[going to have to edit the end of 3.1.4, don't confuse yourself trying to make them match up]
[changed Ama to Ame]
Ame certainly did not pass all of her exams. She blamed it on that guy - not Alick, but the other one that she had met that night. The one that died that night in the hospital from the skull fracture cutting into his brain. Even thinking about it brought the taste of bile up her throat. He had been about to kill her, so why did she still feel so sick about the fact that he had died? Still, even thinking about that night made her start shaking, which was a hole in her normally rock solid personality and one that she would rather avoid. Her friends all told her that her best trait was how outgoing and never-back-down she was, and she planned to not let them down in that respect.
Although really, she probably would have failed at least one of those two exams anyway. She had no patience for studying, there was so much else she could be doing with her time!
Reflecting on how much easier Math 116 was going to be the second time around, she maneuvered her way out of the circulation office's back room with a cart of books to be reshelved. Even with no patience for studying, Ame had always had a love of reading (she had long ago adapted the ability to navigate while reading, which was much easier than people seemed to think), as she waited for the elevator, she perused the books that she would be reshelving. The rush after finals week always meant that, unlike most of the year where a cart would contain books for floors four through ten, the backlog of books was enough to have one cart for each floor, which meant she had to work overtime instead of glory in the fact that she passed, well, 50% of her classes.
These books were bound for the tenth floor. Tenth floor... PS through Z, library of congress classification, that's American literature, health books, archival and librarian studies. Ninth floor was her favorite because of the array of books about television shows. The idea was incredibly ironic to her, as most people watched television to avoid reading, didn't they?
The library was almost completely deserted. Most of her co-workers had taken the day off to sleep off their end-of-finals hang overs, so she basically had the run of the library to herself. She considered just leaving the cart on the tenth floor and going back to the shelver's office and grabbing her speakers to blast music - no one would be able to hear it, right? She turned this option over in her head as the elevator doors dinged and she pushed the cart out into the open, empty tenth floor.
Not empty.
What greeted her was the sound of heavy footsteps pounding down the hall to her left and the door that led to the stairs at the end of the room being slammed against the wall. Ame rolled her eyes, figuring it was someone vandalizing the library. This happened from time to time, where she'd walk onto a floor only to discover whole shelves of books having been knocked off of their shelves or fresh spray paint on the ground (never on the books though, thankfully). She turned left and walked the few paces so that she could get a clear view down the hallway towards the stairs, to see what they had done. She prepared herself to see vandalism of some kind, but that's not what she found.
She couldn't breathe for a minute as she saw the scene. There was a boy collapsed on the ground in the aisle, blood surrounded him and spatters of it continued towards the stairway. He was face down, his hair long enough to soak in the blood slowly pooling around him. Ame ran forward, "Hey!" she called, desperate for a reply that didn't come, "Hey you! Fuck. You! Are you okay?!" her voice broke on the last word as she knelt down beside him, swallowing at the bile that rose to her mouth when she realized the stains that would appear on her pant knees when she got up. It hadn't even occurred to Ame to call 911 until after she rolled the boy halfway over, and realized who it was. "Alick! Oh God, okay, I'm calling 911, you're gonna be okay-"
She was removing her phone from her pocket as she spoke. Alick's eyes flickered open at recognition of his name. His face registered panic, and Ame felt like she might vomit again. He could barely breathe, if at all. His mouth, there was something wrong with his mouth. It was brimming with blood, and his tongue was at an awkward angle, as though it had been taken out and stuck back in sideways. "Ye- yes, hello?" she stammered into the phone, "Uhm, yes, the central library, I'm on the tenth floor. There's someone here and, and he's not breathing." She didn't know what to do, what to say. She needed to make this all right. What happened? This was the guy that saved her life. He was dying. Something was desperately wrong here.
The man that had picked up her call on the other side was very calm, and after a moment had managed to get her to explain the situation at hand.
"Okay, Ma'am? I'm going to need you to help me here, because the van's not going to be able to get there fast enough. You're going to need a drinking straw and something thin and sharp, like a knife. Can you find those items for me?"
Oh God. He expected her to do something? Ame's mind raced. "Yeah, uhh..." she laid Alick back down on the ground and dashed back to her cart of books, where her water cup. Straw, check. The knife, she didn't have though, right? "Uhh, sir? I don't have a knife. Could a... a bobby pin work? It's all I have."
The man on the other end consented, and she raced back to Alick, feeling for one of the pins in her hair and tearing it out. At his instruction, her shaky hand located the base of his neck and bore the bobby pin into his soft skin. I'm killing him, she thought, Oh God he's not going to survive until the emergency team gets here because I will have killed him. She opened up the hole wider and the straw went in. The extremely shallow breaths that he had been able to muster up before had totally stopped when she had pushed the bobby pin into his neck and they needed to resume. Now. She pushed, rhythmically and desperately, on his chest for what felt like an hour until... The breath came. Not through his mouth but through the straw in his neck. "Oh God. Oh God I think it's working-" she almost sobbed into the phone, Alick was alive. Alive.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
3.1.4
Friday came around and Alick was finally finished with finals. It had certainly been a harder end-of-quarter than he was used to, but he was at least fairly confident that he had at least been able to grab a passing grade on all of his exams. It was for this reason that he left his home in the congregation yet again to access the library's computer systems and check his grades (if the congregation didn't have phones, they certainly didn't have computers). Early Friday morning he found himself back on the tenth floor, standing at one of the computers that was set up with the means of being used only for locating call numbers for books, searching up his grades. This was the tenth floor how it was supposed to be experienced; Alick's head was blessedly free of anyone's thoughts but his own, he couldn't even hear whispers from the floors above or below him. If there was anyone in the library at all, they were probably located on one of the bottom four floors below the tower, where all of the main seating and computers were. A graduate student here or there maybe, but certainly no one was actually trying to study anymore. Still, even with the inconvenience of having to stand at a computer that had a keyboard positioned practically behind the monitor, Alick kept to his tenth floor out of habit. It was where he had been studying all year and he was a sucker for that kind of loyalty to inanimate objects, brands, or places.
He checked his history class first, since it was the first exam that he had taken. The grade was a nice surprise - a solid A-. Certainly enough to pass college and land him a job that was likely to make more than enough to support whatever home he took in the congregation. With satisfaction, he went to check his math grade next-
"Alick."
Alick jumped and spun around. The voice had come from right behind him, how had someone managed to come up right behind him without him hearing their thoughts? One look at who it was, however, and it all became clear.
"Agro," Alick growled. It wasn't just Agro behind him, though. Carey and Donovan were standing a little ways off farther behind him. Alick knew why he hadn't heard them; all three had been sonating their thoughts, blocking off whatever it was that they were thinking about. It never turned out well for Alick when they did this. Agro had never liked him, everything that Alick did offended him in one way or another, and although Agro was only a year older than Alick, the congregation normally sent him whenever anyone had done something and was in need of repentance.
Which was exactly what Alick was worried about.
"What do you want, Agro? Why couldn't this have waited until I got home?" It was rare to see Agro outside of the congregation, much less Carey and Donovan, as the three of them all did work on the produce farm that the congregation owned.
"Well lately you haven't been home all that much, Alick," Agro sneered, "it could have taken another year or two before we had this... confrontation."
The phrase confrontation set off a warning in Alick's mind. With Agro, confrontation was dangerous. Really dangerous. He made the snap decision - everything had to be snap because Carey and Donovan were both descriers - to run for it. He bolted left, dropping his backpack and hurtling towards the door to the stairs.
But there's really no point, a small voice in his head said, when you know that you'll have to come home to us eventually.
The thought made sense to Alick. He had nowhere to go, whatever was coming would come eventually. Mid-stride, he didn't stop but stumbled a little, and a little was enough for Carey and Donovan to overtake him and tackle him to the ground.
"Hold him."
The command came from Agro, who took his time walking over to where the scrabble was taking place. Carey and Donovan each grabbed one of Alick's arms and twisted them behind him, forcing him into a kneeling position. He cried out as their twisting threatened to pull an arm out of its socket, and struggled to regain at least a little control of his own appendages.
"Alick," Agro stood in front of him, looking down to meet his gaze, "do you know why we're here?"
Alick glared back up at him, "I'm sure I've done something against the wills of the congregation. Will you just tell me what it was and get on with it? I don't see why this has to be done here." Alick regretted his choice of wording a little. Whatever he had done that was against the congregation must be righted, that was the law. He accepted this and knew that whatever it was had to be atoned for, he just wished sometimes that it wasn't Agro who was always the one to confront him, since Agro so clearly didn't like him anyway.
"It's not as simple as that, Alick," Agro paced in the small aisle between the stacks, "see, the atonement must be made for this where the event happened, and so it must be here." Agro waited for comprehension to dawn on Alick, and was not disappointed.
He doesn't mean when I intervened with that sociopath, does he?! A look of horror crossed Alick's face for a fraction of a second before he could cover it up again. Or that conversation with Ama. How would he have even found out about that?
"He's sonated something," Donovan announced from behind him, "his mind's just gone blank."
Agro nodded. He reached into his coat and unsheathed from the inside lining a dagger, about the size of a good kitchen knife. "Matthew 5:30 And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell."
Adrenaline pulsed in Alick's ears, he had never heard this verse used before in a confrontation, and knew that something was wrong, deathly wrong. He struggled more frantically now, but Carey and Donovan worked in the fields and were much stronger than he, their grips unrelenting.
You have dared to let our secret known to an outsider, the sentence pulsed through Alick's mind and he realized the doubt that had stopped him earlier was Agro, as he was a voice, we can't let you take that chance again, Alick. Something must be done.
Agro bent down and took Alick's jaw in his free hand, his rough fingers pushing at the area just below his ears and forcing his jaw open. Alick grimaced and tried to pull away, but Agro held him scary. "I will make sure you never endanger the congregation again," he hissed into Alick's ear, "The great Lord tells us to cut off the offending body part, and so we shall. This is the harshest punishment I have ever had to administer, Alick, know that and be shamed."
It happened in a split second. Agro took his dagger in his right hand and plunged it into Alick's mouth. The cry that came from Alick was an animal's scream, no longer anything resembling a human's. He struggled harder but Carey, all bulk, wrapped his great arms around him to keep him still. Agro took his hand off of Alick's jaw and instead stuck it in his mouth, taking hold of his tongue and...
And there it was. His tongue was no longer in his mouth, but a dead muscle, lying on the floor. Alick thrashed, his cries grew louder for a few seconds but were silenced a second later as the dagger was stuck down his throat.
Alick was silenced immediately. The pain that exploded inside of him was greater than it ever had been before. He collapsed forward, behind held up only by his arms, still held by Carey and Donovan. Color exploded behind his eyes and the whole room seemed red, or at least the floor that he subsequently fell to was.
Why did he fall? The question crossed his mind only for a moment, before it was replaced with a much more important one; why couldn't he breathe?
The world turned into a blur, and he tried to cough the blood out of his lungs only to find that he could no longer do that. He couldn't really move at all, for that matter.
Something else was moving him, though. He looked blearily, through a haze, above him thinking that he would see Agro again looking down at him, but it wasn't.
It was Ama.
Why was she here again, Alick thought weakly, why was she always here? Ama was on the phone, shouting something frantically into it, with the dagger in the other hand. Why did she have the dagger, Alick wondered, until a second later she took it, with shaking hands, and sunk it into his neck. He writhed under the added pain, or maybe the shock that she too seemed to want to kill him. He closed his eyes, wanting for nothing other than a little lapse from the pain.
Then air re-entered his lungs. He tried to gasp for breath, but his throat was so torn up from Agro that he couldn't breathe through his mouth, nor his nose. How could he breathe? Air was entering and exiting his lungs, but it was certainly not through any normal method. He tried to pick his hand up and feel his face, find out where the air was coming from, but felt pressure on his arm. He tried as best he could to overcome the pain that flooded his mind at every move he made so he made no effort to fight whatever force was holding him down. He heard something, though. Through the throbbing in his ears he could hear a voice...
"...Alick... ...it'll be okay, I swear it will, you just need to..."
The voice was clearly Ama's, she was still there? Nothing made sense to Alick anymore, what was going on? He had no idea that he was able to feel so much at once, but on top of the searing pain that was throbbing through and destroying his insides, he began to feel lightheaded as well. Blood loss? He could breath well enough now that at least he was able to think a little clearly, and realize just how much blood he was probably losing.
He tried to open his eyes, to acknowledge Ama's existence, let her know he was... well he certainly wasn't all right, but alive at least.
But all he found that he was able to do was to welcome to wave of blackness that greeted him, as he fell into a blissful state of unconsciousness.
He checked his history class first, since it was the first exam that he had taken. The grade was a nice surprise - a solid A-. Certainly enough to pass college and land him a job that was likely to make more than enough to support whatever home he took in the congregation. With satisfaction, he went to check his math grade next-
"Alick."
Alick jumped and spun around. The voice had come from right behind him, how had someone managed to come up right behind him without him hearing their thoughts? One look at who it was, however, and it all became clear.
"Agro," Alick growled. It wasn't just Agro behind him, though. Carey and Donovan were standing a little ways off farther behind him. Alick knew why he hadn't heard them; all three had been sonating their thoughts, blocking off whatever it was that they were thinking about. It never turned out well for Alick when they did this. Agro had never liked him, everything that Alick did offended him in one way or another, and although Agro was only a year older than Alick, the congregation normally sent him whenever anyone had done something and was in need of repentance.
Which was exactly what Alick was worried about.
"What do you want, Agro? Why couldn't this have waited until I got home?" It was rare to see Agro outside of the congregation, much less Carey and Donovan, as the three of them all did work on the produce farm that the congregation owned.
"Well lately you haven't been home all that much, Alick," Agro sneered, "it could have taken another year or two before we had this... confrontation."
The phrase confrontation set off a warning in Alick's mind. With Agro, confrontation was dangerous. Really dangerous. He made the snap decision - everything had to be snap because Carey and Donovan were both descriers - to run for it. He bolted left, dropping his backpack and hurtling towards the door to the stairs.
But there's really no point, a small voice in his head said, when you know that you'll have to come home to us eventually.
The thought made sense to Alick. He had nowhere to go, whatever was coming would come eventually. Mid-stride, he didn't stop but stumbled a little, and a little was enough for Carey and Donovan to overtake him and tackle him to the ground.
"Hold him."
The command came from Agro, who took his time walking over to where the scrabble was taking place. Carey and Donovan each grabbed one of Alick's arms and twisted them behind him, forcing him into a kneeling position. He cried out as their twisting threatened to pull an arm out of its socket, and struggled to regain at least a little control of his own appendages.
"Alick," Agro stood in front of him, looking down to meet his gaze, "do you know why we're here?"
Alick glared back up at him, "I'm sure I've done something against the wills of the congregation. Will you just tell me what it was and get on with it? I don't see why this has to be done here." Alick regretted his choice of wording a little. Whatever he had done that was against the congregation must be righted, that was the law. He accepted this and knew that whatever it was had to be atoned for, he just wished sometimes that it wasn't Agro who was always the one to confront him, since Agro so clearly didn't like him anyway.
"It's not as simple as that, Alick," Agro paced in the small aisle between the stacks, "see, the atonement must be made for this where the event happened, and so it must be here." Agro waited for comprehension to dawn on Alick, and was not disappointed.
He doesn't mean when I intervened with that sociopath, does he?! A look of horror crossed Alick's face for a fraction of a second before he could cover it up again. Or that conversation with Ama. How would he have even found out about that?
"He's sonated something," Donovan announced from behind him, "his mind's just gone blank."
Agro nodded. He reached into his coat and unsheathed from the inside lining a dagger, about the size of a good kitchen knife. "Matthew 5:30 And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell."
Adrenaline pulsed in Alick's ears, he had never heard this verse used before in a confrontation, and knew that something was wrong, deathly wrong. He struggled more frantically now, but Carey and Donovan worked in the fields and were much stronger than he, their grips unrelenting.
You have dared to let our secret known to an outsider, the sentence pulsed through Alick's mind and he realized the doubt that had stopped him earlier was Agro, as he was a voice, we can't let you take that chance again, Alick. Something must be done.
Agro bent down and took Alick's jaw in his free hand, his rough fingers pushing at the area just below his ears and forcing his jaw open. Alick grimaced and tried to pull away, but Agro held him scary. "I will make sure you never endanger the congregation again," he hissed into Alick's ear, "The great Lord tells us to cut off the offending body part, and so we shall. This is the harshest punishment I have ever had to administer, Alick, know that and be shamed."
It happened in a split second. Agro took his dagger in his right hand and plunged it into Alick's mouth. The cry that came from Alick was an animal's scream, no longer anything resembling a human's. He struggled harder but Carey, all bulk, wrapped his great arms around him to keep him still. Agro took his hand off of Alick's jaw and instead stuck it in his mouth, taking hold of his tongue and...
And there it was. His tongue was no longer in his mouth, but a dead muscle, lying on the floor. Alick thrashed, his cries grew louder for a few seconds but were silenced a second later as the dagger was stuck down his throat.
Alick was silenced immediately. The pain that exploded inside of him was greater than it ever had been before. He collapsed forward, behind held up only by his arms, still held by Carey and Donovan. Color exploded behind his eyes and the whole room seemed red, or at least the floor that he subsequently fell to was.
Why did he fall? The question crossed his mind only for a moment, before it was replaced with a much more important one; why couldn't he breathe?
The world turned into a blur, and he tried to cough the blood out of his lungs only to find that he could no longer do that. He couldn't really move at all, for that matter.
Something else was moving him, though. He looked blearily, through a haze, above him thinking that he would see Agro again looking down at him, but it wasn't.
It was Ama.
Why was she here again, Alick thought weakly, why was she always here? Ama was on the phone, shouting something frantically into it, with the dagger in the other hand. Why did she have the dagger, Alick wondered, until a second later she took it, with shaking hands, and sunk it into his neck. He writhed under the added pain, or maybe the shock that she too seemed to want to kill him. He closed his eyes, wanting for nothing other than a little lapse from the pain.
Then air re-entered his lungs. He tried to gasp for breath, but his throat was so torn up from Agro that he couldn't breathe through his mouth, nor his nose. How could he breathe? Air was entering and exiting his lungs, but it was certainly not through any normal method. He tried to pick his hand up and feel his face, find out where the air was coming from, but felt pressure on his arm. He tried as best he could to overcome the pain that flooded his mind at every move he made so he made no effort to fight whatever force was holding him down. He heard something, though. Through the throbbing in his ears he could hear a voice...
"...Alick... ...it'll be okay, I swear it will, you just need to..."
The voice was clearly Ama's, she was still there? Nothing made sense to Alick anymore, what was going on? He had no idea that he was able to feel so much at once, but on top of the searing pain that was throbbing through and destroying his insides, he began to feel lightheaded as well. Blood loss? He could breath well enough now that at least he was able to think a little clearly, and realize just how much blood he was probably losing.
He tried to open his eyes, to acknowledge Ama's existence, let her know he was... well he certainly wasn't all right, but alive at least.
But all he found that he was able to do was to welcome to wave of blackness that greeted him, as he fell into a blissful state of unconsciousness.
Monday, November 21, 2011
3.1.3
The next week was finals, so Alick spent most of his free time studying, as best he could without his book. He spent most of his time in the congregation, as a way to make up for his absence on Friday night. Being at home, of course, there was a constant need to keep up his sonated walls, but the further the incident fell into the past, the more it faded, little by little, from his mind. Most people were still wary of what had actually gone on, but when the descriers tried to read him, all they continued to find was layer upon layer of information about the Russo Japanese war and the number e in relation to ln. By Monday, as he left he could feel their scrutinizing letting up, at least a bit.
Finals week was over by Thursday, and his three finals were spread out between the four days pretty evenly. Monday morning he headed back to the library for a few hours of studying before his Math 356 final. He headed to his regular spot on the tenth floor, and settled in to work. He hadn't heard any after effects of the incident that took place on Friday, but then the congregation was so isolated from the outside world that he probably wouldn't have heard anything if World War III had started.
He had been studying for a good ten or fifteen minutes in a comfortable chair overlooking the back pathways behind the library before he heard the elevator ding and a group crowd out of it to their various places on the floor. He could hear a large jumble of people's thoughts as they passed by, all of them incredibly loud according to their individual stress level, so he had been able to successfully tune them out for a moment before-
That's him! Alick knew the thought was pointed at him, about him. He whirled around to face the girl who had just exploded with emotion - he felt shock and confusion and maybe a bit of happiness. It was, in fact, the same girl that he had come to the rescue of Friday night. She wore an expression of shock on her face as she stared at him, and he back at her.
"You... You're back." she said, in case Alick had missed the fact that he was, in fact, back. Alick panicked. He didn't say anything, he knew he shouldn't be relating with this girl, whomever she was, she knew too much already. Unsure of what to do, he started packing up his bag. He'd just leave. It didn't occur to him that she would follow him.
That's definitely him. I know I'm not crazy. What should I do? Should I say thank you? I should ask his-
"So, um, what's your name?"
Her thought pattern lead right into that question, but Alick was still caught off guard. He paused in the middle of putting the last book in his bag, "It's, uhm, Alick." As calm as he may have seemed on the outside, adrenaline was pumping through his veins. He shouldn't be here. This was not okay. He slung his bag over his shoulder and bypassed the elevator in favor of the stairs. To his chagrin, however, the girl followed him. Tentatively at first, but before the door to the stairs closed behind him she was in the stairway as well. "Alick. Uh, that's a weird name... So, uhh..." Alick heard the question in her thoughts before she said it out loud, "If you don't mind me asking, you said that you... had never used a phone before. That was you, wasn't it?"
Alick ignored her. He was already down to the doorway to the fifth floor and didn't plan to engage in conversation now. The girl seemed to realize this plan of his as well.
"Hey!" she called, jumping stairs to catch up to him, "Hey, you were the guy from Friday, right? The one who..." he could see her going through the events in her mind again, saw himself from her point of view. There was no way that she could doubt who he was. His dark hair hanging in his face and in need of a trim, his awkwardly thin, tall body, the grimy moccasins that he always wore - was wearing right now, in fact. He cursed, inwardly. Why was she here again? How did she find him so fast? He was so lost in his thoughts - and hers - that he didn't notice that she passed him on the stairs until she blocked his path.
"You! Hey!" she snapped her fingers in his face, angry and much braver than she seemed a few nights ago, "I know that you're ignoring me. I can tell. But I also know that you just freaking saved my live so I think that you owe me a bit of an explanation here."
Alick stopped short to avoid running into her. What was he supposed to do? He surveyed the options, what would it hurt, giving her a few minutes of his time? It could hurt a lot, actually, but it had also recently occurred to him that she may do a huge amount of harm with part of the information as opposed to at least a bit more of the story. He also knew that every word said to her was going to be a word against the congregation, and he certainly wasn't the only congregant here. Someone might hear him.
He sighed, "Fine," he fixed her with a look, "but not here. If you want to talk to me we're going to do it at the Science Research Laboratory."
The girl tilted her head, her gaze still fixed on him. After a second she nodded, as though satisfied with his answer, "Lead the way."
Apparently without a gun pointed at her head, the girl had a much stronger personality. They made their way swiftly to the SRL, which was known as the best place on campus to catch a nap. There was only one person who was ever found working there, and that was an old man with any number of bow ties that could be seen running from one room to another with various science-y looking instruments (according to the students, no one really knew who he was, he just showed up one day and started to act as if he belonged). Once inside, the girl led the two of them up to the second floor, to a side hallway with a wall of windows and a row of benches, deserted. She sat. "Well?" she asked, motioning for him to do the same.
He did, slowly. He didn't know how this was going to go, conversations with outsiders didn't just happen. He had no idea what she wanted to know from him, his mind had gone blank. "What explanation do you want?"
"First. Hi, my name's Ama, short for Amanda. Second, the phone." She said, "What did you mean by saying that you had never used one before? That doesn't make sense, you're in college."
"We don't have phones where I come from, we don't need them."
"Don't need them? This is America, you need phones. What are you, Amish?"
"Not... No, not exactly." Alick didn't want to elaborate, but she wasn't willing to let the issue lie.
"What the hell does that mean? I'm tired of vague, if you're not Amish, what are you?"
"I'm from the congregation." She didn't want to dance around the subject? Fine. Everyone knew that members of the congregation went here anyway, might as well know who they are.
"Really?" she looked interested, rather than the repulsed reaction that he expected, the kind that he overheard when he heard people talking about it without knowing that he was a part of it, "and you don't have phones there. Legit, no phones?"
"No phones." He shook his head, relieved. "Anything else?"
"YEAH." the girl's outrage was apparently back again. He felt her thoughts explode, as if this was the question that she really wanted to ask, but she couldn't quite form it. "You. You come up there, beat up a guy with a GUN, you can't use a phone, and right before you leave... You said that I was thinking too loud." She shook her head, "I don't get it. What the hell did that mean?"
Alick felt the fear that had subsided welling back up in him again. This was what he had been fearing. His one slip-up and she had caught it. What was he supposed to do? Well, lie was the first option, obviously. "I don't know, I wasn't thinking straight. It was nonsense words."
"No it wasn't," she shook her head, "you meant something by that. You meant something and now you're avoiding me so that you wont have to tell me. I want the truth, no matter how ridiculous."
She didn't want the truth. No one could want the truth. No one would truly want to know that someone could hear every one of their intimate thoughts. God gave the congregation this ability to abide over the outsiders, not along side them. No one was supposed to know. Telling her was clearly not right, it would be the biggest mistake he ever made.
Alick took a deep breath. "I'm going to tell you something right now, and you are going to be content with my answer. You will accept it without question. You got that?"
She nodded, rapt.
"You are thinking right now about the phrase 'nonsense words'. You've just repeated it five times in your mind and decided that it sounded like something from Alice in Wonderland. You then proceeded to think about the purple shirt with Alice and the Cheshire cat that you want to get for Christmas. The whole time that this went on, you were also thinking about what my answer to this would be, making guesses. One of them was right."
Alick got up and walked out. He was going to have to sonat that whole conversation, which was why he had gone to the SRL, where everyone goes to catch a nap. Ama didn't follow him, but her thoughts were loud enough that he could hear from the end of the hallway; she was in freak out mode, full of excitement and bursting with more questions that he wasn't going to answer. He hoped she would calm down soon, before another descrier happened by. Hoped she would forget about this.
But really, he doubted she would.
Finals week was over by Thursday, and his three finals were spread out between the four days pretty evenly. Monday morning he headed back to the library for a few hours of studying before his Math 356 final. He headed to his regular spot on the tenth floor, and settled in to work. He hadn't heard any after effects of the incident that took place on Friday, but then the congregation was so isolated from the outside world that he probably wouldn't have heard anything if World War III had started.
He had been studying for a good ten or fifteen minutes in a comfortable chair overlooking the back pathways behind the library before he heard the elevator ding and a group crowd out of it to their various places on the floor. He could hear a large jumble of people's thoughts as they passed by, all of them incredibly loud according to their individual stress level, so he had been able to successfully tune them out for a moment before-
That's him! Alick knew the thought was pointed at him, about him. He whirled around to face the girl who had just exploded with emotion - he felt shock and confusion and maybe a bit of happiness. It was, in fact, the same girl that he had come to the rescue of Friday night. She wore an expression of shock on her face as she stared at him, and he back at her.
"You... You're back." she said, in case Alick had missed the fact that he was, in fact, back. Alick panicked. He didn't say anything, he knew he shouldn't be relating with this girl, whomever she was, she knew too much already. Unsure of what to do, he started packing up his bag. He'd just leave. It didn't occur to him that she would follow him.
That's definitely him. I know I'm not crazy. What should I do? Should I say thank you? I should ask his-
"So, um, what's your name?"
Her thought pattern lead right into that question, but Alick was still caught off guard. He paused in the middle of putting the last book in his bag, "It's, uhm, Alick." As calm as he may have seemed on the outside, adrenaline was pumping through his veins. He shouldn't be here. This was not okay. He slung his bag over his shoulder and bypassed the elevator in favor of the stairs. To his chagrin, however, the girl followed him. Tentatively at first, but before the door to the stairs closed behind him she was in the stairway as well. "Alick. Uh, that's a weird name... So, uhh..." Alick heard the question in her thoughts before she said it out loud, "If you don't mind me asking, you said that you... had never used a phone before. That was you, wasn't it?"
Alick ignored her. He was already down to the doorway to the fifth floor and didn't plan to engage in conversation now. The girl seemed to realize this plan of his as well.
"Hey!" she called, jumping stairs to catch up to him, "Hey, you were the guy from Friday, right? The one who..." he could see her going through the events in her mind again, saw himself from her point of view. There was no way that she could doubt who he was. His dark hair hanging in his face and in need of a trim, his awkwardly thin, tall body, the grimy moccasins that he always wore - was wearing right now, in fact. He cursed, inwardly. Why was she here again? How did she find him so fast? He was so lost in his thoughts - and hers - that he didn't notice that she passed him on the stairs until she blocked his path.
"You! Hey!" she snapped her fingers in his face, angry and much braver than she seemed a few nights ago, "I know that you're ignoring me. I can tell. But I also know that you just freaking saved my live so I think that you owe me a bit of an explanation here."
Alick stopped short to avoid running into her. What was he supposed to do? He surveyed the options, what would it hurt, giving her a few minutes of his time? It could hurt a lot, actually, but it had also recently occurred to him that she may do a huge amount of harm with part of the information as opposed to at least a bit more of the story. He also knew that every word said to her was going to be a word against the congregation, and he certainly wasn't the only congregant here. Someone might hear him.
He sighed, "Fine," he fixed her with a look, "but not here. If you want to talk to me we're going to do it at the Science Research Laboratory."
The girl tilted her head, her gaze still fixed on him. After a second she nodded, as though satisfied with his answer, "Lead the way."
Apparently without a gun pointed at her head, the girl had a much stronger personality. They made their way swiftly to the SRL, which was known as the best place on campus to catch a nap. There was only one person who was ever found working there, and that was an old man with any number of bow ties that could be seen running from one room to another with various science-y looking instruments (according to the students, no one really knew who he was, he just showed up one day and started to act as if he belonged). Once inside, the girl led the two of them up to the second floor, to a side hallway with a wall of windows and a row of benches, deserted. She sat. "Well?" she asked, motioning for him to do the same.
He did, slowly. He didn't know how this was going to go, conversations with outsiders didn't just happen. He had no idea what she wanted to know from him, his mind had gone blank. "What explanation do you want?"
"First. Hi, my name's Ama, short for Amanda. Second, the phone." She said, "What did you mean by saying that you had never used one before? That doesn't make sense, you're in college."
"We don't have phones where I come from, we don't need them."
"Don't need them? This is America, you need phones. What are you, Amish?"
"Not... No, not exactly." Alick didn't want to elaborate, but she wasn't willing to let the issue lie.
"What the hell does that mean? I'm tired of vague, if you're not Amish, what are you?"
"I'm from the congregation." She didn't want to dance around the subject? Fine. Everyone knew that members of the congregation went here anyway, might as well know who they are.
"Really?" she looked interested, rather than the repulsed reaction that he expected, the kind that he overheard when he heard people talking about it without knowing that he was a part of it, "and you don't have phones there. Legit, no phones?"
"No phones." He shook his head, relieved. "Anything else?"
"YEAH." the girl's outrage was apparently back again. He felt her thoughts explode, as if this was the question that she really wanted to ask, but she couldn't quite form it. "You. You come up there, beat up a guy with a GUN, you can't use a phone, and right before you leave... You said that I was thinking too loud." She shook her head, "I don't get it. What the hell did that mean?"
Alick felt the fear that had subsided welling back up in him again. This was what he had been fearing. His one slip-up and she had caught it. What was he supposed to do? Well, lie was the first option, obviously. "I don't know, I wasn't thinking straight. It was nonsense words."
"No it wasn't," she shook her head, "you meant something by that. You meant something and now you're avoiding me so that you wont have to tell me. I want the truth, no matter how ridiculous."
She didn't want the truth. No one could want the truth. No one would truly want to know that someone could hear every one of their intimate thoughts. God gave the congregation this ability to abide over the outsiders, not along side them. No one was supposed to know. Telling her was clearly not right, it would be the biggest mistake he ever made.
Alick took a deep breath. "I'm going to tell you something right now, and you are going to be content with my answer. You will accept it without question. You got that?"
She nodded, rapt.
"You are thinking right now about the phrase 'nonsense words'. You've just repeated it five times in your mind and decided that it sounded like something from Alice in Wonderland. You then proceeded to think about the purple shirt with Alice and the Cheshire cat that you want to get for Christmas. The whole time that this went on, you were also thinking about what my answer to this would be, making guesses. One of them was right."
Alick got up and walked out. He was going to have to sonat that whole conversation, which was why he had gone to the SRL, where everyone goes to catch a nap. Ama didn't follow him, but her thoughts were loud enough that he could hear from the end of the hallway; she was in freak out mode, full of excitement and bursting with more questions that he wasn't going to answer. He hoped she would calm down soon, before another descrier happened by. Hoped she would forget about this.
But really, he doubted she would.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
3.1.2
When he woke up, Alick's neck ached horribly. He half leaned, half fell forward from the wall he had been leaning against, trying to regain his senses. After the incident, he had made it down eleven flights of stairs in a haze and gotten maybe a block away from the library before collapsing with his back against the Student Medical Center. It was dark now, and as he stretched he noticed that the walkways around him were all but deserted. That's not good, he thought. Checking his watch confirmed his suspicions; three o' clock. Three o' clock. Good God. Listening around him, he couldn't even hear more than a faint slurred voice of a drunk. He stumbled haphazardly to his feet and made his way to the bus stop.
The five minute bus ride woke him up enough to be aware of his surroundings, and wary of the reaction that he was about to receive upon reaching home. He got off of the bus and made his way away from the lights of High Street, down a darkened side street. The packed and crowded two stories mostly occupied by college kids gave way quickly to run down one stories and soon to dense foliage. Few would be able to find their way through the woods here but Alick of course knew the way by heart. He weaved his way through the ever familiar trees for a good ten minutes before the buzz reached his ears. He knew it would be there; there was no way people wouldn't notice he was missing, that wasn't the way. The congregation accounted for their own and whenever there was trouble, it was trouble for everybody.
Problem was that just as he could read their minds, fifty percent of them could read his as well. He stopped for a moment and readied himself. Everyone at some point in their high school or college years felt the need to hide something from the congregation. Normally it had to do with snogging someone from the outside, about which the elders clearly did not approve of. As they grew up, most everyone would grow out of that grimy little phase, knowing that being part of the congregation meant that they were part of each other. But in that little in-between period, if they were lucky they could learn a valuable little skill that was coined as sonating. Alick closed his eyes and breathed deep, feeling the thick barriers that formed, one by one, around that five minutes of his afternoon that no one needed to know. He steadied himself a little, sonating his thoughts was a constant strain, and he knew that it was one that he would have to hold up for a long, long time.
Through the last stretch he worked hard to center his mind on other thoughts; if he was thinking about what he was sonating, then he would appear to others as thinking about nothing, and that would certainly raise alarm bells. He focused back on the Russo Japanese war (with only a second of thought devoted to his panic as he realized that he left his textbook on the stairs in the library - he probably wasn't getting that back). The war, the test, how hard he studied before he decided to take a quick nap on the way home...
It seemed like every light was on at the congregation. The clearing appeared out of the trees like a neighborhood for fairies, every house was simplistic and rustic and very old. Although after gas became too expensive to have gas lamps at every house and they finally had someone install electricity, the congregation as a whole still kept the look of it, hooking up the electricity to look just the same as an old fashioned world. As he walked up to the first house, French, a father of about fifty, was the first to see him. French was a voice, which was why he was always placed on lookout. As Alick approached, he heard the silent cry out to every member of the congregation, He's home! Alick's home and looks like he's fine! Alick winced a little as the voice entered his mind at a roar, but he smiled at French.
"What on earth do you think you've been doing, Alick?! Where on God's good earth have you been?" French stood up from his porch stoop and clapped him on the back, a sign of welcoming.
"Sorry French, had a hard night of studying. I fell asleep out back of the library and just lost track of time." Alick gave him a smile. He could hear the news bouncing through the thoughts of everyone in town, that he was home and safe.
"That all you got ta say for yourself, Al?" Miriam yelled from up the road a little ways. She was a generously proportioned woman with two young children and an apron that could never get cleaned, "You scared the congregation half to death!"
"Sorry Miriam!" Alick called, "but what'm I supposed to say? It wasn't a good sleep if that makes you feel better!" He was teasing her how, his smile breaking and showing teeth. Miriam seemed to think this answer sufficed.
"Well, you certainly need ta get yourself off to bed now before the rest of us murder your sorry behind for for making us all worry so late!"
Alick moved on through the houses, saying an embarrassed hello to several more people before finally making it to his own door. He let himself in and came face to face with his mother, who certainly did not seem willing to let his absence go without an admonishment.
"I don't see it, Alick."
"Don't see what, Mum?" Alick knew what she was talking about. She was a strong descrier and could pick apart a person's memories in a second. She saw the blank space in his memories that he had sonated away.
"Where were you tonight, Alick? Where were you really?" She fixed him with a look that could make a bloom shrivel.
"I was a the library, Mum, and you know it. That blank space in my memories is from falling asleep, that's all." It was a blatant lie, because the gaps from sleeping and the gaps from sonating felt different to a descrier. They both knew it, but Alick's mom knew she would get nothing more out of him, at least that night.
"Go, you ungrateful child, off to bed before you have to get up tomorrow and explain to everyone why you deprived us of our precious sleep." She was letting him off the hook, but Alick wasn't sure for how long. Whatever it was, he was certainly grateful and slipped into his room. The murmur from his neighbors wasn't as harsh as what he heard from school, maybe because they were voices he had heard his whole life. They lulled him into his second sleep of the day, the Russo Japanese war and the encounter on the 11th floor once again slipping from his mind.
The five minute bus ride woke him up enough to be aware of his surroundings, and wary of the reaction that he was about to receive upon reaching home. He got off of the bus and made his way away from the lights of High Street, down a darkened side street. The packed and crowded two stories mostly occupied by college kids gave way quickly to run down one stories and soon to dense foliage. Few would be able to find their way through the woods here but Alick of course knew the way by heart. He weaved his way through the ever familiar trees for a good ten minutes before the buzz reached his ears. He knew it would be there; there was no way people wouldn't notice he was missing, that wasn't the way. The congregation accounted for their own and whenever there was trouble, it was trouble for everybody.
Problem was that just as he could read their minds, fifty percent of them could read his as well. He stopped for a moment and readied himself. Everyone at some point in their high school or college years felt the need to hide something from the congregation. Normally it had to do with snogging someone from the outside, about which the elders clearly did not approve of. As they grew up, most everyone would grow out of that grimy little phase, knowing that being part of the congregation meant that they were part of each other. But in that little in-between period, if they were lucky they could learn a valuable little skill that was coined as sonating. Alick closed his eyes and breathed deep, feeling the thick barriers that formed, one by one, around that five minutes of his afternoon that no one needed to know. He steadied himself a little, sonating his thoughts was a constant strain, and he knew that it was one that he would have to hold up for a long, long time.
Through the last stretch he worked hard to center his mind on other thoughts; if he was thinking about what he was sonating, then he would appear to others as thinking about nothing, and that would certainly raise alarm bells. He focused back on the Russo Japanese war (with only a second of thought devoted to his panic as he realized that he left his textbook on the stairs in the library - he probably wasn't getting that back). The war, the test, how hard he studied before he decided to take a quick nap on the way home...
It seemed like every light was on at the congregation. The clearing appeared out of the trees like a neighborhood for fairies, every house was simplistic and rustic and very old. Although after gas became too expensive to have gas lamps at every house and they finally had someone install electricity, the congregation as a whole still kept the look of it, hooking up the electricity to look just the same as an old fashioned world. As he walked up to the first house, French, a father of about fifty, was the first to see him. French was a voice, which was why he was always placed on lookout. As Alick approached, he heard the silent cry out to every member of the congregation, He's home! Alick's home and looks like he's fine! Alick winced a little as the voice entered his mind at a roar, but he smiled at French.
"What on earth do you think you've been doing, Alick?! Where on God's good earth have you been?" French stood up from his porch stoop and clapped him on the back, a sign of welcoming.
"Sorry French, had a hard night of studying. I fell asleep out back of the library and just lost track of time." Alick gave him a smile. He could hear the news bouncing through the thoughts of everyone in town, that he was home and safe.
"That all you got ta say for yourself, Al?" Miriam yelled from up the road a little ways. She was a generously proportioned woman with two young children and an apron that could never get cleaned, "You scared the congregation half to death!"
"Sorry Miriam!" Alick called, "but what'm I supposed to say? It wasn't a good sleep if that makes you feel better!" He was teasing her how, his smile breaking and showing teeth. Miriam seemed to think this answer sufficed.
"Well, you certainly need ta get yourself off to bed now before the rest of us murder your sorry behind for for making us all worry so late!"
Alick moved on through the houses, saying an embarrassed hello to several more people before finally making it to his own door. He let himself in and came face to face with his mother, who certainly did not seem willing to let his absence go without an admonishment.
"I don't see it, Alick."
"Don't see what, Mum?" Alick knew what she was talking about. She was a strong descrier and could pick apart a person's memories in a second. She saw the blank space in his memories that he had sonated away.
"Where were you tonight, Alick? Where were you really?" She fixed him with a look that could make a bloom shrivel.
"I was a the library, Mum, and you know it. That blank space in my memories is from falling asleep, that's all." It was a blatant lie, because the gaps from sleeping and the gaps from sonating felt different to a descrier. They both knew it, but Alick's mom knew she would get nothing more out of him, at least that night.
"Go, you ungrateful child, off to bed before you have to get up tomorrow and explain to everyone why you deprived us of our precious sleep." She was letting him off the hook, but Alick wasn't sure for how long. Whatever it was, he was certainly grateful and slipped into his room. The murmur from his neighbors wasn't as harsh as what he heard from school, maybe because they were voices he had heard his whole life. They lulled him into his second sleep of the day, the Russo Japanese war and the encounter on the 11th floor once again slipping from his mind.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
4.1.1
"Shhh..."
She put a finger to her lips and fixed him with caramel brown eyes, a smile more than playing on her lips. Kelton just looked at her in shock. What was a village girl doing in the stables?
Seven in the morning. His day had already well begun, and he had just finished cleaning the cows' stables. This girl, whomever she was, had come just as he was leaving and ducked around the wall into the first stall and behind Kass, the fattest, best cow on the farm.
"What're you-" he started, in a whisper, but she cut him off.
"SSSHHHH!"
Kelton stared at her another minute, but he could hear someone coming along the road and faced away from her, obligingly, as a soldier reached the front of the stables and fixed him with a glare.
"Stable hand!" the soldier snarled, "a girl just ran through here, where did she go?!"
His voice was rough, and grated Kelton the wrong way. "Why would a girl a' run in here? This here's the cows stables. There nothing but cows round here." He put on an expression similar as he could to Seamus, a man who lived near the fountain that was a few straws short of a bale of hay.
Giving him a look of utter contempt, the soldier took off in the direction that he had been riding - past the stables and towards the outland woods.
Kelton watched him go for a moment, to make sure that the soldier wasn't coming back, then turned to the girl.
"Can you talk now?"
She nodded and stood up, steadying herself on the cow (who paid her no mind), "yes yes," her orange brown curly hair bobbing up and down as she did. "Why did you not turn me in?'
"The favor wasn't for you," Kelton said, "he was an ass. I would have sent him that way no matter who was hiding in my stable."
"Even Sir Hamstrein?" she asked, grimacing.
"Oh yes, definitely Sir Hamstrein." Kelton nodded, vigorously, "because of course I'd love to have the chance to kill him myself."
She laughed gave him a combination of curtsey and bow, "Excellent answer, sir. I commend you."
He nodded, turning and brushing the bits of hay off of his clothes. "So to whom am I apparently sharing a stable with at this moment, may I ask?"
"The name's Celia, and who must you be?" she looked at Kelton expectantly.
Kelton's face fell into a glower, and turned to a pile of stable tools near the gate, "that's really not important now, miss Celia," he pulled a thin, slightly rusty sword up from the pile and pointed it straight across at her, "what's important now is; what the hell do you think you're doing in my stables?"
Not skipping a beat, Celia's smile turned sick and twisted, "you're smarter than you look, Stable Boy."
She put a finger to her lips and fixed him with caramel brown eyes, a smile more than playing on her lips. Kelton just looked at her in shock. What was a village girl doing in the stables?
Seven in the morning. His day had already well begun, and he had just finished cleaning the cows' stables. This girl, whomever she was, had come just as he was leaving and ducked around the wall into the first stall and behind Kass, the fattest, best cow on the farm.
"What're you-" he started, in a whisper, but she cut him off.
"SSSHHHH!"
Kelton stared at her another minute, but he could hear someone coming along the road and faced away from her, obligingly, as a soldier reached the front of the stables and fixed him with a glare.
"Stable hand!" the soldier snarled, "a girl just ran through here, where did she go?!"
His voice was rough, and grated Kelton the wrong way. "Why would a girl a' run in here? This here's the cows stables. There nothing but cows round here." He put on an expression similar as he could to Seamus, a man who lived near the fountain that was a few straws short of a bale of hay.
Giving him a look of utter contempt, the soldier took off in the direction that he had been riding - past the stables and towards the outland woods.
Kelton watched him go for a moment, to make sure that the soldier wasn't coming back, then turned to the girl.
"Can you talk now?"
She nodded and stood up, steadying herself on the cow (who paid her no mind), "yes yes," her orange brown curly hair bobbing up and down as she did. "Why did you not turn me in?'
"The favor wasn't for you," Kelton said, "he was an ass. I would have sent him that way no matter who was hiding in my stable."
"Even Sir Hamstrein?" she asked, grimacing.
"Oh yes, definitely Sir Hamstrein." Kelton nodded, vigorously, "because of course I'd love to have the chance to kill him myself."
She laughed gave him a combination of curtsey and bow, "Excellent answer, sir. I commend you."
He nodded, turning and brushing the bits of hay off of his clothes. "So to whom am I apparently sharing a stable with at this moment, may I ask?"
"The name's Celia, and who must you be?" she looked at Kelton expectantly.
Kelton's face fell into a glower, and turned to a pile of stable tools near the gate, "that's really not important now, miss Celia," he pulled a thin, slightly rusty sword up from the pile and pointed it straight across at her, "what's important now is; what the hell do you think you're doing in my stables?"
Not skipping a beat, Celia's smile turned sick and twisted, "you're smarter than you look, Stable Boy."
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