Immersion

Lunch is a time to consume memories instead of protein.
The former just seems so much more necessary; I would rather reminisce than feel bloated. After the little morning conflict that could consist of completely fucking up my 4 hours of already being in hell, I had a feeling that food wouldn't have helped anyway.

In the Italian line, the spaghetti looked like bleeding worms.
In the Mexican line, their green enchiladas looked like snot.
Egg rolls looked like a cocoon for some sort of salivating creature bundled up in steaming crisps.
Milk reminded me of jizz.

Every culture of culinary must-haves only upset my stomach more than a jar of butterflies could.
People with their trays steaming with shit, beaming with hash between their teeth, and it made me sick. It made me sick.
Such a huge community all under the same roof didn't help either. Too many bodies meant too much human heat. Too much heat made me sick.
It made me sick.

Truthfully, I don't know what mind was in my brain at the time, because it surely wasn't my own. I wouldn't have kept both feet in the building if I knew it was this bad. I was in the irritable mood enough as it already was, and this wouldn't be the cure. But for some odd reason, I didn't leave.
Where the hell would I go? There was nowhere else, and I didn't want to get caught skipping.
Again, I laughed too.

Against my own free will, I waited in the 'GO' line, which couldn't be classified in any food group because everyday, it was another meal that swam over from any one of the other departments. I could be expecting Italian, then get slapped in the jaw with fucking country kitchen.
It could just be one of those days. I say "against free will" because it was something that my brain was accustomed to: going through the motions in the systematic process of the lunch room. Technically, my mind was playing dirty against its own being.

I had been consumed with my grievances opposing the school's overboard acceptance for disgusting food, and before I even realized it, I had found myself sandwiched between starving students. The animal instinct in them unleashes when in the presence of aromas of manufactured energy. It was a psychological bear-trap I had fallen into, and it had left me crippled by its vicious jaws. The belligerent kids would play it off as though they knew someone who was up farther ahead of the line than I was. They'd fishtail and squirm a path through the crop field of bystanders, and when they would reach a preferable spot, it turns out that they didn't know this supposed person after all.
Scamming people in a minuscule way.

It's something that doesn't matter to anyone anymore, because everyone has already done it. I too didn't give a personal shit, for maybe it would help with my plan to casually ease my way out of the line when I recognized what the hell I was thinking. Maybe if everyone behind me cut past me, I could be the last person and walk away. A whole army of degenerates was what I needed.
That wish slowly dwindled into oblivion when I kept getting myself deeper and deeper into the assembly, passing many different flyers broadcasting a plethora of activities, clubs, and the PTA.
Basically the identical shit that the school paper fed to its readers.

It was at every corner, and bombarded the wall space with so much disorder that would make your vision blurry. Red, scientifically proven as the most attention-grabbing hue to the human eye, was checkered between other sheets of paper, and to me, it wasn't attention-grabbing at all.
The groups that organized and designed these advertisements had a mindset of: neon, neon, neon.
It was done in an attempt to stop me in tracks, utterly hypnotized, when instead I found myself shielding my pupils from such a suicide. That act was unfortunately in vain though, for I couldn't have a hand as a guide, and I didn't want to look like a moron. I was forced to subject myself to the trash of curriculum.

Getting closer to the fridge that held beverages, I noted a sheer black poster. Ironically, it had caught my gaze simply because it wasn't bright, but in darkness.
In the upper right-hand corner were the words:
Razia's Shadow: A Musical

It was in the shape of a square instead of the expected rectangle, and bared only the image of a personified mountain. Creamed and orange, the left side of the landscape was smiling; its eyes squinting from such satisfaction, while the other half faded with the background. This was a reference to the story line where the world was split into dimensions of "light" and "dark" due to the character, Ahrima's, spiteful act of burning down his city. I knew this because I prided myself into hording every inkling of information there was to be known about the Drama Club's discography. All the plays, musicals, everything, flowed into my conscience and was soaked in my knowledge.
Especially if the casting included Adeline.
Especially.

That's how it all began, initially.
Like you even needed to be informed.

The happy mountain was encircled by smaller ones that were expressionless; normal ones with the same cartoonish, signature detail. There was no other description- not a time or date or the stamping of approval by the Drama department. For all anyone knew, this could have been drawn up and posted by a devoted student, or it could have been a sort of subliminal message, if you will, about the theater's prestigious reputation.
There's no need to add in any other information when Word of Mouth was the driving force of the hype. This was merely here as a sugar coating.

I got shuffled away from the poster and farther down the lunch line. On today's 'GO' menu was Parmesan chicken. Or what I perceived as its true identity: The breast of a rooster.
It's not so friendly when you see it from that point of view.

Regardless, I paid my bill and got the fuck out of there, which inevitably, left me stranded on an island of my own two feet out in the vast ocean of students eating revolting entrees with their pals.
I hadn't a camaraderie to share this oh-so privileged time with, meaning the only thing I was scanning for was a vacant table. Maybe not an entire table, but at least enough space to the brink where the only thing I'd be smelling was my very own deep fried body part, and not a stranger's chocolate cum.

My eyes stopped at the center of the room, where a decent section seemed to be my destiny; a crowded circumference all around, and yet, pristine in the middle. I hauled my ass over, anxious by the vision of a posse seeping from thin air and claiming it. The tray in my jittery hands made everything swish against its borders haphazardly, and combine that with my brisk movements and we got ourselves an animal mess on the linoleum floor.
A breath of relieved, fresh air passed through my nose when I made it to a corner seat without any disaster included. I put my meal on the table and, rather than eat it, I sat back in the navy plastic chair to observe the school's pride and joy. I considered it a success that people thought of me as a disease. Tom Sykes is the new Swine Flu.

"If schools don't want their kids dropping dead, then why do they keep feeding us this shit?"

"You're the one who was hungry. Just sit over there and stop bitching, Mae."

I glanced over my shoulder, in that sort of way you see in films, when the main character realizes that this person advancing is dangerous to their well being or sanity, and they pop their coat collar in a vain attempt to hide their profile.
To stay unseen.

It was pale skin.
It was the eyes.
It was the face.
It was auburn hair; half up, half down.
It was those arousing lips.
It was those fucking cork wedges.
It was a yellow dress this time, and it made me go just as wild.

Oh god...
It was her.

I had no coat collar to hide behind, no hoodie to pull over my heated skull. I wasn't even wearing a polo. The only article of clothing that could count as retribution was my dingy dark blue tee, only able to use the collar if there was a stench in the room or if you were trapped in a ring of fire.
The cafeteria stunk, and metaphorically, I was trapped in a ring of fire. I guess in my delusional state I could have believed that the shade of my shirt was parallel to my chair, and maybe she couldn't see me due to skewed invisibility.
Placebo, if you will.

It wasn't until that moment that I realized the food I had ordered might have been more useful than initially intended. I could create the illusion that it was the most delicious shit to ever touch my tongue, and I was utterly captivated by the taste. She couldn't see me with noodles and bird parts caking my cheeks. No matter how vile, it was better than being found out.

"Um, excuse me, can you scoot in a little?"

It wasn't Adeline, and it wasn't the Mae girl, it was another girl with them. The only other one. Her tray balanced on the palm of her right hand, and she gave a curt smile in my direction. If I wasn't in trouble for it, I would have a least snuck a peek at the one I really wanted, but such courage didn't exist. I kept my neck cranked in the opposite direction of her at all times to ensure no detection and shimmied in my lunch seat, emitting scratches from the floor and the legs of the chair. In the depth of chatter in the facility, I didn't catch a "thanks", but that was more than fine with me.

As long as I stayed transparent.
As long as she couldn't catch my face.

The cordial one and her friend weaved their way through the biggest space possible between my chair and the person behind me, with their lunches held high enough to land all over my scalp if not handled in fragility. Adeline was the last one, and right here would be where I could go into grave detail about every aspect about her stature. About the way she probably held her tray as though she was holding baby chicks. Or standing in equivalent magnificence like The Thinker.
Too bad I couldn't bring myself to fucking look at her.

Once the first two made it past me, it was her turn. It could be predetermined that this process would be unrefined for the both of us. Me because I would be trying my hardest not to have my eyes fall to her's, and her because she would have to suffer for my graceless attempt at anonymity.
At the arrival of her turn to pass, I made sure to press myself against the edge of the table to my furthest extent, barely short of knocking the wind out of me or crushing vital organs.
Anything so that this would be a clean break.

I stared straight ahead fearfully as her torso rubbed the plastic that separated us. Just the thought almost made me lose all nerve.
Her very own body heat radiated to mine.
Her scent coalesced with me, and with the surrounding wretch.
Her skin was mere millimeters from coming in contact with mine.

The student sitting diagonally in the back of me pulled out from the table abruptly, right in Adeline's way; startling her. She let out a petty gasp and curled back a step while grabbing onto my shoulder for support.

My eyes widened.
She was touching me.

Her hand was clutching onto my blade and bicep tightly enough to need me. No matter how inconsequential the current situation to her, she at least had to depend on me, even if for a moment.
If I wasn't there, who knows.
She could have fallen.
Or worse: spill the spaghetti on her dress.

The kid looked over at her in an immediate reflex of shock, then an apologetic facial expression. I glared holes into the back of his head as he turned back to his own table, but as Adeline laughed off her anxiety and let go of me, I wanted to thank him instead.

Thank him for the much desired stimulation.