Breaking Young Divinities

Chapter 21

Genes are not the central driving force of human nature. There is a different legacy that is passed down to each successive generation. It echoes through the ages. The grandparents and great-grandparents of many generations long forgotten still have a tangible influence on their descendants today. It is the sad reality that the progenitors never know the fate of their offspring. They go to their graves with hope that their children thrive and live well. So, the legacy is not a genetic one. The true legacy is a legacy of love, a legacy of the spirit. It is a chain of compassion, which if broken has dire consequences....

I woke up in a clammy sweat on the morning after our little cafeteria adventure. All the other beds were empty. It was after eight in the morning and I was late for breakfast. I moved as fast as I could, but I felt like my ankles were dragging a ball-and-chain behind them. My eyelids were heavy and I was looking out at the world through half-opened eyes. I went in to the bathroom and threw some cold water on my face. The shock revived me somewhat, but I still felt lead-footed.

By the time I got to the cafeteria everyone was halfway through their breakfast. I quietly got a bowl and sat down at a table away from Janet and Bradley. There was a super-sized box of sweet crispy rice cereal on the table. I took some of that, added some milk, and snap-crackle-and-popped my way through a quick sugary breakfast. It sure hit the spot, and it got the lead out, I guess because of the sugar.

Pretty soon the nurses came into the cafeteria and gave everyone their morning cocktail. I took mine with happy enthusiasm, hoping that the words of Doctor Cleaver would come true and that I would become a more relaxed, easier going me. It went down easily. Having done my part, I was free to have an hour or two to do what I wanted to do.

I went to the Quiet Room to read. The blinds painted my skin in zebra-stripes of diffuse morning light. I began to drift. I began to think about all the things that I'd done in the last few weeks, which wasn't a lot really, but it was still a lot for me to process. It seemed surreal, as if it wasn't really me that got into that fight; as if it wasn't really me who got put in the hospital. I guess the medication was doing its job: it was helping to give me some detached perspective from myself.

I drifted further as I sat in the dusty twilight of the Quiet Room. With all the books lying around it seemed more like a library than a cubbyhole in a hospital. My thoughts became disjointed and separated, like a jigsaw puzzle coming apart piece by piece. I saw images from my thoughts floating out in front of me. They disassembled like building blocks getting knocked over by an upset two year old child.

Just as I thought my mind couldn't get more disjointed, I fell asleep entirely and ended up having a strange dream. I was standing in a parking lot in the middle of the night. I was wearing all black and I was waiting for my accomplice. She appeared out of the fog: Janet, a bubbly, overly vivacious woman. She was dressed in black, just like me. Then, in my dream, I began to panic. Wasn't Jen supposed to be meeting me here? I started blubbering and stuttering as Janet got closer. I turned to run. Of course in dreams you can never run when you really want to. So I ended up moving slowly, as if I was running through a swamp. I ran and I fell down, and I heard Janet's voice, her hideously excited voice, calling to me. I called out to Jen several times, hoping that she would come to my rescue and save me from my peril.

I was so terrified in my dream that I woke up, and there in front of my opened eyes was Janet. She was looking at me with concern and affection.

"Are you okay?" Janet asked. "You were shaking in your sleep."

"Oh," I said. I tried to hide the lingering feeling of fear. "I was having a dream."

"Oh, I dream! What was it about?" She raised her eyebrows suggestively.