The halls were endless tunnels, turning into a maze of open twirling confusion, and unnerving whispers. A few heads turned to survey me, their eyes barely sweeping over mine, before submerging back into obliviousness. They weren’t on the edge of the brackish water. They were deeply immersed in it.
We pushed past the clumps of students gathered in groups, all with their own world within that strange world.
I was reminded incredibly of the old run down school back home, and how long it had taken for me to acclimatize to the uncomfortable, subtle interactions, and the old fashioned layout of the actual building.
I was lost in this concept of a new way of the same old thinking.
After a brief period of sheer puzzlement and discomposure, the main office was in sight, with a tiny, chipping plaque on the door to announce so. Claire held open the door for me, leading to the quiet white oasis away from the unending halls and darkly dressed kids. I took a step inside, and inhaled the aroma of thick morning coffee and the distinguishable scent of paper.
Many of the busy looking secretaries ignored us, until an older lady glanced up from her computer screen from the corner of the cluttered room. She gave Claire a bright smile to notify her acknowledgement of out presence, and I couldn’t help but drift off back into the corners of my mind, somewhere floating into an endless ebbing river of flowing rifts.
The world froze for a second, and everybody’s eyes fell upon me with gentle smiles.
“Sea?” Claire murmured.
“Huh?” I asked in surprise.
“They asked you how you were,” she murmured to me.
My eyes widened, and my face flushed in embarrassment. “Oh! Sorry, I'm good. Thanks. How are you?” I asked her.
She laughed a little, throwing her head back, and making her bob of silvery grey hair wave back. “Good, thank you! Are you a little nervous?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, I suppose so?”
She smiled again. “It’s okay though, you can relax.” Then she looked to Claire, and said, “Mrs. Smith is in her office, and is free to speak with you two.”
I drew a shaky breath, and clenched my hands together.
I shivered uncontrollably, and went over everything I was told. No memory could be perfectly obtained, which irked me. Nothing was focusing, as if everything someone said to me hit me hard in the face, overloading me. I would nod, understand, and then let the information slip.
I stood in the empty heartless corridor with a map, a timetable, and a vague memory of how to get to my homeroom, and a thick cloud of mixed emotions to block my sight.
I took a step to the right, knowing that it would be in the general direction, and established the beginning to my wanderings.
Claire had given me a quick word of advice before she scurried off to not be late to a client meeting, and I walked in sheer solitude. I listened to the quiet echoes of my footsteps over the grey flooring. Eventually, another pair of feet was heard.
Fragile clicking sounds of a duo of white flats rung out to announce the presence of another. My gaze immediately stuck to the ground, unsure of how to interact with another so suddenly. I would be paid no attention, surely, but the thought of being thrown into this new world so rapidly made my heart seize.
The petite doll of a girl stepped out from around the corner, her eyes illuminating when they met mine. Before I could break the gaze, a smile spread across her face, as natural as if it were a permanent fixture.
“Hi,” she said as she came up to me. “Are you new here?”
“Uh, yeah.”
The girl nodded, her chocolate coloured curls bobbing with her. “Cool. I was sent to come find you.” she said, “We’re in the same homeroom, I suppose.”
“Oh,” I acknowledged, not knowing how else to respond to her. “That’s nice.”
She turned, leading me along the corridor of identical, blue lockers. Some were dirty and grimy, some were quite clean. Some had graffiti, spelling out thick letters of undecipherable words, and a few were home to black and white posters for different events. But yet, they were still, ultimately, exactly the same.
“My name is Willa. What’s yours?” she asked politely, as a line of latecomers steamed in the building from another blue door.
I watched my sneakers skip across the floor in front of me as I answered. “That’s a really nice name. Mine’s Sea.”
She looked at me, her brown eyes widened. “Really? Where did you get that name from?” she asked with surprise, as if I had picked it up off the street.
I shrugged. “I don’t really know. I mean, I’ve never even been near an ocean before. My guess is that it’s from a poem, my mom liked poetry, but I never could find one that would suggest the background of my name. It could have come from something else though,” I rambled.
She nodded, smiling, and thankfully didn’t question anything else from my odd story. My very odd, pointless story.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to ramble.”
She laughed, waving it off. “No need to be sorry. You didn’t ramble. Gosh, you should hear how much I ramble!” Willa exclaimed.
“Oh, okay,” I said, and then fell into a short, awkward silence as we came up to the room. She motioned me to the open door. “Well, this English. Miss Daniel teaches, and is pretty nice. I hope you enjoy yourself here.”
I nodded and thanked her before following her into the room. Slipping into the crowd, into the soft currents of the water, and into a cookie cutter that didn’t really represent me.
I was supposed to be invisible.
All the way home, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking just how easy it would be to simply completely pave over everything that mattered to me, and fall back into something new.
I wasn’t quite sure how my own character would click into the rest of the school, Claire’s house, and the neighbouring communities. A small shred of me wanted it to all fall into place with easy perfection, while the more logical side knew that too many complications about myself left me with too hard edges.
Somewhere in the wind and the whirling leaves, flying in jubilant, wide cyclones around me, I heard my name being murmured in my ears.
I turned around in surprise, only to hear it again.
“Sea…”
Nothing was behind me, except the twirling yellow leaves, and the darker brown ones, which looked like dead hands dragging across the sidewalk in desperation to be revived.
Just the wind. And only resonating trauma.
Eventually, I came upon the place I could call home. It almost twinkled with character, like a house from a storybook in the dreariness of the windy weather.
I ran up the path, with the wind pushing against me like a wall trying to enclose me into a box. Frantically leaping up the stairs, I begin to peel off my bag. I leapt over to the heavenly door, and swung it open, surprised by its light weight. I pressed against the inner door, and let myself unfold into the home.
Sighing, I threw my bag onto the floor, and quickly pulled off my heavy sweatshirt, placing it on the coat rack by the front of the kitchen. I kicked off my shoes, and plopped down at the kitchen table to catch my breath. It was shaky and painful, coming out in short stabs of stone cold aching.
I looked around at the quietness of the house, all around at the sleeping furniture and a small light licking over all the stillness from the icy sunshine. I was stuck in the most silent of pictures, and unable to create a sound of my own, in such a world.
Bang, bang, bang.
I jerked up out of my comfortable position, and looked around in confusion. My eyes stung from the light as I scanned the situation, and a hazy fog clouded over my cognition. According to the clock, I was only out for approximately twenty minutes apposed to how it felt like hours.
I stood up, and wandered into the kitchen and approached the front door.
The banging continued, and I become conscious of the fact was somebody standing outside of the house. Somebody who wasn’t Claire.
Intrigued, I grasped the doorknob, and gave it a slow twist, after not being able to recognise the face of the person. The door opened, and grey light streamed inside, wrapping around me. With this dark light, came the mysterious person I did in fact know, and some what dreaded.
Cocking my head, I looked at him with squinted eyes. “Lincoln?”
He turned to me with his burning coal coloured eyes, and his stringy hair flying wildly in the wind.
“Oh. Hello,” he greeted all too casually.
Taken aback, I found myself at a loss of words. I only squeaked and nodded. After I got myself together, I cleared my throat and came up with a suitable set of words. “Yes. Hi. Um, Lincoln, what exactly you’re doing here?”
He laughed, lifting his very faint wrinkled to his eyes. He leaned in dramatically, as he was considerably taller than me, and lowered his voice.
“I have to tell you something, love. But can I come in first? I need some ice,” he looked past me, then back to my eyes with a polite smile. “Is the family home?”
Uncertain, I stood there like an idiot, not that he really noticed. “Ice?” I repeated dumbly.
“Yeah. I'm sure there’s some in that kitchen of yours,” he murmured, and squeezed past me through the doorway.
Shocked, I could only step back and watch him breeze into the house.
He surveyed the entrance, and then glanced over to the kitchen area, before once again, resting his gaze upon me. “Well? Aren’t you going to find the ice? Or do you want me to?” he asked, confused.
I shook my head, seeing that I was still staring at him in disbelief. “I- I got it. Sorry.” As I hurried over to the freezer, I called out to him, whom was making himself at home at the kitchen table behind me. “What do you need the ice for again?”
“Strange things always like to happen, my friend. Ha ha! Do you remember that day we officially met in the old library?” he called out with a grin.
I nodded as I leaned into the freezer, locating and pulling out the ice cube container. “Try not to,” I mumbled.
“Sorry?”
“Yes, I remember. What about it?”
“Oh! Right then! Well, remember when I told you that some old man hit me on the side of me head with a brick,”
“Umm….”
“Well, I got quite the bump now, and it’s actually very painful,” he exclaimed.
I met his gaze, and pondered his easy smile. The way his pink lips curved up in a strong beam made the rest of his ragged, dark self seem a little harmless. I was quite certain he wasn’t around in order to harm me physically, but to unintentionally push me over the rocky edge of insanity with him.
“Ok then,” I said, as I pried out a few pieces of ice, and snapped the freezer door shut. The tiny cubes began melting in my palms, and numbing my fingers to a callous state of cold.
“Could you put them in a little baggie so they’ll last longer?” he asked hopefully.
I uncomfortably nodded, avoiding his eyes while starting the search for a plastic baggie.
“So…are you just here for the ice then?” I asked as I pulled open random drawers in the kitchen.
He scoffed, which then formed a rather harsh coughing fit. Intense hacks erupted from his chest, and he leaned over in discomfort at the table. After each attack, I wondered how soon exactly it would take to turn bloody. Eventually it was contained, and he apologized as if it were more of a bother to me than to him.
“I come to know that you have been associated with a man known as Samuel?” he accused quizzically.
I looked back at him and nodded. “Yes. I am. But how did you know that? Did Sam already talk to you or something?”
“Oh yes. Nice man. But not trustable. We can’t rely on him. Can’t confide, and that’s not good now, is it?” he answered calmly.
Bewildered, I stopped my search for a moment, and wondered of the man’s reasons. Going back to the drawer, and finding the plastic baggies, I began to enquire of odd remarks.
“Oh? And why is that?”
He shrugged his tattered shoulders. “I know things.”
Plopping the ice in the bags, and passing them over to the man, I sat down beside him. “Like?”
He grinned, but then turned serious and lowered his voice again, as if someone was around to hear.
“Like that man Sam. He isn’t on our side. You can’t help him. He can’t help you. I would like it to be that way, but it isn’t going to work out just like that.”
I sat silently for a moment, then feeling open and vulnerable. Lincoln was a mangy, but allusive and mysterious wolf, and I had acquainted him. not intentionally of course, but it had happened, and I knew that my entire world was at risk of being swallowed up by his hungry jaws.
He abruptly stood up, with his ice pack cradled against the back of his head. “I'm sorry I can’t stay and chat, I would really like to fill you in on some things. Unfortunately, I can’t.”
He spun around, and headed for the door. “Remember to not speak to that Samuel man. Or at least, until I return.”
I just stared at him until I hastily stood up with my eyes glued on his, trying to comprehend his rational for everything. “Wait Lincoln. Where are you going?
Ignoring my question, he scanned the room again. “Do you have…hmm.” He stopped to ponder. “Like a side door of some sort, or something?”
I nodded, and pointed to the door at the back of the house. “Why? Why are you going through that door?”
Again, he turned to me, and I suddenly realized how compatible our incomprehensible relationship with each other was. I cut myself some slack for mistaking him as my father, for he could certainly hold a figure such as that, despite his deliriousness.
“Because, Sea. I have good ears.” And with that, he disappeared into the misty grey thicket of our backyard and beyond. I watched him, baffled yet slightly amused as he dashed away.
It was just then, when I heard Claire’s car in the driveway finally come to a stop.
My eyes widened, and I fell into an unspoken state of bewilderment.
***
“Oh, Sea! I am so sorry that I couldn’t get here sooner! You see, I had intentions to get off early today, but then it got all busy and”- The rest of her words blew right through me, for I was still in shock.
Claire busted through the front door, while also breaking me from my thoughts. In her arms, she juggled her humongous purse and puffy coat as she stepped towards me.
She dropped everything from her grasp and just stood there. “I’m sorry, dear.” Her eyes drooped as if she deeply felt as though she failed me in some way, despite seeing how unaffected I really was.
We sat in silence, staring at each other before I responded. I spoke slowly and calmly, as I said, “That’s okay. Tomorrow, I could come to see you after school, and then we can come home together.”
Another moment was filled with a magnificent stillness and quiet.
Claire cocked her head, and then looked away with her hands running through her hair. Then she turned back to me with her eyes deepening in concern.
“Really?”
I nodded and shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”
This made her smile. “You don’t have to do that. But then again, you really have to see the diner. It’s quite remarkable, actually! I think you’ll like it.”
She continued to speak to me about the diner, and then shot me with dozens of questions about my day as she scrounged the kitchen for inspiration for supper.
I answered every question with as much accuracy and detail as possible and necessary, and listened to all she had to say on her past afternoon.
After our surprisingly brief conversation, Claire noticed how fast the time had flown because of her getting off work late, and then became immersed into her world of food and cooking. This gave me the opportunity to escape to my room to allow myself a brief moment from the hectic whirl of the day.
The air was somewhat chilly as I finally made it up to my room. The atmosphere appeared dark, and puzzling, for I could feel the waves of air pouring through my window. This ruffled the curtains into a baffling dance in front of me, when I couldn’t remember opening the window at all.
I cautiously stepped over to the window, feeling the wind blow and howl against me as I did so. Instead of immediately closing it, I plopped down, and rested my head on the cool window pain, sighing. The rustle of cold air calmed myself for a few moments, but didn’t last for long. Instead, I open my mouth to mutter to the window, the room and everything and nothing.
I couldn’t determine if Sam was someone I could confide in, and listen to, or whether Lincoln, and apparent relative of mine was right.
I decided that Samuel was simply chasing rainbows, questions that would never receive an answer to compliment, and close it tightly in our memories.
I wouldn’t receive any answers, as the answers were already beyond my reach, lingering far beyond my mind. There, it may have a purpose, and it may be locked from my viewings for a reason.
I sat my chin on the sill, and wandered my eyes out into the front world, which was swaying to my words, my worries, as if I were humming a sweet symphony. The wind tickled the trees, but they danced with a certain solemn tune. The wind chimes sang, but cried a slow, longing song. I empathized with the bitter sweet odyssey I had created before my eyes, wishing I could make it become bright again. I wondered if that was still within my power, or if it was far from my reach to do so.
A tiny car strolled across the street below and I watched it brush by through the otherwise, lonely world of vibrant sorrows.
I fixed my eyes on the nicely trimmed bushes just on the edge of the property as I began questioning my questions.
Questions were always a funny thing to me. They challenged the whole meaning of life, seeking the rationale behind the way the wind blew, the stars far behind our clouds, and the fears beyond our comprehension.
I wondered if it was even possible for a question not to have a series of answers to accompany it. I knew that many answers would not be accessible, perhaps lost in the depths of the earth, floating in the space of time, or hidden in an old attic, but they were there, weren’t they? All questions had to have an answer.
As I watched another car roll down the road, this time, a black truck, I concluded that some questions are not meant to have a discovered answer.
I rose to my feet a little too quickly, so my head momentarily spun, and my knees ached from sitting on them. My ponderings were nearing an endless wander, and I knew I had to get back before I was lost forever myself.
I slide the window down to its regular position, and heard it snap into place. After doing so, I yawned and stretched out, finally deciding I needed a walk, or at least a quick change of scenery. It was then when I thought of the vast property in the backyard that I had yet to explore.
I breezed out of the room, still rubbing my face with my sleeves, and wiping my nose with my arm. I then stumbled down the stairs into the kitchen.
Claire had out a wide pot on the stove, and was madly chopping up a slice of carrot at the counter, which made me make the obvious assumption that we would be eating soup for dinner. Hesitantly, I stepped out from behind the corner, to fully enter the room.
She must have heard my footsteps, for she turned, still with her knife in hand, and with a confused expression upon her face. Then, she recognised the situation, and turned off the radio, which I hadn’t even noticed playing, making the room seem immediately quieter than normal.
“Hey! What have you been up to?” she asked with a smile.
I didn’t return it, and mumbled, “Not much really. I was just hoping that you wouldn’t mind if I took a walk through the backyard a bit?”
She froze, and looked at me with a blank expression. “Do you mean the trails out back?” she said motioning with the knife to the back door.
I shrugged. “I guess. I don’t know. I just want to walk around for a little while.”
Her eyebrows shot up with joy. “Oh sure! Of course you can! You didn’t even have to ask, dear. There are a few trails you can visit out back that go around into the forest; however, I must advise that you only take the one on the right. It’s shorter, and will bring you back around to the other end of backyard in a big circle if you keep turning left. And that way, you can be back on time for dinner too!” she beamed as if it were the most splendid idea ever, and already decided that I must go with it.
“Does that sound okay?” Claire seemed so excited about this, which was kind of amusing. The trails had to hold some kind of sentimental value to her.
“Okay,” I slowly agreed.
She grinned. “You know, those trails are all apart of the property, unless you venture off farther, then they lead to other houses. But I thought that it was really neat that our house had all that in the backyard! Because of them is the reason why Doug and I bought the house in the first place, actually!” she exclaimed with a wink.
I gave a short laugh, which was pretty much just a quick exhale, then slowly backed away to prepare for the harsh winds.
I quickly yanked on my sneakers, and bid goodbye to Claire before I was out the door into the back world.
The door slammed shut behind me, and I trampled away, only to soon stop because of the deafening power held within everything. The backyard was nothing but an immeasurable wide carpet of rustled soft green grass, which covered the entire land until it met the trees. The trees which were wonders on their own and were by far, the tallest beasts I have ever witnessed in my entire life. They towered over the world like powerful giants, forever frozen in the ground, and forever looking out on the tiny doll house world below them from the clouds.
I hurried over into the magnificent scene desiring to be apart of it. This was the kind of place where I could get lost in the moment. Where I could eternally dwell, far away from reality.
The trees continued to sway in the song of the wind, just below the darkening grey murky sky. The sky seemed to twist in a frantic hunger, open and ready to swallow the hearts of the earth’s soul. Clouds formed around the teeth of desperation in thick foamy clusters, in a macabre version of sweet sung dreams.
These elements sang together, a song of slow eerie depths of nothingness. I listened to the melody as it rang through my ears, and I scampered along to the edge of the forest.
I stopped to breathe in the frigid, sharp air in deep gasps and I bent over in exhaustion. I looked back to the house, which stood proudly off in the distance. Either the house was farther away than in appeared, or I was just extremely out of shape, for the dash to the edge of the forest made me feel light and faint. I closed my eyes until my heartbeat faded into its normally light beating patterns, and I couldn’t feel the blood rushing to my face anymore. Then I was on my way.
Entering the forest and heading down the thin dusty trail could be compared to stepping into a silent new world, hidden amongst our own. Everything was still as stone; the trunks of the trees that were scattered over the area were firmly and proudly standing in place, and there were no signs of rustling forest animals.
The greenery seemed to cast a spell over me, for I was completely in shock of its beauty. I continued to tread along the path, and look over on both sides of the trail in curious silence. Wondering just how perfect it would be to thrive in such a place forever, I lost myself in an eternity of art.
My mind was somewhere else, in the trees, fingering the leaves of the branches and brushing the small patches of sky visible through the canopy the trees provided over me.
I was lost. Happily lost. Until the cruelness of reality set in once again.
“Where are you man? I’ve been waiting here for half and hour now!”
The voice bombarded the forest. It stopped my heart, for the voice was one not to be forgotten so easily. It was a bullet, planting a lead letdown in my chest.
“Charlie? I can’t see you...”
It was then when my mind lost sight of what was in reality, and what I left behind at the house to worry about.
Despite my sudden confusion, I quickly lowered to the ground, and ducked away beside a thicket of bushels beside me. I clung to the security of cover as I yearned to hear more of his conversation.
My breathing then became rather heavy and shaky, which made me nervous. I struggled to keep it even and steady as I crouched, and hugged my knees tightly.
“Where are you?” he asked again.
I wasn’t sure how long it would take for me to witness the encounter between the two, and also wasn’t quite sure how to handle it. I clutched my hands together, as if they would fall from my arms into two lifeless piles of flesh if I didn’t, and realised the opportunity I had before me. Here was a door, a descendant from the angered clouds. It was a door for an insight that I wasn’t sure I wanted to be apart of anymore.
But I would be a fool not to.
I sighed quietly, and heard the blood pumping around my body from my incredibly loud heartbeat. The fear rose and seemed to flood through my chest, like a whirling storm brewing within me.
I reminded myself to breathe.
I could feel his presence like it was a heavy object in my mind, a metal ball rolling around my brain in sombre arrogance. It irked me that I was vulnerable to such effects, and bite down hard on my lips to conceal my frustration.
I shook my head in realization of the situation, and the bizarreness of the circumstances of the encounter, and of my whole life.
Why is it that even when I have no aspiration to chase and hunt down a rainbow, it seems like a leprechaun is teasing me with the promises of the one and only allusive band of colour, brightly displaying my desires?