Five Years Later

The brownstone is home now. I had been somewhat taken under the wing of my winter savior, and had lived with him ever since that night. Barrick’s only conditions on living with him were that I had to attend school, and follow all of his rules. I never thought of the second condition as accurate, since rules are conditions in of themselves. But a place to sleep and where you are appreciated is something to be worked for, so I had agreed to his conditions:

                Rule number one: Tell no one about your abilities. This was the most important one, as people don’t enjoy being read like an open book, or having their emotions toyed with. It unnerves them, as you could understand.

                Rule number two: Blend in. It’s very easy to outshine everyone if you know what they’re thinking or feeling. And there’s the added problem of seeming over-confident, and being able to tell when someone is lying through their teeth.

                Rule number three: Homework before dinner, Practice after dinner. No exceptions. Not a major problem for me, since my homework is relatively easy, and though practice is somewhat monotonous, it’s still pretty enjoyable.

                Rule number four: Barrick is Dad outside of the house, Marcus in private, and Master during practice. No exceptions. I had slipped a few times when I was younger and called my ‘father’ Marcus at school. The teachers didn’t seem to notice or care, but Barrick did. As for the Master bit, it’s not as bad as you may think. It’s more like a sensei thing than anything else.

                Rule number five: Curfew on weekends is 11:30 pm. I hardly went anywhere on the weekends, anyway; so this rule was sort of void. I took comfort in it though, just in case it was needed.

                Rule number six: Daily Chores are mandatory. The chores were primarily mine. Washing dishes, changing out laundry and taking out the trash were my daily duties. That and helping out in the bookstore that Barrick ran next door.

                The six almighty rules were to be followed at all times, and I didn’t think that I would every break any of them; even if I did, I was sure that Barrick wouldn’t throw me out. We had grown close in the past five years, and his warm moments far outdid his grouchy ones. One of which he was currently in when I arrived home from school one day.

                “Where is it?!” I heard him grouching in the next room. I left my backpack in the hall and listened to the sounds of crashing bookshelves and a tinkle of glass. I was sure he had stacked a lamp on a few books for appropriate lighting and had grabbed one of the books without thinking again.

                In the study, Barrick was madly tearing about, flipping through papers and books in a frenzy. His Aura was mauve (anxiety). I folded my arms and watched him for a moment before asking. “Where’s what?”

                He jumped as though he’d been shocked with a cattle prod, his Aura snapping into a dark turquoise. He glared at me and harrumphed. “Your papers. Have you seen them?”

                I was surprised. My identification was backed by false documents, and there was only one copy of them, as far as I knew. I had only seen them a few times. “No. Why do you want them?”

                “Your principal,” Barrick growled, “Is a busybody and a conspiracy theorist.”

                I went blank for a moment and then laughed hollowly. Our new principal, Mrs. Forman, had been hired to make our school a better place; getting rid of the drug runners, the pedophile gym coach, and the freeloading students. I had already had my experience with Mrs. Forman since she had been selected by the school board. Right after her first assembly, she had stopped me in the halls and asked me what my name was.

                “Flynn Barrick.” I had told her innocently.

                “And you are a student at South Glen High School?” She had asked, looking dubious.

                I had held out my student ID and then surveyed her indigo (doubtful) Aura with some curiosity. She had then told me matter-of-factly that IDs could in fact be counterfeited. I thought counterfeit had only to do with money. Apparently I’m wrong.

                “She actually asked for my documents?” I asked Barrick and he again began to frantically search for them. His Aura went red-orange (annoyed), and I knew better than to egg him on anymore. Instead I began to help him search. We finally found them in a book of Celtic poetry. When asked, Barrick couldn’t seem to remember why on earth he had even put them there.

                “Did she call you?” I asked.

                Barrick fingered through a copy of my fake transcripts. “She notified me that they did not have any official copies of your paperwork on file. It was hinted that you may be dropped if the documents weren’t produced.”

                I shrugged, “So what’s wrong with transferring to another school?”

                He gave me a look like I was an idiot. “The documents would have been needed to transfer you. In any case, they are good to have around.”

                “Well, next time try to leave them someplace conspicuous.” I suggested.

                Barrick nodded and slipped the papers into his briefcase. “I have an appointment with this woman tomorrow morning. If she asks you anything before that, I have taken care of everything.”

                “Sounds good.” I replied, exiting the room and grabbing my backpack from the front hall. I had some Chemistry homework to work on before dinner, and stalling would just make it a longer night later. I never went to bed without finishing homework.

                My “study” was on the top floor of the brownstone. Barrick owned the whole building, and though he used only a small portion of it, he never even thought of renting out to people; that was partly due to our extraordinary circumstances. The top floor had been a greenhouse at one point, with glass panels taking the place of several feet of the walls, and a ceiling of skylights. A few of the panes had been broken by kids throwing rocks from nearby rooftops, but it wasn’t uninhabitable.

                I enjoyed my perch above the neighborhood. People do strange things on their rooftops, and doing chemistry homework is hardly one of them. At one point about a year ago, I had watched a man propose to his girlfriend on a roof two building over. She must have said yes, because now when I see them on their roof, I see her middle getting bigger and bigger as the months pass. On another roof, a little girl usually plays with a giant rubber ball, trapped in a chain-link fence. Another roof holds a hanging garden that belongs to an Indian family who moved in almost two years ago.

                I had come to know my neighbors in a way that many people can never understand. The Auras of the rooftop dwellers show more than can be seen with normal eyes. They each had their own unique signature, their own color and emotion that changed either subtly or majorly depending on their circumstances.

                As I sat down with my textbook and pen, I noticed the little girl in her personal playground. She was looking through the chain links at the office buildings across the river. Her Aura was deep chocolate brown. I stuck my pen behind my ear and set my chin in the palm of my hand. She was in love. Puppy love, but still love. Most think that the emotion of love is red or pink. They’re wrong: love is the color of warmth and safety; either chocolate or dark burnt orange. Her Aura had always been more solid that most others I had seen. Barrick had hinted that it might have been because she was creatively talented. Artists’ Auras are theoretically supposed to be more apparent.

                I wondered for a moment at the little girl’s story, and then looked back down to my book and quickly finished the chapter questions that had been assigned. I was a little miffed that Mrs. Forman had bothered to call Barrick. I didn’t know quite what to make of her; she hid her emotions extremely well, even from herself it seemed. I tried to think of a reason why she would have picked on me out of the thousand other students at South Glen.

                Dinner was never a silent affair. Barrick always had something to talk about, and I always had things to tell him about school. A day didn’t go by that Barrick didn’t ask me what I had learned that was new. He placed great importance on education.

                “What about Geography?” He asked me that night.

                I shrugged. “It’s not really taught much anymore, once you get into high school; it’s mostly government and economics.”

                He grunted. “At least I can rest assured that you know who’s running for Congress.”

                I grinned and took a big bite out of my chicken. I’m a pretty good cook, but Barrick taught me everything I know. So we never wanted for good food. It was a far cry from my homeless state.

                “Do you think that the Patriots will win?” Barrick asked sarcastically.

                I smiled despite myself. Barrick hated sports, especially football. The fact that he had brought it up meant that he had been asked this question at the bookstore all day. I didn’t care for the sport either. I was about to reply when the clock struck seven in the hallway. I put down my fork and waited for Barrick to do the same. He gave me a raised eyebrow and an expectant look.

                “Are you ready to begin?”

                “Yes, Master.” I replied, rolling my eyes. I knew the drill; he didn’t have to remind me every night. I quickly cleared the dishes and we headed down to the basement. It was like the rest of the house; warm and cozy. I sat on a rug that was situated in the center of the floor and tried to calm my Aura.

                The only time I had seen someone with no Aura at all was on a field trip to the planetarium, where a Tibetan monk was sitting on the curb, his eyes closed deep in thought. It had shocked my then-thirteen-year-old brain to see someone who looked so amazingly normal. Since then, Barrick had been trying to train me in the art of closing my Aura off to everyone besides myself. It had been a far-fetched idea from the start, but every day I got a little closer to completion, my Aura fading within an hour or so, but not totally disappearing as of yet. Barrick had warned me that any other Semiens within the area would notice if I were the only one in a crowd without a visible Aura, and that would give me away, but that the ability to mask raw emotion was invaluable.

                Semiens are what Barrick calls the ‘Semi-Enlightened’, as only people who have more brain power can see another’s Aura. A totally enlightened individual would be so powerful that, in theory, they would cease to exist as a human being. But that’s a little over my head, and I am a Semien.

                “Make sure that your Aura is settled before you try and clear it.” Master Barrick reminded me as he sidled over to his desk, where he promptly picked up a large book and began to skim its pages. Settling an Aura is like being in the coma; because even when a person dreams the Aura is still swirling and alive. Only the ignorance of emotion or death can completely erase the Aura. Simply cloaking or ‘masking’ the Aura is more widely used, whether those doing it know it or not.

                I focused on trying to make the light blue haze settle calmly onto my skin, but my subconscious was still lingering on Mrs. Forman’s audacity, so I was finding it difficult to calm myself. Thinking of my subconscious thoughts, and therefore bringing them to the foreground made my Aura flicker hot pink, prickling against the blue and making purple ripples cover my arms.

                “Calm yourself.” Barrick said briskly, peering over his reading.

                I took a long, deep breath and let Mrs. Forman be swept away into the secret abyss in my mind that contained everything that was not immediately important. My Aura smoothed back into its natural mist consistency. I then began to focus on making the color disappear from my sight. The mist was already light blue, so if it paled a few shades, I was unaware of it.

                “Perhaps you should try envisioning your goal.” Barrick suggested.

                I looked up at him, “That is what I’m trying to do.”

                “Are you thinking about the process or the goal itself?” He asked.

                I sighed, “The latter.”

                “Seeing the process your Aura would be going through may help you find what is blocking your success.” He explained, “Remember that your Aura is a part of your physical body as well as your spirit. You must treat is as if it were an extra appendage.”

                “Yes, Master.” I said respectfully, and then kept on with my past processes. What he didn’t know wouldn’t kill him. I was grateful for Barrick’s know-how, but I was sure he didn’t know everything.  I was very sure that his experience with his own Aura would be drastically different from my own. Each Aura is unique, like the person it belongs to. What made Barrick think he knew best?

                I knew that I owed him a lot, but his control over my training was vaguely limited. Even he had said that what was done was primarily up to me; he was only there to guide, and I was grateful for what guidance he gave me.

                My Aura rippled as I thought and I glanced at Master Barrick to make sure he hadn’t seen my errant stream of emotion. He was, however, buried in his book; a pastime that I often found him in, since his collection of books numbered close to a million. His books were everywhere, even littered on the basement floor. I had some affinity for books, but I wasn’t as obsessed as he was.

                So my practice continued for another two hours, though it felt like only a few minutes. When you focus on something that is a part of you and yet can’t be physically touched, it can be very strenuous. I suppose I was looking tired, because Master Barrick abruptly closed his book and stood.

                “That is enough for tonight, Flynn.” He announced. “It’s time for bed.”

                I sighed heavily, and whatever stages of transparency my Aura had been in, it came flooding back into a heavy mist that shrouded my shoulders and arms. It was navy blue (exhausted). Barrick nodded at me, and I got to my feet and trotted up the stairs, though he stayed behind. It was a common enough occurrence that he stay up for several hours after I had gone to bed.

                “Don’t forget to put a filter in the coffee machine!” He called after me.

                I rolled my eyes. Some things would never change.

Reviews

[Rose of Gondor]

Gahahahahahahaha! This is AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!! You, my friend, have a talent. :)

[Janeen]

Hey ya! Still excellent! You really have a flair for making these characters feel real! Like somewhere out there this is really happening. Very nice!

As to mechanics and flow, there was again many had's, but second half flowed well after the part about the lamp. One latter sentence was particularly confusing at first glance, "Even he had said that what was done was primarily up to me" The frequent use of past tense that, with a little rewording, could be made present which flows better. ie " I had held out my student ID and then surveyed her indigo (doubtful) Aura with some curiosity. She had then told me matter-of-factly that IDs could in fact be counterfeited. I thought counterfeit had only to do with money. Apparently I’m wrong." The last sentence is present tense, but all previous are past. Removing some of the had's would make this flow much better. Just as an example, take or leave as you will cause this is YOUR work :) "I held out my student ID, surveying her indigo Aura with some curiosity. She then told me, matter-of-factly, that ID's could be counterfeited. I thought counterfeit only had to do with money. Apparently I’m wrong."

Your writing is excellent, well thought out, detailed, and consistent in concept and mood. There's humor that works and flows well with the piece. I especially enjoyed the part about the neighbors he'd been observing throughout the years, gives a sense of this young man's character. Looking forward to reading more!

[Jasmine Thousand]

This is amazing, the idea (though not entirely original) is wonderfully executed, and I look forward to reading more of this!
~Jasmine THousand Reads Next Chapter~