Chapter 1: Second Sight

This is the first chapter of my Lotus Eaters book! It is based on a short story I made a year ago. There will be more chapters to come!

Chapter One

I sit at my desk staring blankly ahead at the professor while he rambles on about theoretical nonsense that has nothing to do with my life. He’s really getting into it, making exaggerated gestures and perspiring.  I could not care less. I gaze at the clock on the classroom wall, revealing the time to be 2:45 P.M. It’s only been fifteen minutes since the professor’s mind-numbingly tedious lecture began? A sigh escapes my lips.

It’s early September, so it’s still fairly hot and humid, unfortunately. I hate humidity. It makes me so…uncomfortable. You know how it makes it feel like the air is compressing you from everywhere? I hate that. It gets difficult to even breathe. If I were a guy, I’d probably just rip my shirt off, even though I’m in public. Too bad I’m not a guy.

At least it’s the last class of the day. Oh, and today’s Friday, so it’s also the last class of the week. Man, it’s been such a long week.   Can’t wait for this class to be over so I can at least attempt to enjoy the coming weekend. Though it’s not like I have anywhere special to go or anything. Probably just going to chill in my dorm room, watching TV, playing games, listening to music, reading, stuff like that.

The professor is still spewing a hundred words per second, as if he’s afraid he won’t get them all out in time. Must be tough teaching Philosophy. I look around at the other students in my class. Most people are being about as attentive as I am. This either doesn’t bother our professor, or he simply does not notice.

However, there is one person in the class paying some attention. It’s the annoying girl who sits to my right. She has large green eyes and long brown hair that is partially tied behind her head in a small knot. I guess she’s pretty, and she’s not really a b***h or anything…but she still just gets on my nerves. I think it’s because she strikes me as someone who tries too hard. She shoots her hand up in the air with a perplexed look on her face.

“Yes, Laura?” the professor stops mid-rant to call on her. He is breathing hard from talking so much.  

“I didn’t understand anything you said,” Laura says, looking embarrassed. “Could you please start over from the beginning again?”

“Why, yes of course I can! Here, I’ll try to make it easier to comprehend. Allow me to clear the obfuscation, my dear.” He seems to be pleased that at least one person is attempting to understand, since all of the other students either look confused or bored out of their minds.

I sigh once more. Way to go, Laura. I put one leg over the other and rest my cheek in my palm, preparing myself for another epic wave of the professor’s nonsensical stream of consciousness to come gushing forth from his mouth, drowning the entire class in a sense of otherworldliness and confusion.

“Well, my dear,” he begins, “Let me start with a simple idea. A question, actually: What is ‘reality’?”

Laura thinks for a moment. “Um, what we can detect with our senses?”

“Exactly! We, as human beings, use our five senses to understand the world around us, and then call these observations ‘reality’. But you see, the problem is that we have no way to know what it is like to be in another life form’s, or even another person’s mind. Therefore, we may all perceive a different ‘reality’ from one another without realizing it.”

“Uh huh,” Laura says, though I can tell that Laura is already confused again. I don’t really buy this stuff either.

The professor continues despite the confused looks on everyone’s faces, “So this means that reality is merely a concept that we all subscribe to. But there’s no way of proving what ‘real’ means. Other people and other creatures may have totally different ways of perceiving things. For example: colors. What if everyone sees colors and images differently? Just because we both call something ‘purple’ doesn’t mean that we both see something the same way. It just means we agree to call it by the same name. What if we all hear sounds differently? Just listen to your own voice for example. It sounds different to you than it does to others, and then different again if it has been recorded and played back to you…”

As the professor speaks, he is getting more and more excited, making wild gestures and looking around from face to face, as if trying to force his message into our minds by telepathy.

It’s not working. I roll my eyes and switch legs, my gaze still blank, eyes half-open as if I were falling asleep. I just might with how bored I am. He always does this. He gets all excited and starts running his mouth at 100 mph until nothing he says makes sense anymore. I glance at the clock on the wall again. 3: 20. Ugh, still ten more minutes of this crap.  Somebody kill me.

“What if everything we perceive as reality is just some…entity’s dream? Or perhaps that entity is constantly creating new worlds, or ‘realities’, and constantly throwing them away? Then you would be a new ‘you’ everyday! The past, present, and future ‘you’ would all be separate entities! Hell, what if our dreams were reality, or a door to another dimension?” the professor asks his questions to no one in particular, his eyes widening with energy…verging on mania. I am getting more than just a little creeped out by him.

“Whoa, whoa, hold up! What do you mean, ‘another dimension’?” a male student interrupts.

A disconcerting grin stretches across the professor’s face. “Yes, very good! I was hoping someone would ask that!” he climbs up on his desk, then stands and loosens his collar and tie.

“We’ve covered the topic of synesthesia before, do you all remember? In sound-induced synesthesia, people see colors and images produced by sounds and music that they hear. What if those are glimpses into another dimension? What if there is a sort of ‘second-sight’ that allows people to see more than just what we ordinarily perceive with our senses? Perhaps the only reason the world appears stable is because we believe everything we see to be absolute truth, and things we do not normally see, we discount as nonexistent…What I mean to say is that our eyes act as a filter; we can only see certain things, and those things make up the everyday world we are familiar with. But that does not mean that what we see is all there is.”

“So? What do you mean professor? What is the truth then?” Laura asks.

Is she crazy? Why encourage him to keep going? He’s clearly insane.

The professor’s creepy grin widens even further. “Aha! Good Laura! That leads to an important concept: the Existential Paradox.”

“What is that?” she asks with eyes full of curiosity.

Damn, she doesn’t learn, does she? Here we go…

 “The Existential Paradox is the following clause: since reality and truth are merely a concept that cannot be proved, the ‘truth’ is that there is no ‘truth’! As I said before, we all just choose to subscribe to the same ideas of truth. However, those who discard the concepts of ‘the norm’ and ‘reality’ can see with eyes unclouded by their judgment and preconceived notions of what can or cannot be ‘real’. They can see and experience things that ordinary people are incapable of seeing due to their close-mindedness. This would be, in a sense, a second sight.”

“You mean like seeing the future and stuff? This isn’t making any sense to me…” Laura complains.

You and me both, hun, I think to myself. I start sucking in my lower lip, feeling somewhere between irritated, disturbed, and…yep, still bored.

But our passionate professor is no longer aware of his surroundings. “By internalizing the Existential Paradox, one could defy the principles of physics and logic that restrain the masses! It is the adherence to the immediate physical world that leads humans astray to engage in pointless activities such as war, rape, and murder, gossip, materialism, consumerism"adherence to modern society is ridiculous in and of it itself! Just look at how reliant on technology we’ve become! It’s ridiculous! But I digress. By rejecting the concept of reality, one could theoretically see all sorts of new things; however, there is no proof that even what the ‘second sight’ unveils is the ‘truth’, since truth is subjective. However, one could use the second sight and their knowledge of ‘reality’ to essentially craft their own realities!” the professor begins laughing manically.

“Professor, what on earth are you talking about!?” Laura suddenly exclaims. She looks frightened. Many of the other students do too. Can you blame them?

I stretch my arms as I yawn. What a lunatic. He should be locked up somewhere"before I can finish the thought, I feel a sort of disturbance in the air, almost as if the air were swirling around the room, yet different from wind. All of a sudden it becomes darker in the classroom. I look to the windows. All closed. Couldn’t be wind, and it’s still bright outside. I feel the air pressure from somewhere at the back of the classroom rushing towards the professor standing on his desk, laughing like a psycho. Everyone else in the class doesn’t seem to notice anything strange, besides the professor of course. The invisible force speeds up, racing towards the professor to…do what exactly?

“So you see, class! We’ve all been playing along with a totally subjective world! Humans are merely marionettes before a puppet master! Do you…” he suddenly trails off.

My gaze returns to the professor to see why he suddenly stopped speaking. I am paralyzed with fear. A shrouded figure appears behind the professor, hovering in the air. Its shadowy form wraps around the professor, sinking its black sinewy claws into his body. The professor’s expression quickly changes from one of rapture to one of horror. His body is gradually disappearing into the phantasm behind him. He opens his mouth as if to scream, but no sound can be heard. The ghoul pulls the man deeper into its blackness, its obscurity.

No trace of the man is left. The air in the classroom has returned to normal. I sit terrified, shaking in my seat.

“What just happened?” I manage to squeak.

Laura, having noticed me shaking furiously in the seat beside her, turns to ask, “What’s wrong, Violet? Are you okay?”

“W-what are you talking about? Did you not see what just happened?” my voice comes out shaky. I realize I’ve worked up a nervous sweat.

“What are you talking about? Nothing’s happened yet, silly, class hasn’t started.” Laura gives me a confused, innocent look.

What the hell is she talking about! What does she mean class hasn’t started yet!? I shoot a look at the clock on the wall again. 2:45. What!? My eyes dart around the classroom, desperately searching for some sort of answer, or a clue. Everyone else in the room looks completely calm, as if they hadn’t just seen a shadow suck up our professor.

I take a deep breath and speak slowly, “Laura, did you see what happened to the professor?”

“Huh? He hasn’t shown up yet, Violet. What do you mean?”

This doesn’t make any sense. One second the professor was there, the next he was swallowed up by some…thing! I can’t take it any more. This isn’t happening. This doesn’t make sense. This isn’t real. I shut my eyes in a feeble attempt to close out the world as I let my screams bounce off the inner walls of my mind.

When I finally open my eyes, I find myself alone in the darkness.   

Reviews

[K.G]

i like what ur doing with this, the fackt that u go from "reality" to were the girl "wakes up" and was actually in a "dream-like" state(at least this is what im seeing) i would sweep threw this though.. .some of ur " " are kinda at random places. . . .i really like the speech that the teacher gives though very interesting . . .oh an slightly confused when the air changed. . .that just came out of no where. . .

[Minoru Kusari]

Hi there, thanks for your comment! I hope you read the other chapters posted! For some reason, the (--) symbol in Word gets turned into random quotation marks when i post it here. It's annoying and i hope it isn't too confusing to read! Good day

[K.G]

Ill be glad to read more, as soon as my computers get fixed >.>. . . .it wasnt confuseing, just alot of wtf momments in a way lol

[Minoru Kusari]

Please let me know what you think! There will be more chapters to come!