The Trinity

I was born in Oakleaf, I was raised in Oakleaf, I have almost died in Oakleaf several times—and it has always been something of a strange place. It isn’t a strange place in the traditional sense though. Maybe the reason it seems so strange is because the Board, the people who make all of the city’s decision behave as if it is the most average place on Earth. It isn’t, and that became quite apparent when all of this began, a very long time ago.

Similarly, the Board presents itself and behaves as if it is an orthodox, traditional democratic government. It definitely isn’t. The Board is literally just for show. It functions in a way that makes it possible for the President to make an appearance on television, or make some sort of law—but like most things in Oakleaf, these things are completely hollow.
I am not claiming that Oakleaf is akin to something along the lines of Sodom and Gomorrah—it is by no means a chaotic city of sin. Statistically, it is one of the safest places to raise a family in this period of time. It is however, a very strange place.
I was in the midst of my sixteenth year and I was on my way to day school. I stepped into my cart and tapped the button in the center and spoke the location that I desired. I set the speed adjuster to only 30 MPH—I liked to enjoy the ride, the speedier carts were always swerving in and around me, and it could be quite frightening at times. The technology was relatively new at that point, and Oakleaf was one of the first cities in the country that it was made available to. It was frightening, because though they were programmed to avoid any object of a certain weight—or force, they were still run by computer processors, which at that point were far from flawless.
Every now and then on my way to day school I would notice a cart next to me, that would be almost exactly parallel to my own cart. However, every time I looked over at the fellow in the cart, he would slam his speed adjuster up to the highest setting, which was 80 MPH for most carts, and he would be gone. I noticed him occasionally in day school—he was in my Chemistry class. He was one of the professor’s favorite pupils, but oddly enough, his attendance wasn’t perfect. It was far from it. Once a week was a fair estimate on how often he would actually attend. He had to have been my age, but he had a very boyish face. He wore his hair in quite a dated style—shaggy and pushed to the side, but for some reason it didn’t look dated on him. I occasionally heard him, he was fairly loud and the pitch of his voice was moderately higher than most in our grade. His clothing was simple, but still attractive, which was somewhat refreshing. Our day school was full of boys who dressed just as extravagant as the girls did. I didn’t buy into that too much, and it was nice to see someone else who didn’t wear his tuxedo to class. I would occasionally wear my suit coat, but I only owned one tuxedo and wore it when it is intended to be worn—special occasions. It seemed silly to me.
Most of the time, I wore a sweater vest with my grey jacket over it—but even that was only on the cold days.

This boy seemed oblivious to fashion—a lot of his clothing was colored, which definitely stuck out. Usually the only colors you saw people wearing at our day school were black, white, and blue. Black tuxedo, white shirt, and occasionally a blue tie was the traditional uniform. I realize it sounds as if the administration enforced some sort of set uniform. They didn’t. That was what the people who attended the Cross Academy—most of them completely insufferable—chose to wear. It wasn’t everyone—but it was many.

I examined this boy every now and then, sometimes out of curiosity and sometimes just because I was examining every person in the entire room and he was next in line. Though his clothing was mostly simple, there were a few irregularities. He often wore big blue or red scarves—quite extravagant. They were however not in style for the teenagers, especially not ones who attended the Cross Academy. It was quite a dated look—similar to his hairstyle, but it didn’t look silly like it would have on anyone else.

On my way to day school, the silver cart pulled up right next to me, and I looked over and spotted the boy once again. By this point I was expecting to watch his arm immediately slam the speed adjuster down all the way, but first his eyes widened, and he waved. I waved back, and then he lifted his arm, and slammed the adjuster down, following the usual routine.

I watched his cart swerve in and out of the carts in front of me, and zoom ahead in front of all of them. Most people kept their speed from 50-60MPH, just to be safe. It wasn’t completely bizarre that I should have mine set at 35, but I spent a lot of time with nobody near me. It was, however, pretty odd for the boy I had these encounters with to slam his adjuster down all the way to 80 MPH. Most people didn’t trust the technology that much by that point.

I always noticed his cart, silver was fairly uncommon. The typical cart you would spot on the road was black, blue, or red. Silver was unique.

I arrived at the Cross Academy quickly after the encounter, and walked in to the last elevator on the right, the one I typically used just out of tradition. I pressed button 12. Each grade, 1-13 had a floor of their own for their classes. I was in 12th Grade. I momentarily arrived, and finished my short walk into the Chemistry lab. I was running slightly late, and I noticed that every table was full—except for one.

It was the boy—he was wearing a black coat, a blue scarf, and he was sitting alone. The professor was staring at me with a somewhat annoyed look on his face, so I took a seat next to the boy.

“Hey,” he said in that distinct voice.

“Hello,” I said, trying to sound polite. I have never been one to make conversation with a stranger, though I felt like I sort of knew this boy just because of our encounters on the road, even if we were parallel at 5 lanes apart.

“I waved at you today,” he said.

“Yeah, I saw you,” I said.

“Your name is Caine Bueller,” he said to me.

“Yeah, how’d you know?” he only shrugged his shoulders energetically. It was a rare occurrence that someone would just know my name—the community at Cross Academy isn’t what you would call tight-knit.

“Well, I’m Evan Hart.” He said in a bizarre sing-song tone.

“So, are we doing a lab sheet?” I asked him. Small talk isn’t my strong suit.

“Yeah, we are supposed to get into pairs, so you can be with me,” he said. I nodded.

“Looks like we’re all done!” he exclaimed in a very childlike manner, lifting up the lab sheet that was completely filled out. My name was even on the sheet, right next to him.

“Christ,” I said. He was quietly laughing. I began laughing too.

“You’re done already?” I asked him. He energetically shrugged once again.

“Let’s just say…” he began, pausing like he was thinking very hard, “Chemicals explode, that’s all you need to know about this course.” I didn’t buy into that for a second. We had spent the entire year going over names for elements, compounds, all of that garbage—I was near failing the course.

“Okay,” I said. I must have been looking at him like I had seen a ghost. He did not seem phased.

“Jackson!” he yelled aloud. A boy who was two rows ahead of us turned around.

“Who is that?” I whispered to Evan.

“His name is Christopher Jackson, just watch,” he explained.

He threw his pen directly at the back of Christopher Jackson’s neck. He quickly grabbed the back of his neck, and I saw a trace of blood on his hand. I looked over at Evan as he was hysterically laughing to himself. It was pretty funny, in a way. I started laughing too, and a wave of uncertainty came over me as I watched Christopher Jackson approach the professor.

“Is he telling the professor?” I asked Evan. He shrugged.

“Don’t worry about that,” he said, “Bradley and I go way back.” He was referring to our professor, Bradley Jones. He was a pretty boring guy, but I had spotted Evan chatting him up once or twice—I never thought much of it, though.

Evan started talking to me, and it is a conversation I barely contributed to, and one I vaguely remember. He was telling me about this strange book he read, and he continued to talk until the bell rang, and as we approached the door I heard Professor Bradley’s voice say:

“Evan, will you come here please.” I felt pretty worried, but Evan looked completely bored, and pranced up to the Professor’s desk in a completely childish manner.

I stood outside the door and sort of watched them converse. It was over within seconds, and I waited as Evan hurried to the door.

“So what did he say?” I asked him.

“He just made a joke about Jackson,” he told me. I was completely confused. Professor Bradley was nothing short of a bastard who would write a demerit for any other student who would throw a pen at a boy’s neck so hard that it would bleed. I didn’t even realize it was possible to throw a pen that hard.

“Bradley’s a friend,” he explained in a matter of fact tone.

“Seeya next time!” Evan sort of yelled, and ran off to his next class.

Meeting the person who I thought was named Evan Hart was a completely confusing, but entertaining experience. If only I had known who he really was—the weeks following that experience wouldn’t have been the most confusing weeks of my life.