Mirage (ON HOLD for revision)

Chapter I: The Mortal God

The old antique clock hidden somewhere under the concrete stair-case stubbornly announces the hours. 1 a.m., 2 a.m., 3 a.m. then 4 a.m. By the time it finally struck five, Matt was already sitting motionless on his bed, reeking of tell-tale sheets and stale breath. For once, there was no uniform hanging pretentiously on the single link chain dangling from the ceiling in front of his bed, the same chain where model airplanes used to hang in his childhood. He counted the minutes it would take to get in the bath and out, grab a shirt and jeans from his pile of clean, unfolded clothes, and push his feet inside his three-year-old sneakers before he could grab his knapsack and slip outside before the morning drama.

Approximately thirty minutes later, he was walking down the street to the corner where illegally-operating jeepneys pass through the ten-kilometer web of run-down subdivisions before throwing zombies up off the high-way. By the time he got off along with twenty other zombies, it was almost 6 a.m. and all the streetlights that survived make-believe, teenage rebels were out. It’s a peculiar cycle, how everywhere you turn half of the world would surrender the stage to sunrise, like a pupil who’s surpassed his master stays mute in the face of the other’s mistake. He steals a glance at another stranger’s wristwatch as the latter yawned. 6:05.

“You know, it would be so much more polite to ask. Better yet, get your own wrist watch.”

Matt felt the urge to run, but was overpowered by lethargy, so he smiled instead. It was the second best come-back for the old acquaintance, Cedric who was the complete opposite of Matt. Cedric’s denim jacket and ripped jeans compared to Matt’s off-white, long-sleeved shirt covering a black oversized t-shirt and his faded blue jeans too obviously clashed. Add to that Cedric’s bleached hair and Matt’s overgrown and uncombed hair and they look like the most incompatible pair around. Taking notice of such unimportant details made Matt realize he left his glasses at home.

“Has anyone ever told you that you smile like a lunatic?” Cedric asked, staring at Matt as if to confirm his statement.

His tone was bereft of any malice, Matt noted as he debated whether to go back for his glasses or not. If anything, it irks Matt how Cedric talks to him as if they were friends. He decided there wouldn’t be any need for the glasses on the first day.

“Once or twice,” Matt replied as he hurried to cross the street to the train station, deliberately walking briskly in hopes of leaving Cedric behind the rush hour crowd. Not that it helped, Matt sighed in resignation as Cedric effortlessly maneuvered through the crowd and kept pace beside Matt.

“There’s no need to rush, you know. It’s just the first day. I’m sure not a single professor would turn up,” Cedric mused, sounding more like a wish than an assumption to Matt’s amusement. “But really, I always thought you’d be going to one of those prestigious universities, Matt. I always thought you were smart.”

It was second among the things that irk Matt about Cedric. It isn’t that Matt denies that he is smart, only that he would prefer that nobody knows about it. After all, his top priority is keeping a low profile.

“Just because someone looks like a nerd doesn’t mean he’s smart,” Matt replied curtly, ignoring the woman in the ticket booth who won’t even bother pretending she wasn’t staring at Cedric in bewilderment. He could almost hear the question in her eyes— what is a hot shot doing walking around with a dork?

Matt moved on to the sound of Cedric, the epitome of interpersonal communication, chatting up the woman, bored to death in waiting for the few seconds it takes to get the ticket.

 “But you are smart!” Cedric said persistently as he caught up to Matt. “I still remember how you answered my Algebra homework in less than five minutes.”