1

As the weary traveler headed down a long and winding country road, his gaze was solely ahead, for there was nothing behind him he wished to revisit.  The damp red clay of the unpaved road stuck to his shoes, yet the wanderer did not seem to take notice, for he was ensconced in thought.  He was thinking about not thinking.  A striking paradox, yes, but the bells rang all too clear for that jaded youth.  At this very moment he was looking for nothing, save silence and answers.  He had told himself over and over again that it was not his fault.  If, however, he was not at fault, if in fact he had done no wrong, why was he leaving that school, that chaos to find a place of solitude, a place to think?  He knew not why, yet he knew it necessary.

Truly thinking to Dillon was a daunting task, and there were times he thought so intensely it hurt. He, therefore, saw himself an anomaly, for he knew his friends had neither the patience nor the wherewithal to contemplate life to the extent that he did.  The immutable thought process was a worthy adversary for Dillon, and there were nights that he remained awake, too many different thoughts passing through his head to permit him any sleep. Dillon feared that the severe compulsion to resolve issues was yet another aspect of his life, which further removed him away from their golden mean. 

Too many thoughts.  One raised another, exponentially they grew until he could suffer them no more.  He knew not how many more mental digressions he could take, without them taking a toll on him.  Dillon just remained on that muddy course, knowing not where he was headed, only knowing from whence he had come; knowing he didn’t desire to, he couldn’t go back.

  Indeed questions without answers were the proverbial bane of Dillon’s existence.  Once he found the answer to one, another quandary presented itself. It was like a cyclical demon: always haunting, never relenting.  But as much as Dillon hated the perpetual inundation of thought, coupled with the fact that he knew he was an aberrant youth, he unquestionably knew that in all of his misguided grandeur he embodied what they so fondly called “special”. 

Special.  He hated that damned word.  Throughout his whole life he had been told he was special, gifted, talented.   This he already knew.  All that the lauds served to do was to place a weightier burden on his already ponderous load.  Thus far he had always met their preset expectations.  Despite how well he performed, whether it was in school or other endeavors, they expected more.  They always expected more.  He knew not what he could do to sate the beast, and this was yet another quandary adding weight to his load.  For these reasons and O so many others, he needed to find a place of peace, a place of inner solitude. 

Dillon knew not what he so loved about the country, but he found peace there.  The city was always moving, and he could not bear to have any more distractions than the ones he himself created.  His deep introspection caused him troubles, yes, but it made him evaluate his own life.  It made him think about the society and the country in which he lived. He saw society as a sort of perpetual insanity, but this intrigued him.  The outer world mirrored his inner struggles, in that there nary was a cessation of sound, or images, or lights, or feelings, or pain, or death.  None ceased, but the country still remained. The inner struggles remained unknown to the outside world.  Subplots were performed as if life was a stage, and Dillon was their poor player.

  He thought, too, a great deal about death.  Dillon thought not about dying, but death and the afterlife.  Frankly, he had no reason to be worried about dying, as he was the paragon of health. He just had questions about his faith, or lack thereof.  He believed in God, but questioned all of the religions.  He believed in aspects of each, and in turn he created his own religion to fit his own needs. Truly Dillon was a deeply religious person, as was he a very spiritual one, but he had never found the one “true” religion.  Or was it that this religion had not found him?

 His main theory about religion was that is was a cosmic order of sorts, an ecclesiastical judicial force, if you will.  He never told this theory to anyone so as not to be deemed a fool, or a non-believer.  He paralleled everything religious with everything judicial. It made sense to him, as asinine as it may sound.  In every religion there was more or less a place into which the righteous sought to gain admission, and another where the fallen landed.  So to the religious minded, eternal damnation was reason enough to be righteous and moral.  Dillon paralleled this to the fear of penal repercussions.  The seven deadly sins would bring you eternal damnation and in some cases a heavy jail sentence, although he saw a great deal of coveting, pride, and greed where he had been. He thought he had it all worked out.  And for the time, these theories were all the faith he needed – for the time.

As he walked, he looked for a special place, that place where everything stopped save the babbling brook; the place that he visited in his dreams.  Dillon was a dreamer.  He had always been told that he had a great imagination.  He hated people telling him what he was.  Worst of all, he hated people telling him what he could be.   He remained on the straight path, not knowing where he wanted to find himself when it was all over.  All he knew was that he could not go back.  He had made the choice, and no one could tell him otherwise.

2

Some of his so-called “friends” at Ignotus Prepatory Academy already knew what they wanted to do with their lives.  He found no credence in this, for he could find no cogent explanation as to how one could be so very certain as to his life’s vocation when he did not even know who he was.  Dillon sure as hell did not know who he was, and he was by far the most introspective of the lot.  The most disconcerting aspect was that those very same people, who told him their twenty year plan, had the gall, and even worse the proclivity to tell him that he was “insouciant” and “thoughtless” about his future.  This is precisely one of the very reasons he left.  People were always telling him what he was, or appeared to be.  Oh, but there were so many others.

Yet another thing that tormented Dillon was appearances. The world in which he lived had based his whole life on appearances and false pretences.  His future had been decided far before he even grew to fit their hair shirt.   Dillon left, too, because he was letting appearance cloud his usually unequivocal judgement.  Why couldn’t he have seen the truth?  His mission was to figure out who he was.  He knew that it sounded cliché: to search for who he was.   Nevertheless, in his heart he knew that he needed to pursue this endeavor.  He left his family; he left his school; he left her, all for the sake of self-enlightenment. 

The school Dillon left behind was a twofold experience.  On the one hand his never-ending search for knowledge was nearly satiated there.  Nearly.  On the other hand the school mirrored his inner struggles.  It was a small boarding school, but still there were factions and beliefs that were so strong, they could drive one to the edge, and in some cases over it. The school stole a student’s innocence, and on more than one occasion o so much more.  The faculty had veins of flint, save a faction of new and open-minded blood.  Few had the capacity to understand the youth’s potential greatness, and even fewer cared. 

Dillon was the stereotypical “prep” student on the outside, but on the inside, his struggle for truth eclipsed his flawless façade.  He was a paradigm of excellence.  Oh, if they only knew the truth.  At Ignotus Prep, he was a force to be reckoned with.  Soccer star, Student Government, Nation Honor Society, second in his class, Dillon had it all, or so it seemed. 

Ignotus Preparatory Academy was founded in 1810, and to Dillon it seemed that most of the teachers had been preaching their dogmas since its inception.  The vast majority of the student population was composed of old money, and for this reason they wouldn’t let Dillon forget that he was only able to attend with the aid of a very generous scholarship.  He was perfectly happy with his life, but to his classmates he was living the life of a pauper.

The crimson brick buildings were located on a vast rural hillside owned by Ignotus. The brick was a signature of Ignotus.  Nowhere Dillon had traveled had he ever witnessed such a deep and rich crimson red; a red, which was only intensified by the admiration, he held towards the buildings themselves.   The main building, located on the apex of the hill, housed the academic classrooms and faculty offices.  The three-story main building was U-shaped with the tips of the “U” facing the east towards the woods.  The mountains were visible in the distance through the many windows, and as it was the fall, the colors of the trees down the hill were breathtaking.  The awe-inspiring beauty of the trees, of nature itself, sometimes overcame Dillon.  At this split second, he was not that mentally troubled youth, but an insouciant actor in life’s great production.  This, to Dillon, was bliss.

The trees of the fall took on such a magical palate of colors.  It was as if some divine artist had painted the east woods in the most sacred golden hues.  The maples and the poplars were unimaginably gorgeous.  The rich amber, the fiery red, the pale yellow, and the rich rose hues of the leaves were ubiquitous.  Sparse evergreen thickets dotted the landscape and provided wonderful contrast with the fall of the leaves.  On a hillside ground had been broken for a new science building, and the rich red clay blended magically into the leaf. 

The main building on the summit of the hill was austere.  The architect who built it was a genius of his time and feared by his contemporaries because of his modernity.  The entire east façade was covered with rows of innumerable windows.  The west façade was far more Spartan and contained far fewer windows.  The school, though, antebellum was rebuilt after the war.  From the beginning the campus had been on that hillside, and the buildings had been standing since the thirties.  The dormitories were three story buildings, with a covered walkway uniting both.  Their location was just to the north of the main building.  Like the main building the bricks were sanguine in color, the richest crimson Dillon had ever seen.

Since Ignotus Preparatory Academy was heavily endowed, it contained all of the amenities of which Dillon could have ever dreamed. The first thing to strike Dillon, upon entering Ignotus, was the magnitude of the small boarding school – everything was so lavishly decorated, it verged on absurd.  For three hundred students and nearly fifty faculty members, not to mention the maids and janitorial crew, there were twenty acres of beautiful landscape and hotel-like accommodations.  No one knew the actual boundaries of Ignotus, and this was just another mystery that increased the splendor and wonder of the school.  Ignotus was a limitless wilderness of aesthetics and scholasticism.

3

Dillon’s friends were oblivious.  At times, he cherished their oblivion.  When, however, he needed help in his mental quest, their indifference would not suffice.  They could give no reassurance when it was most needed.  However, Dillon had one compatriot in his struggles.  She alone understood.  She had her own struggles; therefore they understood one another perfectly.  Nevertheless, there was a catch.  There was always a catch. 

Max was the female manifestation of Dillon.  To Dillon she seemed perfect in every way, too perfect it seemed.  Like Dillon, she had light brown hair.  While his was straight and finely cropped, hers was shoulder length and unruly.  Her hazel eyes offered Dillon as much if not more solace than the country.  They commiserated about life’s shortcomings and the fact that they both were greatly misunderstood; Dillon, however, understood her all too well.   Max believed like Dillon, that she thought about life far too intensely.  They were both dreamers, and they talked to each other about their dreams, if nothing else searching for a deeper meaning.  Again, thinking too much.  Their other friends had no inkling of what those two talked about so secretly late at night.  And if they knew, what then? Would their feeble minds be able to construe the abstract philosophies these two developed?  Dillon thought not.

            If Dillon had a problem, he would come to no one but her.  Likewise, if Max had a problem she would come first to Dillon.  Their faith in each other was uncommon among students their age, yet their relationship was all too common.  Boy furtively yearns for girl, while girl secretly longs for boy – it was a tale as old as time.  Their affections were masked by fear.  Both feared that any relationship other than the Platonic one, which they shared, could harm both.  Neither had sustained any relationship during their formative years, and though their relationship as friends was so very strong, each wanted more.  Each feared that their love would not be returned.  Each feared that the feelings now felt would not be reciprocated.

            Every time that Max smiled at Dillon a part of his heart was torn away.  He so wished that he could tell he how he felt.  Each and every conversation they now had was agony.  There was a weight on his shoulders, a monkey on his back.  He gazed off into the horizon when they spoke and imagined himself professing his true feelings for Max.  He was so unaware of true love that he had no idea of what she would say in reply.  It would have dealt a crushing blow if she would have replied that she did not feel the same way.  It would have killed him if she would have replied “Ok”.  It would have driven him to hate her and himself, moreover.  For what is hate but love ignored.  Dillon would feel the same strength of emotions, only the contraposition of those feelings which he harbored now.  For love and hate are intrinsically the same at the bottom.  It is all in the perception.  Towards Max he held such strong emotions; towards no one else at Ignotus did he do so.

            Ignotus was a diminutive school in student population, but within the population itself there was much diversity.  This diversity was illustrated in Dillon’s group of friends.  First of course there was Max, the Ying to Dillon’s Yang.  Then there was Thomas, the fourth Thomas in his family, and so for all intents and purposes Dillon called him Four.  He was a pseudo-reliable friend, whose family had more money than Dillon could to imagine.  Four was the last in the line of a dynasty.  His father had gone to Princeton .  His grand father had gone to Princeton .  His great grand father had gone to Princeton .  Therefore a little “P” had been branded on the youth’s head at infancy. 

            Four was an ascot wearing, country clubbing, nouveau- riche boy, who had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth – with matching service set to boot. Four meant well, but he was hard pressed to escape the stigma, which followed his wealth.  Concerning Dillon’s wealth, Four had always shown the utmost humility and grace.  Dillon admired Four’s tactfulness in this manner.  Dillon, nevertheless, hated him. 

            To Four, everything was a competition.  Exacerbating this was his mother’s constant concern as to how her son stood in comparison to his peers – though she felt that her son was on a whole other plane than his lowly friends.  Dillon, for the longest time, wondered whether it was Four’s fault that he was so very competitive or if it was his mother’s constant pressure.  In the end Dillon came to the realization that he cared not who was at fault, only that there was a detrimental sense of competition between Four and his Ignotian classmates.  Nothing, save the monetary realm, was sacred.  Since Four was one of the wealthiest Ignotians, it was not necessary to prove it to himself.  However as his grades dipped in the realms of mediocrity, with personal insecurity on the line and inferiority acerbating, the floodgates were opened and the torrent of competition was unleashed.

            As much as Dillon told himself and his friends that he refused to care about Four’s competitive nature, it was one of the most irksome facets of Ignotian living.  In years prior Four and Dillon had been quite close friends, yet their friendship was ultimately severed.  It was a drawn out process, yet one that was inescapable so long as Dillon was stubborn and Four was antagonistic.

There were always parties at Four’s lake house, and Dillon graced the lake with his presence a number of times, but more often that not he chose to stay at school.   Dillon said that the alcohol at the parties would only more cloud his thought processes, and for that reason he did not wish to partake in any such Bacchic revelry.  At least that’s what he told them, and himself for that matter.  Only one of his friends truly understood Dillon’s apprehension to intoxication, and that was Jacob. 

            Jacob was Dillon’s best friend long before he met Max.  The two had played soccer together, an in truth they grew up together.  Dillon was as loved by Jacob’s parents as he was loved by his own, and vice versa.  Their families were so very close to each other.  In nearly every picture that was taken of Dillon, Jacob was there – hand around his best friend’s shoulder.  Likewise, Dillon appeared in Jacob’s family photo album as much as Jacob did.  They were sons of the same mother.  Their mother was Necessity, for it is she and Fate who brought the two youths together.

Their parents were the best of friends, and thus the two were never far apart.  As they grew, they went to the same school.  It was the type of school to which you can ride your bike with your friends, play in the schoolyard, and build friendships that will endure throughout the ages.  This is what Jacob and Dillon did, without fail, until one autumn day, when Jacob neglected to meet Dillon at school. 

After school, Dillon made the trek up the hill to Jacob’s house, expecting at worst to find his friend ill with the flu.  However, when Dillon got to the house, there were far too many cars parked outside Jacob’s house.  Even when Jacob’s father played poker every Friday night with his friends there were far fewer cars, furthermore it was only Thursday afternoon.  Dillon began to worry.  Jacob and he had essentially become inseparable like the brother both wished they had, and the nagging feeling that something dreadful had happened to Jacob enveloped Dillon.  He cautiously approached the two-story red brick house.  He looked up to Jacob’s window and saw nothing. Blackness engulfed the room.  Suddenly from the front door, an apparition ran towards Dillon at such a pace that it startled him. 

It was Jacob.  As he approached, Dillon could see the tears welling up in his friend’s tender ten-year old eyes. That his friend was safe and unharmed reassured Dillon for a short instant, but this was quickly overshadowed by the fear he saw in Jacob’s watery eyes.  For a second they stared at each other.  The deafening silence in the air was broken by two words, two words that would haunt Dillon for the rest of his life:

“They’re gone.”

Nothing more, nothing less.  These words echoed in his mind for what seemed like hours.  Those two words held such an implicit meaning.  Dillon did not have to ask whom Jacob had meant, he knew.  He knew by his scared countenance that Jacob’s parents were gone.  Two words and then an eerie silence that lasted for what seemed to be a lifetime. They looked into each other’s eyes, and then Jacob broke down.  He fell to his knees and began to cry.  Dillon also began to cry. He did not know why at the time, he just cried.   Dillon knelt down to comfort Jacob, and as he did the crying stopped as quickly as he had begun.   The termination of grieving was so abrupt that it frightened Dillon.  He also stopped crying, and as he wiped the tears away, he asked Jacob what had happened.  Jacob proceeded to calmly tell him how a drunk driver killed his parents. Calmly, eerily calmly.  The words were so biting, and yet as Jacob so calmly described the events that had taken place, Dillon could see that something was wrong.  Jacob’s parents were killed, nay murdered, and he was calm.  Standing on the front lawn in front of that blood-red house was the first and last day that Dillon ever saw Jacob grieve. 

Jacob was sent to live with his grandmother, the only remaining member of his family.  She, upon learning of the death of her daughter and son-in-law, quickly brought Jacob to live with her in Pennsylvania .  She did so to distance him, as much as she possibly could, from the tragedy of his parent’s death.  In doing so she separated Jacob from all that he knew, all that was familiar to him.  Therefore, Dillon did not hear from his best friend for five years.  It wasn’t until Dillon earned a scholarship to attend Ignotus that he saw his best friend again.

4

Although Max and Jacob were Dillon’s best friends, he had many others.  As diverse as Ignotus was, so were Dillon’s friends.  Colby, one of the only black students at Ignotus was a southerner, southern Maine that is.  Colby was first in their class, and a star athlete.   Being roommates with Dillon was bringing the two closer together, yet Dillon doubted whether the perfection that was Colby could ever realize what was making his roommate an insomniac.  Dillon knew that if given the chance, Colby would genuinely wish to help Dillon, but he did not know what, if anything Colby could do for him.  And Dillon wanted nothing less than to drag another innocent into the deep introspection ruling his life.

As was the case with the rest of Ignotus, the rooms were immaculately furnished with Ignotian frivolity.  The first thing Dillon noticed when he walked into his room, were the floors.  They were of a gorgeous hardwood, oak he guessed.  They were polished in such a way that they had a mirror-like sheen to them, so perfectly waxed in fact that Dillon always wondered why they were covered with Persian rugs.   He was afraid to step on them lest he scratch their newly waxed tegument. The rooms were situated with two people sharing one flat, and two others sharing the opposite one.  In between the two were a bathroom, and a kitchen.  In the other room, lived two more oblivious souls, Michael and Robert.

Michael was a lost soul, in that he did not mesh well with the Ignotian mass.  Like Dillon, Michael was attending on scholarship.  However, unlike Dillon, Michael was unable to associate well with the more privileged student population.  Because of this he became detached from his friends, and this only facilitated the growing distance between his roommates.  This worried Dillon.  He had only learned about Michael’s prior living situation from Colby, who had overheard faculty members callously joking about Michael’s prior impoverished living conditions. 

He was from a single parent home.  His father, West Virginian white trash, had left his mother after she had given birth to Michael.   It seemed that the only solace that Michael could find was in the books he read.  Dillon once heard a rumor that Michael had read every book in his local library.  Whether or not this was true, Dillon was sufficiently impressed.  Michael, when asked could quote Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hawthorne, and Salinger, to name a few.  Michael’s roommate was a sly character named Robert.  He was a solidly built five foot one inch comic.  Compared to Dillon’s six-foot stature Rob appeared, frankly Lilliputian.  Rob was a comedian in his own right, for whenever Dillon was discouraged by life, Rob was there to affirm that God indeed did have a sense of humor.

5

Saturday, a day of promise, presented itself to Dillon as a prime time for an excursion.  The destination: Max’s lake house.   Dillon, Max, and Colby left while rosy Dawn still lay in Tithonus’ saffron bed.  Max’s father owned hotels throughout the world, and therefore Max was well traveled.  This presented a problem, however.  Rarely did she have the opportunity to see her father.  In and of itself this conundrum presented a dilemma for not only Max, but also her mother.  Max and her mother were as close as a mother and daughter can be, and as such they shared everything.  Max’s mother knew even about her daughter’s feelings towards Dillon, but felt that it was not her place to interfere.  Max wished most of all that Dillon could meet her father, but in order for that to happen she had to see him.  In truth, she had not seen her father for over six months.  Despite the distance, their relationship remained healthier than most of the Ignotians’ relationships with their parents. 

Max, though an only child, was not akin to all the others who lacked siblings, at least at Ignotus.  Although she was the first to admit that she was spoiled, she acted as any normal, less endowed person would.  But then again what was normality.  To Dillon, being normal was something for which to strive.  In the past year, though, he had seen what in his eyes was suburban mediocrity: normality at its best, shattered before his eyes.  To grasp the shattered dreams, which were to Dillon at one point normality, required that doctorate in psychology that he as of yet had not procured.  He aimed for that golden mean, but his thoughts always distanced him from any shred of normality he held coming into Ignotus. 

Max drove a SUV, which she affectionately called “the tank”.  Dillon believed that the tank would give an eighteen-wheeler a run for its money if they ever met on a deserted country road.  Since Colby was not one who desired to see the sun rise, he sat in the back, consumed by sleep.  In the front two seats, rode Max and Dillon.  The music, which they listened to, was therapeutic to each.  It was not the style of music that soothed them, merely the steady stream of it that perpetually broke their train of thought.  To two beings, who were constantly dissecting the world around them, a brief respite from thought was greatly welcomed.  As they proceeded down the rocky thoroughfare Dillon couldn’t help but think about the untamed wilderness, and the possibilities it held.  He blocked out the music’s hypnotic power, and realized how badly he needed to get away: away from Ignotus, away from the world.  He envied the squirrels; he envied their freedom.  The fact that they appeared to have no responsibilities or preset expectations for their youth was like a utopia to Dillon.  Suddenly the music stopped, and their therapy session was over.  As he started to speak, he was silenced by Max’s angelic voice.

“Why the stoic look, Dillon?”

“I was looking at the squirrels.  They are beautiful.  They are…  Just look how free they are.  They live the perfect life, eternal freedom.  Chains don’t bind them to existence.  They choose their path, and refuse to have it chosen for them.”  He didn’t think she was following his train of thought, but the spontaneity of her next comment made Dillon realize that the thing he loved most about Max was that she was always on the same page, always understanding.

“Birds.  I have always envied the birds.  They have the ability to be majestic and so very insouciant at the same time.  It is as if they are both literally and figuratively above the world.  They can just fly away when they see a problem.    They are not forced to fix what they have done; forever living without guilt they are free to proceed with their lives.”  She was on the same wavelength, and this meant so much to Dillon.  Dillon just nodded and looked into the sky trying to fathom what it was like as a bird.  As he did, they turned onto the road leading to Max’s house. 

Dillon had a hard time comprehending how such a large vehicle could be effortlessly navigated through such a tiny multi-terrain road, yet Max accomplished this daunting task like a seasoned professional.  When the three finally reached Max’s house after their two hour trek, Colby was still fast asleep, and Max and Dillon were discussing the assignment that their English teacher had given them over the weekend: the political and socio-economic ramifications of music in our society today.  It was a topic, which Dillon had suggested to the teacher at the semester’s outset, but Dillon thought that the teacher had shrugged off the idea like all the others that Dillon had presented prior.  Well, it was a welcome surprise.  Dillon loved to write, because to him it was an outlet to voice his opinions and fears.  He had never shown his writing to anyone, not even his own family, yet he openly shared them with Max.  Dillon wondered what it was about that girl that so enthralled him.  He had no way to know, and that in and of itself was driving him crazy.

Max’s lake house was august, to say the very least.  It stood two stories tall, and was made of a brick similar to that which was used at Ignotus.  The crimson was not quite as rich as that of the Ignotian brick, but then again, nothing Dillon had seen was.  The house was surrounded by a dense forest, which normally would prohibit the visual access to the world. Being that it was on the side of a mountain, barring the occasional heavy fog, one could see for miles.  And that view always beckoned Dillon. On the second story, there was a balcony that overlooked the lake.  It was an invigorating sight.  In those mountains the struggle, that was Ignotus, completely disappeared.  Life, the struggle it was, paused.   Dillon’s thoughts were now only a fleeting memory.  The serenity that he so fervently sought, lay fallow in the mountains, waiting to be sown and in turn reaped.

6

As Max led Dillon to his room, he couldn’t help noticing the extent of money put into a house, which was only occupied on the weekends.  His own home was not so lavishly decorated, but he had never noticed this before.  Dillon’s house was quaint, but minute in comparison to the lake house.  His parents tried to provide everything for him, and for the most part they did.  Fiscally, they were not very well off.  Granted they were not poor, far from it.  But by Ignotian standards, their paltry income was pitiable.  Before coming to Ignotus, Dillon had never though twice about his financial security, however the fact that he was there only because of a very large scholarship scared him.  Dillon knew that Ignotus was one of the finest educational establishments in the East.  He also knew that if he lost his scholarship, his parents couldn’t afford to send him there.  He feared the repercussions associated with being kicked out of Ignotus, and for this reason, Dillon was apprehensive to voice his opinion to its fullest extent.  He knew that the pent up anger was bound to burst forth at some point in the near future, and he just hoped that he was alone at the time.  He hoped to be alone, because he did not want anyone to see the beast he had inside: anger, chained to the rocky crags of his soul.  It was amazing to Dillon, how his thought process could go off on a tangent so very quickly.  His thoughts were transported from the lake house’s decoration, to the fear of expulsion and an emotional breakdown.   Such was the average thought process of this sixteen-year old.

While Dillon was shown to his room, he couldn’t get over the sense of peace he felt.  As it was only noontime, Dillon made his way down to the lake.  He could not remember how many times he had taken this very same walk to the pristine lake before. The path he took was clear.  Although there was dense growth on both sides, the middle of the path had been worn by many years of use.  As he proceeded to the lake he couldn’t think of a place he would rather be.  No one was telling him who or what he was or what he was to do.  Once he had finally reached the lake, he looked across the vast expanse of water and marveled at its beauty.  Since Max’s parents owned the whole lake, the wilderness was untamed and the serenity untainted.  He walked on the shore with the sound of water and wilderness surrounding him.  The lake was spring fed, and crystal clear.  The gray rocks on the banks and beneath the surface had been worn smooth by the perpetual ebb and flow of the water.  Since the day was overcast, Dillon was able to witness the marvels of even the deepest water.  Every so often he would see a ripple, where a hungry trout had just sated his appetite. For Dillon, this was the only disturbance on that lake, and for the time being the only disturbance in his world. 

As he sat on one of the many immense boulders lining the bank, he was struck that a single person could own all of this land, this untamed wilderness.  He had a hard time fathoming that one could possess such an expanse of territory without sharing it with anyone, save the occasional acquaintance.  These thoughts reminded him of the lyrics to a song that he had once heard: “What gives you the right to keep people out, or keep Mother Nature in…”  Dillon thought those lines applied to this situation quite well.  As he was trying to remember the lines to the rest of the song, Max walked down the path towards him. 

Max was walking at a slow gait, one that was as relaxed as that of the world around her, and when she finally reached Dillon, she noticed that he was completely submersed in thought.  So she sat.  She sat upon the remnants of an uprooted tree, which had been weathered quite extensively by the elements.  So she sat, looking at him. As she did, she wondered what was going on in that head of his.  She had speculated about his thoughts before, but speculations to Max weren’t enough.  She needed proof.  She had sought this substantiation many times before, but as of yet she still couldn’t understand how he retained his sanity with all of those thoughts mulling around in his head.

Max had known Dillon since the first day he began to attend Ignotus, although they didn’t speak for the first few weeks.  Max thought that Dillon was that mediocre “dumb jock,” and for this reason she wanted nothing to do with his superficiality.  Their meeting was one of fate.  They both had the same classes, yet seldom did they see each other, and even more rarely did they make eye contact or articulate their thoughts about the other.  Dillon assumed that Max was a stereotypical rich girl, who cared little about anything except the yacht and daddy’s money.  This mutual animosity lasted until one day in the library, Max was attempting to translate a Latin passage with little to no avail.  And so she decided rather than struggling through another passage by herself, she would enlist the help of a tutor.  It just so happened that the tutor that was assigned to her was none other than Dillon.  From that day forth they had gotten along swimmingly.  They even became the closest of friends, which meant a great deal to Max.  Max had a large group of friends, but of those she only considered Dillon to be her best friend.  He was the only one who would listen to her at two in the morning the night of an exam.  He was the only person in the world she truly trusted to tell her secrets. As she looked at him resting on the gray boulder, she wondered how many times they had found themselves in a situation similar to this: sitting, thinking, unaware. 

When she could stand the situation no more, Max rose and greeted Dillon; successfully putting an end to whatever subject upon which he was cogitating. As they looked at each other, there was an eerie silence.  For a brief moment, movement stopped and the entire world felt safe and impervious to wounds.  That safety and serenity brought by Max’s hazel eyes made everything right.  She smiled, sheepishly at first, but after a time it blossomed into a smile, which lit her entire countenance with a golden radiance.  Dillon loved her smile.  She approached him, and sat next to him.  Still there was silence.  They were both waiting for the other to speak, until finally Dillon quietly broke the tranquility. 

“Is Colby still asleep?”

“Yes, I think all of the sleeping on the way here was tiring for him.”  She tried to make a joke, yet she was still deeply interested about what he was thinking.  Max couldn’t stand the suspense anymore.  “What were you thinking about?” 

“Freedom.”  He thought that this one word summed up his abhorrence for the boundaries of nature.  It was obvious that for once, Max wasn’t on the same train of thought.  To elucidate, Dillon looked away from her and motioned towards the lake and the birds flying overhead.  Again he repeated himself.  “Freedom”.  Max said nothing, but took him by the arm and carefully led him down to a cove on the side of the lake.  Here there was a small rowboat moored to an evergreen tree.  As Max untied the boat, Dillon took a moment to look at his surroundings.  The cove was nothing more than a sandy beach, which had been carved into the bank over the centuries.  The boulders, which lined the remaining parts of the shore, were not present here; it was as if the cove had been created solely to launch the boat.  The piney smell provided by the evergreen trees always meant one of two things: Christmas or the deep wilderness.  Either way it meant inner peace for Dillon. 

He loved Christmas; it was, to Dillon, a time for family.  Dillon adored his family, the great majority of the time.  There were times when he could not endure the sarcasm of his older brother.  Will was born six years before Dillon, thus making Dillon the younger child.  Dillon hated the pre-conceived notion of being the coddled “baby” of the family.  The older siblings believe the younger child to be more pampered, while in reality the opposite is true.  The fact is that the parents have already been through the fiascoes involved in raising a child with the first, and so the “baby” is required to fend for himself on more occasions than not.  What exasperated Dillon even more, were the standards set forth by the prior siblings.  Everything came so easily to Will, which made Dillon’s pursuit of perfection all the more difficult.  Will was a scholar athlete in all respects.  His rise to grandeur was never seriously delayed, save the occasional broken bone or heart.  As he was now a stalwart college student, Dillon envied his freedom.  Dillon had always envied his freedom, because Will was not shackled by the bondage bestowed upon Dillon.  The bondage was twofold: that which he himself placed upon his shoulders, and that which was placed on his shoulders by his parents and society.  He hated the latter.  The reason Dillon loved Christmas, though, was a very simple one.  All shackles were lifted, nothing much was expected of him. 

It was not that Dillon hated fulfilling his family’s expectations, nothing pleased him more.  He was resentful, at times, of the amount of expectations placed upon him.  He could not comprehend why his family felt the need to place such haughty goals upon his overworked shoulders.  Every time he voiced his feelings to his parents, they would say “Do we really put too much pressure on you to excel?”  Rhetorical questions made him livid, this one especially.  If he did not think that they put to much pressure on him, he would not have said anything in the first place.  At this point in the conversation, he knew he had lost the battle, and he gave up and began to nod his head and apologize.  Damn they were good.  He went from spitting mad at his parents to apologizing for questioning them. Damn they were good. 

7

As Dillon thought about his parents and his brother, he walked not knowing where he was headed.  Dillon did not stray far, but Max still found humor in the situation.  She had seen him many times prior meander aimlessly while deep into thought.  It was one of his idiosyncrasies that she loved: his thoughts about life.  Thinking and walking at the same time was hard for Dillon.  It seemed the harder he thought, the further he wandered, and the more injuries were inflicted.  He was once thinking about the American Revolution, and he nearly broke his neck.  While he was walking, and not looking, he collided with a pugnacious utility pole.   The present journey had merely caused Dillon a few stubbed toes.  As he stumbled over a formidable boulder, Max let out a laugh, which broke Dillon’s concentration.  With full pedal functions, he ambled back to Max and they pushed off into the lake.

The vessel was nothing more than a wooden rowboat in need of a good coat of paint.  From what Dillon could tell the rowboat had once been a shade of red, but as of this moment it was whitewashed and peeling from the heat.  It had two seats, and Dillon rowed while Max admired her environs.  She mused about this and that.  He loved everything about her.  He loved her.  That unruly hair, those gorgeous hazel eyes, her freckles, her blemishes were all perfect.  Dillon wished every girl he met looked like Max.  The thing that Dillon most loved about Max was her propensity to smile.  She was always smiling, and when she did her entire face was engulfed in a golden glow.  Her happiness in turn made Dillon smile. It was infectious.  Whenever Dillon was disheartened by life, Max was there to encourage his spirits.  She was the best friend Dillon could have ever hoped for, but he couldn’t help feeling a want for something more. He didn’t know how she felt, and so he was tacit about his feelings. Dillon continued rowing around the lake, delighting in the splendor of both the untamed beauty of the New York wilderness, and that of Max.  Suddenly and without warning, a scream, a shriek fractured the tranquility of the lake. It was Colby. 

He wasn’t screaming as if he was in sheer agony, but the piercing wail struck terror into Dillon and Max just the same.  Dillon rowed furiously towards the shore, and Max upon reaching land bounded forth to reach and console Colby.  As she was running to rendezvous with him, Max attempted to size up the situation.  She could not see any physical harm on the person of Colby, yet he was holding something that she couldn’t quite discern. She hoped to God that Ignotus hadn’t affected Colby this severely. 

Once she reached him, she was somewhat relieved to see that Colby was holding Dillon’s cell phone.  She didn’t even venture a guess why Colby was holding a phone, Max was just relieved to not see a knife or another implement of destruction in her friend’s hand.  Still he looked very unsettled, and pallor filled his expression.  As Max edged closer to him, Dillon rushed from the shore to ascertain the intention of the scream.  Max’s body blocked Dillon’s view of Colby, and so he was unable to discern what Colby was grasping.  As he converged on the two motionless beings, he couldn’t help but wonder why the two were silent, and why Max was not making any motions of help towards Colby.

  Max remained still, incapable of movement: staring, wondering.  He hastened past Max and like her before, he was relieved to see his cell phone in Colby’s hand.  Also like Max, Dillon looked for any external injury, and upon finding none immediately questioned Colby about the aforementioned screaming.

“Are you ok?” Dillon asked.

“I’m fine.” Colby said slowly in a stuttering tone.

“What’s wrong, then?” Dillon said in a somewhat stern voice, which caught both Dillon and Colby off guard.  As Colby subdued his nerves, he replied in a less meek tone and while doing so continuously motioning towards Dillon.

“Ignotus, they – they called for you.”  Colby was trembling.

“What did they want?”  Dillon asked this question calmly, yet he was being torn apart inside trying to conjecture what on earth he could have done to warrant a call on a phone only listed for an emergency.  And because he had only listed the number for an emergency, he figured that it wasn’t anything that he had done.  This frightened him even more.  Was it his family? Will? Jacob?  God he hoped not.  Finally, not being able to bear it anymore, Dillon grabbed Colby by the shoulder and sought the purpose of the phone call.  Colby’s reply was terse and to the point, just as Jacob had been six years ago.

“Jacob’s grandmother died last night.”  It hit Dillon like a swift kick in the head: Jacob’s closest relative, the one who raised him after his parents were killed, was now herself dead. He couldn’t imagine how Jacob was dealing with the loss.  He needed to be there.  Max sensed this, and she packed the SUV as Dillon tried to call Ignotus, Jacob.  He continued calling to no avail, and when he thought he had connected all he heard on the other end was silence, dead silence. 

8

The drive back to Ignotus was usually a beautiful one, however Dillon was far too preoccupied with the fact that he wasn’t there for Jacob.  He wasn’t there when Jacob most needed him.   Dillon, at this moment hated the decision he had made to travel to the lake for the long weekend.  He realized that he couldn’t have known that Jacob’s grandmother was going to duke it out with St. Peter so quickly.  Max tried to comfort him, but Dillon would have nothing to do with her.  She understood his being worried about his friend’s relative’s death, but she didn’t quite understand why he was so very worried about Jacob. After all, only Dillon knew about Jacob’s past tragedies. 

            The time it took to reach Ignotus was only two hours, but to Dillon those two agonizing hours were the longest of his life.  He was constantly being brought back to those two words: “They’re gone”.  They returned to him every time he heard about a death.  Those words rang out like sirens blaring in the night.  If it wasn’t pensiveness that kept him up at night, it was the recurring nightmare of that day six years ago.

            As they pulled into Ignotus, Dillon’s heart sank.  There were ambulances and police cars littering the usually quiet campus.  When Max drove closer, a blood red helicopter suddenly surged forth from the back of the main building and headed for the east woods.  All that could be seen was pandemonium, with every one consoling one another. Everyone was crying.  As Dillon surveyed the drove of students, he could not see any of his friends. But only the one person he could not see really troubled him. Jacob was nowhere to be seen. Dillon feared the worst. 

Before Max or Colby could say anything, Dillon had flung open the rear door and rushed towards those crimson bricks of the main building.  As Dillon attempted to cross the yellow tape, he was restrained by the officers, but upon learning of his student status the policemen let him pass.  Before he could reach the doors, he heard his name called.  It was an older male’s voice, and he turned to his left and saw Mr. Geras. He walked with a limp and a cane, and he spoke with such sagacity, most times, that Dillon was in awe that any person could possess such knowledge. It was true then that Geras was nothing short of a sage in his advanced age, for if nothing else, he had seen everything.  It was fitting then that he was the history teacher, because as his students often joked, he had lived through it all.  When Dillon was first having trouble with the other students at Ignotus, Mr. Geras had been there to help Dillon through the agonizing process.  Dillon however rarely saw Geras outside of his classroom or office, and for this reason the sagacious voice startled him.

Visibly troubled and confused, Dillon rushed to Geras and sought from him the reason behind all the ambulances and police. However before Dillon could utter a word, Geras took Dillon by his shoulder and led the boy through the desolate hall to his office.   There he told Dillon to sit down – never a good sign.  At the instance that his posterior reached the black leather cushion of the chair, Dillon’s previously jumbled thoughts became lucid; there was only one logical connection that he could make to link everything that had just happened.  Jacob.  He prayed to God that he was wrong.

“Dillon, something terrible has happened.” Geras said in a feeble yet stoic voice.

“Well, I gathered as much.”  Dillon retorted in such a curt and brusque manner that he regretted it the moment he words left his mouth.  He hated that he was taking his fear and anger out on Mr. Geras, but he was scared.  Then without any further dialog, Geras handed Dillon a folded piece of white paper with visible typing on the back.  He slowly opened it, and all of his fears were realized.

Dillon-

I am writing this solely to you, because you are the only one who knows why I was driven to do this.  And if you are reading this now, I hope to hell I’m dead.  Let me assure you, it’s better this way.  I want you to know it was nothing you have done that has driven me to do this. You have been nothing short of a savior to me.  You have been the greatest friend that I could have ever hoped for.  I know I never told you that, and I am truly sorry that I have to tell you, now, like this.

I realized that Death comes so very quickly and without warning, and the aftermath he leaves behind is so very devastating to the loved ones of the deceased.  It has happened to me two too many times, and I can’t take any more.  I don’t think a person should be subjected to death this soon in his or her lifetime. Only you know. I leave you now because I don’t want anyone to miss me.  I have distanced myself because I don’t want you or anyone to be hurt, especially you.  I’m in a better place. Someday you will look back on this and say that I didn’t die in vain. Atropos be damned, I cut the thread, and in this way I controlled Death.  Goodbye old friend.  Carpe Diem. Good luck in life, make me proud. 

            As he read this, Dillon felt as if a part of him was being ripped away.  Jacob was too young.  He didn’t deserve this.  No one did.  Dillon at this moment realized the thing that he had feared most for his friend had actually come to pass.  His best friend was gone.  Such a short life: Dillon questioned his faith more than ever.  He could only think, “What have You done?”  Then those words that he had tried to suppress for those six years, came back like a torrent of anguish.  “They’re gone.” 

            He felt the tears welling up in the corners of his eyes, but he knew he had to keep it together, if not for himself, then for Jacob.

“How did he die?” Dillon asked in a tone reminiscent of a mortally wounded man.

“He jumped.” Geras replied as curtly as Dillon’s previous remark. “From the roof.”

“When?” Dillon asked, his emotions being toyed with to the breaking point.

“This morning,” Geras said trailing off.  “Son, what did he mean by ‘Only you know’?” Geras inquired in a very sardonic and disapproving manner.  Also he stressed the word “son”; Dillon hated being called son – it was so very condescending.  At this point he couldn’t bear patronization.

“Was there anything else?” Dillon said avoiding the question.

“Answer him son,” declared a voice that came from behind Dillon.  It was a raspy voice, which could only belong to one person: Asella.  John T. Asella was the headmaster of Ignotus, and it seemed to Dillon, at least, that he was perpetually badgering the students.  Asella especially enjoyed hassling Dillon, because Asella knew that he wouldn’t fight back or give a call to his rich daddy, for he had none. Dillon swore that every time he saw Asella around campus he was either harassing a student or faculty member, or smiling that fake grin of his to a trustee or an alumn. It was one of those grins where it looked like an animal bearing his teeth in rage or pain.  He hated that fake grin, but then again there seemed to be no redeeming factors whatsoever to Asella.

 Asella’s voice grated on the last of Dillon’s nerves.  He was at the breaking point, and it was as if Asella himself was pushing Dillon off.  At this point, no conflicting thoughts crossed through Dillon’s mind.  There was only feeling left.  This deep seeded feeling of anger made Dillon do what he had so often feared he would do, and he for the first time lost it.

Dillon slowly got up from his chair, and turned to face Asella.  His obese countenance was blocking the door.  As Dillon slowly began to get up Asella placed his hand on Dillon’s shoulder, as if to guide him back to his seat.  Dillon, responding to the increasing pressure on his shoulder, pivoted so that Asella not only lost control of Dillon, but also his balance.  As Asella stumbled forward, Dillon slowly and methodically walked towards the open door.  Asella, as quickly as he could, turned around and looked in disbelief at the one student, whom he had tortured without fear of repercussions, defiantly walking away from him. 

“Son, you best stop and talk to me.” His voice quivering, as he had seen the look of determination in Dillon’s eyes.  “Son are you not hearing me?  What do you think you are doing?  Don’t even think about walking out that door, or I’ll…”

“You’ll what?” Dillon said with a blatant disregard to his prior fears of expulsion. At this moment, he wanted to be as far away from this damned school as possible.  “What will you do, huh?  What could you possibly do that is worse than what you have already done?”  Dillon stared directly into the beady black eyes of a visibly shaken Asella.  He stopped moving towards the door and began to move towards Asella, his voice resolute and growing ever louder.  And he now yelled so that the whole world could hear him. “Do you know what you did to him? Do you know what he told me, at night, about how he felt?  Do you know he tried to get help here, but he was turned away?  Do you know that I was there when his parents were killed?  When his grandmother arrived to take him away?  When he would wake up at midnight and call me because he heard their screams?  No, you killed him.  You killed him.”  As he spoke his voice never quavered, and this scared Asella.  Dillon walked up to him as close as he could, and pointed at Asella and quietly – eerily quietly – and said, “You killed him.”  With this he walked out. 

Max had been standing outside of Geras’ office the entire time.  She felt the emotion in Dillon’s voice, and she sensed the repressed anger coming out all at once.  She didn’t know what to say to him as he walked out of the office at a brisk pace.  Dillon didn’t even see her as he broke into a run down the hall.  She was scared. Dillon had never even intimated that Jacob was troubled, nor that his parents had been killed.  Why didn’t he tell her? What else was there that he hadn’t told her?  She looked again towards Dillon, but he was gone.

9

Dillon ran down the hall, and all new thoughts filled his previously lucid mind.  What would he do now, he knew he couldn’t stay, but what about Max?  He had to let her know what happened, why he had to leave?  He decided to write her a letter, but now was not the time.  He ran to Jacob’s room, for in the note there were two clues for Dillon.  These clues involved Jacob’s intense hatred for Latin, a hatred which Dillon still could not understand.  “Atropos be damned,” was a reference to the fate that cut the thread of life in Greek Mythology.  “Carpe Diem,” of course was a reference to the famous line of the writer Horace.  Though Dillon still wasn’t sure what the Atropos reference, he knew perfectly what Jacob had meant by “Carpe Diem”.

When Dillon first arrived at Ignotus, his old friend, Jacob, who had spent the last five years at the school, warmly welcomed him.  Jacob it seemed knew all of the Ignotian secrets, and one such secret was the hole in the floor in his room.  The prior Ignotians had hidden so many things in the hole, that the side of the board had become visibly worn.  Because of this, Jacob had always covered it with thus and such.  Today was no exception, for today there was a calendar over the hole.  Dillon knew that Jacob had meant to move the calendar when he said, “Seize the day”. Dillon crossed the threshold of the room, exhausted from running and thinking.  He quickly locked the door, and made towards the corner of the room where the calendar lay as if carelessly strewn about the floor.  He moved it aside and lifted the board.  In the hole lay his future.

There was a note with Dillon’s name on it, and it was sealed with blood red wax.  Dillon grabbed a knife and broke the seal.  He struggled to open the letter, not because the actual seal was difficult to open, but because he feared what the letter would say.

Dillon-

I write you now hoping that you can take away from your life, what I was unable to take from mine.  I knew this time would come; I just had no idea that it would be this soon. I don’t want you to be sad that I am gone. I’m not.  In fact I feel liberated.  I will not have to go on with the pain of the loss of my family, my innocence. You are the only brother I have ever had.  You are the only one left who knows of my struggles.  You are all I had left, but it was not enough.  I lost too much to even come back to you.  As my brother I leave everything to you, and this note will have to serve as my last will and testament.  My belongings are now yours.  You have been the greatest friend anyone could have ever wished for.  I thank you for being there when I needed you.  “What a wounded name, things standing thus unknown, shall I leave behind me! If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart absent the from felicity a while, and in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain to tell my story.”  Be my Horatio. Let my death not be in vain.                                   

Jacob

“Goodbye sweet prince…”  These words were all that Dillon could utter, his best friend now was gone.  The reality set in and Dillon refused to face it.

He for the first time in five years began to cry.  He didn’t stop, until there was a sharp rapping at the door.  A rapid rapping followed by a disgusted pause.  Dillon knew this knock, for he had been hassled by it many times before.  It was Asella.  Dillon grabbed his bag and began to throw clothes in it.  Dillon grabbed the bag that Jacob had placed in the hole, and it was far heavier than he would have imagined.  Dillon, however, had not the time to look to se what was inside it.  Asella was now not only beating on the door, but also yelling vehemently.  Dillon opened the window and descended the drainpipe, all the while being cursed at by Asella. 

Dillon, with the weight of his bags, descended the drainpipe like a seasoned expert.  The years at Ignotus had offered Dillon many a time to escape its monotony via the pipe.  This too Jacob had shown him.  Though Dillon was deeply saddened by the loss of Jacob, he was far more enraged by the callous disregard for feeling, which Asella had shown towards him.  Asella it seemed was mad at Dillon, not in the least bit sympathetic.  As Dillon looked back at the crimson bricks of Ignotus, they held a different meaning now.  The crimson, which he had so coveted before, now stood for blood not excellence.  Dillon realized that anything, which does not endure, such as the brick’s symbolic meaning, was in fact meaningless.  The only thing that mattered now was that Dillon had to escape all that was Ignotus, even if it meant leaving Max behind.

            He hastened to the east woods, and there he felt somewhat safe, somewhat separated from the Ignotian stigma.  He passed all of the familiar professions of love on the bark of trees, and he could only shake his head in disbelief of their naivete.  It seemed to him that he had lost his innocence like Jacob, and like Jacob five years prior Dillon refused to mourn.  All the while Jacob’s voice and the words, “They’re gone,” cascaded through his head. 

The east woods held such beauty at this time of the year, the leaves had changed – everything had changed.  He on many an occasion would venture out into the woods in his cognitive state.  Here he would just sit and think.  It was the closest to happiness he could obtain.  Now, though, the leaves were not changing colors, but dying and falling on a ground ungrateful of their beauty.  The sound of the wind through the trees too was unsettling, before harmonious now discordant.  As he walked through the multi-colored wood, the boy was far from he who had walked this unshorn path many times before.  This boy was no more, yet he was not yet a man. He was caught in the confusion between the two, caught between youth and agédness, caught between logic and emotion.  It was this final trap into which he had unwillingly fallen, that caused him the most grief.

            He came to a creek, once easily forded, now an obstacle.  Burdened by the weight of his packs and emotions, he sat on the bank.  He was sure that they had realized that he was gone, but they wouldn’t look for him.  They truly didn’t care.  He had left the note Jacob had written to him, and in it they would learn of his motives.  This he left more for Max than anyone else, for she was the only one that he cared about at Ignotus.  She was the only one left that he shared a shred of an emotional bond with. 

Max would understand.  This he had to tell himself, but as she sat in Dillon and Jacob’s room crying, she was far from understanding.  Somebody she knew had killed himself, and her best friend had fled from his past, fled from himself, fled from her.  She feared for Dillon, and she was so conflicted.  In her heart she wanted to run after him to be with him to console him, but she was afraid to leave.  Who would understand?  She hated that she even had to fight with herself over Dillon, for she knew that he needed her.  She overheard Geras and Asella, and knew what kind of people they truly were; she knew that she never would look upon the school the same.  She knew she had to escape its bondage, but in the end she remained.

Dillon sat upon the bank of the small river like a wounded soldier who had just defected from the army because he had seen his bunkmate killed by a mortar.  Indeed he did feel like a soldier of some cosmic battle, both the protagonist and antagonist, the ally and the enemy, the victor and the loser.  He sat there a boy who was as wounded as Jacob had been five years ago.  He sat there and he was lost.  His thoughts were incoherent.  He stared at the creek’s swift flowing water, but its crystalline beauty now moved more slowly.  There was no noise either.  The din of the wind had not subsided, but to him it was inaudible.  Though his thoughts were greatly jumbled the emotions he felt were in no way dulled.  Foremost of these emotions was anger.

He sat there and could not see why Jacob had hurt him like this. What possessed Jacob to leave him?  Didn’t Jacob care about anyone else’s feelings?  How, after Jacob had felt such pain, could he subject Dillon to that such pain?  Dillon was so angry, and he began to yell at the top of his lungs.  Like his thoughts, Dillon’s primal screams were incoherent.  He sounded like he was being tortured by ungodly means.  In fact he was being tortured, Dillon realized that his anger was unfounded and he was ashamed that he could think such damned thoughts.  What right did he have to say that Jacob should have though about not only himself but moreover Dillon before jumping?  What gave him the right to be angry with his friend, whom he should be mourning now?  As he yelled, the birds which inhabited the surrounding dying trees, were frightened by the cacophony and flew away on unburdened wings.  Dillon so envied them.  Again he was reduced to tears, and though no one was around him, he felt the eyes of disapproval upon him.  His hands cupped his red eyes, and the tears and the creek flowed forth.

Dillon wondered if they had called his parents yet.  He thought not. In truth he did not much care, though he did not wish them to worry.  Dillon let his packs fall to the ground, Jacob’s on top of his, and he slowly loosened the drawstring.  Inside was his future.  He found lying dormant inside a laptop computer, a notebook, a pen, a knife, and another smaller bag.  The computer had always been an object of envy for Dillon, for he always aspired to be a writer.  Dillon, due to financial constraints, was never able to purchase one.  Therefore, he was resigned to using an old typewriter that once belonged to his grandmother.  Dillon always joked that if anything happened to Jacob, the laptop was his.  He hated himself for joking like this.  The notebook turned out to be full of poems that Jacob had written, a hobby of which Dillon was wholly unaware.  As he sat on the bank, he read the first poem, and it was as if he was hit in the stomach by the large rock on which he now sat.  The macabre poem held a vivid image of the death of Jacob’s parents.  Though Jacob himself had not witnessed the grisly death of his parents, the images were so vivid that their nature itself startled him.  Dillon, visibly shaken, closed the notebook.  He couldn’t imagine the state of mind Jacob was in when he wrote it, though he himself was in a somewhat similar state at this time.  The knife was a favorite of Jacob.  He always said that it was his grandfather’s military issue.  It was in a faded brown leather sheath that had witnessed many a day, and its black grip had been worn by many a hand.  The once sterling blade now was tarnished, yet its edge was as sharp as ever.

Dillon sheathed the knife and proceeded to look at the smaller blue zippered bag.  He picked up the blue bag, unzipped the black zipper, and stared at green inside.  Dillon had never seen so much money.  The bag contained five bunches of one hundred-dollar bills.  Inside also was a folded piece of paper, torn from the edge of some unknown book.  On it read:

Consider it a birthday present for those five that

I missed. Don’t miss me. You must live your life.

Forever friends.  Forever brothers.        –       Jacob

            Now entirely new emotions filled his chest.  Though he was still overcome by grief, Dillon was touched by this act of charity. Dillon could not keep his eyes dry, and as the newly formed tears flowed Dillon felt a new resolve and proceeded onwards.

            Dillon walked the bank of the river and it regained a hint of its previous beauty.  Though there was the incipient shadow of Jacob’s death forever hanging over Dillon’s head, he knew that his friend would want him to strive on.  His letters said as much.  Dillon thought as much.  While he walked the river’s bank, he fought with a feeling of guilt that overcame him suddenly.  He felt so very guilty for grieving too quickly over his friend’s death.  Was it so wrong to have so quickly rationalized Jacob’s death?  Was it so wrong? Dillon thought not, for he reasoned that after such pain and grieving for more than three years, even though silently, over Jacob’s parent’s death that he had become somewhat callused to death.  Did this make a bad person?  He didn’t know.  He knew simply that though his friend was gone, Dillon needed, nay was obligated, to proceed.  To where he did not know.  Dillon found a suitable crossing point about a half a mile up the creek, and carefully crossed to the other side.  Though he knew not what was on this side, it held far more promise that the prior. 

10

Max sat on the end of Dillon’s bed, and she was worried.  It had been two hours, and there were still no signs of him. What was there that he hadn’t told her.  She knew nothing of Jacob’s past, and now even less about Dillon’s.  He always seemed to change the subject when she asked about Jacob and the reasons he lived with his grandmother.  Max could see that it upset Dillon, and so she lately had not brought it up in conversation.  Dillon was a great listener and this is one of the main reasons why he and Max connected so well, but when they talked about Jacob, or Will, or Dillon’s past he seemed to be detached from the conversation.  He very rarely did this, however.  The only thing Max knew about Jacob was that Dillon and he grew up together.  That was it.

Max never knew Jacob well enough to ask outright about his past.  She felt that if it were important enough Dillon would have already told her.  He told her everything; that is until today.  She never could have dreamed that Jacob would kill himself.  He seemed like such a normal Ignotian, perpetually burdened, quiet, reserved, strangely aloof.  She saw these “symptoms” everyday, and thus she believed herself to have become callous to the severity of her classmate’s problems.  It was a known fact that each year one student didn’t return from summer break.  There were rumors that Ignotus had the highest suicide rate of any private school.  Rumors, though, have a basis somewhere. 

Jacob was dead.  Max still couldn’t come to grips with the reality of the situation.  Someone she knew, someone with whom she talked, someone who was so much like herself, had killed himself.  Since Max was still unaware of the extenuating circumstances surrounding Jacob’s parent’s untimely death and that of his grandmother, he did seem so very much like her. This was frightening to her, for there was a shadow of looming doubt which now sat upon her bowed head.  What drove him to do it?  Why didn’t Dillon tell me? Where is he?  These were the questions which now plagued Max.  There was one question that made her shiver each and every time she though it.  Could Dillon do this? A million and one thoughts like this rushed through her head like a stampede, and as she was being forced to leave the room she wept.

Max left the building and began to descend the white marble steps with gray flint veins that had been traversed by so many insouciant youths before, and as she did she became just another troubled student.  She was a blank face, a silhouette projected at a distance. Devoid of distinguishing features, she stood alone.  She recognized among the paparazzi the balding head of Asella and quickly diverted her glance and direction of travel.  She stood on the top step and looked upon her classmates.  She saw the hoary figure of Rumor rifling through the masses, inspiring her namesake.  “Did you hear…” turned into “Did you know…” and the veracity decreased as the tenacity increased; the flames of Rumor were kindled by the naïve.  She couldn’t bear the lies and she turned back towards the crimson stained brick.  The mass of people standing in the courtyard was like a river engorged by the flood of rumor that had burst its banks.  She opened the double doors and walked to her room where she sat on the edge of her bed like she had on Dillon’s minutes before, and the fear of his wellbeing weighed upon her soul.

            As Max sat worrying, Dillon was now running.  His pace had quickened so, for he heard the commotion of traffic ahead.  He was so close to the rest of the world now.  Dillon knew that if he looked back towards Ignotus he would pause and regret his actions.  Therefore he persisted, and he aimed his course directly ahead. These woods were virgin not only to Dillon, but the world. As he proceeded at such a brisk pace, it was hard for him to fully admire the beauty of the trees, the rocks, the brightly colored leaves fallen on the forest floor.  There were no footprints - no signs of human disruption, yet Dillon felt uncomfortably close to Ignotus even if a river flowed between them.

At once he was alone.  He screamed.  No one heard him. He cried.  No one wept for him.  He fell.  No one was there to pick him up.  Everything lay behind him, a devastated wreck.  Dillon felt betrayed, not only by Jacob but by the society that he had begun to trust.

In the prior weeks, he had been content.  His relationship with Max had grown by leaps and bounds, to the point where he trusted her implicitly.  For the first time in his life he had been content.  He let his guard down, and when Jacob had jumped Dillon had been caught off guard.

As Dillon walked he tried to remember all of the good times he had spent with Jacob, but all that he could remember was the look on his face as he ran out the door of his parents house on that cold Thursday.  Those damn words echoed in Dillon’s mind, a resounding defeat.  They were truly gone.  Dillon had always welcomed solitude, and even sought it in desperate times.  Though he sat in a secluded room far from a living soul, he was never alone.  He found comfort in the priors who had sat in the very same chair, under the very same circumstances countless times before.  He found comfort in those who understood the sounds of silence.  But most of all he found comfort in the fact that he was alone by his own volition, and no one could will him to do otherwise.  On this cold day.  In the middle of this empty forest.  He found no comfort.  He was alone.

Jacob was gone, and even though he was distant for many years, he still listened to Dillon.  In all his years, Dillon had not met a better listener than Jacob.  Though he did at times wonder if Jacob truly heard what he was trying to convey in his sometimes cryptic manner.  The thing was that to this point Dillon never really cared.  He got everything off his chest, and Jacob was there to hear it. 

Every word that was spoken was protected by some unuttered oath.  An oath of silence and trust.  The oath was part of that fragile bond born of two star-crossed brothers.  Dillon would miss this the most.  He was alone again.  There was Max, but he had left her.  He kept thinking about her.  He kept thinking that she must feel so betrayed by me.  Why didn’t I tell her about Jacob? What could I have done? 

I.

I.

I.

He screamed.  The birds in the trees, now startled, flew away from the cacophony.  The fact was that it had nothing whatsoever to do with him.  It was only Jacob.  Dillon’s saying “she must feel sorry for me,” was the most selfish thing he had ever thought.  And his screams were those of frustrated shame.  He was ashamed that he could think of himself when he was meant to be mourning the lost of his closest friend.

He felt abandoned, weak, and angry.  He was angry with everyone save Jacob.  For the moment he had forgiven him.  Somewhere along the way Dillon realized that Jacob was scared, and this seemed to be the only way out.  God, if he had only talked.  It wasn’t the easiest was for Jacob, but there would be those who forever would say otherwise.  The decision, Jacob’s decision to jump, was the hardest that he had made in his short life.

Dillon stopped walking for a moment and envisioned his young friend on that wall.  The crimson bricks supported his weight.  His virgin hazel eyes looked over the many colored treetops into the horizon.  He was trembling. He looked down towards the white steps, and for the slightest moment he paused and thought whether or not this was the best way.  He thought of his friend and a solitary teardrop fell from his hazel eyes.  Whether or not this was the best decision had been decided years before.  He waited for a moment of clarity, a sign.  And as a soft breeze blew by, the teardrop struck the white marble steps.

This vision shook Dillon, and as he stood in the middle of that very same wood, he couldn’t imagine the horror that Jacob had felt as he stood there.  He couldn’t fathom the pain that Jacob had experienced.  He couldn’t yet even fathom what had driven his friend to suicide as a solution.  The only thing that Dillon understood was that his friend was gone, and no amount of anger would bring him back.  But he was angry. 

Dillon was angry because of the fact that Jacob’s death had changed little outside of his small circle of friends.  Sure Max and Four and Colby would be shattered by the loss, Dillon doubted very much that this day would be looked back upon as anything save a black eye for the Ignotians.  How he despised them right now.

            Again doubt entered into his mind as to whether or not they were searching for him.  He doubted at this point that they even cared.  Too he doubted if they had informed his parents of Jacob’s death and Dillon’s flight.  Once, a first year named Mike O’Malley had broken his arm while playing rugby, and Ignotus informed his parents a full week later, for poor Mike was unable to dial the phone himself.  A week.  Dillon wondered how long it would take for Asella to work up the courage to call his parents.  Asella had made the biggest mistake in the history of Ignotus.  He knew it.  Dillon knew it.

            It was not that Jacob had not sought help, for Dillon had accompanied him to and from the counselor’s office many a time.  The counselor however was only paid to work from nine to twelve – while classes were in session.  And every time Dillon, or Jacob for that matter, had approached a teacher about procuring some aid for his troubled mind they were met with firm consternation.  To the teachers it was nothing more than another well thought out ploy to miss class.  Though they were hesitant, they usually allowed it – usually.

            A month ago a first year named Mike O’Malley – remember Mike – had asked for permission to go to the counselor, and proceeded to sneak off to play rugby.  And in that now infamous game, he played left wing.  The ball was passed to him and he was on the verge of scoring, however there were two obstacles in front of him.  The first was that Ignotus had yet to successfully produce an Irish rugby player worth his salt.  The second was the fact that Mike held on to the ball far too long.  Thus a hoard of much larger third years piled in a heap upon him, and his arm, trapped beneath the ball, was unable to support their added weight. 

            From that day, Asella made it the policy that a student must make an appointment with the counselor, and this said appointment must be approved by Asella himself.  Since he held such a fierce indemnity towards Dillon, Jacob – Dillon’s best friend – became guilty by association.  For a month leading up to the suicide, Asella had not permitted Jacob to visit the counselor, no matter how much he pleaded.  Asella knew it. Dillon knew it.  Asella had helped to drive Jacob to his death.  For this he would pay – maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but he would pay.

11

Dillon slowed his pace to catch his breath, and for the first time he looked around and admired the supreme tranquility and beauty of this wood.  Dillon, too, was tranquil.  Just as Jacob had been six years prior.

            As he reached the roadside, Dillon could only imagine where his journey would take him.  The baggage, which his friend left, burdened him as he climbed the steep earthen embankment of the country road.  This road above was much more than a thoroughfare, for it had been traversed by many thoughtful itinerants prior to Dillon. He wondered, as he climbed the hillside, riddled with fallen trees overgrown by the growth of new ones, whether or not he would make it in life.  Would he make it, or would he fall in a forest like this one, and be eclipsed before anyone noticed that he was gone?  He paused and looked at the road, now at eye-level, and he saw the ruts made by many a stream of water during rains.  Some were far more pronounced than others; these channels had been etched away by some persistent unseen foe.  Every time it rained, a little more stone was etched away.

            Dillon stood now at the side of a road and he realized at last where he was, for he had taken this winding country road many times before to Ignotus.  Most recently this morning, though he hardly noticed it then, as he had so very many thoughts rushing through his head.  There was a small town down the road, no more than five miles.  Further down there was a larger city.  Dillon cared not to venture to the city, for the apathetic inhabitants offered to him no solace.  So he walked.  He walked towards the town.  He walked towards his future, while leaving his past behind.

He walked down the long and winding country road.  His gaze was solely ahead, for there was nothing behind him which he wished to revisit.  The damp red clay stuck to his shoes, yet he did not seem to notice.  He was not looking for anything anymore. He thought that he had no more questions, which had not been sufficiently answered.  He had told himself over and over that it was not his fault.  If, however, he was not at fault, if in fact he had done nothing wrong, if in truth he had no unanswered questions, why was he leaving that school, that chaos to find a place of solitude, a place to think?  He knew not why, but he knew it to be necessary.

He was at this moment blind to the surroundings – the passing cars whizzed past him at an ungodly clip.  He was so deeply into thought that he hadn’t the ability to focus on a single thing.  His thoughts ran together as one. So many thoughts ran through his head that the world around him seemed to blur – as if to slow its pace.  The trees and their leaves were one.  The cars passed as if they were never there.  None stopped.  None even gave him a second look.  To them he was just another wanderer, and in truth he was a wanderer.  He was a vagrant soul in search of quiet – thoughtful quiescence. 

Dillon to this point still didn’t realize the gravity of his actions, for he had left behind the school, which he had fought so hard to accept him.  He had left behind the only person who truly understood him.  And in a way he had left behind a part of himself.

He walked on, never shifting his gaze from the damp red clay.  He thought about Max and he thought about the many times he told her the things, which he was embarrassed to tell anyone else.  She alone understood him.  His only regret now was that he never told her how he felt about her, for it now seemed far too late. They were meant for each other: he knew it, and something told him that she knew it too.  He resolved to write her when he got to where he was going, but as of yet he knew not where that was.

He stood there at once all alone in the world, but she was there.  She sat on the edge of her chair looking out her window towards the east woods.  Discarded tear-filled tissues were strewn across the hardwood floors.  The blue of the moistened tissue was in direct contrast with the deep mahogany hues of the boards under her feet.  The floor on which she had walked for many a day had once stood majestically in a far off forest, and it was felled.  For what? Why did the men choose these trees to die?  Why was anyone chosen? Max was angry, yet she knew not upon whom to focus her rage.  It wasn’t Dillon, for he was the victim in her eyes.  Where was he?  Was he safe?  Max had become hysterical in his absence, for they had never been separated like this before.

Never did a night pass by where they did not talk, but she had not heard his soothing voice for what seemed like ages.  Sometimes she would listen to him talk, if only to hear his voice.  The soothing words that issued forth from his open mouth, sometimes, held less meaning than Dillon’s voice.  His tone of voice, at times, calmed her far more than his words. These were the times in her life where she merely wished to talk to some one, if only to speak words she herself would never speak again.  These conversations held no meaning to her, except that he was there.  That was all that she needed.

These conversations were the longest that those two ever had.  These discourse would last well into the night, regardless of what time they started.  It seemed, in fact, that the earlier they started the more coherent their though process was.  The more coherent their thoughts were, the more they could speak about without saying a word.  One would pose a question of the other, and then there was silence, pensive silence.  That one would answer, and there would be more thoughtful silence. They would continue, both waiting for the other to talk if only to savor the other’s voice like a fine wine. 

Max considered herself a sommelier of fine voices.  She cherished the ones that she found, and thus far none pleased and soothed her more than Dillon’s.  “You can tell a lot from a person’s voice,” she once said to Dillon as they sat in the common’s plush red chairs.

“How so?” inquired Dillon.

            “In most cases you can tell who a person really is, just by their voice.  It is more distinguishing than say a fingerprint.  Everyone has a voice, and that voice is individual to everyone.”

            “I can see where you could say that, but might they be faking it?” he asked in a slightly hackneyed accent.

            “ Well of course they could be faking it, but in most cases they are not.  I mean if they are trying to impress you they will use better grammar, better diction.  All of this breaks up one’s natural speaking pattern.  If you talk to a person long enough, listening only to their voice, not their words you can ascertain just as much as if you had listened to them monotoned.”

            “So, what does my voice tell you?” he asked in a brisk and calculated manner.

            “Well…,” she stumbled through her words.  It was so very hard for her to speak of such deep  issues with Dillon without letting on her feelings.  Anything she said at any moment could ruin all that they had.  This relationship between Max and Dillon was forged in troubled times for both, and it had endured more or less unchanged through the years.  Max was so very apprehensive about talking to Dillon about feelings, even though he was so very open about his.  He had told her, never directly, that he wanted only to be friends – purely platonic. 

Dillon told her these boldfaced lies, and each time he did it felt like a piece of him had been torn away.  All that was left was an open wound that only healed after days. He so missed her now, and she him. 

 As his thoughts somewhat cleared, he realized that at some point the damp red clay had turned into black asphalt, and he knew he wasn’t far from the town.  It was getting darker and he realized that he needed a place to stay for the night and collect his thoughts, and sleep.  Yet he doubted very much whether or not he would be able to sleep this night.

            The town was nothing more that a resting-place, for Dillon and the other wanderers for that matter.  In both directions there were destinations miles down the road. That was all the place stood for, a stopping point to some greater destination.  It was nothing more, nothing less.  It was a place where conversations were conducted not in urban coffee shops thick with the stench of misery, but on porch swings and barbershops.

Time seemed to end at the border of the town. It has the propensity to linger for only a fleeting moment on its way down the road.  As Dillon walked towards the center of the town, he couldn’t help but notice that the town was as it would have been if he had walked in Keruac’s time.  Was it timeless, or did the town merely shun change.  He knew not the answer, yet he pressed on. 

The main street was a tributary leading into countless back alleyways lined with the town’s history.  As Dillon walked on, he noticed that the town’s streets were impeccably clean, free of trash, and to this point free of people.  He had not seen a single person since he left Ignotus, and yet he knew that the curtains on some unseen Mom & Pop store were opened ever so slightly to gaze upon the wary traveler.

The stores’ signs hung by a rusted chain, swinging ever so slightly in the evening’s breeze.  These signs were marquees from a lost time many years before.  These signs once inviting now stood as a warning of the town’s sedentation.  They were like gatekeepers; gatekeepers one must pass before proceeding on his way.  Those who drove through the town without a second thought were left unaware of the sinister ivy, which had steadily and stealthily crept over every inch of the town.

Dillon thought to himself that it must look like a scene from a James Dean movie, a wanderer, unaccompanied, ambling into the center of the town, weighed down by a heavy burden.  His gaze too was wandering much like his thoughts.  A neon sign however broke his concentration and beckoned him to rest his weary feet.  He walked towards the “OPEN,” not knowing what it was he would find on the other side of the whitewashed door.  The marquee on the pole above the door was at such an angle that Dillon was unable to discern service, which the beckoning sign offered.  Nonetheless, he walked on, and as he placed his hand on the tarnished metal doorknob he wondered if he should leave his bags outside the establishment.  He quickly decided against it for there was far too much in those bags to risk letting them out of his sight.

He perceived music emanating from inside, and as he always welcomed music, he turned the whitewashed door’s handle, and in doing so opened up a whole new world.  The inside of the restaurant was nothing like anything he had seen in his sixteen years.  The walls were lined with history.  Antiques girded the ceiling, and lain dormant for a weary eye to marvel at.  They stood only as a reminder that the town was forgotten.  It was a reminder – to Dillon at least.

As he entered, cynical eyes greeted him like a shower of ice.  He hadn’t the chance to look at a mirror to assess the extent to which his trek through the woods had marked him, but as he looked down at his jeans he realized that they had been sullied by the dirt of the embankment, they were also torn and bloodied in places.  He did not remember when he had torn his jeans on anything, but he contributed it to thinking to hard. He also had acquired a fledgling limp on his right leg, for on the entire trip, all save the fording of the creek, he had held the bags over his right shoulder.  Dillon hardly noticed, and famished he sat down. 

He cared not that the tables around him were speaking of the young vagrant who had walked in with his life hung over one shoulder.  He knew that they couldn’t possibly comprehend what he had been through.  In truth he was having a hard time rationalizing all that had happened to him over the course of the day.  He just sat there seemingly unaware of the world around him, in truth however he was quite astutely aware of all that was being said and the fingers that were being pointed in his direction.  The truth was that he could not have cared less. 

A young blonde waitress sauntered towards his corner booth with pad and pen in hand like she would have any other day of any other year.  She had finely cropped light blonde hair, and she carried herself with an air of sophistication in the presence of such ignorance.  Her uniform’s red striped shirt was a mockery of her implied intelligence.  Dillon thought to himself that it was fortunate that she wasn’t required to wear a red beanie, though it would have fit so very perfectly with the décor of the restaurant.  She carried in her other hand a glass of water, which Dillon was pleased to sip the minute she placed it on the table.

“My name’s Dawn, what can I get you tonight?” she said in such a high pitched voice that it made Dillon smile.  She was so naïve.  He looked at the menu briefly and then out of ritual he looked at the prices.  These too were reminiscent of the age of the restaurant’s décor. 

“I’ll have the steak.  Medium.” Short yes, but succinct enough so as not to intimate any emotions whatsoever.  Dillon had learned over the years that if you were feeling emotionally stressed and you wished not to talk about it, that long dissertations on the quality and quantity of your food never served you well.  For the voice of a troubled youth is so very telling.

“Anything else,” she asked.  He so wanted to be smug and ask her for a new life because his was so very screwed up at this point, but he decided that the moment was nice enough to not blaspheme. So he simply said “No,” and that was that.

He ate the steak, savoring every bite.  It was not one of the best steaks he had ever had, but he had not had an opportunity to eat a bite since six in the morning.  The length of his starvation would have made crackers seem like a six course meal, and so the dry steak was wonderful.  He ate without a single though as to where his road would take him, and for the first time in his life Dillon was living in the moment without a care for the future.  It would be short lived though. 

It would have been just like Dillon to stare at his steak and think about the steer that had given his life so that somewhere someone could eat it without a care in the world.  It would have been likely also for Dillon to have thought about the steer’s calves whom were fatherless at this moment because of the callous act of self nourishment.  It would have been like him, but he was so emotionally drained and physically exhausted that the steak now was nothing more than a piece of meat on his plate sent by some unknown force to provide him nourishment. 

A tall aged waiter interrupted Dillon’s eating, and he looked at the ragged vagrant with such disapproval that it broke Dillon’s amicable frame of mind.  The waiter’s look was that of haughty concern as to whether or not the boy in muddied trousers would have the resources to pay for the meal.  Dillon saw as much, and he became furious.

“Is there anything else I can get for you, son?”  Like Geras hours before, the waiter had called him son, an offense lesser men have been killed for.  Not only did Chip (for that is what his red pinstripe nametag read) call Dillon son, but he had done so in such an exacerbating manner that Dillon was forced to lash out at the unsuspecting grayhair.  

“You can get me my waitress, but before you do, you can tell me why you’re here, and after you’re done fumbling with your words, you can tell me why you are truly here.  And when you walk away, be sure to take your foot out of your mouth so you won’t fall and break a hip.”  The waiter stood dumbfounded, but before he could work up the courage to speak, Dillon had reached into the bag and pulled out a crisp new $100 bill, which he proceeded to slap onto the table.  As the waiter walked away, Dillon felt a sense of victory, though he did feel slightly remorseful about the vehemence of his attack.  After what had transpired the hours before, this feeling too soon passed.  And as Dawn brought back his check he couldn’t help but laugh.

As he was leaving the restaurant, he caught sight of the cross old waiter silently cursing Dillon.  His eyes were transfixed on the insolent youth, and they said all that he had been unable to utter earlier.  Dillon nodded to him, genuflecting in victory.  And he left; his hunger and thirst now sated.  As he opened the door, which was so very different in appearance than the one that had beckoned him entry earlier, a burst of cold air hit him and brought him back to the cold reality of the world.  So he left the restaurant behind and he now searched for a place to spend the night. 

12

The little town was far from abounding in hotels, and it even seemed as if the townspeople spurned outsiders, not desiring them to remain in the town for any length of time.  Dillon walked on, now nearing the outskirts of the small town, and as he did so he became aware of another influence.  The outskirts of the town were detached.   Where everything in the town was closed for the night, save the restaurant, the outskirts remained alive.  He passed the filling stations, and though antiquated like the town, the fact that they remained open at ten o’clock ant night intimated that there was far more of an outside influence here.  He slowly walked on, all the while noting the ascension into the city.  There was a break though, and all of a sudden there were no filling stations, no signs of life, and it was at this point that he realized the town’s sphere of temporal influence had reached a terminus. 

            He wondered now where the next sign of life would appear, and growing less and less cognizant of his surroundings, he pressed on.  Dillon continued walking, now wholly unaware of his environs.  Every now and then a car sped by; never giving the wanderer a second look.  This didn’t bother him though, as he preferred to be alone at this point in time.  And the dark night was cold.  The heat radiated from the wet asphalt, and the road warmed the chilled body.  When had it rained this day?  His clothes were wet, but he didn’t remember how they got this way.  He contributed the saturation of his socks and shoes to the river, but why was his shirt wet?  He had no idea.  Too he had no idea how long he had been walking, but his legs were becoming lethargic, and he was becoming cold.

            Dillon walked down the winding road, listing this way, now that.  He feared he would collapse if he didn't find a place to stay soon.  He had seen no road signs, but it was so very dark, and in truth he had not been paying much attention.  The torpor in his limbs was getting the best of him.  As he turned a corner he saw a beacon of light.  Was it his imagination?  Was it truly there?  He cared not, and he increased his pace until he saw that the lights were truly there.  He then slowed, fearful of what they might be.  He was so exhausted, it had to be a hotel.  But that would have been too easy. 

            As he approached he recognized the silhouettes of gas pumps, and his fears were realized.  He wouldn't be able to sleep tonight, in a bed at least.  The damned lights had held such promise at a great distance, but now with the proximity the true nature of their power was realized. What use was gasoline to him? The lights illuminated something that was useless to Dillon, and thus he cursed them.  Forced to walk on, the weary traveler settled off of the road, down an embankment much like the one he had climbed before.  And as he settled near the bottom of the slope, he was content.  Alone – but content.  And with exhaustion having taken over, Dillon drifted off into a deep sleep.

            He was awakened later, though he knew not how much, by a deluge of rain.  He had been sleeping so hard that the rain had soaked him to the bone before he even noticed.  It became obvious to Dillon that he was not meant to sleep this night.  He sat there with the rain beating off his head wondering why Jacob was gone.  He wondered why Jacob was gone, but in truth his thoughts ran much deeper.  He questioned not only what drove Jacob to do what he had done, but he questioned also the motives of anyone who would kill themselves.  He had no prior experience in this department, in fact death to him was a new thing.  His grandparents had died before he was born and so he did not know them. Other than Jacob's parents, Dillon hadn’t experienced death before.  And even if he had, the death of his best friend under such tragic circumstances rattled him.

            What was death? And for that matter, what was life?  Was it a cycle, or did the prior provide a permanent end to the latter?  If so, what was the purpose of life if not just to end up being carried by six of your friends in the end?  Faith now would have helped the confused youth.  But then what was faith.  Dillon refused to base his life on something he couldn’t see.  He refused to listen to the banter of self-serving evangelists who preached more to hear themselves talk than to help him.  He refused to let people, whom he didn’t know, and for that matter didn’t care to, tell him how his life should be run.  Who were they to tell him to do this or do that, read this or spurn that, live to die then die to live again. 

            The rain beaded off the bags, and the rain trickled down from the tall oaks.  He looked up at the leaves and they were illuminated by an unseen full moon.  These trees stood as a testament of the times.  Some of the larger ones stood tall during the Civil War.  They were here during the race riots.  Protesters sat beneath them in quiet resistance to Vietnam .  They stood tall.  They remained standing.  A lesser entity would have crumbled with the pressure of the ages.  They just stood there silent and magnificent, and as the rain cascaded down their worn trunks, they were perfect. 

            Dillon only now noticed that there was a chorus of insects around him.  The ambiance of the driving rain and the dissonance of the crickets made the night wholly complete.  This rain never relented and Dillon’s eyes were beginning to sting.  He sat there like a dazed child staring at the sky looking for answers.  That sky however was pounding back on him and it was as if Chicken Little had been right all along.  Though the sky now was not the only thing falling apart.  Under the protection of the hulking oak, a trembling boy sat alone.  The rift between his life and his emotional stamina was broadening. Yet he refused to face his demons, his fears: at least head on.  It seemed now that he would force back the fear, the pent up emotions, into a place, which he showed no one, a place where even he dared not go.  This place would haunt him forever as it had Jacob, and it seemed that as he sat motionless below that arboreal sanctum Dillon had resigned himself to suffer the same fate as his lost friend.

            He knew that when the sun rose, so would he have to, if nothing else to face another day.  He was so disillusioned as to what the day would hold and he wished that he could live like Rip Van Winkle and sleep away twenty years of his life on the top of a hill.  But he couldn’t sleep, and as of now he was at the nadir of that said hill.

            Damn that rain.  It never stops.  Beat, beat, beat. The leaves of the oak are hit and they sound like a tin roof riddled by hail.  Too when the rain hit Dillon’s forehead he blinked, and then there was nothing.  His world went black.  He reopened his eyes unaware of where the next drop would issue forth.  The heavens were sending down so much water that the parched land now flooded.  The saplings in need of water were now washed away.  The established trees became naked at their roots, their gravel having been washed away.  Somewhere an old oak, a strong oak, a lasting oak, fell, too weakened by the deluge.

            The chorus now was silenced and the monotonous rattling of his tin-roof world continued.  He couldn’t have slept even if he had been perfectly content with life.  The once weary traveler – one with the road – now sat alone with the rain.  Rain has the tendency to run away.  He was fascinated by the singular drops, which beaded on the bags, for if they hit at a certain angle they would remain perfectly still.  However, when another hit that singular drop, they were gone, down the side of the bag, gone in obscurity.   They didn’t pile upon themselves; they escaped.  The two, now one, escaped.

            Dillon must have slept longer than he thought, for he saw the reflection of the rising sun off of the raindrops.  It was early in a new day, he knew not when, for he never wore a watch.  Time to Dillon was too important. It meant that each minute passed was a minute lost.  He figured that he only had so many minutes in his life that he hated to lose them in sloth and nothingness.  Clocks thus served only as a cruel reminder of his mortality.  He couldn’t bear to see the hands beat away his life. 

            As the sun began to rise the rain still fell in steady streams.  Dillon, though, was so wet that he didn’t even notice the rivulets flowing from the street above.  The rain had so saturated Dillon.  He was alone with his thoughts with the rain.  And as suddenly as it had begun, so it ended.  Now the only falling water was that which had been trapped in the canopy above.  Dillon could now look up without being blinded.  He could see the majestic trees around him.  And he could rise from his seat beneath them. 

            It is an ironic thing that despite the rain, all that water, Dillon was thirsty.  The rain had done nothing to quench his thirst; if nothing it had fostered it.  Rain is an impure water, and Dillon needed some pure water to wash away its stench.  He climbed the muddy embankment, now entirely devoid of fallen leaves.  Above was a road which would carry him to his next destination, wherever that would be.

13

The road now seemed more black than it had the night before.  It was the contrasts that rendered it thus, for the red clay and the colored leaves set off the blackness of the asphalt.  Now the road didn’t wind but stretched on forever, and Dillon though himself to be able to see for miles.  The horizon was far down the road, and it was towards this he headed.

            The walk now was uncomfortable.  He was so wet, and it was unseasonably cold.  Dillon dared not open the bags lest its carefully sealed contents be tainted by the elements.  As he walked he took off his blue cotton Ignotian shirt, for it was so saturated that he couldn’t bear any more of its influence on his body.  He wore now only his wool sweater on his bare chest.  Though the wool’s gray fibers were uncomfortable, he knew that it would soon dry and he would at least not be chilled there.

            Cars passed and they stared.  Was it so unordinary to see someone walking down a rural back road?  He was young; maybe this is why they were staring.  Maybe it was the fact that he was muddied, or maybe it was because he was wounded and it showed.  Dillon cared not why they stared, or even that they stared, for they were ignorant and as guilty of traveling this wet road as he. They just did not care.

            The sun was low in the sky to his left, and so he imagined that it was about seven in the morning.   If, in the next few miles, he could find a store that would let in this muddied wanderer, he would have been much obliged, but he had seen no signs of life for the last few miles, save the quickly passing cars.  The cars now were passing in a more constant flow.  It was Sunday, and they were no doubt going to work.  He didn’t recognize the section of the road he presently was on, and this troubled him.  Dillon had traveled this path so many times before with Max, that he had become callous to its beauty, and as such he looked out the widows far less to look – truly look – at the beauty of the wilderness, but more so to escape the car’s inner reality.  He wished to be there, though he cared not where there was, so long as it was far away from here. 

            It just so happened that a few miles ahead he caught sight of another damned filling station.  What use was it to him? What use indeed!  Dillon quickened his pace, but as his right leg began to hurt, he slowed.  He was so thirsty, and he missed her.

            There were no cars at the pumps: no one stopping in on their way to some place else.  The filling station was much like the town in that respect.  It wasn’t a destination but a stopping point on a journey for greater things.  As Dillon opened the door, he was greeted with a look of reservation by the middle-aged cashier.  What the cashier saw was a vagrant, a young hobo, walking aimlessly through life and his store, tracking dirt, and eating the food with his pauper’s eyes.

            Dillon bought two bottles of water and he left the cashier relieved.  In the parking lot of the station he drank the first bottle as quickly as the small aperture would allow; the second he used to cleanse himself of the rain.  As the pure cold water ran over his head, he felt refreshed and ready to face the day.  Then out of the corner of his left eye he saw the reality he had so carefully hidden away last night in the apparently shallow recesses of his psyche. He saw a row of newspapers with their hoary headlines pressed upon the glass of their dispenser.  In the bluest one, furthest to the left, there was a picture of a face known all to well to the wanderer with the words “Jacob’s Gone” written in bold letters underneath.

             In truth the headline “Jacob’s Gone” didn’t appear anywhere in the newspaper, but to Dillon that was all that needed to be said.  Regardless of what it said it struck Dillon just the same.  The picture was in a small town newspaper and when something happened the news spread like wildfire.  A front page story might include the words “Prize Winning Chickens Stolen,” not “Local Youth Commits Suicide Because of Vengeful Headmaster.”  True the latter has never appeared in the newspaper, nor was Asella the only reason for Jacob’s death.  He was merely a contributing factor and an easy target.

            The picture of Jacob was painful to look at because of its false image.  Jacob was smiling, and in turn lying to everyone.  Never a day went by after his parents death that Jacob truly smiled.  Dillon would make jokes and he would chuckle and grin, but in truth he was in pain.  Dillon knew this, yet he still told the jokes.  Why he continued he didn’t know.  In fact, Dillon continued because it made himself feel needed, useful, anything for his lost friend. 

            Dillon began to sob and he sat down on the curb next to the pictured paper.  He sobbed because he did not want to end up like his friend.  He knew, though, that if he kept all of his fears and emotions well up inside of his soul, that he would in fact suffer the same fate.  He looked around him and saw nothing.  There was nobody.  Dillon needed to talk to someone.  He needed someone who would listen to his entreaties, his pain.  He needed Max, but at this moment she couldn’t be with him. 

            Max held the paper at arms length staring at his smile.  Though it was false, she thought that there was some happiness left in his heart.  Until now, she never knew about his parents.  How could he have kept it hidden from everyone?  How could Dillon have not told her?  Why?  She stared at this picture, and that smile was all that she wanted to remember Jacob by.  But with Dillon gone, she knew that doing so would be impossible.  She so missed him.  When something bad happened to her, he was always there to comfort her.  She had never been able to return the favor.  Dillon always was so composed through adversity that he never seemed to need her consolation.  Now, the one time he needed her, she couldn’t be there for him.

            Max never awoke this early, but she had barely slept.  She held her phone tightly to her chest the entire night, but he didn’t call.  She hoped that he was all right.  She wished that she could be there with him right now.  She lay in bed thinking of the worst case scenarios as to what could have possibly become of Dillon.  Max hated herself for doing this, but she was genuinely worried.  She had never gone this long without talking to him; even when they were on opposite sides of the globe they spoke every night.

            She stared at the ceiling above her four-post bed, and she watched life pass her by.  The alarm clock on her bedside table laconically ticked away the seconds of her life, and she imagined herself away from here, far away with Dillon.  Max couldn’t imagine that Asella would force the students to attend classes this day, but he was never one to disappoint the students.  For Asella was an honorable man.  A number of worried parents had arrived at Ignotus to rush their little innocents away from such barbarism.  Innocent indeed!  The thing was that some of their precious children so wished to be in Jacob’s place at this very moment.  They were just to afraid to do anything about it.  Besides, those innocent little soldiers pledging to be in His standing army had a myriad of other means of forgetting their shortcomings.

            Max would be alone this week, her roommate Hanna having left with her parents late the night before.  It was no matter though – Hanna knew nothing of grief or consolation and might very well have ended up trying Max’s already exacerbated nerves.  Thinking to herself, it was probably better this way.  Max wouldn’t be leaving though.  Her parents were somewhere in eastern Europe on a mission trip, and she had no way of contacting them.  She could leave, go up to the lake, but she felt that she would rather be surrounded by empty souls than emptiness itself.  So alone she remained, hoping that nothing had happened to Dillon.

            He was all right, but he missed his prior security. At Ignotus he knew that he must rise by 6:20 to be in his first class by 7:00 .  He knew that after this class he would eat breakfast with Max. He knew that for thirty minutes thereafter he would think about all that she had said to him while he walked to soccer practice.  He knew that he had to skip practice early to make his Latin class on time, and he knew that his lunch with her was fast approaching.  His afternoon classes were only made bearable because of his knowledge that after them he would be free of the chains of Ignotus, free to talk with Max into the wee hours of the morning.  This is how his days were spent, and he was having a hard time bringing himself to the realization that those days were gone.  When Max didn’t show for breakfast, he knew that something was direly wrong.  So he rushed to her room on more than one occasion, bearing consolation and food.

            He already missed his routines, but not Ignotus.  He missed his friends, but not their obliviousness.  He missed the innocence, which had been so quickly stolen from him.  That picture in the paper made Dillon realize that he couldn’t shape his future to be like Jacob’s past.  He refused to drive himself to such desperation and depravation.  Dillon refused to let his friend’s death kill him in turn.  He would be no pawn in anyone’s cruel game of life.  That he needed to move on was blatantly obvious, as was the fact that he couldn’t go on with his life in denial of his friend’s death.  He had to accept it in order to move on. 

            At least Dillon now knew where he was, for this store was a regular stopping point on the excursion to Max’s lake house.  The city was nearly twenty miles away, with her house lying at least thirty beyond that.  He was not headed there, though.  At least not yet.  He knew of a hotel five miles or so up the road, and he would head there to rest his weary soul.  From there he knew not where he would go.  He was now taking life as it came to meet him.  If Jacob’s death had taught him anything, it was that he must take life as it comes and savor it, for you never know which day will be your last.  Jacob did.  God he must have been tormented.

            As he walked, Dillon saw signs for the hotel.  And as he inched up the road towards it, he knew that he was getting closer and closer to the city.  There were many reasons Dillon didn’t like the city, first and foremost being the awful stench.  It was so powerful and so lingering and so utterly permeating, that it was overwhelming to Dillon.  When you had the city’s stench upon you, it was not easily removed.  The city too was not easily forgotten.  The city’s stench could be attributed to the citizens and their wanton way of life.  Fast pace – point A to point B; this was the life those denizens chose.  Will, his brother, was among those who lived in the city.  He had, however, always been attracted to the life and times of the big crowd.  Will liked nothing more than just to be a face in the crowd.  In that same crowd, Dillon would be lost.

            The road was still moist from the prior night’s rain, and though there was a noticeable chill in the air, Dillon could see the sun radiating off the asphalt in the humidity of the dawn air.  The air he breathed in now was clean and pure, purged by the rain.  Since Dillon’s glance was perpetually downward, with only the occasional upward nod of assent to a passing car, he noticed that there was a thin layer of deposited debris on the road.  For the rain had purged the air by depositing their impurities onto another medium.  Since this was the case, Dillon looked again at the dark gray silt on the on the black asphalt, and he realized what filth he had been subjecting himself to.  Too he noticed the change in his overall feeling after the rain had passed. 

            Dillon now knew what needed to be done to escape Jacob's fate, and that was to proceed with his life.  He indeed would go on, but in order to do so he would have to let his recently latent emotions rise up from their fallowed field so that his life's oats could be sown again.  Dillon knew that there would be good times, such as they were at this very moment, when he still held control of his logical processes.  Too he knew that there would be times of dissolution.  At these times he would feel pity for himself, and in doing so the pitiable would solicit that said pity from the people with whom he surrounded himself.  Knowing these truths was intrinsically powerful, for he now knew that these various thoughts about Jacob were normal.  Dillon it seemed was on the right road towards his future. Oh, would that he remember these truths.

            The question, though, still remained.  Did Dillon ask too many questions of himself?  True he hated rhetorical questions when asked by someone else, but these were the only type of questions he posed for himself.  Rhetorical as they were, they expected no answer, a quality apparently lost on Dillon, for he would pain himself hours upon hours over such menial things, that when he finished he was no closer to the answer than he had been when he began.  More times than not, this cogitation period merely served to raise more questions.  Moreover, he came to the ultimate realization that there was no purpose for his self-quandary in the first place.  Dillon, too, was noticeably indecisive.  Try as he might, he had the toughest time convincing himself to perform some task – any task.  It is said that there are two sides to every battle, and it seemed more times than not that Dillon took both.

            As he walked up the hotel drive, a sudden panic overcame him.  Would they rent a room to a sixteen-year-old vagrant?  True, the law was eighteen, but who was counting.  When he got to the counter he was full of fear, for a skeptical man in his mid-thirties greeted Dillon with the same look of cautious skepticism that the waiter had expressed the night before.  Dillon this time contained himself and didn't engage his mouth before his brain.  He composed himself and calmly, without the slightest hint of hesitation placed a one hundred-dollar bill on the counter and requested a room.  It was as if he had rehearsed his lines, and in fact he did so on the way to the hotel.  The last five miles of the walk had been spent rehearsing the answer to every conceivable question.  It turned out, though, that the man at the desk in his quaint black bow tie asked no questions.  He handed Dillon a key, and that was the end of the transaction.

            The room was Spartan to say the very least, but there was a bed and a phone.  These were all the amenities he needed.  He took a shower and washed away the mud and the blood that had caked on his worn body.  There was a deep cut on his right leg that stung with the contact to warm water, but it didn’t need stitches, which was good because they ask far too many questions at a hospital.  He didn’t remember where he had acquired the wound, but it was of no relevance.  It too would heal.

            Now clean, he set out to inform everyone of his wellness.  At least the ones he cared about.  He called Max first, hoping to hell that she would be waiting on the other end.  The phone was left to ring for what seemed like forever, and then the pre-recorded message beckoned Dillon to speak.  He quickly hung up, and called again to make sure that Max was in fact not there.  As the message spoke to him again, he resigned himself to the fact that she was out, probably eating breakfast.  Therefore, Dillon left what he thought at the time to be a terse message, but as the phone stopped recording just as he began to tell her about his wellbeing.  He hoped that she would get the message soon, wherever she was.

            Max was not enjoying an early meal, for she sat at this moment in a shiny brown leather chair with gilded buttons in front of Asella’s desk.  Here papers were strewn here and there, food crumbs lain about the papers, and a foreboding atmosphere enveloped the room.  Asella himself was not present, yet, and Max had been waiting for more than fifteen minutes.  She had been called early in the morning to a meeting with Asella and Proctor.

            Proctor was the heart of Ignotus.  Without him, there would have been no Ignotian frivolity, for there would be no Ignotus.  His first name was weird and virtually unknown, Trout or something to that effect.  Proctor had been at Ignotus since the earth cooled, longer than Geras even.  It was because of Proctor’s continuous graces that Ignotus remained to this day.

            Proctor was a diminutive man who always had a warm smile and a hardy greeting for you in the morning.  He made an effort to learn the names of every student attending Ignotus.  Dillon used to joke with Proctor that if he ever left, and this seemed quite unlikely, that the school would go to hell in a hand basket.  If Asella were to leave, a quiet celebration would ensue.  If Proctor left, however, so would a majority of the faculty and a number of students.

            It was widely known among the teachers that Proctor was constantly bullied by Asella, and of this Dillon was keenly aware.  This being the case, every time Dillon saw Asella walking with Proctor, he made a conscientious effort to say a hardy “hello” to Proctor, while passing Asella without a second thought.  O would that Dillon had had a camera to document the looks that Asella shot at him as he passed.  Asella’s mannerisms would have gone against the better sentiments of a fallow-dwelling, mud-loving sow. 

            Dillon didn’t hate the fact that Asella was so false with the parents, for he knew that it was merely a keen marketing ploy to siphon more money from their already pried open hands.  Dillon didn’t hate how he smiled that false smile at the alumns and potentials.  Dillon didn’t even hate the gross incompetence that was Asella.  Dillon hated the way the tenured teachers were treated, how the less fortunate students were treated.  Though Asella couldn’t fire them or throw them out, he could make them leave, and he did – many a time – by making their lives a living hell.  Dillon hated the manner in which Proctor was treated after all that he had done for Ignotus.  Most of all, Dillon hated the callous disregard for the student’s God given rights, his personal freedoms, and most of all his desire to achieve.  Asella didn’t head a school, he dictatorially ran a business – a cog driven machine.

            Max had waited long enough in that dank office , moreover she didn’t want to miss Dillon’s call – if in fact he would call.  She rose from the chair, quickly looking to see if Asella was coming, and then left.  As she walked down the previously hallowed halls, Max marveled at the empty frivolity that made Ignotus what it was today: an empty shell of yesteryears. She walked on, solemn, penitent, and as she progressed she chanced the trophy case – effigies of past champions, past glories.  She stands there and looks at their silent remembrance of past times, better times.  Their once golden luster has worn off after many a year, and a thick coating of forgotten dust now lay upon them.  Many seasons have passed, yet everything remains the same.  The cancer remains.  It is silent to most – silent, but no less harmful.

            The blinking light on Max’s phone greeted her as she walked into the room.  Her heart sank because she knew that only one person would be calling now.              Sure enough the voice on the tape was that of Dillon’s.  She was elated to hear that he hadn’t done anything extreme – except of course, running away from school.  She cursed the machine for not recording longer, but she realized that he said all that needed to be said.  She was so relieved that he was all right, but she still worried about him.  She worried that he was lonely and scared.  Though his calm voice intimated no fear or desperation, she had never been able to tell by his voice whether or not something was wrong.  He had such a soothing voice that she tended to be lost in his speech, and the slight variations in his tone never wholly registered.  His body language and facial expressions were far more useful when it came to determining his mood.  He could be so emotional sometimes, and then she would notice that everything about him changed – even his voice.  This, though, happened so very rarely.

14

Dillon sat at the phone savoring every bite of the sandwich he had ordered.  It was the first thing he had eaten ever since he had told the older waiter off the night before.  As he thought more and more about what he said, he realized how significantly Jacob’s death had affected him.  Before, Dillon would have never said those things to the waiter, and he even tried to discourage himself from thinking of such things to say.  He never had the gumption to speak out, until yesterday.  It felt good.  Dillon always wished that he could bring himself to fight against the corruption of the world by raising his voice in the surrounding silence.  Every time Dillon saw Asella he nearly worked up the courage to curse at him, but each time he failed.  Dillon always remembered that student who once spoke out about Ignotus, and he wished that he had been able to work up the courage while he was still there to have done the same. 

Harrison Clarke was a renegade with the money to back it up.  His father was a movie mogul and made an ungodly amount of money.  Harrison grew up on the West Coast and fell into the crowd of the who’s who in Hollywood .  This presented a problem for Harrison ’s parents, who were none too pleased to see him coming home at two in the morning nearly every night from different actor’s houses.  There solution: ship him off as far away as they possibly could.  When Harrison learned of their plan he was none too pleased and refused to go.  When, however, his father took away the keys to his Jaguar Harrison conceded defeat.  His first year at Ignotus was rocky, for the culture shock alone nearly drove him crazy not to mention that there were over three hundred people there as rich if not richer than he. 

He adapted well to the East coast lifestyle in time, and came to realize that he was much more of an intellectual than he had given himself credit for being.   He immersed himself in the works of Thoreau, Emerson, Plato, and Aristotle. He became engrossed in the classes, and began to overlook the Ignotian shortcomings in lieu of its many stellar qualities.  However on one occasion Asella went too far, too far even for Harrison to ignore. 

One day, a Monday, if Dillon remembered the story correctly, Harrison had been in a Philosophy class taught by an elderly gentleman whose brother had just died.  He had left in the early morning to be with his grieving sister-in-law, who lived in Kentucky .  Unfortunately the teacher, whose name escaped Dillon at this time, failed to inform Ignotus of the tradgedy.  This was understandable to all of his students, but Asella was in an uproar about it.  As per policy the seniors in the class could leave if they were done their work, and as there was no teacher they felt no compunctions about leaving.  Harrison however was one of three Juniors in the class.  This being the case he wasn’t meant to leave, and so he remained while his fellow juniors took full advantage of the situation.  Asella walked into the classroom finding that Harrison was the only student left.  He hated nothing more than babysitting students.  Come to think of it he hated one thing more than babysitting students, and that was the students themselves.  Harrison looked up from his book and saw Asella pacing back and forth at the front of the room. Harrison asked Asella if he could leave, and upon hearing no response did just that and left.

Apparently Asella was in an especially spiteful mood, and five minutes later when he noticed that Harrison was gone, he became enraged.  Harrison, who had gone to the library to study for an upcoming math test was unaware that he had upset Asella in the slightest.  He thought that the lack of recognition after his question meant that Asella didn’t care.  Unfortunately Asella was so enraged by the imposition placed upon his fat shoulders that he was actively looking for someone to find fault in and chastise to his fullest extent.  Harrison at this very moment fit the bill perfectly.  Thus when Asella caught sight of his unkempt brown hair in the library’s foyer, he jumped at the opportunity, at least as much as a graying fat man can jump.

Harrison could hear Asella’s footsteps coming down the hallway, and he knew he was in for a reaming.  He turned around and saw what you would have thought was a charging rhinoceros.  Asella’s hands were swinging at his sides, and Harrison could envision sickles in each to reap the new crop of anger that Harrison had inadvertently sowed.  Without words he led Harrison to his office, shut the door, and laid into him with a verbal assault the ferocity of which an inveterate drill sergeant would have been envious.  Towards the middle Harrison actually began to listen and became highly offended.  As Asella was about to say something about his mother, Harrison leapt up from his chair and told Asella in as many words that he had no right to take out his anger on Harrison, when he had been the only one of the juniors to have remained in the classroom.  Asella looked straight at Harrison , and he said that he had a lot of damn gall to come into his office and tell him how to do his job.  He then said that if it were up to him, he would expel Harrison for such an act of insubordination.  Harrison laughed and walked out of the office, all the while having verbal assaults hurled at him like Grecian javelins.

Harrison knew that Asella could do nothing about his actions without the approval of the disciplinary committee who just happened to only meet Monday morning.  Therefore he was safe, for a week at least.  He took this time to draft a letter, which would make him infamous in Ignotian folklore.   He wrote that letter to Asella, and to the disciplinary committee.  He wrote that letter to the students, present and future.  This letter would be reprinted many a time, and it seemed to remain perpetually in circulation.  Harrison now was Will’s age, and therefore had left Ignotus four years before Dillon arrived.  Regardless, Harrison Clarke was a name with whom every student at Ignotus was familiar.  Dillon always carried the letter with him, for inspiration if nothing less.  He read it whenever he was feeling the urge to lash out at the Ignotians.  And as he sat at the table eating his sandwich, he pulled it from his wallet and read it silently to himself:

The Romantic Manifesto

We are all caught in the machine, in the institutions, but some of us strive ahead to break free of the monotonous drone of those incessant bells.  Teachers are discouraged when a student asks, “Is this going to be on the test?”  Teachers want the student to learn, not for the sake of a mere test, but because they truly desire the student to accomplish great feats. Teachers instill motivation in a student, they rise from the dark abyss of the factory and lift students to the majestic heights of proper academia.  How many teachers do we have at Ignotus Preparatory School ?  You might answer that we have about thirty teachers all in all.  However, you would be dead wrong.  We hardly have five teachers; the rest are weak souls who feel the compulsion to prove themselves to the students.  Those fallen souls have been caught in the gears of your conformity factory.  Those people have not the capacity to perceive the reality of the situation.  Those beings try to crawl their way out of the murky void of the factory by stepping on students, and when one of these lost bodies sees a student far above, he hurls penalty to knock him down.

Originally, this school was designed to serve the students, to foster our learning, to prepare us for life in the outside world.  Tragically, this school has lost sight of its purpose.  What is a school?  It is a forced institution providing for the weak souls who strive not only for a paycheck, but also selfish gratification at the expense of the students.  Once the school was subservient to the students, now the students serve the school. Often I see a little girl being scolded for being out of class at the wrong time.  Often I see a feeble old man yelling with his feeble old voice at the students for not being where they ought.  Often I see that single would-be teacher plummet headfirst into the cogs of the machine as he drives against his conscience to sustain and fulfill all of your rules.  Has this human no free judgment?  The sharp teeth of the gears have torn all morality and soul and free choice from this body.  In the end, that is all that remains – a soulless body – a machine. In Henry David Thoreau’s words from Civil Disobedience, “They have put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well.”

Why do your students go to class? To learn? No, they go because you require it of them.  If the student were not required to attend, they would only attended classes in which they actually learned, therefore the fallen would have no purpose, no job.  Perhaps a student might fall victim to the disease of the institution, and that student might no longer “care” enough to go to class.  Then he might be skipping a class in which he could learn.  A teacher holding such a class would not punish this discouraged student, a teacher would inspire the student.  Real teachers want the student to reach the bright stars of accomplishment.  However, now when a student becomes discouraged, and speaks his mind, he is given a punishment!  What a fine motivation tool!  At one point Ignotus may have been “excellent” but now it is merely “tradition.” Why do we have these rules? In a word – Tradition. 

The disease of the institution has grown like a fungus across your brains, it has taken you over and will not allow for your own self volition.  We do what we must in between the sting of the wretched bells to cause the least amount of friction with the machine.

I patiently offer this letter as advice, and yes, while you may see the school as a perfected system, building children into students into denizens, it is difficult for me to image it doing anything other than disintegrating minds into machines.  Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the scorch of the heat from the machine to carry on.  But when you have witnessed the daunting verbal abuse of a hopeful student; when you have felt the sting of being controlled by the machination; when you have experienced the pain of being forced into the arms of a person whose sole goal is to prove his dominance; when you realize that you have fallen into a trap baited with mission statements and lost dreams; when you see levels of distinction assigned to students who try to learn but in discouragement sink into the abyss of the system; when you hear the words of a teacher swoop down violently upon puerile ears “Why don’t you understand?” This is easy” – then you will understand the many causes of my frustration.

I am sorry that I had to point out wrongs of Ignotus Preparatory School .  However, I do not bring them out to hurt or belittle, I want to help all of us realize and deal with these problems.  Let us shed the black shell of the machine and soar to the skies of creative freedom and learn without the misery of the machine.

                                                Yours for the cause of reform                                                                                                      Harrison A. Clarke

          Harrison must have been reading a combination of Thoreau and King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” as he composed his treatise.  It was so perfectly eloquent and it served to open the eyes of many a student to the evils of the Ignotian society.  The privileged few forgot about it after weeks had passed, but most remembered the time that Harrison stood on the marble steps and delivered his oration.  Even those who were not there could sense what the atmosphere must have been like as Harrison delivered his last will and testament on the steps of the school, over which he was drawing the black veil of shame. Dillon imagined himself as a face in the crowd as he spoke.  He imagined Asella opening the double doors and trying to force him to step down from his makeshift pulpit.  He imagined the crowd urging Harrison to continue as Asella pulled at his arm to usher him inside, and most of all he imagined the look on Asella’s face when four hundred angry youth began to chant Harrison’s name in unison.  Asella was powerless, for once he was speechless. 

            O would that Dillon have been able to present such a biting criticism while he was still at Ignotus.  Like Harrison , he would have left directly after giving his damning speech.  But as he now sat alone in his hotel room, he realized that up until a few hours ago, while staring at his dead friend’s picture, he would have not been able to utter a word to the masses, much less make a speech.  Therefore, the idea that he would have been able to create such a powerful and stinging argument at Ignotus was whimsy.

            Dillon placed the letter back into his wallet, and he laid down on the bed.  He stared at the ceiling and wondered how Harrison had been able to muster up the courage to speak such truth in the letter, for it had taken no less than Jacob’s suicide to drive Dillon out.  Harrison must have been an angry person looking for someone on which to unleash his pent up fury.  Dillon realized that he was different in this respect, but their feelings towards the Ignotian traditions were nearly identical.

            Harrison , like Dillon, felt that the Ignotian policies were antiquated, if not antediluvian.  The policies were the same as those which the students in the beginning were forced to follow.  The policies were set forth in 1810 in the Ignotian charter.  Thus there were few policies that still held merit in this day and age.  Why did these policies remain?  In a word – Tradition.

15

Dillon was now faced with a watershed decision.  As he lay on that bed staring at the heavens for answers, he had to make a choice.  He had to choose where the road would take him from here.  For it would be of his on volition, not fate’s, that he would press on.  A fork had presented itself, and it was at this intersection that he found himself now.  He couldn’t return to Ignotus for obvious reasons, and he couldn’t go to his parents or even talk to them for that matter.  He could picture his mother’s face when she got the news that Jacob had died and Dillon had fled.  He could picture the tears flowing freely from her reddened eyes.  He could picture the grief she felt at the feeling of being powerless.  Too he could picture her face if he was to call.  She would be in a state of shock and disbelief, and that shock would lead to a maternal desire to be with her child and comfort him.  No matter how many times Dillon would reassure her as to his health, both physical and spiritual, she would keep on – urged on by maternal anxiety. Dillon couldn’t bear to hear her in this state, for there was nothing that he hated more than to hear his mother unhappy.

The inevitable questions, moreover, prohibited that call home.  They would ask far too many questions.  As he was still searching for these very answers, he would be unable to answer them.  There were so many questions for which he needed answers, and these questions could only be answered by deep self-introspection.  No amount of talking to another human could comfort him, at least at this time.  He couldn’t listen to their lament, for he was resolute and determined to fully answer those plaguing questions.  He was determined to find the answer to those questions, which most troubled him, before he was able to answer to anyone else.  Still he needed a place to go.

Dillon needed a place to hide, a place where he knew that no one would ask questions.  The trouble was, though, that everyone asked questions – too many for that matter.  Dillon was one of the only people he knew who asked more questions of himself than others.  It was because of this trait that he was labeled as a great listener.  He questioned often his ability to listen, but the mere fact that he did listen made him unique.  Many a time Max had come to him with a problem, and he had done nothing but keenly listen.  Max, however, had trouble listening – truly listening.

If you are truly listening to someone, you are not thinking of the next thing to say to them, but about how her brow furrows when in thought, or how her eyes become ablaze with an arduous flame when angered.  Max always worried about what she would say in response to Dillon’s deep thoughts or problems.  This was made evident by her furrowed brow while conversing.  Dillon couldn’t help but laugh at those wrinkles born by thought and nurtured by confusion. 

Max would ask too many questions as to why he ran, though fully knowing.  These questions therefore held far deeper meaning because “Why did you leave?” becomes “Why didn’t you tell me?” with the spark of her telling eyes.  There was only one person whom Dillon could trust would ask no questions, which held any deeper meanings.  He wouldn’t ask not because he was so very compassionate but because he was so very insouciant. 

            Will, though he was Dillon’s brother, bore no resemblance to his younger sibling.  He was short. Dillon was tall.  He had curly, unruly, unkempt hair.  Dillon’s was short, finely cropped.  His intelligence in arrogance surpassed all of his redeeming qualities.  Dillon was humble.  His intelligence had garnered him a scholarship at the University in the heart of the city.  He now lived in an apartment financed by the school on a stipend undeserving of his wit.

            Will was three years Dillon’s senior, and because of this gap, they had never been close.  The gap was widened by Will’s incapacity for humility.  He had never tried to understand his little brother’s mental anguish.  He never set out to discover the source of Dillon’s pensiveness.  Dillon sat there silently, letting Will wallow in his own graces.  He was silent as Will would listen to himself talk.  Will would laud himself on such menial achievements that after some time they would become Promethean.  When Dillon broke free of his hermitage to challenge Will on an issue, a heated debate followed.  This debate was forever one sided, for Dillon truly didn’t care what Will had to say.  Though Will may have been the smartest in the family he was the most foolish; he had not a practical bone in his body.

            It always amazed Dillon how little Will cared about his life, his school.  Will never went to Ignotus, and so he didn’t know all that Dillon was going through.  Will had gone to the city’s main high school, and by the time he had graduated, he had all of the faculty fooled.  They thought he was a golden child, never to do anything wrong.  What a good boy, what a nice boy  – If they only knew the truth.  Will never held friends for any period of time, because it was his nature to forget that they existed.  It was not that he held malice in his heart, but he cared not about anyone save himself.  His self-love rendered him incapable to display any such love towards anyone else.  His friends ended up resenting the fact that he saw over their heads towards a greater, self-serving, goal.  They were merely pawns in the path of wildly driven soul.  His resolve was misguided and his perceptions of the world were so jaded that he now was unable to discern the truth from his two-faced statements.  Had he truly done what he said he had, or did he make that up too?  Frankly it mattered not to him, for at the end of the day there was no conscience to so curtly interrupt his delusions.  He was therefore left to his own destructive devices.

             This Dillon thought about his brother and so much more that will not be penned here, and as he did a torpor filled his body, and struck numb by sleep he fell unconscious upon the bed.  Fanciful dreams filled his head, Somnus’ play delighted the resting.  Twice however he was torn awake by the image of the nowhere headline.  He saw Jacob’s body lying prone on the ground, no one stood around him.  Where was everyone?  Why was Dillon the only one there? What was Jacob trying to tell him?  What words were trying to be formed on the cold lips? Dillon awoke, shaken, and stirred out of bed he arose.  He now paced; for he knew all too well what Jacob was trying to say.  But now too he was gone.

It was cold in the room when he awoke from his troubled sleep.  He had promised himself that he would call Max again, but as of right now, he couldn’t bring himself to do so.  He was weakened by the lack of sleep the last day had afforded him, he was weakened truly, but no less resolute.  Running through his head, a marathon of thoughts, temporarily blurred his vision and a splitting headache fell upon him like a heavy nausea often does.

He was to phone Will with his future plans.  He was to, but he wouldn’t.  Will was the type of person who would grant you no such courtesy, and though Dillon was a courteous person, he felt no obligation whatsoever to inform Will that soon he would be quartering a beaten down solder of life’s war.  Dillon now only feared that the outcome of the impending visit was to be like the many before.  Though Dillon had actually not visited Will in his new apartment, he had lived with him his entire life.  Dillon couldn’t abide the incessant chatter emitted from Will’s lips.  “I know this…I did this…I am great…I am a god.”  This is all that Dillon heard; the rest was hot air. 

Will, moreover, would never ask Dillon a question – at least one not laced with personal intention.  Too, he cared not to hear the answer.  A simple “How are you today?” would have sufficed for Dillon, but alas it was too much trouble for Will.  He simply had no desire to know, to learn about anyone save himself.  It truly was a pitiable state.  Will had a hard time imagining why Dillon was so quiet, yet he would have had it no other way.  Will, however, did possess a soul not as yet apathetic to his self-serving dissertations.

She was weak.  She didn’t know any better.  How could she have known any better?  It was what she was born into.  It was as her mother had grown up.  Submissive.  “Yes dear,” echoed through the years and resounded through the shadowed halls.  Voices raised signaled dark horizons down the road – days that ended in tear-filled, reddened eyes if one was lucky.  Julie – for that was Will’s girlfriend’s name – felt safe, secure with Will.  She was still that scared little girl born into a shadowed home.  The ornate frames hid the torn pictures; the house’s windows, obscured by dark drapes, hid the sullied lives of those who lay behind.

Julie had been Will’s girlfriend throughout high school, and she had followed him, as if tethered by a taut leash, to college.  Will had all but forgotten her, for he grew callously unaware of the many things that she did for him.  First and foremost was the fact that she actually listened to all that he had to say.  His ego-filled conversation with himself had finally found a receptive audience.  He knew that she was madly in live with him, and Dillon knew that Will had not the capacity to love but himself.  Thus Dillon had repeatedly warned Julie about his brother, but she always countered with, “Oh Dillon, You don’t know him like I do.”  She had a lot of damn nerve to say that.  Dillon of all people understood Will, too he understood that Will was feeding Julie all that she needed to hear, if only to keep her around a little longer.  And still she remained.

He would stay the night in the hotel and in the morning call a cab.  He hated the city.  It was so impure, so hardening.  Every time he passed through, Dillon felt that he was somehow less than before.  He didn’t quite know why he felt this way, but he did.  The city was darker than the country, even though the lights remained lit perpetually.  Somehow the darkness of the denizens escaped to blacken the skies.  This darkness tarnished everything that it touched.  As the darkness escaped from the inhabitants, so did it find refuge in their souls.  A lost citizen would walk down a street that he had traveled so many times before and be touched by an intense hatred of where he was.  He would look up at the skyscrapers and he would be disgusted by their very presence.  Like the pyramids they stood as symbols of engineering might, and architectural genius – little more.  They were empty inside.  They were empty.

Dillon slept now, shaken by his friend’s death – shaken yes – but he thought that he had somehow come to grips with everything that life had placed in front of him.  Though he would forever mourn Jacob’s death – for indeed Jacob was the only true brother Dillon had ever had – he thought that he was moving on with his life.  As he stared at the back of his eyelids, he wished that somewhere along the way he could have been told that everything was part of the bigger picture.  He wished that he could just say that this was all part of His plan.  Dillon couldn’t, however, bring himself to do so – at least not yet.  The wound was too fresh and faith though a salve would have salted it.

            At some point the night before his sheets had been kicked onto the floor, and it was in this fashion that he found them now.  He awoke, blinded by the light of the outside morning.  The curtain, though fully pulled across the window seemed now translucent, and light poured into his room.  Dillon remained on the naked bed for at least half an hour.  He thought of nothing, and perhaps this was the allure.  His vision was blood red, as his closed eyelids, like the drapes, were pervaded by light.  The room was cold, as was the outside.  He lethargically left his bed and made his way towards the window unit.  He turned the air off and opened the drapes a bit.  Light diffused through the room, and he was left temporarily blinded.  His vision regained, Dillon looked upon his surroundings.  The road, on which he had traveled, lay like a winding snake outside his window.  No cars travel upon it this morning, nor would they in great numbers for days.  There was virtually nothing around him, and the only sign of human life along that road was the refuse left behind by inconsiderate itinerants.

            He shook his head at the trash that lined the road.  Dillon drew the drapes closed and the room again seemed dark.  He stumbled back to his bed and turned on the television, fully expecting to see Jacob’s face greeting him with that false smile.  Instead a weatherman told him how lovely the day would be – crisp and refreshing were the words he used.  Regardless of the outside weather, Dillon decidedly knew that his day would be neither crisp nor refreshing.  He reached into the top drawer of the bedside table, and fumbled with the books inside.  There were two, and he chose the heavier and less rigid one.  He opened it and called a cab to drive him to the city.  He reached into his wallet and pulled out Will’s number, and he dialed it fearful of what would greet him on the other line.  He was relieved that there was a recording not a voice that he heard.  He told Will that he was coming, and he asked him not to tell their parents.  He said only this, and then he hung up. Placing the phone book back into the drawer, he closed it without a second thought.  He placed all of his belongings back into his bag, and he left the room.

            The hallway smelled of smoke, and as he carried his bags down the sunlit corridor he was struck by not only the symmetry of the hall but also the discongruity.   The doors were beige, the handrails pink.  The carpet was a dark paisley.  The windows at each end of the long hall offered the majority of the light, yet it was augmented by the faint illumination of the ceiling lamps, and even fainter lights emanated from beneath choice doors.  Some rooms remained awake, others slept, still others lain empty – devoid of life.  Some doorknobs remained bare, while others beseeched privacy.  Dillon hastened to think what required such privacy, but he walked on admiring the paisley. 

            The elevator carried him to the lobby where the night man greeted him without a glance the night before.  He must have gone home to his wife and children, and what a family life it would have been.  No one guarded the desk this morning.  Did they have better things to do?  No matter, Dillon had paid for his room and all he wished to do was leave this place.  Its ornately decorated lobby reminded him far too much of Ignotus, and he was forced to suppress the urge to rip the empty books from their haughty perch on the shelf.  They were there not to be read, but to be admired.  What purpose does a book serve if not to be read?  With his urge having been suppressed, he let the doors open before him and the biting chill of the outside stung his eyes.  Crisp – no – it was cold.  Cold and dark.

16

He stood on the steps of the hotel for nearly thirty minute before the cab came, but he didn’t seem to mind.  He just stood there looking down the road.  In fact he was looking down the road as the cab came from the opposite direction.  It caught him by surprise, but nonetheless it was there, and he was as good as gone. 

            It was an ordinary yellow cab, in fact there was nothing different about this cab.  If any of the thousands of the taxi clones would have picked that traveler up today, tomorrow would still have been the same.  As it stood now, Dillon rode in the back of the cab, driven by a faceless man.  The man was American, a native New Yorker perhaps.  The accent that beckoned him into the cab was strong, and intimated a northern birth.  Dillon knew not much of northerners, much less about their dialects and accents.  The driver, however, served little to no purpose in Dillon’s life right now other than ferrying him from one place to another.  Too the cab served only as a vehicle – nothing more, nothing less.

            As Dillon sat there, he was struck by his egocentric view of his cab ride.  Who was he to say that the driver served no purpose but to chauffeur him?  Were there any that called him father?  If not, he certainly was some one’s son.  Dillon now imagined his mother, a gray-haired old woman with such a captivating smile.  She stood over a large pot of spaghetti stirring and singing under her breath an Italian verse.  She was so happy in her little apartment; she grew old here.  The family sat at a large table in a small room with floral wallpaper, many conversations were carried on at once, all the while she sat at the head of the table as the matriarch.  She sat there, proud, looking at her progeny, smiling all the while.  All of this and Dillon hadn’t even caught the man’s name.

            Imagination now wandering, Dillon looked at the dirty seats and the floor of the cab.  He could only imagine how many people had sat in the back of this very same cab.  What had happened in the backseat of that cab?  Had a man proposed to his wife?  Did she accept?  If so, this cab was not merely a yellow car making journeys from A to B.  It was a vehicle special to many.  Something became clear to Dillon at this point in time, that had eluded many thinkers before him.  Looking at the backseat and the nameless driver, Dillon realized that everything was relative.  What was a yellow car for one, was a symbol of eternal happiness for others.  He, who would remain nameless to some, would forever live as a silent hero to others.

            Dillon gained a new respect for the driver and he sat silently in the weathered backseat admiring his newly meaningful surroundings.  In the throws of the epiphany, he had left the single lane road and now traveled on a highway.  Immense buildings loomed on the horizon, and as the cab negotiated the hills Dillon was able to see the city, then nothing, then the buildings’ haughty towers came into view, then nothing.  The college and the apartment were located at the very center, very heart of the city.  There on his left was the immense dome of the newspaper headquarters.  On his right stood a fallow field, a stadium where the new gladiators fought their colossal battles.  Here no Christians were thrown to the lions, however this empty field was the site of the new Sunday ritual.  In truth, the lions had all but forgotten the Christians.

            Dillon looked at the multitude of people walking the sidewalks.  Were they truly people?  They were soulless wanderers.  They never looked up from their set course.  Did they consciously know where they were going, or did some unseen, unknown force urge them on?  Looking again at his driver, he had a harder time imagining that these city dwellers had a family.  He had a harder time imagining that their lives consisted of anything but toil and suffering and the blade of the insatiable corporate beast.  In most cases he was not far from the truth, but there were others whose heads, upright, rose above the crowd.  These belonged to those who were either so new to the city that its poison hadn’t penetrate their soul’s defenses, or those so venal that theirs was a poison more deadly than that of the city’s aggregate toxicity.

            Dillon looked at the masses, and he couldn’t help but feel somewhat effected by the city already.  Though he remained within the sanctity of the cab, which he had already figured out, he felt somewhat more like the mass than he was on that single lane street. 

Will’s apartment building appeared and its shiny black marble firmament blocked the view of all that stood behind.  The double doors were closed, and no one greeted the wary traveler as he walked up the steps.  Dillon looked back to thank the driver, but he was gone and Dillon was alone.  The lobby was cold, and the newly waxed floors and walls reverberated with any and all noise.  Fake trees lined the inside walls, and at the desk stood a man much like the one at the hotel the night before.  He wore horn-rimmed glasses, and looked disapprovingly at Dillon.  The doorman, too, had caught sight of Dillon and sat upright in his chair.  Dillon glanced at both, and headed to the desk.

            “I’m looking for Will Mann’s apartment,” Dillon said.

“May I ask who you are?” the polite old man asked. The aloof stare on his face showed that this question was so very routine, and he truly cared not what the reply was.  For any answer you gave would incite a call to the occupant’s room.  Nevertheless, Dillon went along with the exchange.

“I’m his brother, Dillon.”

“Is he expecting you?”

“He should be,” Dillon replied in a slightly jocular tone, but he was not quite sure how the man had interpreted it.

“I’m going to have to call his room.  It’s building policy – nothing personal.”  So the man went into a room behind the desk, and when he came out he said only “311”.  Terse as it was, Dillon thanked him and headed towards the elevator, towards Will.

As Dillon rose farther upwards in the elevator, he became less aware of what he was to say to Will or Julie when they inevitably greeted him at their door.  As the elevators gilded doors opened, Dillon lost all the words of his pre-rehearsed speech.  There was the door, 311, and behind it lay two beings alike in no way, but bound at this moment by their knowledge of the wary traveler outside their door.  Dillon knocked and the door opened, as if one had been anticipating his knock for years.

Julie greeted him with a warm hug and a smile to end all smiles.  Regardless of how torn she was, her smile was a constant.  Behind her, down the hall, Will stood like a flint statue.  He looked at Dillon, and Dillon at he, and they joined hands in a obligatory handshake. 

Will looked at Dillon in a queer manner, and he seemed to be having trouble grasping at a suitable greeting for his little brother.  Too, our protagonist stared into the eyes of the silent statue and said nothing, unable to find the words to express his extreme jubilation a the sight of his long lost brother.  Julie, however, broke the silence.

“Oh, Dillon come in.  You can put your bags down over there.  I hope you don’t mind sleeping on the couch.”  She went on like this for at least five minutes, until Will interrupted by saying, “Let him at least sit down Jules.”

“Well, can I at least get something for you to drink?” she asked in the most charming manner, so charming in fact that although Dillon wasn’t particularly parched, he obliged willingly.

“A glass of water would be great.”

“Great, I’ll just be a minute,” and with that she disappeared into the kitchen.  Dillon could feel the hawk-like gaze of Will, and so he turned around to face him.  He looked at Will, and for the first time in his life Dillon saw a shred of compassion in his eyes.

“Dillon, what the hell happened?  Mom called.  She said that you had run away from school.  She was hysterical.  She was saying something about Jacob’s grandmother, and then I couldn’t understand her.”

“Jacob’s grandmother died two days ago.” Dillon said this without the slightest intimation that Jacob had also died, or that anything else was the matter.

“Oh God, I’m sorry Dillon,” Will said in his most sincere tone.  It wasn’t that Will wasn’t truly sincere about his sorrow in Dillon’s loss, but it wasn’t in fact Dillon’s loss.  Thus it was hard for Will to show very much compassion.  This Dillon understood.  “Is that why you left?”

“No,” Dillon said curtly, “I left because Jacob killed himself.”  Will sat, mouth agape, unable for the first time in his life to enunciate a simple word.  Dillon stared at his face, which was contorting violently as he tried to speak., but Dillon beat him to it.  “I left not only because he died, but I left because of the way that they were treating it.  To them it wasn’t a suicide but a lawsuit.  Damn it, they treated him like an object, not a person.”  At this point Dillon was yelling and crying.  Will got up from his seat and embraced his brother in a fraternal hug.  Dillon had not expected that he would break down – especially in front of Will, and furthermore he had not expected that Will would have been so quick to comfort him.  Maybe Dillon had not given him as much credit as he deserved.  He cared not now.  Julie walked into the room where they both sat as one, and she looked confused.

Will left Dillon and ushered her through the door from whence she had come.  In that room Dillon could overhear everything they said, try as they might to muffle it.  Will told Julie the awful circumstances, even if he did not know the full story.  Still it was a relief to Dillon that he would not have to explain his state to another person.  Julie re-entered the room visibly shaken by the terrible news.  The omnipresent smile had fled and now a penitent look graced her face.  She looked towards Dillon, and at first she refused to look at him.  And once she gained the courage to look at him, his eyes remained elusive from hers.  She trembled as she approached his chair, the water in the glass amplified her trepidation.  She set the glass down, and then she herself sat down next to Dillon.  Julie looked at his feet then hers, unable to look at his face. 

Dillon looked at Will, who was leaning on the doorframe, and then he looked at the trembling girl next to him.  He reached his hand out to touch hers, and she looked deeply into his eyes.  Hers were filled with long dormant tears, and she held Dillon so forcefully as she wept, lest he ever escape and become vulnerable again.  She held him, and they both cried.  She cried for his loss, he for her.  Dillon refused to let spill anymore tears over Jacob.  He had stolen himself away from Dillon, and he had yet to forgive him.  He had resolved never to forgive him, even yelling this at the top of his lungs as he walked the deserted street.  He had resolved thus, but as he sat with Julie in that apartment he let his guard down, and for a second forgave Jacob.

Dillon looked up at his brother, who had not shed a single tear, and he acknowledged his presence with a nod.  The fact that Will didn’t join in their tears was not what angered Dillon the most; it was the fact that in the presence of Julie he showed no emotion whatsoever.  He just stood there in the door frame – no standing would have been too much of a burden – he leaned there staring at the couch where he was being buffeted by emotions, yet he never stirred.  Thus Dillon had been right all along, and Will had not cared one iota – especially in front of Julie.  Dillon had to be resolute, for he was determined not to let his anger come out in the presence of Will, even if Will provoked him as he often did. He needed a place to stay, a place to sort things out, but as he sat there on the couch with Julie, he second guessed his decision to come to the oft-hated city, for he felt that already it was tearing away at a small piece of his soul.

Dillon looked at Will in the doorway and he was angered because he refused to make direct eye contact.  He would either stare at the couch, out the window, or at Julie, never at Dillon.  It always had irritated Dillon when a person refused to make eye contact, and this moment was no exception.  Looking through someone’s eyes is like looking into someone’s soul, and if a person refused to look at your eyes it was as if they didn’t care to see what makes you tick, or they were too afraid as to what they would find.  Will didn’t care, and Julie was scared.

That first hour in the apartment seemed to last forever.  They talked about Jacob, and how Dillon came to be in the city. They talked but nothing was said.  They listened but nothing was truly heard.  After a while, Dillon grew tired of answering questions.  His desire to leave the apartment for a brief period was a relief to Will, who sat silently in utter agony.  Will for once in his life had not the gall to say what he truly felt.  This control however impressed his ego ever more.  Julie readily volunteered to go out with Dillon, and he readily agreed.  The two departed and an audible sigh issued from both sides of that closed apartment door.

17

A cool breeze greeted the two as they left the apartment behind.  Dillon could feel Will’s eyes on his back as he and Julie walked towards the park, and sure enough with curtains drawn will glared at those two kindred spirits.  In truth Dillon could not have abided all that Julie had to deal with in her relationship with Will, and if he had been in her position he would have left him many years ago.  But alas she had grown attached to Will like two different trees growing from a single trunk, never to be separated unless they were torn apart by a violent whirlwind.  Though one trunk steals the livelihood from the other, the other cannot escape.

            The park was an oasis in the city, a green in the blackened desert.  Dillon had never been here before, but he was glad that Julie had brought him to this place of nature.  He felt so adversely about the insidious city that he would not have been comfortable truly talking to Julie there, but the quiet of the park offered him sanctitude from the maddening crowd. 

            Though he held Julie to be a close friend, he couldn’t bring himself to trust her.  It wasn’t that he thought her dishonest or spiteful, he just felt that her allegiance had been pledged to one, to Will.  Thus anything he said could, and he felt would be compromised.  He never let on to anyone that he didn’t implicitly trust them, but trust was something not easily gained.  He only trusted one person implicitly, and that was Max. 

            Dillon felt that he could tell her anything.  She wouldn’t judge him.  She wouldn’t think him anything less.  But most importantly she would never violate his trust.  To Max he told things that he could not to his parents.  It wasn’t that he didn’t trust them, but in a way they did judge him.  He loved his parents and could tell them nearly everything, but there were things that were so confusing, so painful to him that it was easier to keep them to himself than to try to explain himself to his mother, his father.  He hated this, because he was faced with that damned question nearly every day: “Are you all right?”   He was sure as hell not all right, in fact there were times that he was so far from all right that he envied Jacob.  This envy quickly passed, however, for he could never bring himself to do what Jacob had done – regardless of how bed it got.  The thing was that when Max asked, “Are you all right?” he was.

            He was all right because of the simple fact that he could speak truthfully, without restraint, about how he felt, and he would not have to explain himself because she understood perfectly what he was going through.  She understood.  She alone understood.  He loved her, he missed her, he needed to talk to her now – there were so many things he needed to tell her.  He needed to find the answers, yet he wasn’t sure whether they lay with Max or within himself.  Because of this he didn’t go to her sooner.  Because of this he now sat on the park bench with Julie.

            She was just Julie, plain yet pretty and unassuming.  She sat on that newly painted park bench and she was content.  She was oblivious to the cancer that surrounded her at this very second.  She air that she breathed was contaminated by sin, and thus she was made impure; she was desecrated by the chilled breeze.  Her straight brown hair complemented her deep English eyes.  She wore a face, though she had a beautiful complexion, it was scarred by years of abuse.  It wasn’t the sort of abuse, which left visible marks – but the marks were there just the same.  Dillon saw them and there was nothing that she could do to hide them.  Her father was an unhappy man whose drinking resulted in violent outbursts.  These words hurt as much on the soul as a fist on the corporeal being. To this day Julie’s soul was black and blue from the torture she suffered as a child.  She promised herself that she would get as far away from her father as possible, and she traveled oceans to do so.  She tried to escape her father’s hate, his stigma, but as Dillon looked at the drawn curtain of Will’s apartment he saw the black cloud engulfing it.  He was truly sorry for her.

            Julie never talked about her father, and the subject was changed as quickly as it was brought up.  Wounds once salted heal slowly.  This was the case now with Julie.  Dillon had talked with her many a time about Will’s treatment of her, and she had previously refused to think that he in any way was like her father, much like she refused to believe that she was like her mother.  Both were akin in every way. 

            Today Dillon had not desired to talk to Julie about Will, his wayward brother.  He only wished that maybe by his presence that she would somehow realize his true face.  It seemed a characteristic of the Mann brothers to have two faces, Dillon realized his, and it wasn’t malicious.  It only served to be socially acceptable.  Will’s however was becoming more and more prevalent, and it was spiteful and maleficent. 

            As they sat there on that white bench in a corner of the park next to a quaint duck pond one was oblivious, and one was cognizant enough for the both of them.  Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way.  As it was fall there were no ducks on the pond and so the water was like a reflective glass, only seldom rippled by a hungry fish sating his hunger.  It was here that they both sat silently, both awaited the other’s speech, neither spoke.  Thus they sat for a good while until Julie broke the silence.

            “Dillon, I just want you to know how very sorry I am for you.  You must be going through hell right now, and I want to tell you that I am here for you.  You can tell me whatever you need to.”  Dillon waited for “you can trust me,” but it never came.  He was thankful for this, because he still couldn’t.

            “Thanks, but I am doing much better.  How are you doing.”  There was a hesitation, then she said, “I am fine.”

“Really, are you fine?”  He stressed “fine” not to be inflammatory, but to stress his concern.  It was a sympathetic question – rhetorical as it was – for he knew the answer.

“Really I am,” she said in a low voice.  She spoke so quietly.  Was it so that she wouldn’t hear her own lie, or was it so that Dillon wouldn’t hear it?  Either way he knew that she was far from fine.  Dillon didn’t know whom she was trying to fool, him or herself.  The thing was that Julie was so stubborn that she refused to see that Will was nothing but a simplified version of her father, and she of her mother.  She refused to see it, but this made it no less true.  Was it stubbornness or fear?  Dillon hoped it was a mixture of both with emphasis on the prior, but in his heart he knew that it stemmed mostly from the fear of being hurt again.  Julie had to consciously rationalize that Will was not hurting her like her father, and in doing so she realized that in fact he was.  This is precisely why she spoke so silently a reply.  Dillon had not wanted to address the subject, but now that he had unleashed the beast he felt obliged to do nothing less.

“What has he done to you?”

“Will hasn’t done anything,” she spoke so very defensively.  She jumped from the bench and pointed her finger at Dillon.  “How could you accuse him of something you understand nothing about?”  Her voice quavered as her finger shook at the bench.  “What gives you the right to come in here and accuse the most loving man I have ever known of doing something to me?  Where do you get off?”  At the last breath she was shaking, quavering like a leave in the chilled breeze.

Dillon stared at her shaking countenance and he admired her courage, blind as it was.  Normally he would call her naïve, but she knew what she denied was true.  No, it wasn’t naiveté it was full out denial.  Dillon stood to face her.  He was a good foot taller than her and as he looked down at her, she stepped back.  He was angry now.  He was not angry at Julie, no he was far to sympathetic.  He was angry at Will for treating her so poorly; he was angry at the world for having placed such a compassionate person in the bloodying grasp of misogynistic men.  The ones whom she trusted were trust’s forfeiter, therefore she could trust Dillon as much as he could her.  Nevertheless, he was angry.

“Where do I get off?  I get off on knowing that my brother is abusive.  He was with me.  He was with all of his other girlfriends.  What makes you any different?  Are you stronger than they were?  Are you less of a target than I was?  What have you done to make his diatribes any less spiteful?  Are you ignorant of what goes on around you?  Do you know how he talks about you to his friends, to me?  No you’re not ignorant.  You’re not callous to it either.  You stay awake every night and tell yourself that tomorrow will be better.  You tell yourself that he didn’t mean those things he said.  Did your father not mean those things when…”

Julie slapped Dillon in the face.  She was crying, and he stopped.  He felt so awful now.  He reached for her had to say sorry, but she pulled away.

“Julie, I’m sorry.  I don’t know what got into me.  I’m so sorry…”

“No,” she said cutting him off, “Don’t touch me.  Will is not like my father.  How dare you say that.”  She trailed off, for her voice escaped her as the tears rolled down her face.  She wasn’t as much angry at Dillon for saying such things, because she knew in her heart that what he said was veritable.  She was angry that he had caught her off guard with the truth. She turned away from him and began to run towards the safety of the apartment. Safety – oh what she had come to know as safety Dillon would never understand.  She knew it in that apartment, though, therefore it was to that place she ran.

Dillon just watched her run away like the scared girl she truly was.  He couldn’t believe that he had just said those things to her.  He had always envisioned opening her eyes to the truth, but not like this.  Dillon fell back onto the bench and as he sat there with his face in his hands, he hated his life.  Julie had always been so kind.  She of all people didn’t deserve any of this hard-knock life she led.  Dillon had always thought of her as having to be so very strong to endure all that she had been dealt, but in truth he knew she was weak and that denial was the only thing keeping her afloat.  He didn’t want to go back to the apartment, for he knew that Will would be irate.  So he sat. 

The door of the apartment lain open as Dillon stepped off the elevator.  His bags were in the hallway, an obvious clue that his presence was not desired within.  Regardless, he sidestepped his bags and stepped through the threshold of Will’s apartment.  There the two of them sat on the couch the one comforting the other.  It was a picture of urban normality.  Will had his back to the door and embraced her with his head to hers.  She was sobbing but stopped when she caught sight of the stranger in the doorway.  Will, sensing the tension, turned around and faced Dillon.  He stood up and stared at his little brother.  Though Dillon was younger, the years dedicated to athleticism made him a larger man than his older brother. 

Will would have liked nothing more than a physical confrontation, but he would have been disgraced in front of his woman.  Dillon wouldn’t have fought him.  He only wanted to say to Julie that he was deeply sorry.  He was sorry, and this was goodbye.  The two stood and stared at each other through air filled with knife-cutting tension.  Dillon began to open his mouth and as he did so he directed his attention away from Will towards Julie.  Her makeup was smeared from the tears.  Her hair was mussed, and she was badly shaken.  She looked like a betrayed little girl.  Dillon only wished that he could take her by the hand and lead her to salvation, but alas her world stood in the way.  He stepped towards her slowly, but his smaller brother proceeded to move in front of him.

“You’ve got a lot of damn nerve coming back here after what you did to Julie.  What the hell did you say to her?  She refuses to tell me, but whatever it was you really screwed up this time Dillon. What possessed you to treat her like this?”  As he said this he stepped closer to Dillon, all the while looking directly into his eyes.  Dillon wanted to say that it was Will who had a lot of nerve telling him how he should treat Julie, when he was doing such a stellar job himself.

“I just came to apologize to Julie, and to say that I was leaving.  Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Oh, so you think you can just walk away?  Everywhere you go, do you just leave a trail of pain like this?  Are you going to run away like you always do?  You ran away from school.  Why?  Because your friend died – no you ran away because you couldn’t handle it all.”  The way he stressed died successfully downplayed the fact that Jacob had killed himself.  “Are you jealous that Jake had the courage to take the leap?  You are a coward.  You ran away because you were a coward.  You ran away because you couldn’t bear another day of your exalted existence there.  I always knew you were a coward…” Will continued his tirade, but Dillon stopped listening.

It took ever ounce of energy Dillon possessed not to beat Will into oblivion.  He was normally an extremely non-violent person, but Will had gone too far.  True, Dillon couldn’t take Ignotus anymore.  It was true that Dillon was looking for a way out.  But his friend was killed by the place from which Dillon was running away.  This didn’t make him a coward; if anything he was far braver than Jacob, who took the easy way out.  Jacob now didn’t have to answer to anyone.  Dillon was left with only questions.

When Will paused to catch his breath, Dillon calmly said, “Goodbye,” and he left.  He shut the door behind him and never looked back.  The walk down the hall to the elevator was bittersweet.  Chances were that he would never speak to his brother again.  Never a Christmas would be the same now.  After all that had happened to Dillon, and what awful things Will had said, Dillon truly didn’t care to ever speak to his brother again – at least any time soon.

18

As the doors of the black apartment building closed behind him, a draft of cold air forced him to hold his coat tighter to his body.  He was not proud of what he had done, but he knew that if the situation presented itself again he would have said the same things.  It was not a deep-seeded anger for his brother that made Dillon speak to Julie in such a manner, though he hated his brother now.  It was that Dillon had an epiphany on that white park bench in the middle of that city: Truth must overcome. 

            Jacob had killed himself not because his grandmother died – no that was only the proverbial straw – he killed himself because of the pain that had welled up inside of his callow soul.  He forced his demons into a place where they could hide in wait for the morrow.  The day had come where the portal to his soul was ripped from its hinges, and from thence his demons had issued forth.  They overcame the already weakened boy.  Jacob was gone because he had lied to himself.  The fact of the matter was that it was a conscious lie that had to be tended to every minute of every day, lest he let his guard down and let his demon’s free.  Jacob’s died because the death of his grandmother was a great enough distraction.  He killed himself because for one shining moment he saw the truth.

Truth.

            Dillon stood on the sidewalk in front of the apartment building.  He turned his back to it and began to walk away, and then he paused, came full circle, and looked up the building’s façade.  Above the golden doors, on a haughty perch all their own, rested two golden cherubs.  Mirror images of each other, their miniature hands rested on their chins.  They looked meaningfully towards each other, twin bodies of the same seraph.  It was as Narcissus himself had seen.  They wished to touch each other, so close yet so far away.  There was no pool to separate them, but the black marble magnified their reflection. 

He stood there staring at the cherubs, and he was angry. What right did they have there.  What architect in his right mind would have placed them on a modern building.  And then it hit him.  He took a few steps back from the building, and it all made sense.  He knew why he hated the city so much.  It was incongruous.  Renaissance “puti” were placed on an art-deco building, which was supported by fluted columns.  The building was a testament to the absurdity of its inhabitants.  If the columns were removed the building would not fall, nor would those living in it be any less satisfied with their home.  If the cherubs were removed and joined together in their sought embrace at the far corner of a dank and dark basement, no one would be the wiser.

Why then had a nameless hack been given the responsibility of creating what could have been a great building.  In Dillon’s mind a building should fit those who are to inhabit it.  What part did the seraphs play in the functionality of the building?  Nothing. And furthermore they broke the continuity of the gorgeous marble façade.  What had the architect been thinking when he placed those gemini imps to guard the doorway?  Dillon closed his eyes and imagined what the building could have looked like.  He saw corners, not columns.  Golden doors, and granite steps. Grand windows in the lobby to see the world looking in.  And nowhere in his perfect building would there be a cast angel.

Yes it would have been the perfect building, and Dillon its perfect architect, but some unnamed man and his grand unification theory bastardized an almost gorgeous building.  There happened to be a bronze plaque to the left of the doors, and no doubt it had the name of that architect.  Dillon consciously avoided it, for it is much easier to hate an abstraction than a name.

He turned his back once again, and for the last time, to the black monstrosity.  Dillon Mann was once again alone in the world, yet surrounded by faces.  That is, in fact, what they were. Nameless faces, every one suffering his own death from the city.  Every one hating the other.  Every one alone.  Dillon had to shed this city as fast as he possibly could.  The once inviting oasis now stunk of foul memories.  The once white park bench overlooking the pond now, now was gray and worn.

Cars drove down the street, and colored lamps controlled their movement.  How queer this would have looked to an ancient.  Buildings, seemingly like Babel , stretched into the heavens.  The ground was black, and thus was the air. A voluminous mass edged down the gray sidewalks, as if controlled by some silent master.  How keen the ancient would have been.  How perfectly would he have seen the things we turn a blind eye to.  Horns cried the anger of a nameless man.  Construction of another self-edifying edifice burdened the ears of the mass, which walked on the gray paths.  Man had formed stone to suit himself, and the manipulation didn’t end there.  The things he would see…  Dillon let the thought humor him as he climbed on to the homeward bound bus.  It was empty, and this came as no shock to him.  Filled with people it would have been empty.

He was going home.  Not to Ignotus, but he was going to the clutches of his mother.  She was most likely frantic at this point in time, because Asella had called to tell her that not only had her son run away from the school, but that one of his best friends had killed himself.  His father too would be worried, but nary an emotion would pass his face.  Dillon’s father did not feel; he worked.  He worked in a sawmill, a tannery, and other odd jobs that put food on the table.  He was a product of the depression, twenty years removed. 

Dillon loved his father, but he didn’t like the callused man.  Never had the two been close, but this did not bother Dillon, for he had always been close with his mother.  The one aspect of his father that Dillon despised was that he saw so very many of the same mannerisms that Will demonstrated.  Will, however, had not the decency to suppress his anger and sarcasm.  Furthermore, Dillon’s mother was a much stronger woman than Julia, and looking at the situation that Dillon had just left, she was such not out of coincidence. 

He knew that his mother needed him at this point in time, but the truth was that he needed his mother.  Dillon needed her to comfort him, to tell him that everything was going to be all right.  Dillon never believed her, but nevertheless he needed to hear the words.  Dillon wished to return home to see a friendly face.  Since he left Ignotus he had not chanced a face friendly to him.  Julie had feigned friendliness, and indeed she was sincere, but the friendship was soon betrayed with the utterance of truth.  Dillon spoke to her with candor, and from then on she spoke to him with scornful denial.  Dillon’s mother was not so fickle a soul, for she loved the boy.  Max, too, couldn’t be swayed, but Dillon had not given her the chance either way. 

Upon boarding the bus to his house, Dillon hoped that some of the pain would be alleviated.  He hoped that by physically distancing himself from Will and Ignotus the pain of his loss would be lessened.  His loss was innocence, and innocence cannot be restored by distance.  The windows of the buildings looked upon that bus as they would any other.  They couldn’t see that this bus was different, that it carried precious cargo.  The windows couldn’t find any credence as to why this bus, on this day was any different than those, which had traveled the route days prior.  The reflection of the passing bus was fleeting upon the hoary panes, and though Dillon looked at the reflection of the bus played out upon the windows, he could not see his own reflection.  He could not himself perceive why this bus was any different than those, which had coursed this way many a time before.  And that was the tragedy.

Dillon was headed home, for Dillon had lost all hope for the insouciants of humanity.  Dillon had all but given up on himself.  As he sat in the back of the bus he pitied himself.  His anger towards the world turned to pity for himself.  This cycle would continue until someone set it straight.  If the cycle did not stop, then Dillon would become a window.  From a certain angle one could see through him to the other side.  From another angle, one could see the reflection of the world through the eyes of a callused insouciant. 

He sat in the back, lest anyone be forced to sit with him.  At this point he didn’t care to talk with anyone.  He would have had to explain himself, and in doing so he would have had to justify himself to another.  Dillon felt that he needed no justification for that which he had done, and for that matter that which he was to do. 

Slowly the bus filled, and like an indolent wave the passengers inched ever closer to the silent boy in the back.  Dillon sat alone, indignant that anyone would dare disturb his solitude.  He looked down now at his clean clothes.  If nothing else, Will’s apartment had furnished him a suitable place to rid himself of the squalor of the night before.  He now sat wearing khaki pants and a white t-shirt.  His belt and shoes were of the same rich brown leather.  His Spartan look seemed to make him invisible to those who stepped onto his bus. The bronze belt buckle melded with the leather behind it to form a perfect band.  Nothing about the look of that boy was unusual.  Nothing about the look of that boy was alarming.  And then the man, Goliath in stature, stepped foot on the bus.

Dillon was sitting alone in the back of the bus, and there were no people of note who had come before this man.  There was a family of three who sat to the right of the entrance.  They were young and still naïve about their existence.  The child was only an infant.  She seldom made a sound along the way.  The mother held the child in her pastel pink blanket close to her breast, unwilling to  let go the most precious thing that she had.  Though she sat next to the window, the young woman cared not to look outside to the outside world.  Her world was clutched so very tightly to her person.  They were not poor, and would be rich some day, but today they were forced to ride the bus.  In the city there were two types of people: those who owned the busses and those who were resigned to ride upon their oppressive wheels.  The father of the child was pre-occupied and as such his gaze seldom left the road which stretched ahead of them.  He leaned away from his wife and child into the aisle so as to be able to see the manner in which the road curved ahead.  Years from now when his daughter would no longer speak to him, he would look back upon this day and wished that he would have held her with the same intensity as his wife.  He would wish to hell that he too could have cared less for the road’s curves ahead as his own world, which now slept inside the bus. 

Behind the family there was a businessman, whose head was buried in a newspaper.  He read the obituaries, a morbid fascination of some, which they believe somehow prolongs their own life.  To Dillon this only served to remind him of his own mortality.  The man read about the death of a salesman who had been an adversary of his.  He smiled.  The man had died of a sudden heart attack, because he was so very dedicated to his work.  The dead man had died not out of sin, but out of overwork.  In truth the man on the bus had worked few days in his life.  He told himself that he worked just as hard as the dead man, but the man on the bus knew he would never have died from work. 

The man next read about a man who had shot his wife because she found out that he had been unfaithful.  His heart stopped for a moment, what would happen if his wife discovered the truth?  She wouldn’t kill him, she didn’t have it in her.  That’s why he started with the others, he needed something that she couldn’t give him.  If he only knew that he would, like the salesman whom he so despised, have a heart attack that day he would have run to his wife with loving embrace.  She would find out sooner or later.  The man would die that day in the arms of another woman.  His obituary would be read by those whose sport it was, and passed over by all else – he was destined to be forgotten.

Two women sat to the right of him.  They held a long and heated conversation, yet never spoke.  Dillon marveled at the language of the sign.  He knew not about what they spoke, but he observed that the younger blonde, who sat next to the window was attempting to explain or to describe something to the black haired woman on the left.  Every so often the blonde would throw up her hands in the universal sign of frustration and avert her gaze to the window. 

Neither spoke a word for indeed they were both deaf.  They spoke, if one can deem it that, about life.  They were sisters, the black haired woman was three years older than the blonde, and as such thought that she was imbued with the wisdom of the ancients.  The truth of the matter was that the blonde was far more in touch with the world around her.  Both had been born deaf, one shunned it, and one embraced it.  The black haired woman spent her days hating the life she was forced to lead.  She viewed the life that she led as a societal obligation, and little less.  The blonde however saw her deafness as a gift that she had been given rather than a cross that she was forced to bear.

She found that far fewer people could tell her who to be or what to believe.  There were times that it was discouraging to not be able to communicate as quickly with others as the hearing could, but she had learned to read lips.  If she did not wish to entertain their thoughts she could merely turn her head.  It gave her a power that the hearing did not have.  Like Dillon she lost herself in books, and like Dillon she had formed her own opinions about society.  Unlike Dillon it was far easier to hold these opinions without having to explain them to the society which they criticized.  Indeed she was in the process of explaining that her sister’s existence was not futile.  But like Dillon, the explanation was far too exasperating to warrant further discussion.  She just looked at the passing cars, ignorant that a compatriot sat so very close to her.  Dillon too was ignorant of her presence.

There were others scattered about the seats, but Dillon cared not to speculate as to their ills.  To each, his own.  The bus stopped in front of a cathedral in the center of the city.  Dillon had been riding for what seemed like an eternity, and it was all that he could do to look at the people and visualize their flaws.  It was one of the few times in Dillon’s life that he was not scrutinizing his own flaws as well.  The bus was silent save the intrinsic rumbling of the cogs and the groaning of the breaks.  The cathedral was enormous and gaudy.  Its stained glass windows were colossal and they depicted the scenes of Jesus’ crucifixion – the three criminals, and Pilate on Calvary hill.  Dillon did not doubt that there was an equally gaudy pieta inside.  He envisioned Bernini’s Exultation of Christ. Two women exited the bus here, and a man, if you were to call him that, stepped on. 

Dillon at once sat up in his seat.  The man was a giant.  His hands gripped the money, which he used to pay his fare, with such gentility.  He wore a huge gray overcoat, which on an ordinary person would have dragged behind them.  It, however, came only to his calves.  He wore black shoes, so intensely polished that Dillon imagined he was a military officer. 

There the man stood on an open field, saber in hand, for the penultimate battle.  His shoed were as black as polished obsidian, and his eyes were like pearls inlaid with onyx.  The grassy field was foggy and littered with casualties.  His uniform was blood red, and his steed was pure white.  The blade of the saber was honed with skill by an unknown smith.  His many medal glinted here and there, and his towering stature carried with it a sense of awe.  His helmet laid by his side, as he would find no use for it.  He was completely still.  Was this a statue?  No, he breathes.  If the man had not his saber drawn, one would think that he was en route to a formal gathering. 

As the man walked towards Dillon, he knew not whether he felt fear or reverence.  The man was a true Goliath, and yet he comported himself with such gentility that Dillon understood this intense feeling to be on of reverence rather than metuative fear.  The man’s left hand was obscured by the long gray trench coat.  His right hand, however evinced its many years of utility.  Had he truly been a soldier, or was he a construction worker.  There was something about the man, which evinced a silent sophistication. No, he wasn’t a construction worker.  He could have been a salesman.  Yes, he was a salesman.  What merchandise was he peddling?

The man paced towards the back of the bus with long strides and sat behind Dillon, in the ultimate seat.  He sat a large newspaper nest to him and looked up the aisle through the front window.  He then looked out the window.  It was not a nervous sequence of glances.  He was so reverentially composed.  His movements were not of necessity, but of his whim. The man’s head towered over the seat, and Dillon could see his colossal head by the reflection on the glass.  Dillon refused to look back at the man and strike up a conversation, for he still feared the man, if not only for his size.  There was something that made Dillon cautious about conversing with the man.  The image would be shattered.

The engine misfired, and it sounded as if the bus had shot a shell towards the sky.  Dillon with a knee-jerk reaction looked back towards the direction of the noise and he at once made eye contact with the giant.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hello,” Dillon said apprehensively. 

“How are you doing today?”

“Fine, and you?”  Dillon was terse with his response, for he wished to sever the conversation where it stood now.

“Great.  My name is Re… Reginald Dixon.”  The giant stuttered to state his name.  It, however, was less of a stutter than a pause.  An unnatural pause.  This pause registered with Dillon only slightly, for his guard was down.         “What’s yours?” The man asked Dillon with a true desire to know, but not with such resolve that it made Dillon uncomfortable.

“My name is Dillon Mann.”

“Oh, like the singer.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where are you coming from?”

Dillon paused to respond so as to choose his words carefully.  Though he did not fear the man now, he still had to protect himself.  He wanted to say that he was leaving to find himself because his brother is abusive and his former best friend did a swan dive onto the marble steps of his high school.  Dillon, however, refrained.  “I was visiting my brother and his girlfriend.”

“That was nice of you.  Do you have a girlfriend yourself.”

“Not as such,” Dillon said in a comedic tone.  He couldn’t believe that he had just told a perfect stranger about his love life, even if the reply was merely a comedic negation.

“I see.  Well, judging from that response, I would say that you are looking closely at a girl, but she isn’t perfectly right for you.  Am I right?”

“Oh, no she is perfect.  It’s just that we are best friends and … and I can’t believe that I am saying this to you.  Next I’ll be telling you about Jacob…”  Dillon’s heart stopped.  He thought to himself, O God let me have just said that in my head. 

“Who is Jacob?” The man asked so innocently at first, Dillon thought that it would be easy to dismiss.

“Oh, he’s nobody.”  Dillon was now speaking quite curtly.

“No, he is somebody.  What did you mean when you said ‘Next I’ll be telling you about Jacob’?”  The man sat up in his seat and at once he towered over the boy in the seat in front of him.  Dillon, as quickly as the man rose in his seat, raised his defenses again.  It might be that the man was just curious, but Dillon was unwilling to take that chance.  The questioning however got more adamant. 

“Listen, I don’t want to talk to you about my love life.  I don’t want to talk to you about why I sit in the back of the bus, and I especially don’t want to talk about Jacob.”  Dillon spoke in such a defensive tone, but it only kindled the man’s adamancy.

“I don’t want to upset you, I only want to help you.”  He sounded genuine enough, but the trust once broken seldom is given back. 

“I thank you, sir, but frankly I don’t need you help.  If I had needed your help, I would have sought it out.  I need to help myself, and right now no one can help me.”  Dillon felt bad that he was speaking so harshly to a man who on another day, on another bus, might very well have been a lovely man to speak with.

“He can help you.”  And at once the bond was broken. 

Dillon drew back from the man, as the bus hit a large pothole.  The bus shook and every thing that was resting upon the seats was thrown up into confusion.  Dillon’s bags fell to the floor, as did the man’s newspaper.  Dillon went to pick it up – for as angry he was, to Dillon politeness and chivalry were natural reactions.  When Dillon reached to pick up the paper, he saw that a black book with a white book mark had fallen from the inner sanctum of the sports section.  Mullet-wrapped in the Sunday New York Times was a Holy Bible, the white book mark was nothing other than a minister’s color.  Dillon looked up at the man, betrayed. 

“I try not to wear it out in public.  People get the wrong impression of me, and they are afraid to speak candidly to me. If I cannot help you, I know Someone who can.”

“Oh, and I guess that someone wouldn’t be your wife?”

“No, no son.” Dillon’s second commandment was now broken. “You know that the Heavenly Father can help you through everything.”

“So Rrrr…Rrrre…Reverend,” Dillon derisively said, understanding fully now the uncomfortable pause beforehand. “Do you make your bus mission trip every Sunday afternoon, or was this just my lucky day?”

“Now, now son…” Dillon interrupted him mid sentence.

“I am not your son, Father.”  Dillon paused to make the antithesis all the more poignant.  It was one thing for the waiter to call him son, and a whole other for Asella and the good reverend to do the same.  “Son” was a term, which Dillon reserved for two people, neither of whom were here. 

“Are you religious?”

“Yes.”

“What faith?”

“I’m non denominational.  I don’t, in truth, believe in organized religion.”

Taken aback, the minister said, “What do you mean you don’t believe in organized religion?”  Without even providing Dillon a chance to answer – for the good reverend truly cared not what the boy had to say – said, “Organized religion is the only true religion.  You can’t call yourself religious without belonging to a faith.  Take my church for example…”

Again stopping the holier-than-thou giant in the midst of his sentence, Dillon looked him straight in the eye and said, “God is not the kind you have to wind up on Sundays.  Thank you Ian Anderson.”

The reverend was significantly confused by this allusion to music, and felicitously the bus now stopped where he could leave.  God speed to the good reverend.   It was not that Dillon despised religion, it was that he despised evangelists who feel that it was their, and here’s the crux, “God given” duty to convert all of the heathens, or else make them wish they had converted.  On the contrary, Dillon was searching for a religion, which he could embrace, for in his heart he knew that a key ingredient, which was missing in his life, was faith.  If he could “know” that Jacob did not die in vain, and if he could “know” that life is not the only existence we have, and if he could “know” that there was some higher power looking over, but not controlling him, then he would feel far better about his existence on this earth than he did now.  Religion, and moreover spirituality, to Dillon was the most sacred thing, and therefore commercializing or forcing it upon others was the ultimate sin.  There were few things worse in Dillon’s eyes than trivializing religion, and manipulating someone to believe that their religion is wrong.  Goliath was doing just that. 

The truth of the matter was that the minister brought Jacob’s death to the surface, and it was for this that Dillon was so deeply embittered.  Dillon had repressed it, if only for a short while, and the man had brought it so brazenly to the surface.  Jacob’s death was like a wooden plank in a lake to Dillon.  As many times as you try to submerge the plank, it will inevitably float back to the surface.  Each time it did so it carried with it the aggregated anger of the previous attempts. It was if the giant had tied a balloon to the deeply submerged and forgotten board, rushing it forthwith to the surface. 

Dillon wanted nothing to do with him, and was quietly elated when the giant rose from his seat.  His hulking form now took on the semblance of an ogre.  Forcing his religion on Dillon would not have been as bad, had he not done so under false pretenses.  As the Goliath exited the bus, David sat in the penultimate seat of the bus.  As the bus drove away, the giant’s shoes had lost their sheen, and he too had indeed lost his luster.

19

Dillon watched the fallen soldier as the bus drove away.  The man had the semblance of a sullied and graven image of a giant wounded in battle.  What had been the good reverend’s weakness?  For Talos it was his heel.  Had Dillon affected a glancing blow to this Goliath?

            What made the man so very vexatious?  As Dillon watched the good reverend insouciantly walk towards his parish with unequivocal paces, he could not place what made the man such a dastard.  Watching the huge man, now less so, Dillon thought of a million things that he had wished that had been said.  He was so furious, that he could not in truth vocalize his anger.

“So I should pray to your God?  Is that the same God that stole my best friend from me?  Is that the same God that wakes me up in the middle of the night wit visions of his body on those steps?  It that the same God that whispers those words into my ears every time I see someone dying?  They’re gone.  Is that your God, because it sure as hell isn’t mine.” What would he have said to that?  Dillon was a geyser prepared to let loose upon anyone who would have the audacity to sit next to him.  “Why did he sit next to me?  There were plenty of other seats?”  For what seemed like hours Dillon cursed himself for allowing the giant to effect his world so very much.  Time, as had been proven so poignantly by Jacob, was lessening every minute, which ticked away. 

The family at the front of the bus was now gone, as were the sisters.  The businessman had apparently disembarked with the good reverend, perhaps to catch the late service, lest he not purge his sins.  Such was the way of the world in which Dillon lived.  Three consecutive stops were made, and nary a person stepped upon the bus.  The fourth marked the end of this streak.  A short pudgy man now walked up the steps of the bus.  His stout frame was the perfect antithesis of the good reverend.

The man was wearing a blue button down oxford shirt, and this seemingly innocuous fact put Dillon immediately at ease.  It was now the afternoon of that Sunday, and the man had obviously not been to church.  His hair had been mussed by the wind on the sidewalk, as he waited for the bus.  He cared not, or thought not, to rectify this aberrance.  He wore black spectacles in the truest sense, and his gray hair evinced a sapience that put Dillon even more at ease.  The squat man was a benign addition to the bus, and for this Dillon gave thanksgivings.  Unlike Goliath, the squat man sat directly in front of Dillon.  He then was silent.  Dillon noticed as the man was walking to his seat he held a leather bound book.  It was quite small, and thus this put Dillon’s mind immediately at ease, however it piqued his curiosity. 

Dillon, now wondered what book the man was carrying.  Dillon himself was an avid old book collector.  He bought all that he could afford, but this afforded him few chances to buy the books he truly wanted.  Once he had saved money the money he had earned working after school, before he came to Ignotus, to buy a Dante published in the 1700’s.  Though it was two months pay, there was something about that leather bound volume which Dillon treasured.  Holding it in his hand, he tried to imagine who the previous owners had been.  And the ones before that, and before that?  Who had first owned that book?  To whom did the fortunate pair of eyes which first gazed upon the script belong? Was it a magistrate or a lowly printer? 

Dillon had the propensity to look at an old object and think of the eye which had looked upon it years before.  What had they been thinking?  Were they I the same position that he was in?  Did they too wonder about the previous admirers?  What about the future; would the denizens look upon the object, previously revered, as nothing more than a sign of antiquation?

A leather book was nothing like anything in the world.  It felt like a personal volume.  No two covers were the same, for there was always an imperfection, which indeed made the book all the more perfect.  Too, its smell was unique.  Every waft of air was pervaded by the pungency of academia.  The words of the pages called to the nostrils, setting off a sensory reaction.  It was thus that he looked intently at the short hobbit-like man who now sat directly in front of him in the antepenultimate seat.

The short man opened the small, leather bound book randomly and began to read.  He read quietly, but the inflections and rhythms of Latin poetry were music to Dillon’s ears.  He recognized not at first the author of the passage, but he felt the meter of the lines.  The meter could tell you oh so much about the author.  Some viewed a certain meter as barbaric, and some used another only for derisive comedy.  This meter was elegaic, but it celebrated not a funeral.  Dillon leaned ever closer reaching for a phrase he recognized, and then he found it. 

“Militat omnis amans…”

Ah, every lover is indeed a soldier.  Ovid could not have been more right.  Dillon could stand the silence no more, and leaning forward addressing the man he said,            “Isn’t it ironic?”

            “Pardon me?” the man replied.

            “I said, ‘Isn’t it ironic?’”

            “What’s that?” the man asked.

            “That every lover is a soldier.  It’s true though.”

            “What did you just say?” the man said  in piqued disbelief.

            “I said that I thought it was ironic, but truthful, that every lover indeed does perform military service.  That is one of the Amores, is it not?”

            “Yes, but how did…”

            “How did I know?”

            “Yes…I did not mean to sound rude or curt, but it is not everyday that you meet a fellow classicist on a city bus.”

            “That’s true,” Dillon replied in a relieved chuckle.

            “So do you like Ovid?” the man asked intently.

            “Oh yes, but I prefer Catullus.  He has a wit about him that isn’t so much found in Ovid.”

            “It is refreshing to meet a young man like you.  I was beginning to lose faith in the youth of this country.

            “And I of the adults,” Dillon replied with such candor that the man’s curiosity forced him to inquire further.

            “And why have you lost your faith in the adults of this nation?” the man asked.

            “I just got finished talking to a giant of a man who had the gall to look me straight in the eye and tell me that I was wrong in my beliefs; that I was going to hell for not believing in his God; that I was a sinner from the day I was born.  Jonathan Edwards would have been proud, but I needed not to be converted.  I hate those who think that in religion there is no choice; that their God has more ecclesiastical clout than mine… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to go on like that.  I just got so frustrated. 

“I can understand, but don’t you see, religion is choice.”

“I know that I can choose my religion…”

“But it is so much more than that. What is the one thing that they say separates us from the animals?”

“Freedom of choice,” Dillon replied without even wincing at the rhetorical question.

“So you see, you have your religion.  You have your God.  It may not be their God or my God, but who’s to say that my God is any more right for you than yours is wrong for me?  Everyone has to choose their own.  I fear that that is the biggest mistake so called religious zealots make.  They let themselves be told what to believe in, without even questioning its validity.  They believe that it is ‘one God fits all’, and that is precisely why you were so offended by that man before.” This is what Dillon needed to hear.

“So are you saying that they are all blind and wrong?”

“Oh, by no means.  Everyone has to believe in something.  Even atheists believe in something.”

That last statement struck Dillon, for he thought that the definition of atheism was a lack of belief, that is to say a pure denial that God existed.  He had always disliked professed atheists, for a number of reasons.  They were so very close minded, and frankly at times they were as offensive as the Bible-thumping evangelists, who tried to convert him.  Dillon recognized that atheism, to some people, was a valid system, and furthermore, who was he to criticize?  He found no credence, however, in someone who denied that there was a spiritual aspect to the world around him or her.  Now thoroughly confused, Dillon asked, “What is it that atheists believe in?”

“Ah, they believe that He does not exist.”

“Oh, ok I follow”

“The people, the ones you called blind,” he said in a rather sarcastic manner, “that follow their preacher, aren’t wrong…” he said as Dillon interrupted.

“Are they misguided then?”

“No, no.  Their faith is their guide.  Though they are indoctrinated to believe in certain things, no one forces them to do so.  I have seen many Christians turn to other religions, and who’s to say that they are wrong?  It makes more sense to them.  The ones who use faith as their guide follow their preacher’s God, for that is all that they know, or care to know for that matter.”

“How then can you say that this is not a bad thing?”

“Because, it is their choice to remain parishioners…” again Dillon interrupted the explanation.  His thoughts were coming a mile a minute.

“True, but do they really have a choice?  The most disconcerting thing that I can find about organized religion is the fact that it is more of an organization than a religion.  They put on their robes to hide the emptiness in their words.  They passionately yell from their bloody pulpit about the sinners and hell bound miscreants, then they go home and use the Bible as a coaster.”

“Well, that was powerful.  I can see that you have thought about this for quite a while.  Let me assure you that not all of them are like that.  True, some should not wear the Cloth, but far more are meant to lead their followers to find their own God.  You have found yours.  That is to say, you have found what you believe, nay, what you know is true.  You mustn’t however be so critical of those who have yet to find theirs,” he said as he got up.

Dillon had not noticed that the bus had begun to slow, and was now stopped.  He had no idea where he was, and as the man walked next to the bus into a small building Dillon yelled out of the bus window, “Have you found yours?”

The man nodded as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a neatly folded white collar.  As he deftly buttoned the pure white priest’s collar, Dillon sat in awe, his jaw agape.  As the bus drove away, Dillon could only mouth the words “thank you”.  As the bus turned a corner, Dillon was able to see another angle of the building that the priest had entered.  The steeple now was visible, and it reached ever higher towards the heavens.  The steps of the church were empty, and the words “You’ve found yours” echoed in his mind.

20

He had been on the bus for over two hours, and it only dawned upon him that he had boarded the wrong one as the bus drove back to the terminal, from which his journey had originated.  It’s ironic that they call it a terminal, for indeed it is where Dillon began his journey to enlightenment.  As the wanderer stepped off of the intra-city bus to the one that would carry him to the edge of the forest, he marveled at the last two hours.  What possessed him to step foot upon that bus?  Was he so very angry that he had just assumed that he was stepping onto the correct bus?  No, he though to himself.  He was meant to ride that bus.  He was meant to do battle with Goliath.  He was meant to meet the true reverend, who instilled in Dillon the seeds of a pure faith.  As perfect as the chubby Lilliputian was, he could not transfer to Dillon a total faith.  For faith, if one is to find it on his own, takes a long time to nurture.  The seeds of faith, once sowed, take years to reap, and that was fine with the wanderer.

He walked into an empty bus, as it was getting late.  He told the driver of his folly, and then preceded to pay his fare.  He sat towards the back one last time, and the bus departed for the edge of the city.  The bus logically made far less stops than the previous one, but one such stop proved to be as beneficial as the one, which received the true reverend. 

            Her frail frame slowly crept up the stairs, aided by the agéd driver.  Dillon looked towards the front of the bus, and all that he could see was white hair rising ever so slowly from the stair well.  It reminded him of his grandmother, who died when he was younger.  He missed her smile.  As the woman’s face appeared over the front seats, Dillon felt at ease with the world.  There she was, at least eighty years old, rising from the sullied street with a smile on her face.  She wore a pink shirt and white pants.  Her back was hunched slightly.  Dillon began imagining all the possibilities why it was so.  Years of carrying children.  Leaning down to care for sick orphans.  The list went on; growing more absurd as it went.  The truth of the matter was that the weight of life had burdened her spirit, and when someone is afflicted with a spiritual condition for any great amount of time it manifests itself on the physical level of the person.

            Her face was heavily wrinkled, yet she was still attractive.  He could only have imagined what she would have looked like sixty years prior.  She walked with a mahogany cane.  Its handle was gilded or bronze, Dillon couldn’t tell from where he sat.  But he stared at her in awe of her apparent happiness.  She had seen world wars and yet she smiled. She had seen death many times before, yet she was happy. Was it a façade, like his?  Or was she genuinely happy with life.

            She walked painstakingly towards him, leaning heavily on her wooden cane.  He didn’t take his eyes off her.  Her little white canvas shoes inched closer and closer to him, and he welcomed her presence.  She concentrated intensely on walking, lest she fall, and thus she looked only at the floor of the bus in front of her.  Dillon’s shoes came into her limited view.  She paused.  She looked up at him and there eyes met.  Then she spoke.

            “May I sit here, young man?”

            Dillon didn’t even think to deny her the seat, for he had been hoping that she would in fact sit next to him and impart some of her knowledge.   “Yes mam.  By all means.” He moved his bags from the seat next to him so that she could sit.

            “Oh, stop that ‘mam’ stuff. It makes me feel so old.”  She laughed. “Please call me Annie.”  She set her bags and tired bones next to Dillon, and she let out a much-deserved sigh of relief.  “You are such a polite young man.  What’s your name?”

            “My name is Dillon Mann,” he replied as if its urgency was great.

            “Well then, you are a young man,” she said with such pleasure.  He nodded his head. As she laughed at he own joke, her whole body shook.  Dillon couldn’t help but to laugh with her. Annie was silent for the next few minutes.  Dillon was in agony, for he didn’t know how to ask her properly why she was so happy about life after having seen such suffering.  What was her secret?

            Dillon sat, hands in lap, agonizing, for what seemed like hours.  He looked forward, and then out the window, and then again towards the front of the bus.  As he was looking out the window to his right at the factories and smokestacks at the edge of the city, the bus hit a pothole and jolted the passengers.  Dillon looked quickly towards Annie, and she was giggling like a schoolgirl.

            “Are you alright?” Dillon was concerned, for her frail figure suggested that she could break as easily as an old porcelain doll.

            “Oh, heavens yes.  That little jaunt reminded me of the streets in Rome .”

            “You’ve been to Rome ,” Dillon inquired.  It was not that he didn’t believe her. He did.  He merely wished that the conversation continue.

            “I have been many times.  The streets are awful.”  She paused for a moment to collect herself.  “I used to go every year, but I stopped a few years ago.  I was getting too old.”

            Indeed she was old, and the wrinkles of her brow evinced such a knowledge of the world that Dillon wished only to gain some insight into the universe she had survived.  He had always envisioned Rome as a sanctuary for the classics.  Dillon saw the coliseum in its former glory, and mention of the Roman forum still brought inspired visions of a proud and glorious race.  “Is Rome as wonderful as they say it is?” he asked in a rather juvenile manner, for indeed he was like a child learning about the world outside of his home.

            “I wouldn’t have gone back so many times if it wasn’t.  My husband was also stationed there during the war.  Oh, those were different times...”  She trailed off and looked out the bus window towards some unseen horizon of a time long ago.  Her eyes filled with whimsy remembering those days long ago that she spent in Italy .  She remembered the smell of the streets, the voices of the natives, the sights, the sounds.  Annie turned back towards Dillon and silently said, “I was much younger then.  We all were.”

            Dillon nodded in silent recognition.  Indeed everyone was younger before that war; everyone was more naïve.  The depression had hit, and the war was looked at as an escape.  For Annie it had been anything but an escape.  She was born with a silver spoon in her mouth.  During the height of the depression, she was married in a jovial and lavish ceremony to a man whom she did not love.  The marriage was arranged, but so was the rest of her life.  Annie was a debutante before she left the womb, and consigned to suffer her fate before she was conceived. 

“My husband was an insurance man before the war. Do you want to see a picture of him?”  She had changed the subject so quickly, and she was reaching into her purse before Dillon could reply. 

Dillon appreciated the frankness and candor with which she spoke to him.  In Dillon’s experiences his generation was viewed as the worst by the Greatest.  Annie however was of a different stock altogether.  As she fingered around in her cavernous purse, Dillon gazed in awe at the gray-hair who sat next to him.  She had seen so much, and yet she still persevered.  Her husband had died, and he would later come to find out that so had her children.  He marveled at her strength and tenacity.  Most of all he tried to imagine how he would look to a total stranger eighty years from now.  Annie by now had found her pocketbook, and rifled through the many pictures that she had accrued over the years.  On the back of each in proper cursive was written the names of each, and every so often Dillon perceived a Tom, or a Nick, or a Daisy, or other such names.  He imagined that they were relatives, but it was hard to imagine – at least in his state of mind – that there was anyone as positive about her life than Annie. 

“Oh, here he is,” she said with such pride.  She had pulled a picture, faded by time, from her purse.  Its once glossy sheen had long been absent, and its sides were frayed from long years as a token, a memento to her lost lover, her lost life.  Dillon could see by the trembling of her wrinkled hands that the picture of her nameless soldier was a portrait of the past and better times.  He was a handsome man with straight black hair, greased flat lest it become disheveled.  There was something about the very rigid order of the picture, which Dillon could not place.  Something was amiss, yet it so linearly was set forth on the print.  The man was a paradigm of rigid decorum.  The old picture was taken during the war, and wearing full military regalia – Dillon knew not of which branch – the man stood silent and erect.  His arms were pressed to his sides with such force and precision, that a man determined could not separate them. 

Dillon looked at the picture and felt entirely different emotions than before.  The other pictures which Annie so quickly dismissed were less worn and far less rigid.  Each picture had a smile, and each smile made the picture.  Why then was this one picture so very different?  What was it about the soldier’s stone face that caused Dillon to look with a hint of consternation at the frayed and faded picture? 

“Isn’t he so handsome?” she inquired somewhat rhetorically.

“Indeed,” Dillon replied. “You said that he was an insurance man before the war?”

“Oh, yes.  I suppose that he never really stopped being an insurance man during the war.  Jack always valued other’s lives before his. He even sold himself on his final insurance policy.  He was so convinced that he would make it out of the war alive.” She lifted her tired but willing eyes and looked square into Dillon’s and said, “No one made it out of the war alive, even if they weren’t the ones being carried in bodybags.  No one was so lucky.” 

“What did you mean when you said that your husband sold himself on his final insurance policy?” Dillon asked.

“Jack was so convinced that he would get out of the war alive that he lived as if his next day would be no different.  He lived like there was nothing to live for, only life.  Jack never lived.  Therefore he died.”

“What are you trying to say, that he was disillusioned about the war?” Dillon asked.

“Of course.  Everyone was.  But it was much more for Jack.  Never had he lived a day in his life.  He woke up to fall asleep again.  His daily routines were like clockwork.  I never felt love for him, nor feigned any.  In truth, I think Jack was incapable of love.”

Dillon’s heart sank.  His vision of perfection in a shell had just been shattered like all those others whose scattered remains of shattered dreams in vain created a beach of discontent.  Annie was all at once so perfect, and the moment that she became a fellow sufferer the halo of perfection was lost.

“How long were you two married before the war?” Dillon asked.  His tone was entirely different than before.  His naïve image of perfection lain shattered at his feet. 

“Too long…” Annie trailed off, and looked towards the passing buildings, which progressively became smaller and smaller as they moved farther and farther from the heart of the city, away from Will.  “We were married five years before Jack left for the war.  He was an insurance man in Cambridge , Massachusetts .  He was successful too.  I loved to watch him at work.  He would put his hand on your shoulder, look you straight in the eye, and become your best friend.  But not me.  Jack was a cold man.  He came home from work every day to a dry scotch and a warm meal.  He didn’t come home for me.  One drink led to another.  He couldn’t help himself.  You know that’s what I kept telling myself.  I knew that he was a sot; I just refused to do anything about it.  As the years went on, the yelling became more vehement, the spite more maleficent, and finally I couldn’t take anymore.  I stayed with my mother for a week, until he came, uninebriated, for me.  After that I told myself that the yelling wasn’t so bad, the sarcasm not so biting, but I wasn’t fooling anyone but myself.  The war, as misguided and paradoxical as it may sound, was a godsend for us. If Jack had not lost a bet and enlisted, I never would have seen Rome , or Paris , or Madrid , or Amsterdam , or Athens .  I never would have seen the truth.”

“What truth?” Dillon asked, perplexed and intrigued at the same time.

“Oh, the only truth there is,” Annie said deviously and with a quick grin.  “When Jack was hit with the flak of an anti-aircraft gun, they gave him little chance of living.  I visited him every day, and it was the only time in our married life that I felt as if he needed me.  I stayed their every night for two weeks.  On the last night he looked up into my eyes and said, ‘Annie, I think I am dying.’ All that I could say to him is that it would be all right when we woke up in the morning.  He never woke up.  My sister had flown in the night before, and she came right as they were wheeling him away.  Do you know what she said to me as I sat there weeping for my husband?”

“No.”

“She said, ‘He’s gone Annie.  He’s gone.’”  I looked up to her and said, ‘Jean he was never here.’”

Dillon was nearly in tears by the story, because it touched such an open wound.  Death, to Dillon, was still a sore subject, and one not to be taken lightly.  Dillon was left with an unanswered question.  It was therefore that Dillon was compelled to ask his penultimate question of Annie, the question that would forever change his life.

“What did you mean he was never there?”

“As I sat in that military hospital I was forced to re-evaluate my life.  It was then, gazing upon my husband’s lifeless body, that I realized I was as dead as he. Not physically, but I was dying.”

“How?”

“Oh, Dillon. We are all dying.  My God, we begin dying as soon as we leave our mother’s womb and suck in the first gasp the operating room’s sterile air.  The first time we look into her eyes as she marvels at her own creation, we are dying.  When you take your first step, you are one step closer to death. I have been dying for seventy-five years.  The worst thing was that it took me twenty years to discover that simple fact. When I saw Jack lying on that cold steel table, his lips as purple as velvet and his face as ashen as hoarfrost, I realized that there but for fortune could have lain my breathless body.  From that day forward I lived that every day was my last.  I slept not to wake.  I lived only to die some inevitable day.”

“How then can you wake up every morning and be happy? When I first saw you on the bus I though that you were the most content person in the world…”

“Oh, but I am.”

“But how can…”

“Dillon, you saw what you saw because it was the truth.  I am content.  If I were to die today I would have no regrets. I live so that I would leave nothing left unfinished. It is because I lived this way that I can now go in peace.  Living like the day will be your last makes you do unimaginable things that you never would have done if not for your eternal sleep.  You have eternity to dream, but only today to realize them. No one can teach you that, for you must truly believe it to be so. You have to witness Death steal someone before it truly registers, but when it does, living is a powerful thing.”  Dillon looked out the window and the familiar woods now glided past the fogged window of the bus.  And he thought to himself; he would be fine.

21

Dillon had thought it best to return to the safety of his home after his falling out with Will.  He knew that his mother would be hysterical, but after his talk with Annie he knew that there was something that he had to do first.  Dillon knew that he had to set things right with Jacob, as per his request.  Dillon knew that he had to set things right with Max, and most of all he knew that he needed to set things right with himself, to find some final catharsis.  The only thing that he did not know was how to do so.

            He knew that if he remained on the bus it would take him directly back to Ignotus, and he was not ready to go back.  Not just yet.  To he knew that the bus would stop in front of his house, and he couldn’t face his mother at this point.  He was so very driven.  Dillon’s lease of life had been renewed by Annie and the good reverend.  Even Goliath had inspired to strive for something greater than self pity.  He thought of all the good thing in his life, his health, Max…

“Oh God, Max!”  He had completely forgotten Max, and his outburst stunned him as much as it had the other passengers.  Where was she? How was she doing?  Had she gotten his message?  His thoughts were divided now here, now there.  She was alone at Ignotus, and it was he who had left her there.  Unlike before, he was not bereft of lucidity, for he was not as worried about her wellbeing – for he knew she could take care of herself – but he was worried that she was worried about him.  Like thinking, it was a paradox.  But indeed Max was worried.

Max sat in the east woods, as the sun set over the mountain horizon.  She could think only of her feelings for Dillon.  It seemed that her feelings had grown in his absence.  His presence had always been sufficient to sate her love, for she was so very enthralled merely by his voice, that love was secondary.  She often worried that their friendship would change if she voiced her opinions, and indeed it would have, though not as she feared. 

At this moment, surrounded by trees, she knew how alone he had felt when he called her.  His message was rushed and frantic, but at the tail end he was beginning to calm down.  Her machine had stopped recording, and Dillon did not have the resolve to call back.  Max understood that Dillon was calling to tell her that he was physically sound, but she could hear by his voice, his telltale voice, that he was holding something back. 

To Max, the east woods held such intrinsic peace.  Though Ignotus was merely a stone’s throw away, the environment was entirely different.  At Ignotus the motion was frenetic.  There was no natural rhythm like in the forest.  Even the rigid schedule that she followed evinced no rhythm.  The chirping of the grasshoppers and the call of the birds were music to her troubled ears.  She was worried about Dillon.  As distressed as she was about Dillon, she was upset at herself.

She asked herself, “What made Dillon leave?”  There was no answer, only another question, “What made me stay here?”  Indeed Max did not know why she remained at Ignotus.  There was nothing stopping her from leaving to find Dillon.  She knew not where he was, but Max was confident that she could find him.  She had left Asella’s office, and she knew her brief sabbatical in the east woods was not a solution but acted only to stave off the inevitable.  She therefore left her seat in the woods where peace and harmonious sounds lived in sweet concordance.  She left this serenity to make the trek up the hill to the main campus to the maddening school. 

Max could see the light on in Asella’s office all the while she ascended the hill.  Like a moth to the flame she climbed ever closer to it, knowing full well what lie behind the blinding glow.  Fully cognizant that evil dwelled in the office compulsorily she ascended the hill, for what, by fate, would be her last time. 

The air of the main hall was stale, and the dust had settled on the bookends.  The floors were immaculate, and the rugs burgeoned with the dirt having been swept under.  Immaculate surfaces were once and always will be marred with the hidden dirt which covered them at one time or another.  She ascended the spiraling staircase to the administrative offices and walked down the corridor down which Dillon had fled only days before.  She could still hear his voice, the anger in his voice, and the hypocrisy in Asella’s.   The door loomed ahead and the brazen doorknob was polished to such a degree that she could see her reflection, albeit distorted by the convex knob.  Max could hear his raspy and duplicitous voice within the confines of his office.  Hearing a brief pause, she grasped her reflection and entered the lit room.  

She was at once accosted by the vitriolic stench emanating from the general direction of Asella’s desk.  The rich brown leather chair was turned so that all she could see was the profile of his right arm, which was pressing a black telephone to his ear. 

            “Of course I was surprised,” Asella mused to the voice on the end of the line. “Hell, no one in the office saw it coming, Tom.”

            Tom…Tom, who did Max know by that name.  There was the waiter in New York , a reporter in the city... Max’s thoughts trailed off an she only heard the last words of Asella’s next comment.

            “A quote?  You want a quote?” he said as he violently cleared his throat.  “Here goes, ‘We were deeply saddened and shocked by the sudden suicide of Jacob…’ Christ, what was his name again?” Asella asked Tom.

            “Young – that’s right.  As I was saying, ‘We were deeply saddened and shocked by the sudden suicide of Jacob Young, one of the finest students I have ever had the pleasure of teaching.’  Do you think the alliteration is a bit over the top?” he paused, “Oh, contrived?  Well, like I was saying ‘I only wish that I could have in any way helped this troubled youth, for my doors are always, and have always been open.  Furthermore, I entreat anyone who has any knowledge of such tendencies to let them be known post haste.  I fear that if a student had done so at Ignotus, Jacob Young would be alive today receiving the help he so obviously needed.’”

            He was blaming Dillon?  Max couldn’t believe what she was hearing.  She had a good mind to leave the office at once, and never to turn back, yet she was held by the same timorous obligation which had held her here thus far.

            “Great Tom, it’s always a pleasure to talk to you,” Asella chortled, “And tell Alice hello for me.  Tell her, too, that I hadn’t laughed do hard until last night.  She has a way with words and drink…Ok, bye Tom.”

            Last night…laughing…Jacob’s body had not yet cooled, and Asella was in a jocund mood with every Tom, Dick, and Sally – or Alice as the case presented itself.  The anger and sheer resentment Dillon had felt began to well up inside of her as he ever so leisurely rotated his massive form to face her. 

            In a rather stern tone he addressed her, “Ms. Hart, I did not know that you were there.  Very well then,” he said as he composed himself, “Ms. Hart, do you know why I asked to see you?”

            “I haven’t the slightest, sir,” Max replied tacitly derisive.

            “I asked you here because you were a friend of that boy who left the school.”

            “Dillon? We are friends, yes…”

            “Mr. Mann, yes.  May I call you Max?” he asked.

            “My friends do,” she replied, though she sensed that the irony was all but lost on the fatuous headmaster.

            “Well, Max, you are aware of the tragic death of Jacob Young.”  Tragic indeed!

            “Yes, but Dillon…”      

“You also are aware that Dillon and Mr. Young were very close friends.”

“Yes, but I don’t know what this has to do with me…” she said once again interrupted.

            “We believe that your friend knew that Jacob was having problems, and did not tell anyone in the administration.  Did he tell you about Jacob, Max?”  This comment stung Max doubly hard.  Dillon knew, from what she could ascertain from his phone message, that Jacob was troubled but not suicidal.  Furthermore she had the feeling that Asella knew more than he was letting on to.  What stung Max the most, however, was the fact that Dillon had not told her about Jacob. 

            “No, he didn’t tell me a thing,” she said curtly. 

            “Do you know, Ms. Hart, what drove Dillon away?” Was he so oblivious, or was this some sadistic game that he was playing with her?  What drove him away?  What didn’t drive him away from this Godforsaken school?  At this moment the timorous obligation that Max held was eclipsed by the overwhelming feeling that had eclipsed Dillon days before.  Asella knew damn well that Jacob was troubled, and if he didn’t then he was more negligent than she had given him credit. 

            He not only had the gall to accuse Dillon of aiding in Jacob’s death, but he also slandered Dillon’s name across the print.  No doubt Tom would print what his comrade had told him, and the world would be blinded by the outpouring of grief.  Let us pity this poor man, they would say.  Were they so blind? 

            Max was fuming, and she could not look at the grotesque appearance before her.  He sat, hands crossed with elbows on his desk looking condescendingly at the student in the opposite chair, while salacious Rumor flitted about the room.  She sat tacit, and at once a deluge of thoughts overcame her mind.  Was he truly so oblivious? No – the sinister gaze evinced that he knew all to well the machinations of his school, for he was the puppet master.  The board was full of grizzled marionettes, save her father, and she so wished that he was here to defend Dillon now.  What drove Dillon away?  It was all so clear now.  What was once as nebulous as when one sees or thinks that he has seen an obscured moon through a cloudy night was at once so crystal clear.

            “You know,” Max said turning her eyes up towards him, “I didn’t believe him about you.”

            “Who?” Asella asked so very underhandedly.

            “Dillon.”

            “Oh, our inscrutable voice of wisdom and reason,” he remarked smugly.

            “Mr. Asella,” she said with a firmer tone, “he did not cause Jacob’s death.”

            “How can you be so sure Max?” he asked with subtle condescension.

            “Be…because they tried to get help,” she answered resolutely.  Asella pricked his ears and took a greater notice to the aggregation and potential firebrand who sat now on the opposite side of his desk.  What did she know of his relationship with Dillon, if it was to be called a relationship? Nothing, he told himself, she knew nothing.  But he had to be sure. 

            “They never tried to get help.  I have the documentation right here you little brat,” he said rifling through the many scattered papers on his desk.  Max was taken aback by his sudden change in tone, for before he was ambivalent about the discourse.  Had she struck a chord?  The anger resounded, that much was clear, but what had been said?

            In truth, Max knew only what she had heard from standing outside of Asella’s office, but she couldn’t say that to him, not now.  She could not let on that she had been eavesdropping on that ultimate conversation between Dillon and the headmaster.  Max assumed that what Dillon had said was a result of the moment, an exaggeration of the truth brought to the surface by Jacob’s sudden suicide.  Asella’s combative tone and mood, however, painted the scene otherwise.

            Had all that Dillon said to Asella been true?  Unsensationalized by grief, had Dillon actually spelled out the ills of the cancer of Ignotus.  Had his tirade been one of strict veracity? Yes.  But God, if it was true, what was she doing rationalizing herself to the one man who would have them at each others throats if only to derive some pleasure from their pain.

            “You have a lot of damn nerve to look me in the eye, straight in the eye, and tell me that the most honest person I know is a liar.”  Asella, shocked beyond words, began to speak, but now Max had control.  “Did you think that you could fool him?” she added, for this was no longer about Max.  “Did you think that your charade could last?”

            “Ms. Hart, I think that it would be best if you were silent,” he said in stern consternation. 

            “And I think it best if you pull your foot from your mouth and the wool from your eyes.  It’s over Mr. Asella; it’s over.”

            “Oh?” Asella said, rising to his feet, “What do you think is over, Ms. Hart? You think you know me.  Do you think that you’ve got it all figured out, don’t you?” Asella asked, pounding his desk vehemently with his sinister left fist clenched. “You’ve got nothing.” 

            He was right.  Max didn’t have a thing, but she knew someone who did.  “Furthermore young lady, the insubordination and clear disregard for authority exhibited in this office today will not soon be forgotten.”

            “Nor Mr. Asella, will be the way you treated me, or Dillon, or Jacob – the innocent causality of your fulfilled ambitions, if one chooses to call them ambitious,” Max added derisively.

            “Young lady I think that you should leave before you say something that you will truly regret.”

            “I think, sir, that those are the first words of wisdom spoken by you in the entirety of this meeting.”  With these words she rose from the chair, walked out of his office, down the hall, and out of Ignotian dogma forever.  She was free.  She had been set free by the truth, or the realization thereof.  Dillon did not leave because he was a coward or even because of Jacob’s suicide.  He left because he saw the truth: the truth that it all was an illusion.

            Descartes had said that the world you see is purely what you make of it, and Dillon saw the truth.  If the inhabitants of the world were to see the truth, they could never handle the stark reality.  Life is but an illusion, like a curtain which obscures you from the truth.  What you see is not what you get, merely what you choose to get.  Acceptance of reality comes at a cost, and this cost is the loss of your innocence.  When one sees that the world which surrounds him has no basis but in delusion and dogma, a nihilistic point of view is common. 

            The existential view of man is encountered when one looks at his life, his God.  What existence could warrant the mass genocides that the world has, and undoubtedly will have experienced?  What god reserves nirvana for man and denies it to the animals, who are undoubtedly of a greater moral stock?  Where but a dream? 

            The plaques and the trophies in the cases which lined the halls of Ignotus were shrouded in dust, though they heralded a truer time.  Was it the era of John T. Asella at the school that made it so false, or was it the school itself.  Dillon refused to believe that it was the school, which had such redeeming factors, yet he could not in good conscience place all of the blame on Asella – although he deserved the majority of it.   What then was the truth of Ignotus?

The truth was, as has been stated, that Ignotus was but a dream.  That is to say that Ignotus existed as its present incarnation only so far as the inhabitants willed it to exist.  At any moment the tide of power could shift, and the idyllic overtones would fall by the wayside of radical cacophony.  The truth lay shrouded in the nebulous dogma of John T. Asella.  He was the figurehead of the accepted “truth”.  What he stood for was never clear, for his doctrines always vacillated to best suit his ego. 

            Asella lived gun-shy, yet he had never heard a shot, never seen a bullet.  Each time a would-be liberator, like Clarke, stood on the marble bully pulpit of the front steps, he felt the trigger silently cocking.  Never, though, had the powers-that-be heard the muffled sound that a chambered bullet makes on the cold gray steel of a polished barrel.  Asella feared that a shot would be heard, and the truth would be revealed. 

            In his tenor at Ignotus, Asella had done many things that few knew about, and even fewer had the courage to speak about them.  Over the trumpets, one seldom is heard.  Though the board of trustees was in charge of the school, they were blind to it happenings.  No one knew except Asella, and those few others.  When would they see the truth?  When would they be shown?  Max knew not, yet she knew that she had to find the truth and Dillon.  For indeed the two were the indistinguishable.

            Asella did not follow her, for he truly didn’t care if she left.  In truth he was happy to see her leave, for her father always made him nervous.  He was the only new blood on the board, and the only one the least bit in touch with the school.  Asella attributed this to the fact that he was the only board member with a child at the school.  Jonathan Hart, however, was more in touch with the school because he was the only board member who did not buy into Asella’s force fed propaganda.  Max did not know where to search for Dillon, but she knew where her father would be.

22

Jonathan Hart sat in the foyer of a lavishly decorated Manhattan hotel.  Every metal surface was gilded, every wood surface smoothly veneered.  There was nothing in the hotel whose surface mirrored its interior; nothing, save Jonathan Hart.  He was a man of few words and many thoughts.  He was silent and stentorian at the same time.  He was warm and vicious.  He was the greatest ally, and the fiercest enemy.  Hart was a walking contradiction.  He had the appearance of a field worker, and the wealth that few men in the country possessed. 

            His large and gentle hands were calloused by years of use. His muscles were hidden behind layers of haughty attire, which his profession forced him to wear.  Hart came from a dismal background.  He lived today as if he had never known Hardship, yet he had held her hand for the first ten years of his life.  His parents were immigrants of a proud stock.  They settled, as most would, in a community of the old world.  The dogma of the old world, that Hart had sought so eagerly to leave behind in his homeland, infested the ghetto.  The language that Hart would learn to forget sounded through the rooftops like stentorian trumpet blasts, signaling the waning of days. 

            Long would Hart search for an identity in the ghetto of the new world, and it was only by a stroke of fate that he would find it.  Despising the fatherland, his only by an accident of birth, Hart wished to shed the language, needing to learn a new one first.  English lessons came at a price, however, and his parents did not understand what life outside the microcosm of the miniature fatherland could offer.  Therefore, he took the first job available to him – a porter for a second class hotel.  From second class hotel, and minimal English skills, he climbed the ranks to porter at a first class hotel.  Here he discovered staunch supporters, for he accepted nothing but perfection, a remnant of his upbringing that he could not, and did not wish to shed.  From porter he moved to assistant manager, after the former assistant manager had been caught embezzling funds.  In a year he would be manager.  In five he would own the hotel.  In ten he would own twenty like it.

            Forever mindful of his past, Hart was as humble as they came.  As such people oft attempted to take advantage of him.  As the scar on his chin from his early years in the ghetto proved, Jonathan Hart was not one to be fooled or to be taken advantage of.  Though he was humble, by no means was he a pushover. 

            Physically he was a large man, not a goliath, but his presence was to be noted.  The thing that struck most was the conditions of his hands.  His counterparts in the hotel business had inherited their fortunes, and the rides on their father’s coat tails offered little opportunity to callous the hand.  Hart’s hands were dark, having been baked by the sun.  The digits were long and the nails filed with care.  His hands were made to shake the handle of an axe, not another’s less utilitarian hand.  He enjoyed the weekends that he could escape to the woods and use his hands to their truest potential.  He looked at home as he split wood for the fire in the cabin which he could have built with his own hands, had he the time.

            Hart could have done anything had he the time to do so.  As he sat in the overstuffed chair he thought about the many times like this one where he had wished to be somewhere that he could make a difference.  As he sat in the chair, he was little use to his hotels.  Having worked his whole life, he refused to sit idly by and let his hotels run themselves.  Max understood that her father was needed, and she too understood that his absence was out of necessity not desire.  Max understood this, as did her mother, yet Hart had a heard time justifying what he was doing.  Every time he wished to leave a high rise in the middle of a meeting with puppets, he thought about the ghetto and how he would give his life before he let his daughter witness the horrors that he had. 

            Every waking minute that he was not fulfilling his obligation to the hotels, he was thinking about and missing his daughter.  He had been in London when she was born, Paris when she took her first step, Los Angeles when she lost her first tooth.  He would rush home, yet he was too late, and he would curse himself.  If he had known, he would have been there each time.  Hart hated the fact that his daily schedule did not include Max, and he could not let himself believe that Max had not been affected adversely by his absence, though she constantly told him that their mutual love transcended the world that perpetually separated them.  Max only wanted his love, and he only wanted to grant it.

            Max knew that her father suffered as a result of their separation, and for this she was anguished.  She, however, felt in no way slighted by his absence.  Max knew that if he could, her father would be by her side every minute of every day.  Max also knew that to wish for this was selfish, and she despised this egocentricism that she so oft witnessed at Ignotus.  If she desired anything, all she had to do was ask and he would see that it was done.  It was an awesome power, and one which she did not take lightly.  She broke her arm while skiing in the third grade.  Her father was called immediately, and though he was halfway around the world he was there before her mother.  He cursed himself for not being on the slope with her so that he could in some way have protected her.  At the drop of a hat Hart would be by his daughter’s side if and when she needed him, and as she walked down the front steps of Ignotus, she needed him more than ever. 

            Max did not even call her mother, because like Dillon’s she would have been panicked.  Moreover, Max did not accept her mother’s friendly advice.  As a result of her father’s perpetual absence Max’s mother had accepted a single parent mentality.  She metamorphosed through the years from Max’s mother to her best friend.  And it was thus that she was viewed by Max.  Max could have told her mother about Dillon and Asella and accepted her advice, but her best friend’s advice held little merit.  It was times like these that Max needed a mother, not a friend. 

            As Max climbed into her car she looked back fondly at her time at Ignotus, for it indeed had come to a terminus.  She loved the school, just not its inhabitants.  There were people she would miss, like Proctor, and there were those whom she wished she had never met.  It was a benign school, yet infested by a malignant cancer it had turned sour for her.  Never would the buildings look the same.  Never would the things she learned here seem the same.  And never would she be able to look back on her happier experiences at Ignotus without being forced to look through a bloodstained filter.  Jacob’s death would taint everyone at Ignotus, to however small a degree, but it so affected her because it meant the loss of a friend that she never had the chance to meet, a friend with whom she shared a common bond. 

            Max knew that her father would be in New York because he had e-mailed her the day prior.  She had not responded because she did not wish to tell him the truth.  To lie to her father was out of the question, for it was only he whom she implicitly trusted.  Even Dillon, whom she entrusted with nearly all of her secrets, was not as true a confidant as her father.  He never judged her, not that Dillon did, and because of this she was eternally grateful.  Hart had given Max many gifts over the years to make up for his absence, but the only gift to which Max gave merit, was the supreme gift of trust bestowed unto her at birth.  As Max drove, she planned the most direct way to tell her father without alarming him.  He never liked Asella, and liked even less the manner in which he handled, or mishandled as the case was, the Ignotian money.  Hart was searching for the first hint of blood in the water, and the Jacobian tragedy was blood enough.

            It seemed strange to Max that she had not seen more board members at the campus, furthermore it seemed to her even more anomalous that her father had not mentioned Jacob’s death.  It was uncharacteristic of her father, and as he was so very predictable, Max sensed that something was awry.  She, however, dismissed this digression as pure fanatical fancy brought on by the grief over her double loss. 

            What upset Max the most, even more than Asella, was the placement of her grief.  Jacob had died, and no doubt was this the source of her grief, yet she mourned the loss of Dillon with tantamount tears.  The truth be told, she hated herself because she mourned the separation from Dillon more.  True she had never truly known Jacob, save a salutation or two, yet he was a human.  He had a soul.  He was dead, and she mourned less for him than her own loss.  She mourned less the loss of a life than the loss of a friend, to be regained.  She wavered, yet she could think only of Dillon.  It pained her so to miss a living soul more than a deceased; so it pained her, yet it was so. 

            In the course of her drive she became so ensconced in thought that she drove off the shoulder twice.  She noticed the second instant that the radio had not yet been turned on, though she remembered not when she turned it off.  The music helped to soothe the beast, and to quell the fire which raged within her.  It was like a salve on an open wound.  The music permeated and purged her soul, but it was not so today.  She had traveled to far from home, and all that came through the airways was soulless static.  This static did little more than create a quiet din in the silent car.   No poetry resounded through the air; none flowed though it was present.  There was no stopping music that refused to play.  There was no solace in the silent static. 

            Forest merged into mountain, mountain into vale, vale into forest, and the cycle began again, until on the edge of a vale stood a steel forest where a natural one had many years before.  The trees were felled so that man could create edifices larger than could have been imagined.  Highways replaced well trodden trails, but that’s how it goes in the city.  Max navigated the asphalt streets whose darkness was mirrored by night and the men who commissioned them built.  The windows of the towers faced the maddening crowd, yet they never truly witnessed what went on in the city below.  The streets were named by numbers, lest any shred of humanity be levied on the steel forest.  Those who walked with a smile on their face were insane, because they would wake up the next day with the expectation and dream of a different result, and then be faced with the stark reality that life is the result of their dreams.  That is to say that the life in which those dreamers live is but an illusion, created and fostered by the innate fear of reality.  That was the truth of the city.  

Max was lost in the city.  She was a face in the crowd.  No one judged her because no one cared enough to know who she was.  Max had mixed feelings about this, at once she cherished their oblivion, yet as times oblivion could not suit her.  Now however, as she drove towards her father’s hotel, she found comfort in the fact that there would be only one person who would ask, “What’s wrong?”  She had answered this question so many times before, that it had become routine to dismiss it as weariness, stress, or nothing at all.  Max knew few people in the city, and she was thankful of this. 

The city’s inhabitants mirrored the buildings they lived in, gorgeous on the façade, yet hollow on the inside.  They were a costly upkeep, and they decked themselves with baubles and other sundries to hide their own unimportance and physical lack.  The truth of the matter was that the city folk were of an entirely different stock than those who lived outside the limits.  Max never wished to live in the city or raise her children there, for she had seen the effect that a cancerous society can have on a person. 

Max knew at once that she had reached her father’s hotel, as she could feel the radiant glow of the gilded edges.  The carpets were burgundy, and every surface was marble or gold.  She always had to laugh, because she knew that her father disliked the haughty display of riches.  He would have been more comfortable sitting on the rough hewn steps of a rustic country cabin than the overstuffed leather chair in which she presently found him.  As she approached him, all that she had practiced to say during the long drive escaped her.  At the sight of her father she had no words.

23

“Max! What are you doing here?” he asked not out of contempt or as of yet concern, but of sheer shock.

“Hi, daddy,” she said rather meekly, as she embraced him.  He had risen from his chair, and he embraced his only daughter.

Releasing her from his tight embrace, and holding her with arms extended, so as to get a good look at her, he said, “Max, is it winter break already?  The time just goes by so quickly.”