Unfair

“The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A Death! What's that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you're too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating and you finish off as an orgasm.”

--George Carlin (God bless RIP)

I felt my entire face heat up. Even the Professor Theroux’s eyes widened at Caeden’s brazen comment. Caeden just sat with an arm around my shoulders, the ball in the other hand, and a wide smile on his face. For a split second I envied how he spoke so freely, and then I just tried to slouch in my chair as much as possible as all heads turned to us.

“Why did you say that?” I hissed softly. He finally noticed my embarrassment and quickly tossed the ball to the next person.

“What? I was just sayin’ the truth,” he gazed at my face with confusion and I felt my embarrassment melt away slightly.

“I-I know, but-”

“But?” His eyes took on a slightly frightened look.

“No nothing like that,” I quickly reassured, “It’s just that…bold statements like that…they take me off-guard.” His features relaxed as they took in my confession.

“Yeh, I guess I kinda let that out,” he mused, and then he swiftly turned to me, “but I really mean it. I really do think that…I’m fallin’ in love with yeh Deirdre.”

My heart fluttered at his words and I could have sworn he blushed when he said it quietly to me. I realized then that he was more comfortable not knowing how I would react when he blurted it out for everyone to hear, but he was scared how I would react if he told me like this: quietly explaining to me, watching my face carefully as he spoke every word.

I opened my mouth to respond.

“All right class, now that we are all acquainted, we will start a discussion,” Professor Theroux continued to explain a moral dilemma about a man stealing from a drug industry to get a cure for his cancer stricken wife. “Uhm…Deirdre!” I looked from Caeden to Theroux. “What would you do in this situation?”

I stared at him for a moment, contemplating. “I would steal the drug, but leave the money nearby. Then I would sneak in the money as I got it to pay off the rest. It would be paying for the drug technically,” I answered in a soft voice.

Theroux stared at me, “That’s an interesting take…” He pondered for a moment, “Ok, what if you were a friend of the person stealing the drug and you were a cop nearby the building. Would you report the person if you saw them acting suspiciously around the building the night the drug was taken?”

Again, I thought for a moment, aware that Caeden’s eyes were on me. “Was I an on-duty cop?”

Theroux smiled at me and sighed heavily, “So you value life over rules?”

“…I guess so.” I had never thought about it. Philosophy really was an eye-opening class. A few more students commented on their beliefs and the bell tolled for us to gather our things and move on. Caeden took my hand and lead me out of the room, practically dragging me out into the hall.

He turned to me as soon as we had cleared the exit. “Do yeh have a class now?”

My eyes shot to the clock tower and I processed the hands on the face. Nine-fifty in the morning. Usually I would head back to my dorm and do whatever assignment I had and try to sleep again until my next class at noon. “No, but—”

“Good. Yeh can meet some of me friends and I can sneak yeh past the front desk at the dorm so yeh can see my room,” he quickly noticed the look of horror on my face, “I mean, I’ve seen yer room and it’s only fair that yeh get teh see mine.”

I placed on a serene mask and nodded. No need to get him panicking about my over-reaction to everything. It was still new to me and I knew that he was trying to make me as comfortable as possible. So, I let him take me through a side entrance into the dorms and up a flight of stairs. We stood in front of his door as he fumbled swiping his ID card, but an audible click resounded and the door swung in slightly.

Caeden turned back to me and smiled sheepishly, opening the door wider to let me in first. I looked at him as I walked in and then let my eyes wander around his room. It was not what I had expected to say the least. It was neater than the boys’ rooms back at St. Jude’s and there were slips of paper on the walls along with photos. As I walked around I looked at the slips closer and saw that they were quotes from all different kinds of people.

A few from Lord Byron, a few from Dane Cook, and some from Voltaire littered the pale blue walls. I gazed at a few of the photos and saw him with a few other guys and even the one I had seen him fight with this morning. A slip of paper was taped to the bottom of each of the photos, telling who was in each one and the situation in which the picture had been taken. I looked up and saw that a few pictures were attached to the ceiling. It seemed like someone had tried taking many pictures to get the whole scenery and taped it together like a puzzle to see the entire picture.

It was of a field during sunrise or sunset, I couldn’t tell. The heather was in bloom and seemed to be bending in the invisible wind of the moment, bowing to the sun. In the distance there was a stone wall that gracefully snaked across, what I thought of as, the belly of the hill. Not quite at the bottom, but not in the middle.

I looked back at Caeden, who was watching me carefully.

“Where is this?” I pointed to the ceiling.

Caeden strode to stand next to me and looked up at the collage with a faraway look.

“Home,” he said in a tone that told me he was reminiscing. Then he looked down at me, tilting his head in the slightest way for me to see both of his eyes. “I’ll take yeh someday.” We looked back up at the scene, in a comfortable silence. I felt Caeden’s fingers intertwine with mine and I glanced down for a moment at the wave of warmth that spread through my body during that simple motion.

I looked back up at the picture and together we took in the sunrise.