Part 1: Repression and Regression

 

     My hands were trembling again. As if under their own will, these separate identities had lodged themselves protectively between my legs, seeking shelter against the cold. I should have brought some gloves. Every time the damn things shivered I found myself ready to jump, startled by my own convulsions. Then, feeling stupid, I’d smash them bitterly between my knees, only to find them too numb to fully appreciate the punishment. This cycle went on for a while. I kept telling myself not to let them sneak up on me, but it was all too easy to let my mind wander off in the dark.

     My eyes were getting dry. I kept forgetting to blink, staring off into the formless void ahead of me. In such a thick vale of shadow, having my eyes opened and having my eyes closed were, essentially, the same thing. Either way I saw nothing. Every now and then I brought my hands up, waving them back and forth in front of my face. I could make out their impression very faintly against the black, reassuring me that I was still in reach. Then again, I might have been able to see them just as easily with my eye lids shut, for at this point my mind could have convinced my eyes of anything. Vision made no real difference here. Finding little use in staring, I let my eyes drift closed, sinking back into my own thoughts.

 

"What the hell am I doing?"

 

 

     It felt as if I had been sitting in that dark, lonely stall for hours. The smell was gradually growing more pungent, carried through the air on the steam of my breath. I hadn’t let it bother me though-the stench or the cold. I needed to get away, away from everything, away from myself. My own environment had been lacking such isolation, so I had resorted to occupying a public toilet. It suited me well enough. There were no holes or windows for light to leak in through, the sounds of the world outside sufficiently filtered through the cheap, plastic walls.

     There are two distinct levels of darkness, at least in my opinion. They are separated by a shadow’s ability to survive, staying solid against the black by thriving on the light collected by an unconscious host. There, in my cell, all shadows were overlapped. Could I hope the same for myself? This sort of darkness settles like dust, undisturbed, gradually consuming every surface capable of catching light until it stands alone in a room. Could I hope to disappear? No, perhaps not, but at the very least I could find a moment to lose myself. After all, in those hours of pulsating silence, I had succeeded in forgetting the reason why I had come in the first place.

     "This is stupid,"

I thought, running my fingers idly through my hair, "I ought to just go." The words kept repeating in my head, yet there I sat, planted to my seat. Why couldn’t I move? It was something like lying in bed, trying to slip back into a pleasant dream. I knew I should just get up, but part of me remembered another world, a world better than this one.

     "Just stay a little longer,"

I heard the walls around me whisper, "no need for you to leave just yet."      "No need to stay, either," I replied, my voice breaking the pattern of silence. The black around me seemed to jolt, startled, back against the wall. Its weight went with it. Suddenly my eyes weren’t so heavy, cold air filling the gap between the shadows and myself. I jolted too, brought back into awareness, the covers ripped away from my body. There was no use in sleeping now. With a sudden urgency I pushed myself up, stumbling past the walls and into the night.

 

     The school lot lay deserted. There had been cars parked before, probably for the basketball game, but they were all gone now. I stepped out onto the pavement, the surface glazed over with the remnants of rain, sloshing and splattering beneath my feet. A slight mist hung in the air, solidifying the glow of the street lamps. This place, this school, was so peaceful at night. There were no rushing footsteps, no frantic voices. Yes, I stood the sole disturbance here. Perhaps I could stay a while. I held no desire to return home, at least not yet. What were the halls like after dark? Reaching a lonely set of stairs, I made my way from the parking lot down to the school.

     Reverson High; how ironic that I found myself here again, and on the first night of Christmas vacation. I had been so eager to leave that afternoon, to retreat to the comforts of home, but feelings often change with time. Now home seemed a stifling place, oppressive and confining. I needed the night air to cool my feverish head. Any more heat and it might just crack, like weather worn glass. Would that feel any better? My skin felt tight.

     The path grew darker and darker, forcing me to rely more and more on memory with each step. I had trudged up and down that dreary stairway countless times before, each step etched into the wrinkles of my mind. Four long years…Well, at least I had that much to show for it. It felt strange to descend those stairs alone. They served as the main entryway to the school, so, the narrow passage was normally crammed with kids. However, at night, its mouth gapped wide.

     I was starting to feel uneasy, outside in the open. It felt a lot like stage fright, having the sole responsibility of breaking the silence. When a person wants to escape to somewhere quiet, it’s usually because there is something or someone around them that has been making far too much noise. However, when one encounters true silence, the role of silence breaker falls onto them, and they inevitably end up becoming what they were trying to get away from. I hate that. What I longed for was the security of life behind the curtain, and so, I reached for it. The thick, glass door gave way under my hand, allowing me to slip into the hallway.

     The main lights had been dimmed, leaving just enough glow to dilute the sleeping black. I had never taken the time to fully appreciated how necessary they were, not before facing the potential veil of darkness that they lifted. There aren’t any windows at Reverson, for a large majority of the campus stands about fifteen feet below the ground. That means no sunlight, though I’m not one to complain. Windows aren’t the only thing that the school lacks. There also isn’t a backup generator. That means that every time the power goes out, class at Reverson High is canceled. As one might imagine, students often pray from rainstorms.

     As casually as I would have in the morning, I started my way down the hall, having already chosen a destination: Room A-12, first period English. It’s my favorite class, mainly because I’ve always been good at writing. Furthermore, it is the only class where I sit by anyone I know well enough to talk to. On my right is Leslie. She transferred to Reverson near the middle of the year. I’ve always found new kids easier to talk to, probably because they’re so alone at first. At any rate, it gave me a chance to get to know her, and we’ve become pretty close acquaintances.

     Then, seated behind me, is Brooke. She and I started dating somewhere in the middle of sophomore year, so that puts our two year anniversary somewhere in the next few months. To be honest, I can’t ever remember the actual date, but I imagine that Brooke will be kindly reminding me of said day a few hundred times before it comes. She gets really excited about things like that.

    This year has actually been the first time that Brooke and I have shared a class together. Most of the time it is pretty cool, though having her peering over my shoulder all time can get on my nerves. It’s not like I don’t enjoy having her around. It’s just that I have a hard time devoting myself to both her and my class work. She likes to pass notes, so, naturally, I am obligated to respond. It can make it difficult to concentrate, though I do enjoy talking with her. Besides, the one thing worse than her notes is her silence. Every time we get in a fight, I have to sit down in front of her and deal with her eyes boring silent holes into my back. But, when we are on good terms, having her in class with me is usually nice.

     As I moved further down the hall I could see light from an opened classroom, the faint jingle of keys announcing a janitor’s presence inside. I turned down a different hallway before I got there, doing my best to avoid detection. It’s not that I thought I was going to get in trouble. I had every right to be there. After all, the doors were unlocked. It’s just that I don’t really trust the janitors at Reverson, though, admittedly, I don’t have much of a reason. I always feel like they’re spying on me. Every time I pass one in the halls I can feel their eyes on me, like they found one of my notes to Brooke in the trash and are judging me or something. I know that it’s ridiculous, but I feel how I feel.

     Maybe if Brooke was a little more conservative in her notes I wouldn’t be so paranoid about other people reading them. She tends to write a lot of ’personal’ things, if my meaning is clear, like she’s flaunting our relationship in my face. I’m not ashamed or anything. I’d just rather not take the risk of having someone intercept one of our more intimate messages. Why grant the whole class insight on what we were up to the night before? The thought just makes me nervous. I don’t want other people looking at me differently-not Leslie, or the teacher, or that kid in the back with the glasses who never talks, or that blonde girl who’s always blabbering on about what she heard about this person and that person. Nobody needs to know. It’s none of their business.

     Brooke, on the other hand, doesn’t ever seem bothered by how we are perceived as a couple, or as individuals, for that matter. She’s the sort of girl who enjoys basking in the spotlight, especially when I’m the one holding it. For example, whenever the two of us are talking with people, particularly girls, she always starts tugging at my sleeve for attention, or talking louder until she has control over the conversation. She’ll even take control with a kiss if she has to. I know, because her lips always seem to find mine right when I’m in the middle of a sentence. Maybe it’s stupid to complain about all the attention. It just feels very confining at times.

     A vacuum whirred to life somewhere further down the hall, though I could not tell from where. The sound had bounced and overlapped along the tiled walls of the corridor, distorting origin. At any rate, it was far enough away to disregard, for my destination was closing in on me. I began to search my pockets for a reason that might justify my arrival. What purpose did this journey have? Would the door even be unlocked? Hesitantly, I pressed my body up against it, peering in though a small window near the top. It was dark inside, and, try as I might, my eyes could not catch movement past the glint of the glass. From what I could tell, the coast was clear. It didn’t matter why I was there, only that I was. Why grasp at a reason beyond the reach of all but intuition? Testing the handle, it turned with a familiar click.

     Darkness, in that instance, was a very real, tangible entity, standing solid in the frame of the doorway. Admittedly, I flinched, half expecting the shadow-logged room to pour out and sweep me back down the hall, but the wall held firm. Lowering my hands, I blinked into the emptiness, watching the faint shine of desktops melt out of the void. Only outlines were visible at first, but, as my vision adjusted, the details of the room gradually came into focus. Yes, this was the picture of stillness, that of peace and seclusion. It was, for that moment, my place to unfold.

     Impelled to move forward, I took a hasty step inside, shutting the door behind me. The room seemed abnormally still, as if gone rigid, tensing up as a stranger stepped in to violate the inanimate privacy of things. I was rather hesitant to move at first. Like fresh snow, any step I took could leave a flaw in the perfection that the absence of life had left behind. Then again, that stillness was bound the be marred at some point. Taking a deep breath, I found even the air stagnant, heavy and thick with the lingering presence of people who had been there before. It was that of my classmates. An awkwardness came over me as I turned to face an empty class. If school were in session, everyone’s attention would have turned on me right as I opened the door, desperate for even a momentary recess in the monotony of lectures. An empty classroom is a strange place. I could still feel their weight on me.

    At that moment, I felt I should go. As I turned to leave, my foot swiped up against something with a metallic clank, knocking it over. Pausing, I squinted down towards my feet, recognizing the object as a small waste can. It had been full of trash, almost all of which was now scattered along the floor. So, the janitors had yet to clean this room. Kneeling down, I tipped the bucket back upright and began to sift blindly through the various papers I had spilt. So much for preserving the stillness.

     As I filled the garbage can back up, my hand came to rest on a balled up piece of paper. There was a familiarity in the way it had been crinkled, the concentrated compression recognizable by touch. Was this mine? I always made an effort to crumple and compact my notes from Brooke, this habit just another product of my own juvenile paranoia. Pushing myself up, I carefully opened the paper and pressed it flat against the window of the door. Sure enough, it was a note. Furthermore, it was addressed to me.