//------------------------------// // [8.5] // Story: Blue's Ideation Dreamland // by Blue Horizon //------------------------------// When I woke up this morning, I did not think my day would end with my arms cuffed behind my back while being dragged across the parking lot by the bloody collar of my shirt while one of my legs dangled aimlessly behind. It's just not one of those normal thoughts people have when they awake. But then again, I suppose I was never normal. The morning was standard; peel the purple bedsheets off my sweat soaked body, drudge my way through the darkened and empty hallways, sit under the torrent of frozen water, scrounge up something edible from the fridge, miss the bus to school, and show up halfway into second period. Honestly, I don't even know what my first period class is- or the teacher. It's the only class I don't have a hundred in. Really doesn't stop me from being idolized by everyone. The students aspire to be me, their parents wish their children were as hardworking and dedicated as I am, and the teachers were just proud someone took them seriously. Public schools, am I right? I'd like to say everything fell apart in those nine and a half seconds in fifth period lunch that I spent in the library. The cafeteria is always an animal house filled with lowlifes talking about silly movies and games, sports or their missed homework, and I always managed to dodge the torrent of adulation of the student body. And that was no different today. But that'd be a lie. I think it all came back when I visited my birth city a few years back. It was before my parents died and we were visiting my childhood friend, Cadence. Or were supposed to anyway. I had gotten lost while exploring the city and found myself walking along the empty sidewalks of a local high school. It was raining that day. Windy too. The watch was so small I almost missed it but thanks to the sporadic flash of lightning that reflected across the silver backing, I found it shining like a beacon in a dreary landscape next to an animalistic statue. It looked like an old antique pocket-watch that rich snobs would wear about a hundred years ago. The silver backing was polished to perfection- no random scuff marks or dents, just a simple engraving of an infinite pattern of repeating numbers: 85, over and over again. A perfect loop. The front was also silver, but with a large 'X' scratched into the casing. I remember trying to open the thing; clicking the top didn't work so when I got back to the hotel, I remember going into the kitchen and grabbing a sharp knife. I kept on trying to jam the blade between the center. I lost my eye that day. The blade had managed to lodge itself in the middle but the more I pushed and pried, the more the blade bent until it eventually snapped and lodged itself into my eye. I remember the screams and the blood that gushed from the wound. But not the pain. I even think I tried to yank metal out and pulled out my eye. Instead the next thing I remember was whimpering in my bed with the pocket watch in my clutches, and the X was red. I think I was ten at that time. I was so delirious when I awoke- frazzled hair, tear stained cheeks, non-sensical wailing, that kind of delirious. The entire time that pocket watch sat in silence, watching everything with a stoic smile like every fashionable accessory always does when beside its owner. About two years later, my older brother died. My parents would always tell me it wasn't my fault. But they were liars. If only I knew what I do now, maybe I'd have actually... it doesn't matter. It was an early snowfall that year. My brother, who managed to get out of school an hour before me, had decided to meet me at the entrance of the middle school I was going to at the time. The snow was light, but the rain from earlier had frozen along the sidewalks and road. It was about four in the afternoon and I remember twirling the pocket watch in my hand, laughing to some incredulous joke about something someone had done in the middle of class. I looked back at him, he wore this goofy smile while is blue rimmed glasses hung from his nose, a stubble just beginning to grow under his chin. His sky-blue eyes were focused on me, and my laughter. He ruffled my hair and had given me a playful warning about something. It was a playful shove. That's all it was. We were laughing, I was laughing. Our chuckles had filled that chilled air that hung on the side streets of the metropolis. He slipped. He slid down the tiny hill along the side of the street- off the sidewalk. I remember he tried to laugh it off, waving his hand as he stumbled forwards and backwards along the thin black ice. I screamed so loud he didn't hear the bus. It wasn't a loud crunch or splat, their weren't any blaring horns or squealing tires. Just a muffled thump that left the side of the bus coated red, my screams, and the faint clang of the glowing pocket watch that had slipped from my fingers and bounced along the frozen ground. The next few months after that went in a blur. My parents and I had moved across country, I had routine meetings with a therapist where I simply sat stoic and mute, and I poured myself into my work.