Archaic

A teacher terrifies his students, but is it a lie or not?

ARCHAIC 

A Short Story

"Today we have a test, you have until eight to nine-thirty, that should be 

 of time to get the test done so no excuses so I better not hear any of you say 'but I didn't finish'. Now on an unrelated note I ran over a cat today on my way to work, it was an accident. But I realized that I liked it a lot. Now it sits in the back of my car blistering in the sun. That being said, after school today at around twelve at night I will be emailing everyone in this class a video of me eating said cat." Everyone sits in silence. Not a single soul dared to speak or to comment on what the teacher had just discussed to the class. Sawyer sits in his seat silently, staring at the teacher, Mr. Adler, who had a blank expression. 

Letting out a sigh of satisfaction as if he had finally let go of a weight on his chest. Some kids in the room thought it was just a sick joke, one that he clearly didn't land very well. The other kids were paralyzed with fear, too scared to make a comment and too scared to confront the issue to another teacher. Sawyer on the other hand, was interested, he had always had a strange interest in Mr. Adler, in his character and his way of expressing, which was next to nothing. The man seemed like a husk, a newly born robot that had written a simple script to teach the class and not express any further emotion, and now it looked like the script had been broken. Something in Adler has broken, that, or something had been fixed. 

Everyone did their test, some too distracted by the occurrence they simply sat there and tried their hardest not to have Adler come over and talk to them. For the rest of the school day it was like a large game of telephone, each retelling of the situation worse than the last to the point where students were under the impression that Mr. Adler had a dead body in his trunk that was one of the janitors. But Sawyer knew, he knew what the truth was. Despite the talk and not so carefully spreading rumors, the superintendents didn't find out. That, or they were ignoring it for whatever reason, maybe dismissing it as a load of crap, but even that was a stretch. 

Sawyers school didn't shy away from assessing rumors especially when it's about a teacher or faculty member. But a teacher saying something like this was unheard of, maybe they were simply confident that it wasn't true. Again, Sawyer was one of the 13 students that actually were there, but luckily for him no one knew who was in the class at the time and no one approached him. Though no one had, he thought over what he'd say to someone if they had asked him what happened. Tell the truth or try and calm the situation down, which might just add more confusion if the rumors were truly getting as absurd as he had overheard. 

As the final period rolled around the entire school was chirping, it was getting hard to ignore and despite Sawyers best efforts to block out the noise he was forced to listen. But his eyes are glued to the clock, ticking slowly. History class was always his favorite and even then his mind was flooded with the image of a grown man scarfing down a skinned cat. He winces and in a moment of pure frustration and desperation for an outlet to leak his anxiousty he slides his notebook off his desk vigorously, slamming into the wall next to him and hitting the tile floor with a loud slap. 

The room goes silent and everyone takes a moment to look at Sawyer, who grumbles as he picks the notebook back up. Quick to dismiss, the class goes back to its daily task of not paying attention as the teacher rambles on about things that they had learned for 5 years straight. Sawyer was already starting to feel his sanity slip, he was never sound but now this was really starting to eat away at him. Why the hell would he joke about that? Even worse, what if it isn't a joke? What would he do if he actually sent the video, watch it? Send it to the police? Was it time to play hero, or just keep his mouth shut? He mulls over all the possibilities but is cut short by the jarring sound of the bell ringing, dismissing him to run home where he could tear himself apart even more. 

He pushes past the crowds of ignorant stomping students and finally escapes the facility that had entangled his mind like a bear trap springing off too early. But it didn't matter because even the short walk home was occupied by the thoughts. He kept telling himself to forget which only made him remember more, and inevitably kept his mind right where he didn't want to be. 

The irony doesn't elude him, his mind is quite literally out of his control, but even then he is convinced that everyone is out of their mind because there is no one out there who can simply turn off their thoughts and forget something, not when it is this scarring. Sawyer swings the door open to his house, throwing his bag to the ground and kicking off his shoes. He swiftly marches up the stairs and slams the door to his bedroom, his family is gone at work and usually don't wind up home until later in the evening, often leaving him to make his own dinner. Which he had grown accustomed to and didn't hold against his parents. If only his parents knew the dumpster fire that was their son's head.

The constant switch between being empathetic and emotionally inept, he would swear he was bipolar, but was too scared to tell his parents because he didn't want to create a big deal over it. His whole 16 years of life he had been perfectly normal; he didn't want to just suprise his parents by telling them he had been secretly dealing with mental breakdowns for years. What kinda of parents would they think they were to not have noticed? He didn't want to make his parent's feel that way so he often kept to himself and pretended to be a perfectly normal boy, to which sometimes he truly was. But as of right now, he starts to float towards the grey area. Every modicum of emotion was silenced and only the logical part of him was functional. That part of him was telling him he had to see the video for himself, assuming Alder was telling the truth. 

He sits at his computer, watching the time fly as he mindlessly watches videos and plays games, trying to distract the inevitable, which was that tonight his life would change. If there was no video, he would learn that he over thinks things and should think more logically, and if he did send the video, then Sawyer felt that whatever barrier was holding him together was going to break. That every emotion that he had stuffed deep down in a jar to never see the light of day was going to explode like compressed gas bursting from a water bottle pressed far beyond its limits. He keeps his email on a tab, constantly flicking between whatever he was doing and the tab to make sure everything was in order. He flinches as he refreshes the page and see's a email, but not from Adler, an email from another student in the class. 

"Ten minutes until he is supposed to send the video. I know we haven't talked but I don't have any other way to talk to you, and I'm sending this to a few other people. But I just want to know what it is you'll do if he actually sends the video. It doesn't seem anyone in the class has told a teacher yet, which is surprising because some students had a nervous breakdown after the class, I saw myself. Anyways, please get back to me quickly before 12." Says Bently, a kid he had seen in class and around school often, tall and slender, always with the wrong crowd and doing stupid things. Promptly he deleted the email, he wasn't going to worry about it and for sure wasn't going to play into whatever weird a*s plan Bently had. 

The clock strikes 12, and he refreshes the page. Nothing. He sits for a moment in the silence, it almost felt like a victory of sorts. Like he had taken down his worst fear, which even he didn't know. Just because he lacks empathy doesn't mean he doesn't fear, but he stops dead as he freshes the page again and gags out of pure shock. There it is, an email from Mr. Adler simply titled. "Cat". A video file named "Dinner" attached to it. Sawyer sits for a moment, every muscle in his body tense, his throat drying and his mind fogging. He quickly looks around the room, every single thing in his room that stood on legs making him flinch from fear, even the air seems to feel like hands starting to squeeze the oxygen out of him. Without warning he screams, pounding on the desk as if to let out every fearful emotion he had in him as to leave it behind when watching the video. He had already made up his mind, he was going to watch the video and nothing was going to stop him, certainly not himself. It feels like almost a right of passage to conquering some inner demon within himself, but he scowls at his selfishness as he realizes just how messed up the situation is. He had decided to watch the video, but he hadn't decided what he would do after. So he opens his desk and pulls out a coin, a quarter that had sat dormant in his desk for a long while, finally going to be given a purpose for whether he would sit in silence and let it stew in his brain or to spill it. He lays the coin down, just now realizing how far ahead he was going. Finally, he takes in a deep breath and double clicks the video. 

Silence, and then the sound of footsteps as the camera moves through the dark. A light is flicked to show a staircase that he starts to walk down, the light is just barely showing the way as it is clearly just a bulb deeper into the basement. He takes a turn to show a large table with something laying in the middle. The single bulb hanging above the table is like an operating room. The footsteps get more aggressive as he seems to rhymically stomp his way over to the table. Just before he fully shows off the contents of the table he flips the camera over to show his face. 

"Just to show you that this is really me, well, I guess in a moment it won't really matter because you get a nice seat just on the other side of this table." He says, still wearing his suit and tie from school but without his jacket, and is left with his white dress shirt and a poorly done tie. He licks his lips as he places the camera on the other side of the table, his body covering what sits on the table. But it is quickly revealed as he excitedly dances back over to the otherside. Sitting there on the table is indeed a dead cat, it's skull already starting to decay showing off it's body features. The fur all over its body falling apart and left in patches. Adler clicks his tongue, examining the cat.

"This is what you get when you leave a cat out for a while." He says with a frown, though he didn't feel all that bummed out for what he was about to carry through with. He sighs frusratifly, sitting down on the chair. 

"Ok I have to come clean. Now I've been honest about most things so far, I am about to eat this cat, I did enjoy killing it, 

it wasn't an accident and actually this didn't happen today like I probably said. This happened about a week ago, or whenever, depending on what things may happen up until that point. But if everything goes to plan I will have sent you this at 12 A.M." He says with a serious face, as if he had just confronted a student about catching them plagiarizing his test.

"Most of you won't open this video, or will and quickly turn it off in disgust. That is ok, this isn't a test, you aren't required. But tomorrow, I will be able to look across the field of students and know which ones of you watched this." He smiles at the camera, something he rarely ever did. He looks down at the cat, black fur with a patch of white on its chest. 

"Some of you might be wondering why, why eat this cat? Why send it to students? What does this have to do with science class? Well, it doesn't. I'm just very...hungry."

A sort of flickering white flame sparks in his head, so hot that it cuts out every single emotion possible. A bungee cord breaking at its maximum point of tension, sending the person to the depths below. Only Sawyer felt that it was a long time coming. Every shear moment of embarrassment and anger grappling to him as the rest of his humane feelings are flushed away. But what truly left his body like a rat scurrying away from the loudness of a busy kitchen, was his fear. In those 13 minutes of watching a grown man tear apart a cat and slam it down his hatch, not for one moment did he gag or look away, not because he liked it, but because he didn't care. A carefully balanced facade that had kept him sheltered from the reality of his mental predicament , which had shattered under the illusion of a teacher letting loose on a class full of innocent children. Only, was he innocent? Or was he already damned for the mere thoughts he had? Thoughts that now had no moral reason not to be carried out, perhaps he was already plotting what he'd do. He didn't feel as though he didn't care, but rather he didn't care about the consequences, that layer of doubt that hung above every decision he'd ever made was gone. 

As he rests his head on his pillow, and closes his eyes, he thinks over what he'd do, his reaction that he had anticipated moments before the video. But he realizes, he had already decided what he was going to do. He had the moment he opened the video, only now, he didn't have to decide, it was no longer a debate of right and wrong, nor do or don't. It was a simple fact. 

He awakes to the sharp pain in his back, a feeling of restlessness that wasn't new to him. 7:20, twenty minutes to get ready, and ten minutes to walk to school, easy. He gets around, throwing on his black t-shirt, bomber jacket made from leather with the wool inside, since winter was only now starting to take its course. He flashes himself a smile in the mirror as he brushes his teeth, letting the toothpaste drip down his lip and spill onto the sink. He lets out an ungodly scream and grabs the mirror which acted as a cabinet, swinging it open so hard it shatters. To which he laughs, and stumbles away from the mess, slamming the bathroom door shut as he walks down the hall to finally get up and out to school. His parents got home later, and left early, so he almost never sees them. Which often means he got away with simply avoiding school in most cases. But not today, today he had already made up his mind. 

Walking into the school felt different, everything stagnant like the world was on pause. He ignores the feeling and pushes past the crowd of children until he finally reaches the classroom. With all full confidence he swings the door open. Every chair in the room is empty except for Mr. Adler who sat comfortably in his office chair in the center of the room. Sawyer pretends nothing is different, reaching his seat in that point directly at Adler. He sits down and checks his bag, not even a hint of regret thus far. Adler sits, unmoving and face unchanging, until the morning bell rings and everyone was officially considered absent. He sighs, rubbing his five o'clock shadow and leaning back in his chair, biting his lip in frustration. Sawyer sits still, taking in the intensity of the moment. 

"Not a single person, except you of course." Adler says, standing from his seat, kicking the chair away and walking slowly to the desk that sat between them. 

"I knew something was different about you. I knew you were missing that special spark that makes all of these kids...special. But no, you are special in your own way." He says, laying his hands down flat on the desk and leaning in, Sawyer unchanging, his glare firm and his posture loose. 

"Why." Sawyer growls between clenched teeth. His eyes begin to twitch with temperament. Adler nods his head, clicking his teeth and pushing away from the desk. 

"Why what, Sawyer?" He asks, crossing his arms.

"Why are we this way, you and me?" Alder sits in silence for a moment, mulling over the possible ways to approach the question, that, or building some sick sort of anticipation. 

"When I was young, it was just me and my dad. We were homeless for a while, wandering the streets like rats. He refused to give me into custody of anyone else, he wanted me because I could fit into small places, not be seen. And everytime I tried to escape he would find me somehow. Anyways, one day, we had been hanging around in an alleyway behind some dive bar. That day, after eating half eaten wings out of a trash can, I saw a small kitten rummaging in the filth, screaming for it's mother defenselessly. I grabbed the kitten and kept it, I hid it in my pocket for a few days. My father kept telling me over and over that we would need to keep our eyes open for cats, because it was easy food. I refused too, of course, but despite plenty of food from trash cans he insisted that the first cat he saw he would smash to bits and cook over a fire. One night, when I went to sleep, the kitten must've crawled away from my pocket because the next morning I awoke to a strange smell, and as I got up I saw my father cooking something over a fire. My eyes were blurry from sleep but as I walked closer my heart had dropped. My kitten was being roasted over a fire and my dad had this maniacal smile on his face, licking his lips. So I sat in a corner while I listened to the sounds of my father devouring my cat. From that point on I kept telling myself to stop feeling things, to cut out everything that was leading to the pain. Eventually, I had. " Sawyer stands up from seat, his hands deep inside of his bag, slowly he pulls it out to reveal a pistol. "I don't care. You took what little I had left." His finger already on the trigger. "This is your fault." 

-End-