Around The World For A Kiss

Introduction

A gentle, bored applause echoed throughout the dull wooden classroom. Disinterested boys and girls all wearing uniforms, yawning and wondering when the day was going to end. At the front of the room stood Luke Triton, shyly holding a workbook in his hands. He wished he could hide behind it, still not feeling a shred more confident.

"Thank you, Triton. That was a wonderful poem." The spectacled teacher, just as bored said in her grey monotone. "Please return to your seat."

Luke didn't say a word, merely making silent, empty footsteps back to his desk. His dark shoes didn't make a sound on the normally creaking dark floor, with small puddles of chalk dust being trodden on by silent feet. He slid down into his seat, sitting at the back of the classroom. His eyes remained blank, saddened, much like a puppet. Their shine had been lost and covered with a glaze. The teacher gave a false sweet smile to the class, checking a clock that stood in the corner of the class.

"It appears it's your lunchtime." She announced, keeping her tone peppy to try and bring a better atmosphere to the area. "You may go outside and eat lunch."

The students all grinned, glad to be free of their class, immediately getting up, grouping into their closed friend circle and all walking outside, snatching up their lunch bags and running outside together, making talk about their lives.

Luke gently picked up his lunch bag after a few seconds of delay. He was busy thinking and felt detached from the world around him, busy in his mind and drifting through the endless river of his thoughts. He slid out from his desk and went outside to see one of his friends.

His friend, Cody, was sitting in direct sunlight on the concrete ground outside the schoolhouse building, gnawing at a sandwich. Luke sat down next to him, reaching into his lunch bag and blankly eating a carrot.

"Are you okay, Luke?" Cody asked, noticing Luke's empty stare.

Luke looked up, realising he had zoned out again. "Yeah, I'm f-fine." He gently shook his head, trying to keep himself more landed in reality. Cody smiled and nodded. Luke didn't talk much... It was normal for him to zone out.

"Are you sure you're okay? Why do you zone out so much?" Cody felt like there was something Luke kept buried deep down.

"I d-don't like to talk about it." Luke grasped at his lunch bag a bit more, fingers digging into the thin brown paper. His lower lip trembled slightly.

"Is it about London?"

Luke paused for a second and nodded gently. Since moving away from London, he'd gradually developed a rather unhealthy obsession with the place. It may have not been perfect, but to Luke it was his idea of heaven. It wasn't the atmosphere, the city life, or the culture there, that made it such an appealing memory, however...

"Do you miss your friends there?"

Luke shook his head, not feeling like moving his mouth. He remained slightly detached from the world around him.

"Is... Is it about the professor?" Cody continued to dig Luke's fragile shaken mind for information.

Even "professor" triggered a flood of memories for Luke. Memories he looked back on fondly, the memories he re-lived in his dreams each night. They didn't make him feel uplifted or weightless, they made him feel down. He wanted to be back home.

Luke's glazed over eyes dimmed even more so. He temporarily lost any sense of caring for his physical self, instead mind lucidly travelling through his memories. He felt a quiet sense of joy from doing this, even if it left his physical form looking dead.

He made a small "nnn" grunt, his mouth closed, the sound hardly audible. His head tilted to the side and stared unblinkingly into space.

"Luke? Luke, please don't zone out... Please..." Cody took Luke's shoulders and shook him. Luke didn't respond. He didn't want to anyway. He knew it how difficult it was to bring him up from his stupor. Cody inflated his cheeks with air from frustration and slapped Luke across the face, usually a sure-fire way to wake him up.

Luke shuddered violently, hand going to his cheek slowly. His eyes had brightened slightly but remained appearing dead.

"I'm s-sorry..." Luke whispered, shaking his head sluggishly. "I... I just... wanna... g-go..." His voice trailed off, before finishing his sentence a few moments later in a tiny whisper.

"Home."