Chapter 1: Alarm

I did originally have just an excerpt from it but I decided I would post the entire chapter instead. So here is the very first chapter of Desumo.

 

 

1.      Alarm

 

            The annoying clamoring of my alarm clock signified just a few things to me.

One it was as par, time to wake up. But this time, the alarm clock wasn’t ringing to tell me it was time to go see friends, or time to do some summer activity. This alarm was special. It signified the first day of my Senior Year of High School. The first day of my last year. Seems insignificant to some I suppose, but I find joy knowing soon, just one school year soon, I’ll be moving on to bigger and better things.

            Hopefully better things that would make a real difference in the world, that’s the only real thing I could dream of seeing myself doing in this life. Making the entire world a better place. Probably used to be a normal dream, I doubt it’s completely normal anymore though.

Of course I have to be the odd man out. The odd man with the weird dream as I would often have to call myself. Although calling myself something just made me seem a bit crazier then I really would hope I could be. But there are more important things at hand right now. I’m already running just a bit late for school. I could imagine my dreams later and convince myself I’m not crazy later. Although the latter of those two would be a challenge I doubt I’m exactly ready for.

            So the necessities first; showering, changing, breakfast, changing again when my mom said I looked cute (because let’s be honest, if your mom thinks you look cute in whatever you decide to wear for the first day your gonna get ragged on horribly). I grabbed the last few minor details like my black and white striped baseball cap and placed it on my head and of course the all important car keys before heading out the door and starting up my car.

            The car I used was a 2004 Toyota Camry, a hand-me-down from my dad. He moved on to a hybrid a few years back and I got his old beat up car. But don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice car, it gets me from point A to point B as it should, I just wish it had a bit more speed. But anyway I got in my car and made the fifteen minute travel from my house over to my High School. The great Lakeland High, home of the Dreadnaughts. I parked in the spot I had my usual claim to at the school and sat for a moment inspecting the cars of my fellow classmates pulling into the student parking lot. Most of the seniors had first dibs on the spots. And if a junior had any crazy idea that they would just take a spot of their choosing often times they were shown the error of their ways. Trust me; we all learned the hard way. I heard a knock on my window and looked over as I opened the door and my friend backed away from my car as he let me get out.

            “Hey Trevor,” I said looking at my lanky friend who looked like he had not gotten a good night of sleep. In a while I might have to add. His lengthy hair was a complete mess of knots and tangles, he had huge bags under his eyes, and I couldn’t tell if he was standing or miraculously sleep walking. “Late night?” I jokingly asked as he rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.

            Trevor was a good guy. Maybe a bit odd and way to wacky too be allowed to walk around in public. Or use metal scissors for that matter. But by all means he is a good guy and a good friend.

            “Alex you have no clue,” Trevor spoke quietly and slowly. He was obviously tired because in most conditions he was bouncing off the walls with energy, annoying everyone within a ten mile radius. “I stayed up half the night trying to pick out something that wouldn’t make me look like a complete idiot if I came to school in it,” he added with another yawn following his words.

            “Well you succeeded there, the cloths definitely aren’t making you look like an idiot,” I said which made him smirk just a bit, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure you accomplish the idiot look no matter what you are wearing,” I added to which Trevor scowled at me. The homeroom bell rang pretty quickly and it was just a flock of people making an attempt at the halls to make it to the homeroom they have had since their freshman year. Trevor followed closely behind me in the hopes that, with someone leading the way he wouldn’t have to worry about tripping over anything. We entered our homeroom to a group of familiar faces who all looked over in a greeting way.

The familiar faces would only give us glances none actually giving us their full attention. To them Trevor and I were those weirdos that you shouldn’t associate with.

Ok maybe not Trevor so much because he was more or less a lovable goofball that everyone knew because of his crazy antics. And I should say, when Trevor was actually awake he was just all over the place making friends with anyone within a ten foot radius of him. But he had the unfortunate pleasure being friends with me. A friendship that has existed for many years.

So by default he would be listed as a weirdo while he was anywhere with me and in all honesty I can say that I take a great deal of offense to tha- okay scratch that I guess I could be judged as a weirdo. I didn’t exactly attempt to make friends with people who were overly judging or people I just couldn’t stand because of the way they felt they had to follow the popular mass.

One girl that caught site of us gave off a quick smile as she saw us. She’s one of those less judging friends. And she was one that people would generally avoid like me. The girl’s short hair flipped slightly as she tried to nod us over to her direction.

            “Alex, Trevor, long time no see,” The short haired brunette girl called to us waving for us to come over by her. After waving us over she turned to divert her attention and interest at the television our homeroom teacher had left on the national news station.

Our homeroom teacher always arrived to school early and I could only guess that watching the news allowed her to wake up as she would make her lesson plan for the day. Or maybe she watched the news to see what day it was, I could only imagine how repetitive each day would get for a teacher, repetitive enough to possibly forget just what day it was.

            “Cause we totally didn’t hang out at Universal a week ago Sabrina,” I said rolling my eyes as we took seats by her. My eyes subconsciously drifted to the television. It was a subconscious act but it always made me wonder why a flashing screen would instantly gain the attention of pretty much anyone. But the news normally gave us some sort of information on the world.

It wasn’t exactly the only source that existed in our world, but it was the only source that was readily available in our school. So I’d have to deal with being hypnotized into giving my attention to the flashing arrangement of colors on the screen. Stupid radio waves. Probably ruining all of our minds.

I almost completely forgot that I had sarcastically said something to Sabrina until her voice broke my attention just a bit. Not enough to pull my eyes away from the screen, but long enough for me to remember where I was.

            “Oh shush you,” Sabrina said giving me a glimpse before returning her full attention to the television. The words ‘Breaking News’ were flashing along the bottom of the screen.

            Great.

            Anytime there was ever, and I do mean ever, the words Breaking News flashing anywhere that meant trouble. Breaking News always meant bad news. Simple. That probably meant whatever the anchor would say I would have to hear over and over and over again. People just loved to gossip. And gossip turned into rumors, and rumors were just untrue facts. People in High School are so predictable, and immature.

            “Three more have been executed today for acts of defiance against the United States fight. The three were said to be of Swiss decent who were living in the United States at the time. In happier news our global war may finally be coming to a close, Russia and Japan are looking to finally sign papers that would turn over all control of their countries to the United States,” The News Reporter read from his teleprompter. It was obvious why the man was an anchorman, he couldn’t act, and the only reason to be an anchorman for any news station, as far as I could possibly see, would probably be that someone wanted to be the center of attention and wasn’t smart or talented enough to act. Seems like a useless job, well it would be useless if people would be a little less brain-dead and learn how to pick up a news paper and just read.

Yeah that’s right.

The world hasn’t been the safest place lately. The ‘Global War’ as they have been calling it has been raging since early 2010. For the first year or two it probably would have been much more appropriate to call it World War III. But now five years later they are saying it has finally come to a close.

And the war has pretty much left a mark on us all. The United States have become the dominant country on the planet. Now controlling all of South America, a good portion of Europe and Asia, and spreading like wildfire through Africa. Australia didn’t even show resistance, they parted with their freedom once America began the conquest. And here we were, like sheep, just sitting back and pretending nothing was going on in the world.

That’s truly why I can’t wait to get out of high school. So I can try to change the wrongs that America is currently doing. I know it’s not a lot but I do have a plan. There’s a group, or more of a resistance, that has been forming underground in America, their goal is to end the Tyranny, to make things right again. I want to find them, to help them. But they never leave a trace. They are so proficient in what they do people have began to make rumors about who they are. Many rumors speculating that they all had unique abilities, that they were all Super Heroes. That rumor made people believe that America’s government was thus a group of super powered people as well. But I wouldn’t buy into it. It was all a bunch of make believe bullshit.

“Tonight at 10:30 PM EST Japan and Russia will be signing the papers, thus ending the war,” The reporter said while shuffling the obviously blank sheets of paper before the screen faded to a commercial. The black screen gave me enough time to pull my eyes away from the hypnotic pull of the television and divert my attention elsewhere.

 I looked at my wrist watch and set the alarm on it for 10:30. When the alarm rang, the word free would lose all meaning. Freedom probably wouldn’t even exist among our own borders. When anyone because that powerful they would fear being overthrown. The execution of the Swiss rebels were proof enough of how far they would go in order to stop anyone from wanting to rebel against the government.

“Dude you all right?” Trevor asked me placing a hand on my shoulder and turning me from my watch so he could look me in the eye. He was still half asleep but he could tell that I was either distracted or disgruntled by the news report.

“Yeah I’m fine, just a bit distracted,” I said with a sigh as I looked down at my watch. It was only 7:25, so the world still had roughly fifteen hours before America was the supreme ruler of the world. Maybe the resistance would be able to stop it from happening.

Highly Unlikely, but, it was a possibility.

The resistance had been fighting for so long against the government making the finally step into supreme control of the world that they couldn’t take this lying down. But it was still possible that their efforts would be in vain anyway. This kind of important event was sure to be maximum security to the secret service.

Maybe the resistance thought it would be a futile effort and didn’t want to risk the lives of any of their members. They weren’t heartless people who just saw their people as pawns in a plan.

They weren’t the government.

As I let my mind wander through all the possibilities I kept my eyes examining the room and soon watched as the homeroom teacher reentered the room with a manila envelope in her hand. This made me stop going over the possibilities because I knew what was in the envelope.

 She set the envelope onto her desk and pulled out a stack of papers. I was right those had to be our schedules for the year. She began to make her way around the room handing out the schedules in alphabetical order. Which meant I would be nearly the last person to actually receive a schedule. 

“Mr. Wade here is your schedule, you have higher ranked classes as par for you,” Ms. Petty, our homeroom teacher, said as she handed one of the last few slips of paper in her hand to me. I glanced over it not exactly concerned with the classes them self but with the buildings they were in.

I would have to remember where the classes were. I would have to remember all of the different shortcuts I had been able to find in my past three years at this school. If it was a way I could make the travel time between classes easier I would use it. I didn’t like having to make mindless banter with different people constantly in the hallways. After I set down my schedule Sabrina quickly snatched it out from under me in order to do a comparison with her own schedule.

“Sweet we all have lunch together,” Sabrina said as she looked closely at the periods that would decide what lunch you would receive. I was able to feel her cell phone vibrate across the desktop. She flipped open her phone and began reading what I could only believe was a text message with how her eyes made short trips left and right across the tiny screen. “Leia has lunch with us too, and it seems she shares the majority of her classes with you Alex,” Sabrina said, almost purring about it as she gave me a wink and handed me back my schedule. I gave her a very slight annoyed scowl that I knew she would pick up on.

The girl she spoke of, Leia Camberson, has been in the greater deal of my classes since the 6^th grade. She has always been a great friend and person to be around, but in the past two school years things have become different.

I could simply sense the increased amount of tension. And I knew that my senses of the tension was correct after having been told on multiple occasions that Leia has a thing for me, but in all honesty I didn’t see her as more then a good friend. But, even so, Sabrina always gave me grief about it.

“Let it rest already Sabrina, hook her up with Trevor please, everybody would be happy then, mainly because Trevor would stop complaining about not having a girlfriend,” I said with a yawn escaping my lungs as I waited patiently for the bell for our first period class to ring. The first day was always meet and greet, a normality for any school to do on the first day, allowing students to learn their classmates and allowing teachers to sort of remember students.

“Oh! All of us have 4^th period together too,” Sabrina said ignoring my statement as she looked over her schedule again. I took a quick glance at my schedule to see what my 4^th period class was. U.S History, a simple class, but disturbing nonetheless. We were expected to learn of our country. Our country the history maker.

Or maybe in these current times I should say our country the tyrant. But I doubt any history book would ever call the United States a tyrant. Not until they were exposed as that for their actions.

“That’s just swell,” I said sarcastically as I leaned back into my chair and looked around the classroom at those judging familiar faces. A few of them had turned when Sabrina made their exclamation but shrugged it off and went back to their own conversations.

“Well you sound just so happy about having a class with your friends,” Sabrina teased jokingly at me. I rolled my eyes as I looked at her. I doubt she noticed me rolling her eyes because she had looked over at Trevor who was now drooling on the desk he had his head resting on.

“How can you be so calm when our country here is about to take away the freedom of the rest of the world?” I asked her with a suddenly serious and demanding tone in my voice that I attempted to conceal. I normally didn’t voice my opinions on my feelings of the United States tyrant ways but the news story was disturbingly unsettling to me. Trevor jumped awake as my voice rang out just a tad to loud and when he was able to comprehend what I said he looked at me wide-eyed as did the rest of the judging class. I suppose I actually said that a bit too loud.

Well at least the judging eyes really would have something to judge me for now.

“Easy, I don’t worry about it because it’s not me out there having to risk my life for this fight, I’m happy we are safe here, safe amongst our homelands” Sabrina said her brows furrowed as she seemed suddenly angry at my outburst. I doubt she was expecting me to be so vocal about something like this.

I easily let out a sarcastic laugh. If I was already being judged might as well dig as deep as I could in one blow.

“Safe, yeah that’s it, we are all completely and utterly safe here,” I said sarcastically as my expression deepened. I was angry now; I couldn’t understand how these people I was supposed to call my friends and classmates could be so ignorant. Could they not see how evil these acts were? Was I the only one amongst this group that wouldn’t buy into the bullshit?

 “Would you rather be in Japan or Russia right now? Or maybe one of those Swiss Terrorists?” Sabrina barked at me, her arms now crossed across her chest. I took a quick glance at my watch then glared at her. After a moment of silence I tightened my grip on the strap of my backpack and moved quickly as the bell rung. She didn’t even call after me. She was probably better off too because I could have easily snapped there.

Well this seems a productive first day already. The world is losing its freedom and I have successfully made myself an outcast amongst my friends by badmouthing our government. Smooth Alex. I made a few quick moves to get to the hall doors and away from the other students as I moved to the outside hallway and began en route to my newly assigned first period class. I didn’t bother stopping to speak to any of my friends that I saw on the way past. My mood didn’t allow for conversations at the moment. One wrong move and I could easily land suspension on the first day back.

My new first period wasn’t too terribly far in the school. It was also ideally placed near the student parking lot as well. Which meant I didn’t have a far walk to make each day upon my arrival to school in the morning. I examined the class as I entered and took note to the various posters on the wall. Many were inspirational, and a greater majority of them where Patriotic posters. Yeah that helps my mood just a whole lot. Let’s just get the mindless meet and greet out of the way here.

*****

I didn’t have to deal with anyone really. Personally I was surprised Sabrina didn’t stab me in the back and tell everyone I was some terrorist. Hell even Leia didn’t bring it up which means Sabrina didn’t even tell her closest friend what I had said. So that put me in a slightly better mood, it meant that she still wanted to be friends with me.

For now at least.

I guess I was lucky that she could look past some things. But now I knew one of the new items that I shouldn’t bring up any longer. That was way to close to losing one of the people I could rely on.

I entered the lunch room and tried to see if any of my friends had claimed a table for us. If you didn’t claim a table fast it was easy to have to end up sitting on the floor somewhere. I noticed the lanky build of Trevor on the other side of the lunchroom and he obviously noticed me to as he started waving wildly toward me.

“Alex over here, we got the same table as last year,” Trevor called out to me when he knew for sure I was close enough to hear him. I navigated through the crowd and sat my backpack down at the table that my friend had claimed. Sabrina and Leia’s stuff was already lying on the table so I could only presume that they were in one of the lunch lines. I examined the lunch lines attempting to determine which line was the shortest. After choosing one I made my way to the line before it got any longer.

“New year, same long lunch lines,” I said with a sigh as I looked forward and up at the price board that listed the prices of the various food items. I raised my eyebrow as I examined it. Our entire food choice had changed since last year, and even though the food was never all that good it didn’t seem as bad as some of the crap they had listed this year. I looked over at Trevor who was still at our table and waved him over to me. He ran over dodging in and out of people as he got here.

“Whatcha need man?” Trevor asked a bit more energetically now that he was more fully awake. I am pretty sure that he had slept through our 4^th period class which I suppose he needed the sleep and we weren’t exactly doing anything so he got what he needed.

“Do you see the crap they have listed for our lunch choices this year?” I asked him as I took a step forward with the line. He followed as he examined the board.

“What is a Fried Plantain?” He asked me with an eyebrow raised. I shrugged at him just as confused myself. I knew a plantain was some type of banana but it didn’t exactly sound appetizing to me, even if it was fried. Fact is I would never actually want to eat it. Even if it was the only possible thing in the world to eat.

“I don’t know but I’m not eating it, I probably will need to pack a lunch from now on if the lunch choices are going to stay this insanely disgusting,” I said as I tried to find something on the list that sounded remotely edible. Trevor nodded and bounded back over to our table arriving as Leia and Sabrina sat down giving him smiles and initiating a conversation with him that I couldn’t make out over the roar of the crowd. As I reached the front of the line I ordered the Alfredo Pasta and paid for it before making my way to the table. I was able to start hear bits and pieces of the conversation as I came closer.

“And you say they moved the signing forward to 8:30 instead of 10:30?” Leia asked Sabrina with a look of somewhat excitement on her face. Moved the signing? The Japanese and Russian signings? America is much more persistent then I have given them credit for. I set my lunch down and let out a sigh as I looked at my watch and changed the alarm from 10:30 to 8:30.

“So how are all of your guys classes so far?” I asked trying to get away from the subject before it blew up in my face like it did in homeroom today. Sabrina looked at me and gave me a barely noticeable smile, she obviously knew I was avoiding the subject and was grateful for that. It meant she didn’t want to fight with me, and I’m happy about that because in all reality I don’t exactly want to fight with her either.

“The normal meet and greet which is always just so much fun,” Leia said sarcastically as she moved her food around with her fork, what she had didn’t exactly look all that appetizing. I had no idea what it was and I doubted I would ever even want to try and imagine the possibilities of what it was.

“What’s with all of this disgusting food the school decided to give us this year?” Trevor asked looking at the food choices we made all with a disgusted expression on his face. I think my face was warped to an almost identical disgusted look.

“The government enacted a new bill, cutting back funding on all school lunch programs,” Sabrina said as she took a bite out of what I think was the so called Fried Plantain. She ate it trying to look happy but I could note the slight expression of disgust on her face. At the note of the government controlling what we ate I bit my tongue not wanting to speak out and grimaced as I picked at what was supposed to be food.

“And that’s why I have always packed a lunch,” Trevor said all too happily as he pulled the lunchbox out and started to pull out what looked like a very appetizing sub. Leia, Sabrina, and I all scowled as him as he took a happy bite out of it.

“If we all attack at once we can pry the sub away from him,” I said as I licked my lips and looked at the sub. Leia and Sabrina nodded to which Trevor turned away defensively. He looked ready to fight over something as insignificant as food. If the sub didn’t look so good I would have laughed at the situation. But I also knew we probably had no hope of getting any of it and would have to just settle with the slop, or we could call it food, if we change the definition of food to anything that is possibly edible, and even that is pushing it.

“If any of you come near my tasty lunch here I swear I will beat you with a bat,” Trevor said as he protectively took another bite. I scowled at him again and he laughed rolling his eyes at me. We all broke out laughing together before the three of us who weren’t smart enough to pack a lunch looked down disappointed at the slop we would have to eat for today.

*****

I walked out toward the student parking lot as the final bell of the school day rang and the flock of students all hurried toward their cars. No one wanted to be trapped in the traffic jam that was sure to ensue as everyone would be attempting to escape the parking lot and the school. I wasn’t in too much of a rush though. I didn’t have anything to actually do at home and none of my friends could hang out. The only real thing that could be done at my house was just do activities that would slowly dwindle the last few hours of the world’s freedom away. With school just ending the timer was roughly a little less the six hours remaining.

And now I was starting to become angry with myself do to the fact that I couldn’t do anything to stop the impending doom. I mean I know it is an unjust hatred but I couldn’t help it. This was something far too important for me to be useless in such dire situations.

But I couldn’t help it.

I was of no more use then any other student rushing past my slow steps toward my car in the parking lot. I could hear a slightly louder pair of footsteps approaching and could determine by the clatter that someone was running, maybe a bit more anxious then anyone to get out of the school.

And before I was able to glance back to determine who these footsteps were coming from an arm quickly was swung over my shoulders and neck as the runner used me to slow himself.

It was just Trevor wanting to catch up with me. I put on an annoyed expression, which wasn’t to insanely difficult. I was annoyed. Just for other reasons.

“Are you trying to break my neck?” I asked him as I felt my brows pull together to match my annoyed expression.

“No.”

This annoyed me. How simple his response was.

“And then the point for that was?” I questioned even further. I was in a worse mood then I was trying to let on but it showed in the tone of my voice no matter how hard I attempted to bury the feelings.

“You seemed like you were out of it, so I took it upon myself to shake you back into it,” He said as he took his arm off of me and began walking at my pace. It didn’t bug him to move slowly sometimes.

“Thanks.”

I could tell by his silence that he heard the sarcasm in my voice. The unjust hatred for myself must have come out a bit with the sarcasm. It would easily explain why he hadn’t responded to my sarcasm as he usually would.

“Sorry,” I said simply as I paused my steps and turned to look at him. After he took a few more steps he noticed I paused and stopped himself turning to look back at me with a questioning look. “I’m not mad at what you did, I was just a bit deep in thought and you attacking me got me just a bit rattled.”

“Oh I didn’t mean to do that, I just thought you were upset about how boring the school day was and I thought I might have been able to cheer you up some with the usual wacky antics,” He said grinning a large toothy smile. I couldn’t help but laugh at his goofy expression.

“Don’t worry about it man,” I said as I started walking again while he instantly fell back into pace with me.

Neither of us said anything as we came closer to my car. Neither of us knew exactly what to say. I could only assume that Trevor had been able to note my discomfort early in the day about the government issue. Even with his out there attitude he was good at picking up peoples emotions.

“Chirp Chirp Chirp,” Trevor said mocking a cricket. I stifled a laugh and looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Right.”

“Oh come on perfect silence breaker and you know it,” Trevor said knowing he had me on the verge of laughter.

“Because we all know how amazing of a cricket you would be,” I said as I walked around to the driver’s side of my car and still held the stifled laugh.

“I know right.”

That’s when I lost it. Amazing how such a simple rebuttal would have me laughing so hard. Trevor simply smiled in victory and started walking toward his car.

“I’ll see ya tomorrow man, my dad has some chores for me to do,” He called out over his shoulder as he got into his car and quickly got out of the parking lot.

I took a minute to look around at the parking lot.

We had taken longer to get to my car then I had initially expected. The parking lot was pretty much empty with the people staying after for sports and clubs being the exception.

I must have been more out of it then I had thought if it had taken me this long to get to my own car. I suppose I did owe Trevor for awakening from my zombie like status. If he hadn’t I might have taken even longer then I had to make it to my car.

I stifled a laugh again.

The image of me as a zombie for some reason made me laugh. Unexplainable why I found it funny, but it did seem funny.

I shoved my hand into my pocket feeling for my keys. The nail of my pointer finger felt the cold metal of my keys and latched onto it as I pulled them out and shoved the key into the lock on the door. With the turn of the key I could hear the door unlock and I grasped the handle to pull my door open. The heat had made the door suction in and it had taken a slightly increased amount of effort to pry it open.

As I sat on the cushion of my seat I breathed in the hot air that had built up inside my car. It didn’t bother me as much as it used to but I knew touching the metal of the seat belt would leave a mark. I swung my feet into the car and closed the door harder then I had as I felt the car shake for a moment before resting again as quiet has it had been before I ever touched the door.

I slid my car key into the ignition and turned it to hear the rumble of the engine come to life in a matter of seconds. I shifted it into reverse and swung the car from the parking space and tried to make sure I didn’t reenter the zombie state as I drove.

So before moving any farther forward from pulling my car out I grabbed my iPod and choose much heavier and louder song than that of which I normally would listen to. I turned up the volume louder than my usual preferences as well.

I pushed the gear to drive and pushed lightly on the gas pedal as I pulled over a speed bump and turned into the lane that would give me escape from the campus grounds. The only obstacle remaining was the stoplight that seemed to be perpetually on red. I stared at it for a moment for some reason thinking by staring I could make it change faster.

It didn’t work. So I had to deal with the fact that I didn’t have some sort of psychic abilities and waited. After waiting for a few minutes the light finally shifted to green and I took the turn quickly and sped up in order to get away from the school.

I had never before been so determined to be away from the school. It wasn’t a natural feeling for me, have any type of repulsive feeling toward the school. But it had delivered a large quantity of bad news today; it seemed like an unhealthy place to be anywhere near.

I drove for the quick escape onto the highway and increased my speed to match my frustration.

*****

I hadn’t gone straight home after I left so hastily from school. I needed time to vent so I just drove around with no actual thought to where I was going.

After taking a few scenic routes I determined that my mind had calmed down and I took a quicker route back to my home. My mom’s car was parked out front as it usually had but I couldn’t be sure if my dad was home so I parked on the side of the road instead of pulling into the driveway.

I stepped out of my car and waved to the few neighbors who were still out in their yards doing this or that. I didn’t really care too much to be too overly observant to what exactly they had been doing. I walked up the short driveway and around to the door before feeling the handle to see if it was locked but the handle was loose and moved with my hand to open the door in front of me.

“There you are.” Was the first thing I heard as I entered the house and saw my mom pacing worriedly back and forth in the living room. I looked at her with a raised eyebrow before checking my watch.

It was 5:32PM. Three hours remained.

But I still suppose that’s a bit late. And I had been ignoring my cell phone whenever it rung. It would only make since that the constant vibrating was my mom calling to try and find out where I had been.

My confused expression almost instantly changed to a look of guilt as I saw how worried my mom was. I had forgotten all about her when I was driving and that wasn’t fair to her.

“Sorry mom, I was just a bit ticked off and I was driving around for a while,” I said slowly speaking each word almost softer then the last. I looked down at the ground embarrassed about how I had acted.

“You should have at least answered your phone, I called you at least 20 times, you had me worried sick, I swear I was about to call the police,” She said over and over. Each thing she said made me feel guiltier and guiltier. I hated making my mom worry.

“Sorry.”

My mom still looked half crazed with worry even after I apologized again. She put the phone that she had a tight grip on onto the breakfast counter and let out a sigh which she had probably been holding for a while now.

“I should ground you for this,” She began which made me nervous. Whenever my mom said should it always meant worse things were sure to ensue. “But I think I know why you are so upset.”

My head jumped up so I could look straight at her and not at the ground. Now my face had confusion written all over it. She just shook her head and pointed over her shoulder at the television.

The news was still on and they were providing minute by minute updates on the events happening with the conjunction of the surrender. I sighed knowing the news wasn’t going to miss a second of this.

“Oh.” I mumbled under my breath. I didn’t think my mom had heard me but she nodded. She was probably one of the only people who didn’t think I was crazy for what I thought about the activities of our government.

She didn’t agree with them nor did I ever expect her to. But she understood.

“When did you first hear about it?” She asked me. Her tone had gone from worried to serious. This was something she knew not to joke about with me.

“Homeroom, Ms. Petty had left the news on as she normally does,” I replied with a small sigh.

“But you hear these kinds of things all the time on the news.”

“It’s different though when I hear my so called friends agreeing with them, I don’t understand how they can just act like sheep,” I spoke back. I let out a sigh again and realized I hadn’t moved from my position in front of the front door so I walked a bit further into the house and more into the living room.

There was a moment of silence then as the only noise in the house came from the television. I wasn’t looking at my mom now but I could feel her staring at me. Piercing into me as she hopped to find the reasoning behind my beliefs that she allowed me to have.

She wasn’t an ordinary mother. Most mothers wouldn’t allow for their child to be against the government, but she knew better.

“I nearly got into an almost monstrous sized argument with Sabrina about it,” I spoke softly. I still couldn’t handle the fact that she would allow herself to be so easily led by the government. “She so easily sided with them.”

The last part I said so softly I couldn’t be sure if I had actually even said the statement. But I must have said it because I could feel my mother’s hand patting my shoulder.

“Everyone believes how they desire too,” She said. It took me a second to comprehend just what she said. It should have come to me even quicker then I was allowing it too but I guess I was trying to suppress the idea,

But still in light of all that had I actually been acting like a hypocrite? I had been saying how I hated how others would judge me for what I believed but I was doing it myself without exactly realizing just what I had been doing.

“I’m a hypocrite,” I said now even more depressed at admitting the newly acquired knowledge of what truly was hidden in my own subconscious.

“You were blinded by your emotions, it’s a natural human occurrence for it to happen to even the best of us.” My mom turned and walked into the kitchen to check on whatever she had in the oven.

“I’ll be in my room,” I said quietly. There was no way she could have heard that but I would let her infer on where I went later. As I nearly I disappeared into the hallway I heard my mom clear her throat which made me pause and look over.

“You are grounded for making me worry so much though.”

“I thought you said that you should ground me, not that you were going to,” I said jokingly at her. Alls she did though was shake her head as I could tell she was stifling a laugh on how I was able to use her own words against her.

“Well I meant I would as well. You should know you wouldn’t get away with driving me that crazy with worry.” The joking tone in her voice had disappeared by the end of the sentence.

She was right though I knew for a fact that with the worry I had caused her there was no way she would let something like that go no matter how many times I would change the subject. So I took my punishment as it was and chuckled softly.

“I knew that, sorry again mom,” I said as I rounded into the hallway and disappeared from site as I walked toward my room door. I pushed the door open and threw my backpack onto the couch sitting against the back wall of my room. Not a lot much more to actually do now, it was probably too late for the resistance to attack and even if they did attack they would have been at a much greater disadvantage. And I doubted the resistance was very good about losing members.

It would have been humorous if I hadn’t desired so much to join them. So I would have to learn to deal with it no longer being the United States of America but more likely the United States of the World.

I grabbed the remote that was lying atop my bed and flopped down onto the bed before hitting the power button on my television. I refused to watch the news though so I just flipped aimlessly through the channels trying to find something decent to watch.

After searching and finding nothing that would be able to even remotely hold my interest I settled the channel surfing on some mindless reality show on MTV. I was right on the idea that this would be a boring day as it was.

The true sad thing is that boredom wasn’t the only real emotion I wanted to let show. And I wanted to let it show because being bored is basically showing no emotion. But this was a pointless endeavor as well. There wasn’t anyone in my room besides me. Why should I still have to put on a charade? I couldn’t quite even understand the question I had asked myself.

“Maybe I should just take a nap,” I said to myself as I rolled onto my side so I wasn’t looking at the television and closed my eyes hoping that sleep would follow my attempt.

*****

I wasn’t able to pinpoint just what time it was when I had fallen asleep. I knew it couldn’t be anytime after the signing of the documents. My alarm would still be going off if that was the case in question. And it wasn’t even making a sound.

I sat up from my position and reached over to turn the nightstand light on and I examined my television again to try and find some clue as to what time is actually was.

According to the television it was about 8:05PM. That means the alarm hadn’t gone off just yet and the world was still slightly free. I changed the channel to the news and watched the so called experts banter between each other trying to put on fake friendly masks. But I stopped looking at how they would act between them and turned the sound up so that I could see just what our little experts were told to say.

“The fact is Japan and Russia have both put up there full effort in the war but in the end our troops outnumber them almost 20 to 1. We have most of the world as our infantry and they could be used against the remaining duo if we would allow them too,” The man sitting at the very far right edge of the table spoke. His voice had a raspy quality to it and rolled my eyes.

“The one thing that confuses me over so much more then other things is that how Russia and Japan both are surrendering. They both hold honor to be so high and yet they would lose all honor by fighting in a battle that they could only know they would lose.” The man who had said this was the man sitting centered with the main camera.

“Maybe they see conceding defeat to be the most honorable thing they could possibly do right now in an attempt to not cause any civilian casualties.” Another man had joined in the conversation but to me it didn’t matter who was saying what.

I glimpse at my watch realizing that I was turning looking at my watch into a bad habit to have. Fifteen minutes was all that remained before the papers would be signed.

Maybe Japan and Russia are just using signing the papers as a way to ambush the unsuspecting enemies. If anyone would put much thought about it that idea maybe it was possible for them to realize it could be a reasonable excuse.

“No matter how they choose to let themselves be taken over by our country they are letting it happen. They know they will have to sacrifice their honor in order to protect their people.” The raspy voiced man was speaking again.

“So you think that they will end up bowing at the US’s feet here at the end of the night?”

“I think they will in order to save the innocent people not directly involved in the war.” I was starting to be able to distinguish the difference between the table’s members.

“In other words the government is trying to convince the people of our country that nothing will happen to them even after Japan and Russia conceded defeat.” The voice that spoke was a newer one then what I had already listened to. I took a glimpse at the television to see who was talking.

“Well we wouldn’t want our citizens to be in an uproar over any events that we put forth. It would leave our citizens worried about our next move.” The last voice had finally spoken but at that point it didn’t matter to me what his opinion was.

I didn’t bother to leave my eyes there for too long. From what I could hear they were trying to justify their actions. The government would do whatever they could to make people believe what they believed.

It was a bit too late for that to work on me. I would never follow a tyrant because it would go against all of my morals to assist and cheer on the bad guys.

And at this point to me, our government was the bad guys.

After the banter started to get too annoying I hastily shut of my television and walked out to the kitchen to try and decipher just what she had been cooking. The smell made my stomach growl fiercely at me. My parents had already eaten and my tray of food was in the microwave ready to be turned on already.

So after eating quickly I retreated back to my room without saying a word to either of my parents. While my mom had been understanding of what I thought; my dad was much more uneasy about what I desired too do. He kept trying to push me into various activities none of which were too much of an appeal to me and eventually he gave up trying to make me find a something.

At least he finally understood I wasn’t all that into sports. But I did realize he was just meaning well by the acts. He wanted to find me to find my calling.

So with all that behind me I was just stuck making the final count down to the signing of the papers. And it was at that moment that I swore to myself that no matter what happened today with Japan and Russia I would start looking for the resistance to join and help.

That would be my commitment. That would be my calling.

“Well here it comes,” I mumbled to myself as I watched the analog clock on his watch slowly ticking away the seconds. And it felt like the longest minute I would ever go through.

The feeling of being useless spread through me once again like wildfire. I was sitting here and watching it happen. And even though helping was out of my grasp I felt the unjust hatred for myself being useless surfacing again. I slammed my fist down onto my bed hoping it would relieve some of the stress I was putting onto myself but it was a futile effort. I would have to face facts that all freedoms were gone.

All the freedoms that were supposed to exist in a world would disappear after the papers became legal with the leaders of Japan and Russia signing them. And the two had already resolved their decision on whether or not to sign the papers. They wouldn’t change their minds now.

So I sat back and watched my clock. Only a few more seconds left to go. And in-

5….

4….

3….

2….

It was nice knowing freedom while I could.

Author's Note

Whatever you think let me know.