Chapter 4 AUDENTES FORTUNA IUVAT
It had been a nice dream, where everything just kind of felt right. I was hanging out with Uncle, we were buying ice cream, I was with two others, who I could only depict as what my mind viewed my real parents out to be.
Well, I thought it might be them, I wasn't exactly sure at that point. But the dream turned out to have a positive impact, it was a memorable dream which was strange enough, considering that most dreams just disappear.
Well, I woke up soon after eating ice cream in the dream, I was almost sad to see the dream go. I got out of bed and instantly turned on the lights, I yawned. I started to change out of the clothes I had been wearing the past two or so days.
I grabbed a t-shirt out of my drawer, as well as a fresh pair of blue jeans. I started to change into these new articles, half awake. I slipped on some anklet socks and a light jacket, it was pretty cold as it was already.
I turned my lights back off, but not before grabbing the backpack I used for school, it was relatively light. I slung it on my shoulder and walked into the kitchen, there was a glass of milk, which was a grand surprise and a piece of toast waiting for me. Turns out that he had gone out to another meeting, big surprise there.
I grabbed the food, I scarfed the piece of toast down, drowning it with a glass full of ice cold skim. It was delicious, I put the dishes in the sink and grabbed the five dollars that was on the counter, for lunch.
I stuffed the bill into my pocket and buttoned that pocket up, didn't want to lose the money. I then looked back at the clock, it was early enough for me to be able to relaxingly walk to school, no rush.
I walked out of the apartment, the door was unlocked, which it should be, considering. I shut the door behind me and walked down the hall of leisure suites. I punched the elevator button for down, I had about thirty or more floors to go down, taking the elevator was smart.
I got into the empty elevator, I never did see many people in here. I pressed the first floor button and the doors closed. It started to go down, various floors passed, counting down to my desired destination. I tapped my foot impatiently, it took about two or so straight minutes to reach the bottom floor.
I stepped out of the elevator and waved to the secretary woman who was at the front desk, she waved back casually. I walked out of the building through the fancy glass doors and walked into the brutal cold, of an icy winter day.
I was glad I had put on a jacket, it was really cold out here. I stepped off the cold concrete block, even my jacket didn't prevent any shivering. Too bad, I walked onto the sidewalk, snow didn't litter it. I guess they did a good job of salting the place down, but how well that would stop the luscious flakes of snow falling from the sky, was beyond me.
I kept walking, this was a pretty small city and an even smaller community and I knew most of the people who were out and about, or at least recognized them. But they were busy with there own life's, so I didn't dare distract them from what there tasks could possibly be. I looked around at my environment, how could such a beautiful world, produce such horrible people? My uncle died because someone shot him, in a perfect world, there wouldn't ever be a need for violence.
It just wouldn't ever be necessary. I sighed, my breath materializing in front of me, it looked like steam. I looked forward, my school was still about ten minutes away, I couldn't even see it in front yet. I looked at the streets, they weren't very icy, but they were a little more icy then the sidewalk, I found that strange.
Wouldn't they concentrate on the street more then the sidewalk? I mean, people tripping wasn't as big of a deal as cars spinning out of control were. I was so curious of so many things, I knew that and I found it annoying. Just because I had a limited memory, didn't mean I forgot a lot of knowledge. I still had my education, just no personal memories to call my own.
But I had done a lot in these last four months, enough to fill my head with some happy and some bad memories. These were valuable to me, I didn't want to lose them, I even hated losing that hour of memories when I had an episode.
I hated not remembering, what if I had a breakthrough before one of my episodes and then forgot it? It was completely plausible.
I couldn't worry to much about it though, there wasn't much that I could really do toward it. I had to just press on and not worry about my memories or lack of them. I could see my school ahead of me now, it wasn't too far away at this point, that I was glad for.
I was freezing my butt off out here, and the school was nice and warmed. I couldn't wait to get inside and feel the warmness, not to mention the satisfaction of people saying. ' How are you doing? Are you alright? Feeling better?' it was sure that they noticed my long absence.
Unless they just really didn't care that much, but no one was clueless enough to notice there student or classmate gone for about half a month, it just didn't happen. Much. But regardless, I couldn't help but feel special, knowing what might await me.
I was getting very close now, I saw some people ahead of me, other students from other grades. No one I recognized yet.
I walked toward the two large double doors that were in the front of the school, this school only had grade levels daycare through fourth. I was in third, so I guess I only had about another year in this school before I switched.
I didn't really care that much, this school was cool but the other one the junior high school was much cooler. Junior high had fifth through eight. I couldn't wait for that.
I opened up one of the two double doors and walked inside of the school, excited to finally go back to school and have some social interaction with someone who didn't creep me out.
I looked around, wondering if I could find anyone I knew, I didn't see any of my friends which was a bit disappointing. I walked into the commons room, this is where most kids hung out until school started, the perfect place to chill with your friends.
I sat at one of the benches, still looking for one of my fellow third graders, or any other friend, since I had some in other grades. I still couldn't pick one out of a crowd, that sucked, then again, it was pretty early and most kids usually came in right before the start of school.
I yawned, what could I do until then? I didn't exactly have any bright ideas at the moment, I was relatively mentally drained right now.
I got up off the bench, I could find something better to do then just sit down and wait for the first bell to ring. I opened up my book bag and scoured around it, trying to find some entertainment.
I instantly found something I forgot I put in, it was my Game boy Color. I smiled, this thing was incredibly old, yet was totally cool by my book. I turned it on and looked at the opening scenes of one of my favored games on this console. It was yellow version, truly cool.
I started training for battles ahead, I barely noticed the bell ring, only when one of the kids I know said " Hey, you coming?" Did I snap out of it, I saved and turned it off, putting it back in my bag.
" Heh, sorry about that." I said sheepishly.
" You've been gone a while." He replied, he had black hair and darkened skin, he was Latino, but he had no accent at all to call.
I just nodded and walked along with him, I had been gone for a while now, that was true. But then again it had been something I absolutely couldn't control, it had involved forces stronger then I could control. Yeah, nothing I could do.
" So what's been up around here?" I asked, walking side by side with him.
" Not much, just school." He said, shrugging off a sudden yawn.
I just nodded again and walked into my class, I quickly found my old desk and sat down, putting the backpack on the back of the chair I saw in. I got out a pencil, knowing I would probably need it for the lesson today. Our teacher was finishing up some breakfast, apparently. She was Caucasian, she had long dirty blond hair and shiny brown eyes. She was wearing what appeared to be a dress skirt thing, I really couldn't tell what she was wearing. It was one of those things that you had to be a girl to identify.
I waited for her to start the lesson, I barely noticed kids coming in and sitting down, gossiping filled the spaces around me. I couldn't really tell what was being said, but it was along the lines of me, everyone more or less saying that Davey or David was back.
And someone daring someone else to ask me why I had been out so long. I wasn't going to give them a dirty look, I didn't care about there curiously.
The teacher finally finished and started calling roll, she ended up skipping my name and when she was done, I meekly called out. " You didn't call my name."
This got her attention pretty fast, she turned around and saw me, she was amazed. I guess I had been out so long that I was considered an oddity. No skin off my bones, being rare wasn't that much of a bad thing.
She just blinked a few times, comically I might add. And then she said something around the lines of, Oh! Davey! Your back! Class say hello to David. And then the greeting happened and she started the lesson.
I was glad she didn't call me up to talk about why I had been absent so long, I really didn't want to go into mass detail. It was weird, and a little bit depressing to talk about. Ya know? I kept my mouth closed throughout the lesson on multiplication stuff. I wrote down some notes on the subject, no one else was, but I didn't really noticed.
Multiplication seemed so easy, if I thought about it. It just seemed simple at this point. I waited until we got a worksheet and she said that it was for a test grade and for us to do our best, so our grades didn't suffer from hurried answers.
I seemed to have been well affected by the lesson and I finished after about a minutes or two of work, it was only ten problems. Which did mean they would be ten points each, I got up out of my seat and turned my paper into the teacher. She just sighed and took it, I don't think she believed I would get a good grade.
I couldn't blame her, on my way back a lot of my peers were on the first or second question, befuddled. I sat back down, I didn't have anything to do now, that was supposed to take up a huge piece of the lesson and now it was over.
I sighed, I was going to be bored for a while.
I decided to roll a pencil back and forth for a little while to soothe my boredom, I didn't have much else to do while I waited for the other kids in my class to finish there tests. This school day was going by so slowly, we still had about a half hour until recess. What was I supposed to do till then?
This test was supposed to take up the time until recess, so I would have to just find a way to entertain myself. I decided to try to get some rest while I had the chance, somehow, sleeping in school was infinitely better then sleeping at home. It was more dangerous for one thing, but it was just better somehow.
Hard to explain, I put my head down on the desk and closed my eyes. I guess I apparently fell asleep, because after a while, my teacher shook me awake. She told me that it was time for recess, I was glad about that, recess was a hour long. But one hell of an easy hour. I got out of my seat and hurried up to catch up to all my other classmates.
It didn't take long to catch up to them, I started to walk along with my friend I was talking to earlier. All the kids above us walking were talking about all kinds of things, nothing seemed to interest me, I wasn't sure about Jose though. Jose was a quiet one, at least most of the time, he was one of my best friends.
" So, what're you doing at recess?" I asked him, trying to keep up with him, he was about 4 inches taller and had a better stride.
" We're going to be playing tag, you in?" He asked, he wasn't even aware of how much faster he was walking compared to me.
" Cool, I'm in." I replied.
We reached the outside of the school, the playground wasn't that fantastic, but at this point most of us didn't use whatever equipment was lying around. We played contact stuff, and freezing tag which used it's name literally for the fact of how cold it was out, was big around here.
The guys mostly all walked out to the open field, it was full of snow. We always had trouble deciding who would be it, no one really wanted to be the one who had to be it. It was quite a lame position to start in, it got frustrating when you couldn't tag anyone. These games seldom went without argue or complaint.
But when you thought about it, that had to be at least half the fun, right? This was one of my beliefs, as arguing was a great American pastime. Greater then any sport, and who said it ruined the spirit of the game?
I didn't think so, it was like being competitive, but with attitude. I didn't really complain or argue that much, I was pretty fast among my peer group, I was the edge in these games. I smirked at that, as vain as it was, I was proud of it.
I looked down at my feet, curious of when the game would actually start, but it seemed like no one really wanted to start out being it. Well, if no one else would, I guess I might as well start. To me, being it was just as fun as not being it, but it was always fun to test skills by avoiding others, always fun.
A lot of adults, especially coaches, said that this little game was a big basis of the people who would become the big football stars of high school. I had to agree with this logic, it seemed plausible that this would lead to a generation of brainless jocks.
However, I had to say that was a stereotype that didn't always fit the mold, I mean, just because you're athletic doesn't mean your less then average on the intelligent quotient scale
I kept thinking of these, of these stereotypes and clichés. Was I one? I did well in school and was a good runner, so I guess I shared the best of both worlds, I did struggle in all things art related, but I didn't care about that stuff. Drawing was boring, freeze tag was not.
I waited, I would wait another few minutes before volunteering myself for the job, I didn't really want to have to do it, but I would.
No one really spoke, unless it was to say " Who's going to be it?"
and of course, everyone would say " Why don't you be it, if your so worried about it." And of course the guy would then shut up, not wanting to be it.
I snickered a little, how childish a few of my peers were, complaining over this trivial matter. I mean, did it really matter who did it? They would probably tag someone pretty fast and then they'd be free.
But at this horrendous rate, we would never get to play and we'd end up just standing here all recess and then having to go back inside with nothing had been done, with nothing being played.
No one wanted that, but ten minutes had about already passed and I could see that a few kids were beginning to look worried if we would even get to play a nice full round.
At this point I highly doubted it, everyone was being so dumb about it. It was just being it, nothing hard about going around and chasing people. Nothing to it, I sighed. I raised my hand, it was freezing out.
" I'll be it." I mumbled, a little angry at the lack of brave people out here, it made me roll my eyes.
" Cool"
" Finally"
" Hope we have enough time."
All these comments spewed around me, I was just ready to start already.
I had to go to the big oak tree about ten feet away from the field we were playing on, it didn't have any leafs, for obvious reasons. When Winter hit around here, it hit pretty hard. I closed my eyes and leaned against the old tree, I hated how plants smelled, it was pretty gross.
And also strange, wood smelt bad while still alive but smelled great in a hardware store where it was all chopped up. I started to count, I was supposed to count to ten Mississippi's which was good enough, time wise for everyone to spread out and charge up.
" One Mississippi."
" Two Mississippi"
" Three Mississippi"
" Four Mississippi"
" Five Mississippi"
" Six Mississippi"
" Seven Mississippi"
" Eight Mississippi"
" Nine Mississippi"
" And... Ten Mississippi. Watch out, here I come." I yelled out, opening my eyes and turning around as fast as my body allowed me to do so.
I spotted them all in the field, they looked like they would scatter as soon as I stepped forward. I started to sprint into the field, they did scatter. They were actually doing pretty good, it took a solid three minutes until I could figure out witch one would be easiest to take down.
But as soon as I tracked that one down, it was very fast. My hand sped out and tagged him on his back, he kept running. This made me angry, I hated people who didn't call their tags, it was a game that was supposed to be on the honor system for a large part. I doubted anyone saw me tag him, they were too busy trying to survive. But I couldn't help but try to get him out.
" Hey! I so tagged him! Didn't anyone else see that?" I asked around me, most of them shrugged, not one really wanted to have to take sides in this kind of situation, I couldn't really blame them.
I wouldn't want to be torn between two sides, neither being of a rightful or wronging status. I grumbled to myself, no one would be on my side and no one would say that I was lying. Fine then, let it be this way, I would get that kid one way or another.
" Fine. Let's keep playing." I said calmly but loudly.
The kids around me seemed to like this choice and began running around again, the scumbag I had already gotten out just kind of half smiled, out of relief I suppose. I then felt a small revelation, he didn't want to have to be it, and I couldn't exactly blame him, he was pretty slow and I was the jerk that had targeted him as the easiest.
I instantly began to feel kind of bad, I wasn't going to go for him again. I suddenly felt compelled to find a new target, one that wasn't easy and one that wouldn't have a hard time when he filed in my spot. I looked around for another target, wondering who else would make a good target.
I looked around to see if another target worthy of my skills was around, I looked around to see who the fastest kid was. I saw one kid that was pretty tall, taller then me at least, he had long legs that were perfect for running, he never really had to run though, this kid was tough and always won a fight. Which is why his long legs didn't aid him in much, who needed to run when your fists were so adept? I thought about this and then without really thinking about it, started to run at him.
Head on, I was going pretty darn fast and it only took a few minutes to catch up with him, which was perfect. I dived, I almost tagged him but ended up missing by just a few inches. I swore inside my head, damn! I was so close to tagging him and now he was getting away, snickering. I quickly got up, ignoring the shooting pain in my shoulder where I had landed on an up stretched root.
I wanted to catch this kid pretty bad, the pain dissipated quickly or I at least learned to adapt pretty quickly. I was catching up to him again, I considered diving again but decided not to risk such a move again. It was bad missing with a dive once, but twice would make me look like an idiot, to say the least.
I sped up, using all the energy in my legs, all the inertia my small mass was making to catch up, everything felt like it was in slow motion, I felt like I was going to be able to catch him. I outstretched my arm, extending my hand to try and tag him, he was still about five or so inches away and at this range I couldn't tag him.
I would have to dive, I bent my knee's a little and then sprung forwards as much as possible, putting a high amount of power into my heel. I ended up tagging him and we both went down in the commotion, in the action. We both hit the ground pretty hard, I couldn't really feel anything though, I had too much adrenaline, but as that died down I ended up feeling a few bruises forming all over. It was painful, but I felt successful and that's all that mattered to me.
I chuckled, and got up. I extended my arm to help the tall kid up, he accepted and I helped him back to his feet.
" Sorry bout' that." I mumbled, blushing a bit embarrassed for being so rough.
He just dusted himself off and said " S'kay."
He said that he was it, and the game continued. It was an infinite loop of sorts and it always kept going, no matter the circumstances. Even if you were in brutal pain, you kept going. Even if you were bleeding, you kept going. You had to earn your honor out here, by any means possible and sometimes that meant going to the extremes.
I realized how ridiculous this sounded, this wasn't some sort of honor glorifying military experience.
Taking stuff like this personally was just a fancy way to say that you were being a wimp, no one could really argue about that. I dusted myself off, the snow came right off. Up until now, I hadn't realized how cold it really was out here, but now I felt it. It made me shiver on the inside and I didn't like it, my teeth chattered.
I didn't really like the cold, it was just the way I was and I didn't expect that to change, it just wasn't something that could. I thought about running, or at least paying attention to the game, I didn't want to be it again, I didn't feel up to it, at least not right now. I sighed, the cold air made my breath visible, I always thought that was so cool, it made it look like you were smoking. Truly cool.
I saw everyone running around, it was a new kid that was it, I wasn't surprised. The kid I had tagged was about the fastest kid here, and he probably got someone just a few minutes after I had tagged him. It didn't come as a surprise, at all. I looked around me a little bit more, I was nowhere near the kid who was it.
I would probably be pretty safe if I just stood around here, back at the big oak tree. It felt safe over here, and it felt vaguely familiar for some reason, which I really couldn't put my finger on. Sure I had known this tree had been here for a while, but it's not like I had any vivid memory of it, none that would make me feel with such a large feeling of deja vu.
I kind of shivered again, not out of the cold, but out of a realization. This was familiar, it was from one of my earlier visions. It had blond, and it had Liz. The bench that they were on, it was given shade by a big oak tree like this one, it was Fall in that vision, because the leafs were golden crisp and falling. It felt chilling for this to come to my mind, it was disturbing to be given deja vu from a strange vision about other people.
I was officially creeped out, which wasn't that strange, every vision had somewhat creeped me out. But this one thing, was more disturbing then anything, the whole vision played vividly in my mind, it was even more vivid then in my episode. More sounds, more details, every single thing.
It felt like one of my own memories, like an old memory, I wanted to keep onto it, so it wouldn't disappear like the others. I really did, It was a part of me now. What had disturbed me, mere minutes ago was now making me feel warm inside.
Part of me thought that this was very wrong, and another part thought that it felt right. I felt more fulfilled then earlier, I felt more full. It was gratifying, and yet terrifyingly surreal. I just took a deep breath and then exhaled, more steam.
How much longer was recess? I had lost track of time and I could swear we had been out here forever. It felt like an eternity since I had tagged the tall kid, as if the replay of that vision had taken hours and I couldn't help but say I didn't mind.
But then I heard it, the recess bell rung. Recess was over, and it was time for lunch.
I was glad that it was lunch time, for many reasons. The biggest reason being that I was cold and was very much ready to go back into the nice warmed school, it was less then twenty out here and I was becoming frozen.
I folded my arms to conserve heat, I started to walk toward the building, it was time for lunch, which brought me to my next big reason. I hadn't really felt it during recess but I was actually starving, it had been hours since breakfast and I could use the energy of a nice, hot meal. It wouldn't be that good of a lunch, since it was a school lunch, but a lunch was a lunch.
I nodded in the logic of this to myself, I watched the other kids filing up to go inside as well. We were all going to the same lunch, this brought me to a thought. Who would I sit by? I was not sure at this point of time.
I usually sat with my friend Jose and a few others that I vaguely knew, I was still considered the new kid around here. Mostly because I had been moved here by my uncle when my parents died, this was supposedly very far away from where I used to live. When I had brought up the fact that no one had knew me and I had supposedly been with him for a few years, he brought up that he had moved here after my first episode.
Thinking that the nice climate would help, I couldn't not think about the error in his first statement, saying that when my parents died I came here to live with him.
It was weird to suspect my uncle of things like this, but I had my doubts on a lot of things he had told me, he very frequently had to correct his former stories and facts about my former life. It was suspicious, but I couldn't do anything about it now, since he was long dead.
I walked into the building, it was nice and toasty in here, which fit my needs very much so. I sighed in relief, I caught up with Jose who was talking to a few of his friends. I walked among them, not adding anything to the conversation, but listening and tuning in and out randomly.
They didn't really have anything interesting to say, which was strange. Just a while back, it seemed like they always were telling the funniest jokes and such, but now it all seemed so juvenile or just plain lame. I couldn't help but tune out most of the stuff, none of it interested me in the very least.
I did pay attention to a few of the things, such as the parts about what had happened while I was gone a few weeks. Turns out I really didn't miss anything important, just learned about some division and multiplication.
Jose started to rant about how unfair springing a test on us really was, when we barely knew the material. I rolled my eyes, that test had been incredibly easy. He went on to say, how much he guessed and the other guys agreed with him. I decided to break in here.
" That test was easy!" I told them, raising an eyebrow.
" No it wasn't! How did you even understand it? You were out for most of the lessons and you finished it in like, five minutes!" He went on to argue.
I just shrugged and let them keep conversing, I couldn't argue about that, It had taken barely any time to complete that easy test.
I walked with them, wanting to have some food already. We walked into the lunch room, it was noisy as always, which was a good atmosphere in actuality. I followed my friends to the lunch line, it was a pretty long line which meant that we had come in a little late.
I sighed, I didn't really want to wait long to have lunch, I was really hungry right now. I just twiddled my thumbs, feeling hungry. I still tuned in on what Jose was talking about, but I didn't pay as much attention, none of his droning was that interesting.
I yawned, I wish I could sleep after eating, in a warm bed. I still felt cold internally, no jacket could change that. I just mentally shivered, waiting for the line to speed up already.
I heard lots of things, nothing coherent and nothing anywhere near intelligible, considering everyone was basically talking at once which completely distracted me from any real snooping except for on the people right next to me.
But these people were boring, but in reality I knew that everyone else was equally or more boring then these people who I actually knew. How sad was that? Very sad actually. I couldn't think of anything right now, I kept repeating myself, I kept thinking the same thing over and over.
Okay, at this point I knew that my friends were boring, okay then. I just sighed, and watched the line progress, it was actually starting to move now, to my excellent discovery.
I walked up a little, keeping up with it, what did I want to eat today? Chicken nuggets, or pizza? Both were pretty tasteless, and had about the same inconsistent ingredients, but I had to choose one.
It was like choosing a moldy sandwich from a moldy bagel with cream cheese, they both sucked, but which one was I actually willing to eat? I decided I would probably want the pizza, if they had pepperoni still, if they didn't then I would eat the chicken nuggets, at least those came with some half-way decent mashed potatoes, which I loved.
I yawned, I wasn't actually that tired, I guess I was just kind of kidding myself into thinking that I was in a much worse position then reality told me. I wasn't happy about that, but I guess I could use this imagination to other advantages, such as thinking that all of the visions I had were actually just figments of my deranged imagination.
But I had a feeling that was not in particular true, they just seemed way to vivid to be false and way too exciting. I was kind of glad to have them, but it was a double ended blade, they were cool and all, but they also distracted me and made me loose and hour of my memory.
Nothing was really worth that, my memory was very important to me and I hated to loose it every time I did, it just killed me inside. I could actually start to see the food up ahead, I was finally moving up in the line farther, it wouldn't be long till food now. I smiled.
I could smell everything by now, I could even see the lunch ladies serve it. Sure, it wasn't the best stuff out there, but even I had to admit on such a cold and dreary day, it looked and probably tasted heavenly.
There was no arguing with that, at least in my opinion. I kept moving up in the line, wondering why people had to be so slow about getting their food, seriously. I finally was able to grab a tray, first of all I put a chocolate milk on it, the regular milk tasted like cardboard here.
" Jose. What're you getting?" I asked him, looking ahead.
" Nuggets, I think." He replied, he had a pretty thick accent, but I was able to understand him quite well.
I just nodded, I didn't think that Jose liked pizza that much, he was much more into meat. Then again, I doubted the nuggets were all meat anyway, when they said chicken, I'm pretty sure they meant tofu.
I just chortled at my own little joke, I always thought I was so clever with these little jokes. I kept moving up, sure enough, Jose got chicken nuggets, he also got mashed potatoes with white gravy.
I gave a disgusted look, white gravy was disgusting, I preferred brown gravy. I kept going up in line, I ended up getting a slice of cheese pizza, since they were out of pepperoni, I just grumbled a profanity, not pleased with this new development.
I also grabbed a pineapple dish and a M&M cookie as a dessert. I kept going until I hit the cashier, I typed in my pin number, it was 5506. The cashier gave me a nod and I was on my way, I remembered the five in my pocket and decided that my new caretaker didn't know about my lunch account, I guess I could use the five for after I went to the library.
I just shrugged, I followed Jose to the table where all his and my friends sat, it was mostly his friends but I could bare them, and they were able to bare me. Good enough for friendship, I sat down and plucked my tray down, looking down at the slice of cheese pizza in front of me.
I was hungry and this was practically a five star restaurant meal in front of me. I picked the pizza slice up and began to munch on it, it was heavenly. As rubbery as the cheese was, and how hard the crust was, it was delicious and I enjoyed every bite of it. I grinned a little, biting on it.
I took a few sips of my chocolate milk, wondering how everyone else could even stand the unpleasant taste of the regular milk here, I hadn't tried the strawberry, so I couldn't really judge that, but I had a feeling it wasn't that good . Just a feeling in the pit of me, I couldn't help but feel. It looked like Pepto-bismal.
It was easy to admit how unappetizing the schools lunches were, but even easier to say that if you were to picky then you were basically screwed. Not a lot of people thought about it, but it was kind of obvious, you eat or you don't. You do and you have energy for the rest of the day, you don't and you mope around, feeling tired.
I yawned a little, it had been a pretty long day already today, no question about that. I looked around myself, friends and acquaintances surrounded me, as always? I just couldn't shake a new feeling, of how false this felt, of how surreal this all was. I think I had come to a point where my visions were becoming a more believable reality then what I was living right now was.
Was that so strange? To believe of something like that? Probably, it didn't make too much sense if you thought about it, but I didn't really care, what was going on was going on and I couldn't do much about it. I knew that these dreams, these visions had a importance, had an utmost value of some sort, but I couldn't quite tell what that was.
I mentally shrugged, all this thinking was making my mind ache. I put my hand on my forehead and closed my eyes for a few seconds, I started to feel a bit better, which was of the utmost good.
I sighed in relief and went back to eating, I found my pizza to have been good, but these crinkle fries were disgusting, I pushed them away from my tray, dejectedly. Surely enough, Jose took them and began to munch on them, in no way disturbed by their terrible taste, which I couldn't quite believe, they were just too tasteless for me, I couldn't enjoy them even if I tried.
They just felt like mush in your mouth, even with mustard or ketchup, they were gross. I looked at my tray, I was done with lunch as shown by my empty tray. I still felt a little hungry, but I decided I would just hit a vendor after going to the library. That would ease my stomach, which was kind of half empty, half flopping around right now, it felt pretty terrible, to say the least. I got up and went to go put my tray away in the tray compartment near the lunch line, this was a good system, actually.
It made it so kids would put their trays away and so that the custodians wouldn't have to go pick them all up, which was probably an arduous task by itself. I placed it carefully and headed back to my table, I think their was still a few minutes left in lunch to go, I sat down and waited for the bell to ring, to signify that the lunch period was over and that we could go back to class, for the rest of the day.
After a few minutes, the bell rung and I got up, along with my friends. We started to walk out of the cafeteria, we went into the main hallway and from there we started our descent to our classroom.
I walked outside of the schools walls, today had seemed to take forever, but then again, a day coming back after a four or so week hiatus would probably seem to be eternal.
I yawned again, I don't know why today had been so tiresome, I must still be used to just staying home and falling asleep whenever, I wondered if I would miss doing that, I decided that I probably would. It was true, it was inevitable that something like it would happen, I was used to craving solitude, junk food and my thoughts.
School had made me feel almost a little too human, it didn't feel as natural as it should have. But then again, my psyche wasn't exactly something I would think it all that great, I even admitted to that, I mean, who could say something like that and actually not mean it? It was just one of those things.
I walked through the cool, snow laden grass, I felt cold through the soles of my shoes, it was somewhat pleasant and somewhat annoying. This place was just to cold during the winter months, I shivered a little. I looked ahead, trying to keep focus, I was going to the library to do a little research about my condition, and maybe a few other things, I couldn't quite decide what I would research.
But whatever made this puzzle stick together better was what I was looking for, I looked at the sidewalk I had gotten on, I didn't have as much snow, it must've been salted again before I got out of school. I enjoyed that, less slick and less of a danger waiting to happen, I didn't want to end up road kill because I slipped off of the sidewalk, a little of an embarrassing death, no?
I folded my arms, to keep in a bit better warmth, there weren't ever many cars out and around, this was a small city, most people walked and even if everyone drove, it wouldn't be too much of a change. As I said, small place, small population.
I could see a few other kids walking around, but not going in the same direction of me, I don't think anyone would be in the library today, Most people didn't want to spend their time in a musty old place like that, and who could blame them? It just wasn't the place to be in the winter months, no heating.
And the only reasons most people would go is to play on the computers, but most people had a computer around here.
So the only real need ended up being needing to do book research for a school project. Which was probably rare to occur, the digital age was much more of a research use. No one used books as references or information when they could even easier look it up on the internet, I guess another use was the fact that people did like to read, that was good enough reason, I suppose.
AN: This is where I stopped, so I don't know if I will add onto it or not. Give me your HONEST opinion.
