating for over three months, that didn't stop him from talking of her as if they'd been together for decades, all of his words brimming with affection, and love, and just pure devotion. Not to forget how they constantly made sure to spread around the story of their meet-cute, which became more far-fetched and implausible as time passed.

But then I thought, hold up a second, I'd already met Carol.

"This is my sister, Monica. She's moving to the city this week!" he said, bursting with excitement.

Oh, so it was his sister.

I must say that his cheery tone had deceived me. All Ross had ever said about his sister during our first year were bad things, even if they were said in that loving, fraternal way I'll never get to understand.

He claimed she'd done such awful deeds, in fact, that I now pictured her as some sort of Kathy Bates right out of Misery's finest moments.

I suppose you can perfectly picture the expression my face pulled into when I finally rolled over to say hello and there was no Kathy Bates in sight. I mean, not even close.

Once again, where could I even start? Oh boy. Her skin was freckled in all the right places, and her jet black hair was pulled into the most meticulous ponytail ever. She was smiling at me, her blue eyes shining, and she was wearing simple jeans and a Journey t-shirt, but fuck me if she wasn't the most gorgeous woman I'd seen in quite some time.

"Hello there!" I said, pathetically bolting out of the bed in a fraction of a millisecond. "Chandler Bing, the roommate."

"Hi, I'm Monica," she said, wiggling her fingers at me with a gracefulness I didn't even know existed. "I guess I'm the sister."

And then, silence.

"You might be thinking I have a peculiar name," I blurted, breaking it. "Well, I've got peculiar parents, too!" I finished, letting out a fake laugh and kicking myself for not being able to shut up when necessary.

"You're funny," she said, grinning and pointing quite an accusatory finger at me. I effectively started beaming like I hadn't beamed in my entire life. "In a sort of weird way, though," she clarified, and I definitely stopped beaming.

"Well..." I said, coughing out a nervous laugh, "thank you."

"No offense, sorry, I didn't mean it in a bad way," she quickly said, unconsciously taking a step forward and waving her hands. Ross witnessed this inevitable train-wreck as if he were watching a tennis match.

"Don't worry, it's okay," I brushed it off—she hadn't offended me per se, but I'll admit that my pride and self-love were severely wounded.

We didn't get off to a great start, that's for sure.

"Anyway, guys - hey, like I already said," Ross nervously cut in, feeling the awkwardness in the air, and placing his arm over his sister's shoulders, "Mon's moving into our grandmother's apartment next week, so she's gonna be around these days. You know, while she gets settled."

"Oh, yeah. I rented a room in a motel near this dorm for the week," she added, pointing her thumb towards our front door, as if her motel was standing right there. I peered over her shoulder: it was not.

"That's great," I concluded.

And then, silence again. Not awkward, but not comfortable either. I wisely decided not to break this one.

Five minutes later, Monica said her goodbyes, claiming she had to return to her motel to unpack—something I deemed unnecessary, given how she'd be packing again five days later. Monica just looked at me like I was some kind of monster, and then tried to forget she'd heard such a ridiculous suggestion.

After the shock of that incident had worn off, she said it was nice meeting me, and I reciprocated.

But when the door clicked shut, though, I lay back down on my bed, oblivious to the fact that she was going to be the light I desperately needed in my oh-so-dark life.

A/N: Okay, a couple of things!

First of all, the show belongs to Bright, Kauffman & Crane Productions, NBC Studios, and I don't know who else, but I'm pretty sure it's not me. I mean, I don't even own the apartment I live in, and it's a place where we have to store the fridge in the living room.

Fun fact: I googled 'boyish-looking' to see if I should hyphen it, and a picture of Matthew Perry came up. Of course, it was in an article that was trying to highlight how rough he looks now, but that's entirely unimportant.

The title comes from Bob Dylan's Forever Young. I don't know why I decided to write this from Chandler's point of view, but I do know it's been a lot of fun. I'm a pretty ridiculous person by nature, so expect to see lots of ridiculousness in this story. Oh! And Misery came out in 1990, and this is supposed to be, what? 1988? I trust you'll let that one slide.

And that's pretty much it. I'll shut up now.

Please, please, please, review. :)