Behind Polite Smiles.

The bell had rung & the gates had opened & now a sea of people flooded out from them, a tempest of barging adolescents fighting their way across the car park world.
He sat, in a daze, just like he had for the past two hours in his lessons. The mumbling of the teachers on mathematical principals involving the indirect use of Pythagoras theorem to help you work out the area of a circle, when given only two tangents to the actual circle itself, was completely lost on him. This mumbling also did nothing for his currently dreamscape like demeanor. In fact, it had probably made it worse.
The scene with the other boy burned in the back of his eyes as he thought about what could have happened. It wasn’t anything to do with heat going to his head, as it was England & the prospect of his town ever getting sufficient sunlight to cause delusional spells was something of a barmy notion. The food that he’d eaten couldn’t have anything to do with as he’d bought & packed it himself, so nothing was wrong with that. He pulled on his pendant again & remembered that he was fiddling with that when he’d blacked out. Ripping it from its chain he studied it in the palm of his hands, its ‘6’ shaped metal frame was cold in his hands, but the black Obsidian stone in its centre was warm, as if it has been in the oven for a few minutes. He looked at it closer, so close in fact that he could see his reflection in it. Staring into the abyssal stone & himself in it, he clicked on. He must have hit his head this morning when getting out of bed & the sheer frustration of the day may have made him imagine something better. He was doing it now, thinking that a little piece of volcanic gemstone could hold the answer to something that hadn’t even happened. But still he couldn’t find his glasses & there was still the issue of Kate paying more attention to him than usual. He brushed them off, for today, anyway, & decided to walk home. The crowd had died down considerably, so he felt comfortable to go forth into the streets & hope that no-one was around to target him again. He walked somberly along, by himself, as always, thoughts running through his head while other’s passed him by as if he didn’t even exist.
“You see, there they go again!” A voice told him in his head, lecturing him, almost taunting him. He stopped still, examined the stone again. The voice began to speak again.
“You blew it, didn’t you? Everything I’d tried to do for you! The favors, the help, everything gone to waste!” He looked around, trying to see if anyone was there to see him talking to himself.
“How’d I blow it? And what did I blow?” He asked himself out loud, trying not to be too conspicuous. The warm air flowed around his shirt & whirled its way inside via the button holes. It cooled him down, both physically & mentally. Cars flashed passed, drones in their own right, just plodding down the road, with pre-determined destinations they do not sway from that, never know anything different & that’s how he felt right now. Like a drone that has every day pre-determined for him, a guinea pig in life’s sick lab tests of faith.
He knew he’d lost it, standing in the street talking to himself like this, but somehow, he wished the other boy in the bloody room real. He wished he could see him again, to ask him things, things he probably wouldn’t ask anyone else.
“You shouldn’t think like that, my boy.” The voice broke through again, except this time it was more comforting, warmer & a faint sense of sympathy shone through everything else. “We need a chat, said the voice. But for now, you need to rest!” The voice faded away as it spoke & then there was silence.
He walked home, daydreaming about the events of the strange day. His home welcomed him somewhat & as he walked in, he saw his mother sat in the living room watching TV as she always was. The lights flickered against the beige painted walls, illuminating them in different shades of blue as the doctors on screen walked passed doors & walls talking their jargon that his mother didn’t even understand. Still, he was glad that she hadn’t noticed him...yet. Creeping up the stairs, he forced a smile to her as she turned & smiled at him. ‘Damn, she saw me.’ He thought to himself. She rose from her seat & came over to him. Removed his bag from his back & began to dust off his coat.
“Mum…Mum, I can do that myself, I’m sixteen, not six.” The tone in his voice was harsh, but in no way implied any malice. She merely looked at him & smiled again.
“Mum, stop, please. You’re always doing this stuff for me.” Again his voice made it seem like he was telling her off & that she was but a child. “You don’t have to, just sit down, I’m over Jak now, and you can’t baby me forever.”
His mother’s face sank, her whole body dropped into an overall frown. His mother had blamed herself for all that had happened to him. Carol Cypher was her name. She stood at a small five foot two, her tiny legs barely holding her to her son’s shoulder height. She was originally petite, but had put on weight in the last year or two, making her look somewhat comical to the neighbors, who where used to seeing pretty little Carol come out of the house with her ‘lovely’ husband & child. She walked back to her chair, flopped down in it & went back into her stupor once again. In the blue light, he could barely see a lone tear trickle down her cheek.
“Mum…Love you.” He said before hurrying quickly up the stairs & out of sight.

That night was a quiet one. His mother locked securely in her overly tight bed sheets, the dog, Bebop laid on the floor beside him as he fondled its ears with his fingers. He thought about the boy again, though until he finally fell asleep.

“Hmph! Asleep are we…yes…its good to get your beauty sleep. Very good indeed.”