Chapter 2

Chapter 2

 

Edward wasn’t able to think about writing the second chapter for a few days. He took the time to get inside the mind of his narrator. When Edward wrote, he became this narrator. It was no longer Edward.

It was strange. Edward was creating a character. He could see through the eye’s of this character. He could see the world around this character. But, he didn’t know much of the actual character, not even a name. The closet thing he had was his narrator’s thoughts and ideas.

Trying to go further into the narrator’s mind, Edward tried to write down some of these thoughts and  ideas. It was harder than writing what he wrote in the first chapter. He was not used to abstract concepts and personally thought they were to troublesome to think about. It therefore took him a good two hours to only write two paragraphs.

He started off simple. But, sentence after sentence, he started to get deeper into the concepts.

 

I think that we should all take the opportunity to grow. We must all grow in four ways. In a year, we should all gain a year’s knowledge. We should learn from all of our surroundings, even at unexpected times and from unexpected people. During a year, we should grow retrospectively, looking back on our mistakes and making a better future. And, we should grow introspectively, self reflecting and painting the self. These four ways are essential to growth. However, I have come to think that there is a fifth way. I like to call them sudden realizations. Unlike the other ways to grow, not everyone is familiar with sudden realizations. They are not gradual, and are not the results of a process over time. They are, as they are named, sudden and instantaneous thoughts that can change a person’s perspective.  These can be life changing philosophical realizations or they can be simple realizing that tune that you whistle everyday when you get up sounds absolutely dreadful. Especially when looking at the more significant of these realizations, they tend to involve different levels of self awareness, which each realization making you slightly more conscious. 

On another note, along with talking about these sudden realizations, there is something I like to call a realization paradox. A realization paradox occurs when a realization suddenly changes the condition of what is being realized. Perhaps this I just my way of fighting the pessimistic arguments in the world, but this has helped me explain to myself how I change some negatives into impossible positives. I remember a video that we watched one day in science class. Towards the end of it, the narrator talked about the planet Earth, its people, and our place in the universe. To even the Solar System, the Earth was just a small, microscopic speck; the Sun not even being bigger than tennis ball. Beyond that, the Solar System was just a speck inside another even smaller speck, the galaxy that was surrounded by an infinite number of other galaxies, all like a giant soup. And we, the human race were seemingly nothing. The other people in the class we in awe of this notion. And I admit, this is a very magnificent notion to take in. But, as everyone else became drowned ideas of self insignificance, I saw something different. I saw something beautiful. While they grew in awe of such gloom, I grew in awe of the fact that we, the human race could know such things. It was proof enough that we do have significance and that despite being limited to a small speck; we have gazed across those galactic distances and get a little bit more important each day. Perhaps I was being optimistic, but from that day on, I have always carried the idea the each time we realize how insignificant we are, we become slightly more significant.

 

Edward was done for the night. Too much thinking. He was a simple person living in the present. He didn’t care about the whys, or the ifs. Things were straight forward. He liked subjects with only one answer to a question.

So, despite all of this, Edward was doing something that was very unlikely for him to do -- something that was creative. Edward was writing a book.

But, Why? Why was Edward writing a book?

 

______________________________

 

When I saw Katie walking along the grass, I felt like I had seen a ghost. I had forgotten about Katie, she had moved or transferred. I began to wonder if she had actually left, and had only changed classes. But, then she would have been there at lunch. Maybe she was just avoiding me. Perhaps I had committed some taboo. But, I knew that could not be the case. Katie was not like Lynn or any of them.

Katie was happy to see me. She told me to follow her. Our hang out spot was still under construction, although it didn’t seem to me as if they had started any construction at all. It was just zoned off, like they a going to start the next day, but they never do. Instead, we walked grass where for some reason looked to be a very unnatural place to eat lunch, which was good because

I noticed that her hair was different. I didn’t say anything about it, but it was that fake color you get in a 24 hour drug store. It didn’t match her. Something seemed different about her personality. She seemed drained, like she was dealing with family problems at home. Maybe her parents were getting a divorce. I asked her how she was and she put on a large smile and said that she was doing good, but she directed the discussion back towards me and asked how school had been and if she had missed anything interesting or important. The way she asked was as if she wanted to know what home work was assigned yesterday as if she only missed one day of school.

I talked a bit about what I had been doing. She missed a few ear deafening school assemblies, but beyond that there wasn’t that much that she missed on a school wide basis. We only shared home room, which didn’t really have assignments, being just an excuse for the school to use as an obstacle for students to rearrange their schedules. So, I only talked a little about how the teacher actually stopped wearing that dusty old hat. After I said that, she laugh. She was going to mention something after that, but the bell rang and she was cut off.  We got up and headed in different directions.

After lunch, I went to history. It was the last class of the day. It seemed to be my least favorite. It’s not that I hate history. It was more a combination of bad teachers, lazy students, and teach to the test curriculum; despite the teachers saying it was the new and improved curriculum each year, it was always busy work. And, no matter how many times I had tried to get a history class sometime in the morning, I have always had to take it very last right when my brain turns off and I just want to go home.

We weren’t doing too much in class that day. But, I was fairly happy. The teacher was able to get everyone quiet and start class in only ten minutes. Unfortunately, that was the record.

The next day also started off slow. We had a test in algebra. I finished early and went outside when I was finished. Andrew was also finished. We talked a little bit and I apologized again for the other day. He didn’t seem to be to concerned about it anymore and said to not worry about it. I forget if he had the idea or I did, but the idea of starting a philosophy club at school came up. There was already a philosophy club on campus, but we were looking for something slightly different. I know I at least wanted a place to talk about things beyond other people. It is interesting to talk about Plato and his ideas, but I wanted to talk about my ideas. I wanted a club, not about philosophy, but for philosophers.

Homeroom was after algebra. I was never sure what home room was. Our class was more or less a study hall. We would always hear the teacher next door playing movies for her students. Our teacher would get annoyed. I remember how the students in that used to say how they were lucky to get that class. I would have also said I was lucky  if I was in the other class.

Katie was there, in one of the back seats. She must have come just before lunch the day before.­ She must have been bored just sitting there. There was nothing that she could work on. We weren’t really supposed to talk during homeroom. But, I got up nonetheless and walked over to her desk. I took some paper with me and when I reach my destination, I set it on her desk and told her to draw and smiled. The teacher saw that I had gotten up. He didn’t say anything.

After homeroom, I had biology.  I liked biology.  I that that someday, I might want to work in medical research or pioneer methods of genetic engineering. I seemed to be overly enthusiastic in that class.  I saw rows of heads laid down in fear that the teacher would continue talking. This day, they were more interested than usual. I am not sure why, but class when faster and I soon went to  the library. They had made a mistake in my schedule. During this gap between biology and English, I tried to make the best of time. I did homework that I could have done the night before and sometimes I helped sort and shelf books.

After a long lecture in English, I met with Katie during lunch again. Her hair looked worse than the day before. I had always thought that it wasn’t a good idea to buy products from drug stores. The color was already fading.

By that time, I had already forgotten about giving her the paper on homeroom. I had expected her have drawn something, just a draft a something. I knew that she was a very skilled artist. But, it had always taken her more than a few days to draw a final draft. I didn’t expect for her be able to draw one in only a few hours. But, she had.

“You drew that much?” I asked. “Its..”

“Its been in my mind for weeks.” Katie did not draw the same tree that occupied our drawings from before. In stead, she had drawn a cottage. It seemed peaceful and undisturbed. It was also perfect, like a black and white photo. “ Do you like it? Its been my home for a while now.”

I was a little surprised to hear that she was on vacation this whole time. “Yes, its.. amazing. You’ve gotten better. A lot better. “

“Really? Thanks.”

“But... the cabin?”

“Yes”

“Is that where you’ve been?”

“Yeah, sort of. I went to other places to, but that’s where I spent the most time.”

“So, when I was here at school, doing homework, you were off having fun in a cabin in the woods?”

“Well.. Yes.” she seemed too sincere. She didn’t think that I believed her. I don’t even know if I believed her.  But, I don’t know if I would have believed any other explanation any better. “My grandma lives there. I like it there. She makes good oatmeal cookies.”

“And, what do you do there?”

“Almost nothing. It is relaxing.”

“I see... So, you just went there, as an escape?”

Katie laughed. “Yeah, I needed an escape.” Katie’s voice seemed more timid than usual, like she was hiding something. Her hair, it was there, she was hiding behind the color. But, I didn’t try to pry. She wasn’t hiding anything to hurt me.

We talked some more. As lunch went on, I could tell that she seemed tired. Towards the end, when the bell finally rang, she stood up. But, she could not stay up. And I sat and watched her fall. It wasn’t until then that I finally understood; Katie was wearing a wig.

 

“What are you doing?”

Edward ignored Molly.

“Edward...”Molly was standing next to Edward’s desk. She was barely as tall as the desk was. She stood on her tiptoes, reached up and then rested her head on top of her hands.

She stayed there. Edward kept on writing.

“Edward... What are you doing?”